in NY. single people on food stamps/snap receive more money than I spend on food,
it disgusts me.
19
"Republicans would render the safety net threadbare, providing aid with significant conditions to groups of Americans in more and more specific circumstances. Such efforts have little to do with work. They have nothing to do with poverty alleviation. They have everything to do with stigma. They have everything to do with discipline and control. They have everything to do with race and racism. They convey, and not so tacitly, that the poor are poor because they choose to be."
A grifter-in-chief with inherited wealth now leads these selfish GOP white empty souled christians who don't want to admit their mostly just LUCKIER than the poor.
What did you expect? Compassion? Logic? Competency?
LOL
17
And if they blow it on alcohol or drugs, we have "free" health care and Medicaid to take care of that issue. If people worked hard and took responsibility for their lives we would have a lot less need for all these assistance programs.
20
Sure, just give people money. And give them a car and a house and free food and free drugs or anything else they want.
Let us make sure the total is at least 190k per person.
Oh, I forgot. Where does the stuff come from?
As Thatcher said, in effect, it works just fine until you run out of other people’s money.
Duh!
21
You just don't understand. Trump is a racist. The vast majority of the poor and lower middle classes are minorities, people who Trump absolutely despises. If you question this just keep in mind all those mothers and children who will never see each other again, much to Trumps amusement and satisfaction. And now you're talking about giving them money? In Trump's mind minorities are inferior, maybe even subhuman. There's no way he's going to have even a single molecule of sympathy. It's no surprise though, he's just following the Racist Creed, although it's been watered down a bit. You used to be able to hang these people. Oh well.
4
So if the recipient is working 2 jobs, who will be home to receive the “Blue Apron” style boxes of food?
5
The real irony is that, if he hadn't been born rich and then inherited millions from his father, Trump would likely be on public assistance. Compulsive, habitual liars don't usually advance very far, especially when they're insufferable braggarts.
34
In my 74 years I could count on one hand the number of people who wanted something for nothing.
The cliché applies: people born on third base think that someone who's at the plate, frightened of the coming two-strike pitch that they know they can't hit, simply wants a free pass to first base (something for nothing).
There will always be those who will "game the system;" that can't be helped. But Republicans wish to punish all poor people for the lack of effort of the few. I don't know how many breaks Congress gets in a fiscal year but I would like to know, with their high-end salaries, what do they do to earn their money? Where are this year's results? The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that channeled taxpayers' money to corporate buy-backs and inversions off-shore?
If the government guaranteed a job to anyone who wants to work but can't find one, such a person will spend his/her income in their community, turning over tax revenues which will fund police and fire, road and bridge repair, etc. The rich don't spend their money; all they do is buy condos and yachts and refuse to invest in the country they sooo claim to love.
An unmarried women with, say, three children to house and clothe and feed would not wish to jeopardize a government job by cutting corners. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's idea of a guaranteed government job may not get off the ground but if people had something like it, plus healthcare, we'd be a lot better off with full employment than we are with class rancor.
16
No, no no.
It's exactly the opposite. We need a kick-starter/gofundme to raise enuf moola to buy "trump" out. Ask him what his number is and let's just all do it and get it over with. He's gonna get the money one way or the other, so we outta cut our losses and just say "here, take it", now get out. OK, maybe thrown in a cheaply-built monument to his "glory" somewhere that we can tear down in a few years once he's gone, um, for good.
I'm not joking. He is cheap enuf to consider offers.
19
I am glad that this op-ed essay has comments open, but the Times needs to make that a consistent practice for ALL Op-Ed essays. Little rhyme or reason seems to exist as to which essays penned by non-recurring columnists are opened for reader opinions (which often are a source of great insight and information).
12
"...up to and including showering them with money, no strings attached."
"...up to and including showering them with money earned and taken from other people via taxes, no strings attached."
All fixed!
13
shangri-la.
4
This will not work without limiting immigration.
10
Of course Trump should just give people money after he takes his cut.
1
Give people money. From where? Whom? How? Why?
No, we must only give money. It comes from a magic piggy bank.
11
Don't understand it. Never did. Never will. With so much to go around, why do we have to strangle the poor? I truly believe Republicans wish anyone who's not rich would just kill themselves so they can have more for themselves. When I see Mitch McConnell's disgusting smirk, I wish him ill, against all my inner instincts, because I really don't want to wish ill on anyone. But they purposely set out to do harm and couch it in words that belie their motives. I really think this country has lost its way. And I won't even say, oh, the Democrats can fix things. Can they? I really think we need to have a major revolution, rise up and take these people out and start over from scratch. I'm so disgusted with every bit of news I read about this country now.
16
You're not paying attention. Trump NEVER gives. He only takes.
2
While we're at it, let's put a flying car in every garage. Ms. Lowrey's proposals are pipe dreams, not even worthy of aspiration in this political climate.
13
I have always been taught by my parents that there’s are no dumb jobs; that there are only only dumb people. I am beginning to think that we will soon reach the point when there are only dumb jobs and too many people to fill them.
When a job doesn’t pay enough to cover the cost of healthcare and childcare, much less anything else, it is by definition a dumb idea to work and, therefore a dumb job.
And since we bow to the magic of the market place and this devotion is not likely to change in the near future, there is really only one solution. A guaranteed living wage for all and forcing employers to pay it, or pay a tax for government to do so on their behalf. Superimpose Medicare for all, and we will have a society. Now we just have a scam.
3
"They convey, and not so tacitly, that the poor are poor because they choose to be."
Poverty IS, overwhelmingly, a choice. As the author notes, people with full time jobs are almost never poor. But people who make babies out of wedlock, commit crimes, abuse substances, and/or drop out of our hideously expensive schools, are often poor. And it's their fault.
