The Alaska Permanent Fund is a fund for all residents of the U.S. state of Alaska which averages $1,600 annually (in 2019 currency), and is sometimes described as the only example of a real basic income in practice.

The idea of providing a basic income to all members of society goes back centuries. The 16th century English philosopher and statesman Thomas More mentions the idea in his best-known work, Utopia.

Thomas Paine, a pamphleteer whose ideas helped spur the American Revolution, proposed a tax plan in which revenues would provide a stream of government income “to every person, rich or poor.”

And Martin Luther King, Jr., proposed “guaranteed income” in his book Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? published in 1967.

The American Rescue Plan, signed by President Biden on March 11, 2021, included generous tax breaks to low- and moderate-income people.

Data shows that the injection of funds is what allowed people to keep it together over the late pandemic and even now into the current inflationary environment.