Basic Income Can Be Life Changing for Creatives By Fostering Community Over Competition and Reducing Systemic Poverty - Only When It's Done Right

As an electropunk and post punk artist, I don't shy away from social consciousness in my songwriting or in my blogging about my creative process. 

For example, one of my posts explores How To Make Music & Touring More Just For Women & Disabled People. This comes from my lived experiences as a woman who happens to be disabled, as well as a musician. I also love doing extensive research into topics I deeply care about. My blog is a place where I ramble to my heart's content and have fun nerding out about music.

With that being said, I'm not trying to push my particular world view, values, and opinions onto my listeners. While I do hope my music and perspective resonates, I'm okay if it doesn't and I always appreciate the time people spend with my songs. 

It's disingenuous and practically impossible to be creating any form of punk music without tackling politics. So when I'm writing a song about socially conscious themes, I like sticking to those that people from all walks of life can understand and feel some sort of connection with.

A great example of this is my Technofeudalism EP, which will come out on September 4, 2026. It's one of my favourite 2026 releases! For one thing, I'm stepping firmly into a more electropunk sound with heavy, distorted guitars and gloomy synths. More to the point, my artistic inspirations and research directly informed my socially conscious lyrics that explore digital dystopia. I take a firmly anti-AI stance, and the point of the EP is to celebrate all the messy, emotional, and unique things that make us uniquely human. 

However, I don't expect everyone who listens to this EP will agree with me. 

Instead of divisiveness, I simply want my art to promote coming together over things we care about, no matter where we all might come from. What matters most to me is that I'm not telling you what to think. 

 

I'm asking you to listen and consider where I'm coming from, so you can make up your own mind.

This is my approach with the topic of basic income. Through research, my intent with this post is to show how basic income, precisely Livable Income, can be life changing for creatives, while also acknowledging its flaws. 

After reading, I hope you have an informed and inspiring take away!

What is Basic Income?

Simply put, basic income is "a periodic, unconditional cash payment sent to individuals from the government." This definition comes from the cross-country Coalition Canada basic income network established in 2019. This Coalition also notes the different international terms used for basic income, such as Basic Income Guarantee, Citizen's Income, Livable Income, and Guaranteed Annual Income.

Crucially, the Coalition breaks down three variations of basic income:

Universal Basic Income (UBI)

The term Universal Basic Income (UBI) can sometimes describe a program that provides an unconditional income to a very broad group of people, such as all citizens, or all adults, or all residents, regardless of their income level (known as a demogrant). UBI can also describe a basic income that is available to everyone, but is only delivered to those whose income falls below a defined level (known as a guarantee).

Basic Income Guarantee (BIG)

A Basic Income Guarantee (BIG) is a type of UBI that is universally available but is only provided to those who need it. A BIG is an income floor beneath everyone’s feet that eliminates the risk of falling into poverty should disaster strike — from a flood, fire, drought, pandemic or job loss from technological disruptions that force people out of one job and to retrain for another.

Livable Income 

Some prefer to describe basic income as a livable income, to convey that the amount of income an individual needs to live in dignity and security is greater than what is needed to simply meet minimum basic needs. A livable income should be enough to provide for a nutritious diet, housing, transportation, clothing, communications and other goods and services, and be enough to allow for some discretionary spending, savings for emergencies, and for full participation in community life. 

Livable Income is the variation of basic income this post explores! 

The Context of Basic Income

The Stanford Basic Income Lab provides some useful historical context for basic income. It has "roots in democratic, anarchist, and socialist thinking" but more importantly, "has been defended from a variety of often overlapping, but occasionally conflicting, ideological perspectives." In other words, basic income has always been debated (and tested or even implemented in some form) across the political spectrum around the world.

Notably, racialized groups and feminists have long advocated for basic income, particularly in the United States of America. And as was the case for past historical contexts, the increasing socioeconomic and public policy shifts favouring basic income speak to "the growth of income and wealth inequalities, the precariousness of labor, and the persistence of abject poverty" along with "fears of automation."