It's not society's fault; it's not the result of racism. It is the result of the deliberate, stupid choices people make. The people making those choices should suffer the consequences, not the taxpayers.
Not long ago, I asked a young Sanders supporter about the UBI; her eyes brightened: "I'd quit my job; travel; write. Maybe do some volunteering..." She didn't understand why I thought her reaction funny.
Maybe you don't, either. But the simple fact is, nothing is free. Everything has to be earned. And funding handouts to people who make stupid choices by taxing their more responsible counterparts is terrible policy.
The way this country got to be the richest country on Earth is by NOT doing what our poorer counterparts do. Here, if you want something, you have to pay for it. And if you can't, you go without, or depend upon charity.
There is no reason for any child in the US to be poor. And the way to achieve that is for people who can't afford kids not to have them.
If the author and the leftists who read the NYT want to shower the poor with their own $$$, GREAT! Let us know how that works out.
26
what you are overlooking is the core nature of Donald Trump. He is mighty and smart and wise only because he has money. So for him, a world where everyone has money would make him a crass, low person, with only a little more money than everyone else. He is not alone in this kind of thinking and there is where your real opposition lies.
3
From my stay in the US, I remember discussions with colleagues about the social benefits system of western Europe. They were familiar with it in only superficial terms and said that it could only work in 'homogeneous populations', with which they meant populations consisting of white Europeans only. In the US, implicit racism is rampant, as shown by the support by a small fraction of the population of the to me barbaric separation of parents and children at the Mexican border. Racial inhomogeneity in the US makes the implementation of a basic income unfeasible.
Moreover, the basic problem of poverty is not low income, but the lack of jobs. This lack drives down wages, so that many of the employed live in poverty and have to have multiple jobs, etc. The few well-paid jobs go to the well-connected, of which some may mean well, but others may not; most of them have only a very faint idea of the people at the bottom, discarding them as uncultural and stupid Trump voters not worth of attention.
Finally, I am curious for a current American version of Orwell's "Down and out in Paris and London". Any suggestions here?
6
Can we all chip in and give him money just to make him go away?
6
“In a society as rich as ours, the argument goes, everyone deserves a guarantee of financial security, and we’re better off trusting each citizen to make the best decision for herself.”
You had me with you until I got to the last word in this sentence, and then I thought of my good wife and T.J. Maxx and Nordstrom and Lord & Taylor and Macy’s and Saks, etc., etc., etc. and said to myself, “Whoa Nelly, what’s this?
8
"Trump should just give poor people money" is a terrible title. "Trump's heartless, cruel, evil plans to increase and punish poverty" would be much more accurate, and attract more readers.
4
give people military protection, a police force, a fire department... and little else. This is America. Earn your way to the top... And share the spoils if you CHOOSE to... with your children or anyone else.
9
Hey why hire some woman with small children, I'd rather ship jobs to China, Vietnam, Bangladesh, India, and Philippines where there is no dearth of starving people clamoring for my jobs, even their children get to work for me. No one demands a healthcare plan, retirement plan, or those absurd Social Security employer contributions. They're eager to work longer than a 40-hour work week and have never heard of Workman's Comp--lose two fingers in a drill press...shut up or I'll replace you with a robot!
13
Now let me get this straight. The idea you are proposing is to have DJT & bus band of charlatan enablers review history, have knowledge of what has been tried and failed and then critically look at their proposals and select the one that works best for the poor that doesn't involve stripping the poor and giving those funds to the 1%. Interesting. You are asking DJT, the crown king of bankruptcy, his band of enablers and the Kayne Wests of the world who believe that slavery, much like poverty, is a choice, to use the brains God never provided to their cruel hearts. Geeze, what are you thinking ? That just ain't gonna happen because that crew must always have an voiceless underclass to torture so the DJT supporters can believe themselves to be entitled to DJT's ilk 'protection/praise'. Sad! MAGA in which Superman Bizarro Universe? Sickening!
2
Many of the poor are stigmatized for at least two reasons, and not just by Trump and Republicans. They are stigmatized because they are poor, which like disease can strike anyway, and because some of them have a "mental illness." This is a term which should be consigned to the graveyard of the "thou art"s. The brain is a physical organ and people are born with or develop brain diseases. That the brain is millions of times more complex than the fastest supercomputer is not a sufficient reason to deny that it is a physical organ subject to the laws of physics, chemistry and biology, just as are our livers, hearts, kidneys, etc. Society has to turn around its whole approach to poverty and "mental illness," because what we are doing is making things worse. You propose many helpful ideas.
2
The true measure of a competitive society led by winners is how the losers are treated.
By definition 49% of the population is below average. So what's the plan? The last paragraph points the way.
3
Conservative Republicans are totally out of touch with everyday Americans. I believe there was a recent NY Times article reporting that traditional white collar jobs are going to be the next in line to be eliminated by automation.Long term unemployment is only going to continue to expand and pit workers in a race to the bottom as real wages continue to decline in the face of a coming labor surplus.
Republicans slavishly call the wealthiest Americans "Wealth Creators" and shower them with tax breaks that shelter their wealth. It's time to eliminate all the loopholes that the wealthiest among us unfairly receive and use this income to provide a minimum standard of living for all citizens. They ignore the coming economic tsunami and employment crisis at their own peril.
3
As the population of the earth grows from 7.6 billion to over 9 billion by year 2150 and automation reduces world wide jobs from about 4 billion to 2 billion, climate disruption will decrease historically arable land and fresh water, and populations will migrate to survive.
