I have a longstanding interest in using my analytics background to build open-source data products to analyse Universal Basic Income (UBI).

My goal is to build interactive web-tools that transparently, accurately and meaningfully model UBI proposals, focusing on their interactions with a given country’s existing social security arrangements. I would like my work to contribute to questions such as ‘How would we pay for a UBI?’, ‘Who would a UBI impact?’ and ‘What are the effective marginal tax rates across income deciles?’ as well as generally inform the public about UBI and other related social policies.

For my first interactive UBI project I have built a simple calculator that models Basic Income Australia’s (BIA) UBI proposal that is accessible here .

Users can enter their gross income and understand how they might benefit from the program and the mechanics of its design. The BIA proposal interacts with the Australian personal income tax scheme and the calculator user interface was partly based on the Australian Tax Office’s ‘Simple Tax Calculator’. The source code for the BIA calculator is fully available in a GitHub repo.

This simple ‘version 0’ proof-of-concept UBI modelling tool does not take into account an individual’s HECS-HELP obligations, Medicare Levy Surcharge or Child Care Subsidies amongst other modelling considerations. It simply models the latest Australian personal income tax structure assuming you were a full-year resident for tax purposes.

My work is inspired by two international initiatives whose data products are much more advanced:

1. The UBI Guy’s basic income calculator (US focus)

2. UBI Center and their mission to make Universal Basic Income the world’s most thoroughly researched economic policy (US & UK focus)

I hope readers find this tool useful for understanding BIA’s basic income proposal for Australia. I welcome any feedback ranging from the source code, the UI/UX through to future UBI/social policy modelling suggestions.