A Critical Review of Universal Basic Income as a Response to Technological Unemployment

As automation accelerates job displacement, Universal Basic Income (UBI) is often presented as the universal solution. Yet evidence from Finland’s and the U.S. Negative Income Tax experiments suggests otherwise: recipients showed minimal employment gains and reduced incentives to work. Rather than replacing welfare systems with blanket payments, the study recommends retaining targeted aid while investing in worker reskilling and R&D to adapt labor to an automated economy.