The severity of the looming consequences of over population, coupled with the disruption caused by a changing earth climate, will depend on how much of the wealth generated by technology, (robotics), is shared and how well human reproduction is reduced.
Six billion out of work humans will not remain docile and immobile while their children die and a walled off one thousandth of one percent own the world.
The politics, borders, gated communities and armies of the past will not work in the new world that is fast approaching, nor should it.
5
There is a certain percentage of humanity that is not going to support themselves due to (pick your favorites based on ideology, they are all true):
Disability, low intelligence, addiction, mental illness, trauma, systemic racism, bad upbringing, laziness, mooches, breakdown of the family and religious mores, teenage pregnancy, orthodox religions and cults... you get the idea.
As a nation we need to decide how to handle these people. To put it in business speak: How do we deal with society's low performers?
If we are too stingy, people suffer. If we are too generous, some negative things can be rewarded.
When a society has as much money as ours does, I'd rather err on the side of being too generous. But I can also understand resentment among working class people who work full time with low wages towards people who have similar or better standards of living without working.
A system in which everyone across political lines could agree will be necessary. Unfortunately I don't see current leaders being able to do this. I hope the Millennials can do better.
9
What evidence or support does Ms. Lowrey have?
There are references to her conclusion being "backed by extensive research" that she claims support her view, but based on her opinion piece it is not clear what this evidence is and that she has fully considered all available evidence.
8
If the best examples of the rewards of capitalism—Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, and Elon Musk, see some merit in the idea of a basic income, that is enough for me versus the opinions of a bunch of hacks in government. Even Richard Nixon saw merit in the idea. The only thing that stands in the way of the betterment of society is a republican controlled Congress.
4
I feel compelled to point out the irony of the title of this piece: "Trump Should Just Give People Money". The record suggests that Trump hasn't given much of anything, aside from lies about how much he's given.
4
Our country will not go bankrupt because of aiding the poor. Our country will go bankrupt because the Congress and the Trump Administration believes that it should only help those who do not need it. It's philosophy is "those who have, gits".
And "git" they do. From the tax giveaway to Corporate welfare. From dismantling environmental regulations to warehousing children of immigrants in Walmart owned properties and their parents in separate corporate facilities. From trying to gut SNAP to bailing on Smyth-Hayley to keep Financial Institutions whole instead of poverty stricken families.
The only one that Tump has an interest in taking money from the Government coffers is to give it to his family and cronies.
We do not need economists and Think Tanks to tell us what should be done.
Common sense will do.
4
There is nothing more irritating than a freeloader.
I work with them in my office. They avoid work, don't care about quality, steal supplies, sabotage projects, and complain about low wages. They don't deserve the same pay I do. I wish they would go away and make my life easier.
That is the same feeling most people have about "freeloading" welfare recipients. We believe they are unmotivated, shifty, and take advantage of everyone else. You can show data and tell stories to the contrary, but people don't buy it. We see freeloading every day.
Until the perception of welfare recipients as freeloaders change, we will not vote to give more money to "those people." Our challenge is to speak to the moral and ethical side of the argument, prove that trial programs work, and spread the word.
9
It is also possible to guarantee a job. This could be done by utilizing the charitable non-profit public benefit sector so that management is spread out and local problems get attention. Until anyone who wants a job can get one without question, the propositions that we "can't afford" to take care of our own or that laziness is the problem are at best untested, while the imposition of work requirements is simply punitive and not economically helpful.
Reliance upon the for-profit sector to solve all problems is foolish and absurd and belies history.
4
Notice that reactionaries who want everyone to work also want to destroy unions, pay so little people can't afford to live where they work, and eliminate the minimum wage and employee protections.
Is it coincidence these are the same people (rhetorically) who built a booming regional economy on the free labor of slaves?
When our government develops a plan to eliminate third-world poverty in this rich nation and to provide universal health care, then we will have joined the developed nations of the world as an equal.
6
Last time I checked, we're giving people a pile of money now. What do you call:Medicaid, welfare, food stamps, public housing, public education and on and on? I pay 40% taxes and I'm not seeing that spent well now. This is going to sound harsh, but I'm not sure giving people cash, who can't even feed themselves without government assistance, is going to solve anything. Helping the working poor is where we are in this country because having a job doesn't mean you can live on it, but handing out cash needs to be rethought.
12
The Republican don't care about the welfare of poor people or old people. If people in these groups support the Republicans or don't bother to vote, they are getting exactly what they asked for.
3
Poverty is what keeps the powerful powerful.
People want to believe that they have 'earned' what they have, as if they started from nothing and everything they have is a result of their 'hard work.'
Some are born with greater cognition, athleticism, abilities to persevere, etc,... The attributes our society reveres, those that tend to earn money have less to do with individual grit, determination, and aptitude and a lot more to do with luck. Dumb, unacknowledged luck.
The easiest way to diffuse this luck of the genetic, familial, social draw is with UBI. Not only is it fair, it jumpstarts the bottom 80% better than anything else we've come up with.
However, poverty is what keeps the powerful powerful.
5
Folks love to push some example of the proverbial welfare queen as the standard for the poor leaching off of the rest of us when the reality is much more complicated. We need to face the fact that there are just a lot of basically unemployable folks in our midst due to addictions, mental illness, chronic health conditions, lack of even basic education and on and on. We have two choices: euthanasia or providing basic assistance. Do we help or do we just let folks suffer and die early. I know the choice Republicans have made and I choose the other!
4
the Trump administration won't fund our public education system. the straightest road out of poverty is an education to qualify for a living wage job. If you're a poor working class American you might only buy frozen or canned vegetables until your Thanksgiving dinner treat with a turkey and fresh vegetables.
this benefits neither the farmer, the grocer nor the family struggling to make ends meet, but that is everyday life for too many Americans. trump doesn't know poor Americans. His low wage workers are Eastern Europeans on working visas.