Stanford reports that basic income has been tested in 160 global pilot projects, such as Finland, Canada, Kenya, Namibia, India, and California in the United States of America. 

Coming up, this post takes a look at Ireland as the most successful case study to date.

Why does basic income matter for creatives?

Basic income matters for creatives because it encourages community over competition and reduces systemic poverty.

From a working class perspective, any artistic effort costs money, often a tremendous amount of money we can't scrounge up on our own.

From creative tools and software, to legal fees, insurance, travel, lessons, repair, and exposure opportunities, everything is a financial burden in some way. Then there's the limited availability of art grants and funding, which is often tied to bustling urban centres and pointedly leaves out anyone that isn't in that specific geographic area.

Creatives are often pitted against one another for the same scarce resources. Application processes are rigorous, complex, and offer limited opportunities overall. Canada Council for the Arts reports that across its three grant programs for 2024-2025, there were over 7,000 applications with an overall success rate of 23.5%, all sharing the same $52 million. 

Consider as well that basic income can help even if music is your passion, rather than a business, and you share your art with the world for free. In other words, basic income gives you some breathing room so you're less worried about making ends meet exclusively through music releases, and can focus on honing your art.

To reiterate, basic income means creatives struggle and panic less about making a living with music. It also means the pressure is off when we don't all have to compete for the same limited resources. 

With this in mind, the Basic Income Earth Network outlines numerous benefits of basic income. The ones that stand out to me are:

• Secure financial platform to build on.
• Enable the employment market to become more flexible at the same time as enhancing income security.
• Make it easier to start new businesses or to go self-employed, and encourage personal freedom, creativity, and voluntary activity.
• Reduce the poverty trap for low income families, enabling them to lift themselves out of poverty by seeking new skills, better jobs, or additional hours of employment.
• Reduce the unemployment trap, so getting a job would always mean additional disposable income.
• Enable people to readjust their employment hours in order to undertake additional caring and community work.

Due to these benefits, the Chicago Council on Global Affairs concluded that "basic income works" to reduce poverty, promote economic stability, can lead to increased employment for recipients, and can improve health outcomes, all contributing to leading a creative life with dignity. 

This important conclusion draws upon evidence from Finland, Hudson, New York, and Stockton, California. 

The Finnish study showed that "life satisfaction for the group receiving basic income scored 7.3 out of ten, compared to 6.8 for the group without it. Life satisfaction encompassed lower levels of stress depression, sadness, and loneliness." 

In Hudson, New York, "full time employment went up from 29% to 63%" directly because of basic income, challenging the concern that those receiving basic income would be disinclined to work. 

And in Stockton, California, basic income "gave people the peace of mind and the time to apply for better jobs" rather than barely scraping by, again increasing employment overall.

The positive outcomes of basic income are clear. Pilots are tested over long periods of time, across various social groups, and the benefits are repeatable. 

How is basic income life changing for creatives?

As The Humm points out, a stable, reliable source of income for creatives means the "starving artist" stereotype and reality for far too many would finally be resolved. 

Aspiring musicians, actors, painters, sculptors, writers, and more, wouldn't have to choose between paying our rent, affording groceries, or staring down the barrel of homelessness because our art isn't profitable. Or put another way, until art alone can reliably cover the bills, basic income would allow us to live with dignity. 

Further, the inherent value of art and artists would be recognized in society on a social, economic, and spiritual level.

Obviously, creatives come from many different backgrounds. As such, there is no "typical" profile in the creative space of an "ideal" recipient for basic income. The various sources I found throughout my research often highlight historically vulnerable populations, as well as people in various stages of employment. I point this out because it's important not to lose sight of the fact that creatives are human beings, so as recipients of basic income, we can be:

• Unemployed or precariously employed
• Juggling multiple jobs
• Caregivers
• Parents, including single parents (especially single-moms)
•  Single
• Living in rural or remote areas
• Living with health issues

This list goes on. To reiterate my point, let's look at some reliable data gathered by Creatives Rebuild New York, which provided the Guaranteed Income for Artists Initiative. 

