UBI is a model for providing all citizens of a country with a given sum of money, regardless of their income, resources or employment status. The purpose is to reduce or eliminate poverty and increase equality among citizens. UBI was debated in England around 1920 and the United States around 1970. It resurfaced in Western Europe around 1980. It has gained worldwide popularity since 2016. Alaska, Iran and Kenya have UBI programs in place. Covid-19 gave fresh momentum to UBI and the world has now refocused its attention to UBI.
Currently, governments use many approaches to provide a social safety net for its citizens. The Caribbean has a high concentration of vulnerable countries in the world. They are small developing states with limited resources, fragile open economies and high susceptibility to natural disasters and climate change.
In our paper, we will examine whether the implementation of a UBI model could help governments within the Caribbean enhance their safety net. We will apply the actuarial control cycle (ACC) to ensure that our model is dynamic. We will assess whether a UBI model is feasible and how its application can reduce poverty and enhance socio-economic growth. We have chosen Barbados with St Vincent as a comparative.
In our presentation, we will illustrate the robustness of the model to predict the level of basic income required to reduce abject poverty levels to below 10% of the adult population. The inputs are the income to be paid to all citizens, the sources of the income, and the socio-economic impact between contributors and beneficiaries.
We treat the income stream as a life annuity. We apply a life insurance approach to cover a variety of financial and environmental risks. We also look at the possible savings compared to current social security support programs. We then examine the countries assets and liabilities, income and expenditure, using GDP growth, capital gains, taxation and other market innovations to assess the sustainability of the model.
 
Find the Q&A here: Q&A on 'Pensions and Universal Income in Practice'