2
He does give people money, lots of it, provided they are rich.
4
Too bad we’re not all squirrels, then the government could just plant more nut trees. Then we could all sit back and watch the blue jays snatch them before the squirrels even get a chance to find them. Squirrel-based logic is all that makes sense to me anymore.
4
Universal basic income is a silly idea. Its going to discourage people that should be working from working. Focus on something productive instead like vocational schools and job training.
13
While Corporate America is feverishly working away to replace every human worker with a robot or computer why would anyone think forcing the least able people into the workforce is going to help anyone?
4
This is why Trump will win another term.
I will not vote for Trump but I would vote for him before I would vote for anyone who supports this insane policy.
There are many like me.
There are many who are just looking for a excuse to vote for Trump.
This will give it to them.
14
"the poor are poor because" Republicans and wealthy choose to keep the poor desperate. They keep all the productivity the poor generate from under paid jobs. That wealth is then used to buy a government that keeps the poor insecure, desperate and underpaid - never to emerge from poverty.
Give money to trump to give to the people and he'll give most of it to his base and keep the rest -or perhaps keep it all- his base will let him do that too.
"...subsidies contingent on work"- poorly paid unlivable wage work - it's called slave wages for a reason. Tax paid safety nets are nothing more than wage subsidies to greedy corporations and poorly run businesses. Does the work requirement apply to those who have retired and have lost their pension to Wall Street sharks?
Besides, if you have a job, why should it be necessary to get a subsidy for health, food and housing?
It's one thing for government to provide work in exchange for benefits and quite another thing to leave a person to the mercies of the market to find a job knowing the private sector will take advantage of the workers desperate for healthcare and housing - just like immigrants similarly abused.
The GOP and wealthy benefactors work the poor into the ground - making them work multiple jobs, skip doctors appointments and - the pièce de résistance - no time to make it to the polls fearing the loss of their job, and too poor to afford free speech.
Nothing's worse for the wealthy than "financial security" for the poor.
1
Let's walk before we run.
Before we start giving everybody cash, give everybody health insurance.
7
The high degree of visibility, cruelty and stinginess displayed by the Republicans in the flush of their complete victory over "The Left", is perplexing.
With the levers of power firmly in their hands, the Republicans have opted to place their substantial heels firmly on the necks of blue state Dems, minorities, furriners, children, poor people, sick people, working people, and the press, grinding their noses into the dirt to make sure they (we) understand the new order of things. Sheriff Arpaio deified, dissenters demonized.
It seems counter-intuitive that a government should go out of its way to blatantly disregard the needs and wants of its constituents. It seems like a guarantee for backlash, and a powerful incentive for an opposition that has little to lose in its battle with a government determined to harm the earth and those of us who toil for a piece of it.
The common belief that "they're playing to their base" only makes sense if the "base" is willing to tolerate the right wing heel on their own necks in the mistaken belief that the "lefties" are finally getting their due.
2
How do you make something popular unpopular? Making the safety net too miserable to enjoy is the real goal. Hence the red tape.
I would argue work requirements are actually destructive. These Republican lawmakers like to envision the typical unemployment beneficiary as some urban degenerate. What if we're talking about a white collar worker laid off due to downsizing?
In Utah, the unemployment office requires recipients to apply to three jobs a week. How does that help an out of work business administrator? The person will have to spam every possible employer before the unemployment benefits run out. Spamming employers is not how you get a job. We've actually hurt the long-term employment prospects an otherwise educated, productive, professional, business administrator.
4
A woman I know working making minimum wage sells blood when she has a car repair or needs to go to a doctor.
They are waiting for her eldest daughter to turn 18 so she can sell blood, too.
6
Wouldn't this cause inflation or affect the Dollar's worth?
Lottery winner's get "free money" yet most of them return or get into worse financial trouble due to their own financial illiteracy.
I'm not 100% sure giving away money is the answer to ending poverty.
9
So a guy whose father left him so much money he's still blasting through it despite innumerable failures, Trump is under the impression that people are poor by choice. Had he not inherited money, Trump undoubtedly would be whining about his bone spurs preventing him from whatever he might be qualified to do, which isn't much.
5
"The initiative is galling, given President Donald Trump’s boasts about slashing regulations and simplifying government."
Even more galling is the amount of money spent on illegal aliens, money that might otherwise be available for the very goals that this Opinion espouses.
The most sensible thing to do is to immediately expel all illegal aliens from our country. It just makes good sense.
5
I wish that the author would state, "I would be willing to pay significantly higher income tax in order to send money to more people who don't work."
9
"The benefits would flow not only to the very poor but also to working Americans given leverage to demand better wages, to the unemployed....."
...Which is exactly why you will never see it enacted in this country, barring a new great depression and a new New Deal.
Our Dickensian ruling elites believe starvation and a sick child are the best motivators of the lazy poor.
3
The issue at hand Is liberal thought does not recognize basic human behavior (herd mentality). This is the basis of all the worlds problems which cannot be eliminated. Of coarse there are exceptions. It is neither right or wrong, good or bad. It just is. Groups, subgroups, tribes, ethnic groups, countries, jails, prisons.
4
The resulting crime wave, when people are thrown off of their aid, will be epic. More money for the prison industrial complex. Why do republicans prefer to pay to incarcerate people rather than pay for them to have homes and food?
3
No one chooses to be poor. I have lived with and around the working poor. The most expensive lifestyle choice you can make is poverty.