 

This basic income initiative provided "regular, no-strings-attached, cash payments of $1,000 per month for 18 consecutive months, to 2,400 artists across New York State. At the time, it was one of the largest statewide guaranteed income programs in the United States. The guiding premise of this work was that all artists are deserving of financial security."

 

Who were the artists that received basic income from this initiative? According to the organization's data:

• Visual Arts (19%) and Music (17%) were the most prevalent artistic disciplines. 
• 62% of artists identify as Black, Indigenous, or People of Color.
• 51% of artists identify as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual,Transgender, Queer, Questioning, Intersex, Asexual, or Pansexual. 
• 34% of artists identify as Caregivers.
• 21% of artists identify as Immigrants.
• Overall, participating artists range from 18 to 85 years old. Specifically, 45% are between 25-35 years old, 22% are 35-44 years old, and 10% are 45-54 years old.
• 62% of artists reported that they have no social safety net.
• 56% of artists reported they were unsure when they would make income again.
• 55% of artists reported that they carry unmanageable debt.
• 41% of artists reported being vulnerable to medical emergency. 

This data illustrates just how life-changing basic income would be for creatives from all walks of life.

 

Finally, to fully drive this point home before considering the case study of Ireland, the Media Arts Network of Ontario published a groundbreaking 2024 report: Artists on Basic Income: Beyond Precarious Livelihoods.

 

What makes this report unique and crucial to informing discussions and policy making around basic income is that it was informed by an artist-led commission. The direct testimonies of 20 artists across Canada emphasizes that "any consideration of basic income—or of other strategies for improving artistic livelihoods—must begin from artists’ current working and living conditions."

 

The whole report is grounded in the perspective that artists and art have intrinsic value, and additional economic value that benefits society as a whole. By centering artists' voices, this report "addresses frustrations with the gap between the cultural sector’s social and economic significance and the strained living and working conditions of artists. It explores calls to recognize artists as workers, their experiences with income insecurity and lack of social protections, the connection between precarity and mental health, and the growing housing and studio space crises.  At its core,the report focuses on how artist-testifiers understand basic income and envision its potential to transform their livelihoods, practices, sectors, and society as a whole."

 

Ultimately, there are five core recommendations from this report:

1. Artists' income and social protection floor must be raised, whether through a basic income program or other government supports.
2. Those most in need cannot be left behind.
3. Any new income security support must be stable and regular.
4. End clawbacks from support payments to artists.
5. Preserve existing arts funding and reform the application and award process. 

Now that we've explored what basic income is and how it works, along with its benefits and why it's life changing for creatives, let's consider the case of Ireland!

What does the case study of Ireland show?

Ireland is a high profile success story of basic income for creatives. 

 

The Citizens Information Board of the Irish government explains that the Basic Income for the Arts (BIA) Pilot Scheme "aimed to support the arts and creative practice by giving a payment of €325 a week to artists and creative arts workers. The main objective of the scheme was to address the financial instability faced by many working in the arts. [T]he pilot ran over 3 years, from 2022 to 2025. On 19 June 2025 the scheme was extended for 6 months to February 2026."

 

Artists who participated in The Guardian's podcast "Why Ireland is giving a basic income to artists" highlighted that "most people are struggling to make ends meet" and "[living] with that uncertainty [creates] a lot of anxiety." Ireland's pilot "recouped more than its net cost and improved the wellbeing of participants," leading to calls to expand this initiative to all artists. 

Building on this success, Ireland made the initiative permanent.

 

 As Dr. Jenny Dagg of MU's Department of Sociology explains, the "socioeconomic benefits of supporting artists through this scheme is worth €100 million to Irish society." She also puts this another way: "society received €1.39 in return for every €1 of public money invested in the pilot."

 

 This ties directly back to the basic income demographic data we saw earlier. Dr. Dagg points out that "artists and creative professionals are highly educated (86.5% have attained a third level education compared to 53% in the general population) but earn low pay. The nature of their work can be a mixture of self-employment, freelance and part-time work. Many combine two or more jobs, or do not have a permanent contract, meaning they are often excluded or only partially covered by social security protections.

