Basic Income

A Basic Income is a guaranteed set amount paid to each member of a society.

A Short Introduction:

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From Raising the Floor: How a Universal Basic Income Can Renew Our Economy and Rebuild the American Dream by Andy Stern with Lee Kravitz (2016):

I propose instituting an unconditional universal basic income (UBI) of $1,000 per month for all adults between the ages of eighteen and sixty-four and for all seniors who do not receive at least $1,000 per month in Social Security payments.

Using the 2015 Federal Guidelines for Poverty as a guide, an income floor of $12,000 per year (and $24,000 for a two-parent family) is sufficient for most Americans to maintain a minimum standard of living. (201)

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My major goal in this book is to raise awareness about how the emerging technologies are impacting jobs, work, and the economy as it is being experienced by the vast majority of American families. Another is to begin having an honest, thoughtful, solution-based exchange of ideas about UBI and America’s future. (202)

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UBI offers conservatives a vehicle for eliminating welfare programs and shrinking government; it gives consumers the purchasing power they need to buy products and services; it provides businesses with customers who have enough purchasing power to buy their products; it gives young people more financial security and independence; it relieves parents of the anxiety they may be having about the job prospects of their twenty-something children; it helps progressives fulfill their dream of ending poverty; and it restores poor America’s dignity and hope. And, for all these reasons, UBI has the potential to fuel a sustained bipartisan effort–what we haven’t seen in years in the nation’s capital. (218)

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There’s no turning back. We live in an era of fundamental economic change. Technology is transforming work and the workplace. This can be thrilling and empowering but also alienating and scary. At times it feels that we have no say in our future. But we do! If you believe, as I do, that our economy’s problems are structural, and that technology is very likely going to make decent-paying jobs harder to find, if you believe that our children and grandchildren deserve a more secure livelihood and an opportunity to achieve their dreams, then I invite you to join in a national conversation to raise the floor and shape the future of jobs, work, and the American Dream, with UBI as our guiding star. (222)

Read More About It:

1. Utopia for Realists: The Case for a Universal Basic Income, Open Borders, and a 15-hour Workweek by Rutger Bregman, Translated by Elizabeth Manton (2016).
2. Raising the Floor: How a Universal Basic Income Can Renew Our Economy and Rebuild the American Dream by Andy Stern with Lee Kravitz (2016).
3. Basic Income: The Material Conditions of Freedom by Daniel Raventos (2007).
4. Basic Income: A Radical Proposal for a Free Society and A Sane Economy by Philippe Van Parijs and Yannick Venderborght (2017).
5. The Ethics and Economics of the Basic Income Guarantee by Karl Widerquist (2005).