You pay a premium for services like checking and interest and food with the fewest choices to purchase. When you get sick you take fish medicine cause a doctor visit is out of the question. When your teeth give you trouble you pull them out.
3
Ah, but if we adopted universal income, what would the GOP have to screech about? They'd have to come up with more lies and cruelty to keep their base satisfied. If we eliminated SNAP, welfare, etc., people might have time to actually read about the hypocritical billionaires they are supporting instead of filling out forms and waiting in lines. Can't have that!
3
I wonder how many of our poor citizens that will be effected by these cruel policies actually voted for Trump and would vote for Trump and other republicans again? My guess is most of them.
3
The simplicity of the GOP mindset should be obvious to anybody with a mind - or a heart. There is one thing that matters - POWER. Power is maintained by being re-elected. Re-election means getting people to vote for you. Poor people votes in disproportionately small amounts.
So why waste my time doing things that benefit poor people?
Yes, it is cynical. Yes, it is unethical. Yes, it is unreligious.
But... it keeps me in POWER.
3
Republicans don’t care!!! When are you going to understand that? If they can punish you they will! And as this charade of a presidency continues it ain’t gonna get better. I have used food stamps once in the 1970s, never got welfare and applied for unemployment once( I was told that for a family my size I made too much money 620$ in 1995 my military retirement...) I had a family of three kids and a wife and we barely made it. I got a job making 7.45$ an hr and now make over 120k but I am certainly the exception. Pushing work requirements means taking time off work to do the paperwork or meet with counselors most of whom are either overworked or simply don’t care so it’s a lose lose situation.
I read this article and thought that this is such a pipe dream I wonder if the folks that wrote it live in one of the states where they can use that pipe
4
Trump wants to punish the poor for their poverty and to do so as cruelly as possible because he mistakenly believes cruelty is strength. Don't bother talking either cents or sense to him. His hate is too consuming for that.
2
Trump isn't likely to do this since his whole life has been devoted to healing his sense of humiliation by humiliating others. Instead, look forward to his national Manhattan Project-like effort to develop the Humilitron -- the capacity to humiliate "losers" on a massive scale. This includes black people who almost blocked his escape from Queens and unauthorized migration into Manhattan. Their lawsuit against him (!) and his father almost denied him the means to build The Tower.
The Humilitron, although costly to its subjects, is his top priority. His dream of winning. His purpose in life, as it is for so many of his supporters.
1
Great idea, but I don't see any mechanism proposed to ensure that brown and black don't get free money. Consequently, I'm sure the idea will fail.
2
If this were a good idea Obama would have proposed it.
6
As an american it is now obvious...
Kleptocratic government
Over-funded military
Ultra-rich in compounds with bodyguards
Impoverished children
Rampant homelessness
Rapidly deteriorating infrastructure
Death by poverty
Government railing against a free press
Failing middle class
Under-funded education
Religious extremism
USA now has all the characteristics of a third world country. So sad.....
5
Why can't we resolve such a pressing problem as children living in poverty? Answer: It is not up to the children. That is why they get to be called children. It is up to the adults.
Raising a small family with modest means is a real head banger in this modern world. Raising a small family in poverty without a safety net that is accessible and easy to navigate, is a recipe for children who could have been contributors but never got a leg up.
The current administration seems to be working on the reverse "Robin Hood Theory": Take from the poor and give to the rich. Inside of every child is an eagerness to learn. It doesn't take much to snuff that out. Time to pony up, adults. RAW
4
Conservatives reflexively think that anyone who leverages one of the safety net programs is a sponge. How about a disabled veteran with a wife and newborn child who looks for work for months; takes the first offer he receives as a busboy in a restaurant but still can't make enough money to feed his family? Is he/she undeserving? Should they be written off and allowed to go hungry or homeless?
4
One way to get rich is to make everybody else poor.
3
The last thing this Grifter Inc. administration wants to do is to give "free money" to anyone but itself and its corporate donors...
3
Trump doesn't even give money to charity after he pledges to do so. His constant harping on China "cheating" us and NATO allies"not paying their bills" show us nothing matters more to Trump than money. He created a fake university to cheat people out of their hard-earned money & built casinos because he saw it as an easy way to grub money from the dupes who gambled there.
It's a mistake to think Trump cares about other people - he so obviously doesn't. Trump only cares about whether he can separate them from their money.
2
Its simple - this country is massively overrated.
4
With a thousand dollars a month in my pocket and idle hours of time on my hands to kill the cost of movie tickets and the cable and wireless bill alone would leave me to starve to death. Brilliant idea,
3
The rich people I know are far lazier than the poor folks I know. I'm a clinical social worker. I know a lot of poor people. They are seldom lazy. Trump - I guarantee you have never worked a shovel, swung a hammer, or worked without sleep in the rain or the cold. Poor people are not only harder working than our lazy president; they're usually smarter and kinder as well.
5
Universal basic income is probably a long way off for a country so terrified of the socialist bogeyman, but I'm curious to know how Ms. Lowrey would handle immigration, both legal and criminal, in a country with such a system.
6
You mean "the government" should just give people money.
Trump is not a king and we citizens are not supplicants.
7
We are the richest industrialized country on the planet GDP / capita but we have way more poverty than the other first world countries.
Shame on us.
Get people educated and working and paying taxes instead of paying for welfare, Medicaid, prison, police, and courts.