In response to all of this, Ireland adopted a transformative policy measure to protect and support creative practice, one that recognises the intrinsic value of culture but also retains the social and economic impact."

 

Most encouragingly, the positive impacts of Ireland's BIA were felt immediately. Dr. Nagg offers some valuable data:

• After two years on the scheme, artists increased the time spent on their creative practice each week by 11 hours. 
• The scheme alleviated the constant struggle to make ends meet with a 20% reduction -- from a high of 56% in 2022 -- in the likelihood of experiencing enforced deprivation and significantly reduced levels of anxiety or depression. 
• The cost-benefit analysis showed that artists increased their monthly arts-related expenditure by €333 and their arts-related income by on average over €500 per month.
• Meanwhile, their income from non-arts work decreased by around €280 and dependence on social protection declined. 
• All of this means that artists' ability to continue their creative practice and complete work, remain in the sector and engage with their audience was strengthened by the scheme and has transformed their lives. 

 In her opinion piece for The Guardian, freelance writer Caelainn Hogan echoes this success:

"I am a freelance writer who, like most artists, has always had to work outside my creative focus to afford to live, constantly worrying I will never be able to afford a home myself or to start a family. As such, the basic income was life-changing.

Only months into the scheme, I found out I was pregnant. The basic income helped me decide to have my baby, knowing I could continue creative work and keep my small studio space in a light-filled warehouse in the heart of Dublin. The Back Loft, one of the few affordable spaces left for artists, is a strong community of visual artists, musicians, writers, tattooists and knitters.

The basic income gave me more freedom to experiment in my work, to write for independent publications and engage with community initiatives. I helped to create events that brought together artists across forms and raised money for a local rape crisis centre."

These are wonderful outcomes that support the success of Ireland's BIA. To be sure, BIA is considered widely successful and has unquestioningly brought about betterment for the artists receiving basic income, as well as Irish society as a whole.

Unfortunately, as Ms. Hogan's opinion piece underscores, Ireland's BIA still "'risks reproducing precarity rather than addressing it.'"

Ireland's BIA "highlighted the systemic precarity of the creative sector and what that does to artists’ mental health and livelihoods, which the basic income significantly alleviated. Yet despite the scheme paying for itself, the Irish government has decided not to expand it to all artists, promising it to only a few thousand, limited to three-year cycles and with mandated three-year gaps.

On a wall in my studio, I have an image by a young photographer who I collaborated with throughout my time on basic income, support she did not receive. Only a fraction of the artists in my studios might be supported by the state to do creative work under the new scheme, while the rest struggle to make ends meet in a city where the housing crisis disproportionately affects people in precarious work such as ours. I’m lucky to have a partner who now owns the home we live in, but many artists I know lack this security.

With our futures increasingly uncertain amid international crises, funding art might seem superficial. But creative work offers new understandings of the world, strengthening communities and speaking important truths."

Evidently, basic income implementation like Ireland's carries with it the stark risk of failing the very people it was intended to help. 

Despite the case of Ireland's basic income implementation being generally successful, it is just as important to examine how and why basic income implementation can be flawed. 

How and why is basic income flawed?

The concept of basic income confronts and crushes the pervasive toxic culture across all creative communities which propagates "paying your dues." 

 

This toxic culture emphasizes that the more creatives struggle, the more we are supposed to succeed. Success is solely up to individual hard work, and art is only considered valuable if it is successful. Success is usually framed as fame and fortune.

This is a direct offshoot of the Protestant work ethic, which is all about "hard work leads to success." But if you aren't successful, you apparently must not have worked hard enough! Of course, this conveniently ignores systemic issues and inequities that impact society's most historically vulnerable groups, while provoking class war, which is exactly why this mentality is toxic and unhelpful in reality.

In times when the gap between the haves and have-nots has never been wider, basic income is unfortunately flawed in its implementation and caught in a vicious culture clash.

Ireland, like most basic income pilot projects, determines who receives basic income through a lottery system.

 

That's right, something as life-changing as basic income is determined solely through luck. 

