What would a basic income cost in Malaysia?
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Total cost per year
56.1 billion Malaysian ringgits
about 13.1 billion US dollars
36 million people × 130 Malaysian ringgits a month × 12 months
Compared with
- Government expense (central) (2023)16.3%
- Government revenue (central, excl. grants) (2024)16.5%
- Tax revenue (central government) (2024)22.3%
- GDP (nominal) (2025)2.8%
Malaysia in numbers
Malaysia has a population of 36 million (2025) and a GDP of 2.02 trillion Malaysian ringgits (about 472 billion US dollars) in 2025.
Paying everyone 130 Malaysian ringgits a month would cost 56.1 billion Malaysian ringgits a year (about 13.1 billion US dollars), or 2.8% of GDP. That equals 16.3% of central government expense (2023), 16.5% of its revenue (2024), and 22.3% of its tax revenue (2024).
Children only (under 18: 9.32 million) would cost 14.5 billion Malaysian ringgits a year (0.72% of GDP); adults only (18 and over: 26.7 million), 41.6 billion Malaysian ringgits (2.1%).
Default amount: 130 Malaysian ringgits a month is the World Bank's international poverty line of $3.00 a day (2021 PPP), converted into Malaysian ringgits with the World Bank's PPP conversion factor for household consumption (2025) and rounded to two significant figures. It is a reference point, not a policy proposal; change it above.
How to read this
This is the gross cost: the total paid out. The real net cost depends on which taxes fund it, which benefits or tax breaks it replaces and whether the payment is taxed. The population, budget and GDP figures are not all from the same year (see the sources).
Sources for the figures
- Population
- World Bank: population, total (SP.POP.TOTL), and population by single year of age 0 to 17 (SP.POP.AG00.FE.IN … SP.POP.AG17.MA.IN), 2025
- SP.POP.AG00.FE.IN … SP.POP.AG17.MA.IN
- Government expense and tax revenue
- World Bank: central government expense, revenue excluding grants and tax revenue, % of GDP (GC.XPN.TOTL.GD.ZS, GC.REV.XGRT.GD.ZS, GC.TAX.TOTL.GD.ZS), 2023, 2024
- Default amount
- World Bank: international poverty line of $3.00 a day (2021 PPP), June 2025 update
- World Bank: PPP conversion factor, household final consumption (PA.NUS.PRVT.PP), 2025
- Retrieved from the World Bank API on November 9, 2026 (CC BY 4.0). Government figures are central government, as a share of GDP in their own year, applied to the latest GDP.