3
Yes, a basic universal income is a good idea...if we ever get used to the idea that a democracy with deep inequalities is a 'killer', likely due to our capitalistic system lending itself to consider capital always above labor, and the fact that we have a plutocracy where the 'rich and powerful', whose social distance is so large, are the one's governing us, and where greed seems acceptable if not preferable to sharing the pie more equitably. You see, the affluent class has 'no skin in the game', hence, their opposition to distribute cash to the poor will meet undue resistance. They just don't realize that providing Housing, and Health, for example, would save the country a whole bunch of money and lives...in addition to being the right thing to do. As they say, a chain is only as strong as it's weakest link. And without solidarity, we are just a bunch of petty money hoarders. To our loss and shame, no doubt.
1
Remember the War on Poverty? Now it is the War on the Poor. Just what you would expect when evangelical Christians are in the driver’s seat.
Whatever happened to the guy who said, “Blessed are you who are poor” and a lot of other inconvenient things about how we should treat the poor. Oh yeah, those bits were written out of the prosperity Bible and replaced with, “The poor can eat our prayers.”
2
Trump does give people money. A very few select and loyal people, and it's our money he's giving to them.
5
Years ago the WaPo economics writer stated in one of his essays that the US has to stop importing the poor. We didn't.
8
Anyone that has been out of the U.S., to a third world country, knows what direction this country is headed. In South America, there are the upper middle class wealthy, and then ninety percent of everyone else, living in tin shacks. That arrangement exists, but here, the poor vote in a guy named Trump to change things. It's pathetic, since Trump simply lied his head off, and incredibly, people believed him. "Your going to get tired of winning!" Well, the wealthy here are actually in that position. The have been on a winning streak for thirty years. Trouble is, the rest of us have been on a steady decline that ends with the patter of rain on a tin roof.
6
A nonpartisan rule of economics: you get more of what you subsidize. Hence the continual expansion and enlargement of social programs. uUnderstanding this does not make you dispassionate towards your fellow man. It just means you understand economics.
5
One rationale that has been given for voting for Trump was that he was a “businessman”, who would use his know how to grease the gears of government to “make America great again”.
Ignoring the President's history of bankruptcies, that logic has always confounded me.
Does no one remember that a similar reason was given for voting for our “first MBA president”, Bush43?
How did that work out for us?
3
This op-ed is exactly on target: we need new solutions, not a retrograde effort to push the country back to the 1890s or 1920s. Conditions have changed. Yet, the fears of those with mega-bucks that the "little people" won't work for peanuts any more are directly reflected in the Republican efforts to make getting any benefits onerous. Keep the poor down and don't let them raise their heads with hope, ever. Like most measured backed by the wealthy, these efforts are designed to keep people in their place and punish them for not getting out of it.
While we face a future crisis of not enough work to provide income for all citizens, right now we should empower working. Citizens who are employed and make less than 40K per year could get an income subsidy of, say, 25%. To be fair, such subsidies could continue at a decreased rate up to 100K.
Another concept: we should have a national wealth fund that would award a lump sum payment to all citizens at the age of 34. These funds could be used to pay off college debt, start a business, buy a house, anything. Every citizen should share in our vast national wealth. Every one.
If citizens have more wealth, then the mega-rich will have a few billion less but they won't miss it at all. You can only buy so many houses, jets and yachts.
3
This sounds simple and appealing.
Across this country there are many disconnected economies. The cost of living in the NY metro area is quite different than living in Mississippi. A basic income of $1,000 / month isn't going to go far just considering the cost of housing alone.
The next question is whether such a guaranteed income would be inflationary reducing its value.
At the projected level it is actually deflationary in NY as it would reduce the money available for rent. Getting actual deflation in the housing market NY would be painful as people would have to forego housing because there would be insufficient subsidies, homelessness increases, and the market signal for lower prices would not have an immediate effect given loans that support the housing industry.
It is pretty well agreed there is a lot of waste in the current system. The question is how do we take care of the unemployable, and how do we determine who is unemployable.
Not simple, never has been.
2
What we are doing now is not very effective in reducing poverty, though I'm sure it keeps most recipients from destitution. So it is good to listen to even radical ideas. Some "middle ways" might be found in the debate. Too many people believe that the poor are poor because of their lack of character, (i.e. "race.") White fright is really pouring gas on the flames these days--thus, Trump. We now have to admit that America's founding was profoundly flawed by slavery and racism--which were made respectable by the "compromise" on those subjects. The failure to extend "unalienable" rights to all from the beginning has since dominated our culture and our national character. The worship of having guns--and deliberately misconstruing the 2nd Amendment-- has its basis in fear that slaves would rise up and confront their masters. This happened here and there and was terrifying to whites. Most Christian denominations went right along, of course, since most slave holders were good Christians . . . After Lincoln, guns continued to be necessary to keep blacks and other races in line. And today, police armed to the teeth execute black young men quite routinely in situations where a white citizen would be treated much differently. Yes we've made significant progress, but keeping blacks and hispanics and now muslims in check is still a big goal for much of white society, who are scared to death. There are traceable roots to this mess. Few will acknowledge this. We will all pay dearly.
1
Universal income does not give the Trump administration a tool to race-bait and sow division. These "welfare" programs are political tools for Trump and not born out of any ideology or policy-based strategy. Universal income would level the playing field for poor blacks and whites--the polar opposite of what Trump wants to achieve.
1
The problem w just giving the poor cash rather than food vouchers is that some of them might use cash for vice, such as gambling, drink, drugs, cigarettes, etc.
5
No one had to explain greed to me, I understand why that could be a motivating factor for bending over backwards for the rich and corporations, but you'll have to explain what would motivate someone to treat the poor so cruelly. From Tariffs, to Trade Wars that turn out to be a tax on the items most found in Walmart, or the extra hoops you have to jump through to feed your kids, why does the champagne get popped only when their squeezing the grapes of the weakest , 1/7th of the population. I never thought I would say this but I prefer the naked greed to the sadistic glee that seems to be their prime motivating factor.