Moreover, Dr. Nagg notes that in Ireland "not all eligible applicants will receive the support and once again there will be division between those who are supported and those who are not." She also raises important questions Ireland's implementation of BIA doesn't address (yet), such as: 

"Who will be responsible for overseeing the scheme? How will cultural policy respond to an increase in aspiring creatives? Will the scheme meet the standards for a living wage? Will basic income for artists be a permanent support or a supplementary tool to help artists build sustainable practices in a market-driven economy? Most importantly, now that the scheme is permanent, how can we invest in the infrastructure that enables artistic work to happen?"

Only time will tell.  

As time goes on, and the world keeps changing at a breathtaking pace, the debate around basic income will continue to rage.

 

I think that those who question and criticize basic income should be acknowledged, because they reveal valuable insights about implementation gaps.

 

The "paying your dues" toxic culture stigmatizes basic income. And I'm aware that a lot of creatives are simply not okay with even slightest idea of government offering financial support for creatives, both from feelings of personal shame or deeply held worldviews. 

 

Indeed, my research has shown me that there's a notable culture gap between receptiveness to basic income in cultures like the United States, which is primarily driven by capitalism and hyper-individualism, in contrast to collectivist societies such as Finland, Canada, and Ireland. 

 

Beyond this culture clash, criticisms and concerns about basic income revolve around and ongoing protection of worker's rights and artistic integrity.

 

In turn, the proposed alternatives to basic income offer a more democratic approach, instead of an arbitrary one.

 

A scathing 2022 article by ArtReview magazine calls basic income a "neoliberal con." What exactly does this harsh criticism mean? Bluntly, basic income raises the concern that workers rights will be eroded further:

"[Basic income] is designed to disenfranchise vast parts of society and undermine the earning power of all but the capital-owning elites. In a world where human labour is rendered obsolete to the extent that a significant portion of the workforce would be paid to stay idle, the human itself will become surplus to requirement. This is not because work is intrinsically necessary to human dignity but because when the worker has been stripped of their ability to produce, it won’t be long before they are also deprived of the means of democratic participation."

 

We can look at things this way: if earning a living, through art or otherwise, is the key to independence and financial stability...then accepting basic income is just one more form of dependency. And for those who don't qualify for even the bare minimum of basic income, the disparity gap only grows.

 

ArtReview goes onto to confront this glaring flaw: 

 

"That guaranteed income won’t solve the underlying problem is made evident by the art market’s present detachment from the material realities of the majority of artists. The megagallery, paradoxically one of the few spaces in the artworld where high earnings are commonplace, already thrives on the oversupply of talent by simply turning most of it away. [N]ot only will the [a]rtist be limited by the generosity of the public and philanthropic funding institutions, they are also unlikely to see the creative freedoms promised by UBI. As is the case today, the artist will have to choose between trying to climb the art-market ladder or complying with the politics of the institution. Failure to break through the closely watched gates of either will render the artist an outsider, except that there will be little glamour in this, since a multitude of other outsiders will be making the same bid for relevance."

 

For critics, basic income is far from a solution. In fact, it is considered an extension of the underlying problem of disrespect to the inherent value of art and artists, and a worsening of the systemic poverty we grapple with. 

Along these lines, here's another interesting point of view for us to consider: Are artists that accept basic income compromising their artistic integrity?

 

Arts magazine Plaster pinpoints this concern in their feature article "Should artists get a basic income?" By examining various models of basic income, including Ireland's, this article raises the criticism that, while basic income can keep artists afloat, it can also strip away control over our lives and infringe upon artistic integrity. 

 

This may be true especially for traditionally anti-establishment and counter-culture musical genres such as punk and hip hop:

"The common objection to the forms of basic income outlined above – that art flourishes under pressure – has always been made by critics on both the left and the right. Great artistic movements, so this view goes, from the Harlem Renaissance to punk, from Dada to hip-hop, emerged not from state-supported comfort but from pressure, scarcity, and the creative recombination of limited resources. 

