Basic income and the arts: a literature review

Drawing on the growing popularity of Universal Basic Income (UBI), a basic income for artists (BIA) has been posited as a solution to the crisis of declining income and increased precarity amongst artists. As with UBI, the experience of quasi-unconditional cash transfers during the pandemic gave impetus to those who saw BIA as a viable way to provide income directly to precariously employed artists, while minimising the onerous and costly bureaucratic tasks of grant bidding and acquittal. Further, “basic income and the arts” has become an emerging topic of scholarly research in recent years, both amongst cultural policy scholars and researchers interested in basic income schemes more broadly. This article provides an overview of current and forthcoming research on the intersection between basic income schemes and income support for artists, providing a contemporary review of the literature specific to this nexus of research.