You can judge the soul of a nation by whether it holds the sick to ransom in exchange for healthcare, or not. Most countries pass this test, alas the self-appointed “Land of the Free” (tm) fails it.
I well remember that passage in the Bible when Jesus healed the sick - but only after they had shined his shoes.
1
With regards to the (what they perceive as mostly colored) poor, the Republicans are not interested in efficient government. They are interested in making their lives more difficult.
1
Wouldn't this cause inflation?
Many lottery winners get "free money" yet don't use that money wisely due to poor financial illiteracy
3
There is zero chance of a proposal like this being enacted by Trump and Congressional Republicans. They know that it challenges a bedrock belief held by their base, that only "real" Americans work hard for their money, and afterwards it's taxed away. They'd riot in the streets before they'd let the gubmint turn it over to a bunch of lazy idlers who don't even look like them.
The whole point of Republican safety net policies is to degrade the needy as much as possible.
It doesn't matter how much money any such proposals would save. Trump voters'd rather throw money in a bonfire than see these other folks standing ahead of them in a grocery store line and not at the welfare office standing, as they see it, in a line of shame.
1
This sounds like a program that the Democratic Socialist candidate, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, is proposing for America. She wants everyone to be guaranteed a yearly income and job. This is just not possible.
This proposal by Anne Lowrey goes even farther. Ms. Lowrey feels people are entitled to receive financial compensation without working for it. These are proposals that will never work as hard working Americans will never go along having their taxes pay for healthy people to stay home and do nothing all day. Most of us would love to laze around all day and eat bonbons but it is just not practical. Someone has to pay and it is the already heavily taxed worker. This just will not fly.
No one is begrudging a person who truly cannot work due to a handicap or disability and therefore must be given aid by the government. Anyone who would condemn someone in this situation is heartless. We are not talking about these people but those who are just plain lazy and do want to go out and get a job. They are gaming the system and are nothing more than cheats when they are perfectly healthy and taking money from the government.
This certainly sounds like a proposal that is favored by the leftists and progressives but it will never be accepted by the majority of Americans. Work gives one a sense of pride, purpose and self reliance whereas getting money for doing nothing lowers one's self esteem and self worth. And of course it is unsustainable and just not feasible.
9
Trump just gave "people money." It was called tax reform and sent billions (actually $1.5 trillion) to the richest corporations and wealthiest individuals (like Donald Trump). That wiped the U.S. Treasury clean, but never worry "trickle down" is on its way. In the meantime, of course, "let them eat crumbs" or get a job if they want food stamps (never mind that most SNAP recipients are children) or Medicaid (never mind that most recipients are too ill, too disabled).
3
snap or food stamps will go back to being what they were originally intended for a subsidy for low wage employers and farmers ,why would this surprise anyone
2
Hard and fast rules formed by political bias and bound in social myths about ability to work and health lead to further health challenges.
The assumption of 'looking for work' in a booming economy with low rates of unemployment are componded by an individuals qulifications and skills. Should a financially insecure person with a college degree in philosophy that has an opioid ediction from the outcome of a pain induced from an accident, should this person be required to clean dishes and bathrooms at minimum wage to prove to the "government" that he is worthy of a human right to food, shelter and healthcare?
Social-welfare expediency and efficiency offers good practice for tapayers and recipients of welfare. To reduce government beauracracy an audit-compliance program is required.
If payments to employees and contractors are to be allowed an expense from gross revenues, those expenses should be properly reported using advanced communication technologies - similar to electronic filing of W2 income earnings slips.
Investment income can also be electronically filed. Any loose ends can be dealt with using audit-compliance techniques.
No system is perfect, but reducing unnecessary layers of government is a good idea. And the best way to move forward is to put money in the pockets of poor people. Too much focus on too many civil servants chasing rule-breakers receiving social assistence can be reduced using technology that identify possible false reporting by recipients.
But what's in it for Trump's cronies?
We have a lot of immigrants both legal and illegal who are working full time They were able to find jobs in spite of the fact that an overwhelming number doesn't speak, understand or read English.
Give money to people for not working? You must be kidding.
9
This is the stupidest idea I have ever heard of. Replace the various safety net programs with one no strings attached monthly check. We are clued in to its insanity when the author starts citing some study or research paper. Those validations are always suspect
Certainly some will spend the money wisely. However many will not. If they fail to buy health insurance or spend the money on liquor, drugs or gamble it away are we going to abandon them. Of course not it will mean that we just have to reach in to our pockets again.
Every parent knows if you give money to your children they will just waste it. However, they do value the money that they earn for themselves.
8
Honestly, I would prefer it if he gave his resignation instead of his money. Besides, he'll need his loot for his lawyers and for the commissary in prison.
3
Our Fake President might very well warm up to the idea of providing all Americans with a monthly check from Uncle Sam. That is, so long as he and the family gets to stuff in the envelopes containing those cash payments some "public service" advertising, with coupons, for select Trump consumer products such as his steaks, wine, furniture, Ivanka's clothing and shoe lines, the sons' golf-related equipment, Melania's beauty care items, and Jared's new lux apartments in Jersey with the first month's rent free. Everyone wins! No Losers! MAGA.
What research and what evidence supports this opinion? This opinion piece does not give a reader any reason to accept the validity this writer's opinion.
3
The Calvinistic religious dogma that Republicans, (whether true Calvinists, Roman Catholic or Randian onanists) seems to graviate toward, is truly mysterious. What is wrong with them? Why the racism, sexism, homophobia, hatred of the poor, and at the same time a love of Trump, tacit approval of Nazi rallies, and further acceptance of butchers like Kim?
