Despite growing interest in proposals for a universal basic income, little advance has been made in implementation. Here we explore policy options for an Australian Basic Income. Our analysis responds to concerns that Basic Income is both too expensive and too radical a departure from existing welfare state structures to be a feasible policy option. Drawing on policy and Basic Income scholarship we identify changes to Australia’s current means-tested benefits structures that move substantially towards Basic Income while remaining consistent with historic policy norms, which we call ‘affluence testing’. Using microsimulation we explore fiscal and distributional trade-offs associated with the implementation of an affluence-tested Basic Income. Our results suggest Basic Income has the potential to significantly reduce inequality and poverty while also requiring taxes to rise substantially. Placing these trade-offs in international context we find the policy would reduce inequality to levels similar to Nordic welfare states while increasing overall taxation to approximately the OECD average.

JEL Codes: I3, H2, H5

尽管人们对普遍基本收入的提议越来越感兴趣，但在执行方面进展甚微。在这里，我们探讨了澳大利亚基本收入的政策选择。我们的分析回应了这样的担忧，即基本收入既昂贵又过于激进，背离了现有的福利国家结构，因此不可行。借助政策和基本收入奖学金，我们确定了澳大利亚目前的经济状况调查福利结构的变化，这些结构在朝着基本收入的方向发展，同时又与历史性政策规范（我们称为“富裕测试”）保持一致。使用微观模拟，我们探索了与进行富裕测试的基本收入相关的财政和分配权衡。我们的结果表明，基本收入有可能显着减少不平等和贫困，同时还要求大幅提高税收。将这些取舍放在国际背景下，我们发现该政策将不平等程度降低到类似于北欧福利国家的水平，同时将总体税收提高到经合组织的平均水平。

JEL代码： I3，H2，H5