The cost wouldn't be that bad, the unemployment isn't that high, the taxes for upper incomes are high (as they should be), and the guaranteed income isn't really that high either. Unemployment is 3%, workforce is 4.9 million, the guaranteed wage was, afair, 2500CHF, that gives us 367 million francs, which is a bit over a promile of the state revenue (less than I expected, I'm suspicious of my calcylation). Which is, by the way, less than the surplus they have, and doesn't take into account already existing and complex social support schemes, of which at least some would be effectively obsoleted (social housing has an invaluable stabilizing effect, but food shouldn't really be a problem).
But, (from my point of view unfortunately), this proposal has no chance of passing. Like many articles about what Swiss do, this forgets about the (awesome) nature of Swiss direct democracy, which sometimes ends up in voting on completely off-the-wall ideas (which sometimes even pass, but this won't be the case).
I guess your numbers are wrong. Yes, unemployment is only 3% of 4.9m workforce, but Switzerland has 8.1m inhabitants. So a lot more than 150k (the number of unemployed) would receive more than now - housewives, slackers...
Effectively, 8.1m * 2500 * 12 = 240b CHF would have to be redistributed every year. With the CHF at $0.9 that's roughly $218b - the Swiss GNP is $636b.
Now I don't know how much of this is additional instead of replacing traditional unemployment benefits, disability welfare etc - but still it seems a lot.
But, (from my point of view unfortunately), this proposal has no chance of passing. Like many articles about what Swiss do, this forgets about the (awesome) nature of Swiss direct democracy, which sometimes ends up in voting on completely off-the-wall ideas (which sometimes even pass, but this won't be the case).