 

To guarantee income is, in some critics’ eyes, to dull the urgency that drives artistic forms to evolve. Art becomes safer, more comfortable, and ultimately more obedient when its survival is tethered to the same institutions it is meant to critique. 

 

Even more troubling is the spectre of political capture. Publicly funded art is never fully autonomous; it is always potentially beholden to the sensibilities, priorities, or anxieties of its funders (just like, it must be said, all other forms of patronage). A permanent basic income may sidestep direct censorship, but it surely also creates a structural dependency that can chill dissent. 

 

Governments need not ban subversive art outright – they can simply adjust eligibility criteria, reallocate funding, or shape the rhetoric around “cultural value”, especially if, to follow O’Donovan’s logic, the programme tips over into the red. 

 

The result is a landscape where artists internalise the boundaries of acceptability, producing work that is politically tame or administratively digestible. A state-funded avant-garde is not merely an oxymoron (just ask Malevich or Tatlin); it risks devolving into an ornament for the very power structures artists claim to resist."

 

In essence, this criticism that basic income compromises artistic integrity comes from a place of concern over censorship and reversal of worker's rights.

 

At the same time, this article concludes that basic income is necessary for the overall betterment of society, but it must be implemented properly. To that end, it suggests a possible solution:

 

"If a basic income is not universal, and it’s always conditional, then who gets to decide which artists get supported, and which are left to fend off the fickle fluctuations of the market alone?

At the same time, we recognise elsewhere that scarcity crushes innovation: no one insists that scientists produce better research when they cannot pay rent, or that engineers make better bridges if they are forced into service work. Yet when it comes to culture, we cling to the belief that desperation sharpens creative genius. 

 

Instead, what if it narrows it? The market forces the artist to produce what sells quickly in a temperamental economy, limiting experimentation to what is algorithmically legible on platforms that siphon away both attention and revenue. A basic income for artists may not (or may not only) inflate mediocrity; I can certainly see a world in which it would permit risk, depth, and long-term thinking – qualities the commercial arts economy often aggressively suppresses. 

 

If nothing else, funded artists would not need to pick up a second or third job, an experience that necessitates prioritising survival now over a (perpetually delayed or never even realised) creative project. 

 

[The] most durable case for public investment in art rests on solidarity with workers, not exemption from work. Rather than guaranteeing income to artists alone, a truly democratic cultural policy would invest in public employment, public institutions, and universal social protections – structures that uplift everyone, not just those who happen to call themselves artists."

 

The proposed solution here seems more democratic, rather than arbitrary like a lottery system. It suggests that everyone should be lifted up, and society would be better off in the long run, by investment into structural institutions that reduce poverty across the board, rather than applying basic income as a short-term solution. 

 

If case studies like Ireland are the baseline, there are many lessons to be learned both from successes and potential risks as time goes on. 

Basic Income Works Best Only When It's Implemented Properly

Overall, basic income does a lot of social good, especially for creatives. 

 

Although it has flaws, evidence demonstrates that basic income has been proven to work in various international pilot projects, most notably in Ireland. 

 

But basic income works best only when it's implemented properly.

 

This is a very obvious conclusion, yet it's also a very important one that has wide socioeconomic impacts and implications for how creatives are treated in general.

 

I believe everyone deserves to live a dignified life where basic needs are not only met, but where everyone's full potential is allowed to flourish.

 

As a songwriter, producer, and lyricist, I believe that creatives are inherently valuable as human beings and that we bring so much cultural, spiritual, and economic value by participating in society. We deserve to flourish just as much as everyone else, and I think basic income can empower us to all rise together. 

 

Implementing basic income properly means:

• Centering creatives' voices and lived experiences to inform design and implementation of basic income.
• Recognizing the systemic poverty and inequities faced by creatives, predominantly comprises of people who belong to historically vulnerable groups. 
• Expanding basic income to include all creatives, not just those who win the lottery. 
• Ensuring that basic income payments actually close the poverty gap and result in economic stability by reflecting the cost of living in monthly payouts. 

If basic income is done right, it can truly be life changing for creatives and society as a whole.