What would a basic income cost in Palau?
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Total cost per year
18.7 million US dollars
17,663 people × 88 US dollars a month × 12 months
Compared with
- Government expense (central) (2020)9.2%
- Government revenue (central, excl. grants) (2020)22.3%
- Tax revenue (central government) (2020)29.9%
- GDP (nominal) (2025)5.4%
Palau in numbers
Palau has a population of 17,663 (2025) and a GDP of 345 million US dollars in 2025.
Paying everyone 88 US dollars a month would cost 18.7 million US dollars a year, or 5.4% of GDP. That equals 9.2% of central government expense (2020), 22.3% of its revenue (2020), and 29.9% of its tax revenue (2020).
Children only (under 18: 3,902) would cost 4.12 million US dollars a year (1.2% of GDP); adults only (18 and over: 13,761), 14.5 million US dollars (4.2%).
Default amount: 88 US dollars a month is the World Bank's international poverty line of $3.00 a day (2021 PPP), converted into US dollars 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), 2020
- 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.