There is no way to fix poor. Unless we are willing as a society, to take their children away at a young age and break the cycle of "poor" thinking, it will always be with us. All we can do is offer great public education and give people the opportunity. But to throw money at this is just money down the drain. I'd mush rather see public funds go to gfted children with hugh IQs because maybe one of them will invent a solution that we have not.
5
This article is the reason why I am supporting Andrew Yang for president in 2020. Unconditional Universal Basic Income is a direct solution to poverty. We can no longer live in an economic structure where The Poor work paycheck to paycheck (only to spend every penny down to zero); while The Rich have, earn, invest, manage, and save money. The former lives on a week by week fear of missing a bill payment to survive, and the latter lives without fear of missing a bill payment.
The article is correct that Republicans and Donald Trump stigmatize The Poor in government programs. But Republicans don’t argue against The Conditions to qualify as poor to receive help from the programs. The Conditions need change to Unconditional Income. There is also this false idea that Work develops Character or Work creates Character. But work and character are not connected. Working for a paycheck is only a means to survive not a means to become a better human being. And with the rise of Automation in 2020’s routine-repetitive-task-jobs are subject to Automation and will change our view on what was and is work - as a means to a earn a wage.
I had no idea that anyone thought as I do on this subject. We had our lowest U.S. poverty rates back in the late 1960s through the 1970s. Back then, there were few restrictions other than need to receive benefits. And the money was freely given out to those in need. The shocking truth is that individual people know best how to spend the benefits they receive. My mother worked in welfare in those days. She gave up in the early 1980s when she was tasked with entering data into computers and no longer met with her clients. Then conservatives started meddling in our social safety net. With every "reform" our poverty rate has gone up and with no cost savings. The entire system has become a bureaucratic boondoggle, expensive while not helping people much.
Granted, it's difficult to argue that there should be few--or even no--restrictions to receiving social safety net benefits. But there is one overriding argument for handing people money: it's the best and most efficient way to reduce poverty in this country. This should be done without apology.
1
I've got an apple tree in my backyard. I take pretty good care of it and in return it puts off enough apples for us and a couple of neighbors. Needless to say when the season is over so are the apples. So how is it that anyone would think that the United States government should, or could, give it's citizens money on a continual and ongoing basis? Getting people back to work and having them share in, and be a part of, their employer's health plan is how it's supposed to work. This is how democracy works. If you want the government to take care of you, head off to our neighbors to the north. Justin's waiting for you with open arms.
8
Republicans and quite a few others can't handle paying the taxes required to fund their needs let alone someone else's. The anti tax movement in this country is taking us down fast and most people can't see it, or won't see it.
3
The author asserts bipartisan support and extensive studies proving it works, starting off with ridiculousness that undermines the rest of the op-ed. Work is supposedly over-rated and people should just get free money paid for by - people who work (the sucker class, I guess). The coup de gras was that free income was supported by Black Lives Matter. That probably is all it will take for Democratic Socialists to get on board.
5
Would citizenship be a requirement for the monthly handout? Could legal permanent residents who are not U.S. citizens get free money too? What about illegal aliens with U.S.- born children? Or will it be handed out to all illegal aliens also? These questions need to be answered.
5
I'm wondering how much of Ms Lowrey's own money she gives to other people?
9
Yes, please give me your money.
8
Even a lifelong rightist like me may eventually see the light. I've finally been won over, I'm apostatizing; I'm joining up with the left. I, too, want to be showered with money, no strings attached, and live happily in cloud-cuckoo-land. I hope this article receives a wide circulation, it will help insure that the Dems get flattened, as by a steamroller, in November.
5
socialism,! socialism I say!
1
Don't give the idiot any ideas. Our great-great-great-great grandchildren will still be paying for it, and his great-great-great-great grandchildren will still be spending the money he and his crime family stole during his presidency.
2
Liberals love nothing more than Free Stuff - not a single string attached - paid for by...you guessed it...other people's money. And that - and identity politics - is why I'll never vote for a Democrat.
10
A very small proportion of Americans on Medicaid are able to work yet not working. Work requirements do not increase employment rates. Moreover, they increase the number of impoverished Americans and their children. In that light, the new rules and their draconian red tape will not reduce poverty and will instead simply make it much harder for the folks who deserve government help to get it. This administration has to know that. This is just the Trump Republican white supremacist answer to poverty, based on this story line: "Only brown Americans receive government help, brown Americans are lazy, brown Americans are not even real patriotic Americans, and white American tax dollars go only to lazy brown Americans." Mr. Trump knows nothing but white nationalism and white supremacy. No matter that the problem or challenge is, he tackles it with the same tool: white nationalism and white supremacy.
This White House would never do what Ms. Lowrey has suggested here. It would violate the tacit agreement between Trump and his base. He gives them white supremacy. And they adore him for it.
2
They give loads of $$$$ to the rich - so why not to the less lucky? Because they firmly believe not in the arbitrary nature of birth but that they either earned it all or it’s “God-given”, or the world would somehow fall apart with less want and suffering. Not just sad, but sick.
2
Expect more sick, hungry, homeless beggars on the streets.
Maybe they will relocate to trump golf courses.
2
Just Give People Money: Democratic Socialism at work (PI).
( https://www.dsausa.org/ )
https://store.dsausa.org/resize/Shared/Images/Product/Karl-Marx-200th-Bi...
1
As a card-carrying liberal (New Deal branch), let me say No to the idea of cash handouts by the government. The massive anomie present in the lower 90% of the population is based not simply on lack of money, but more importantly, probably, by a lack of agency in, or stake in the process of, the economy and government. This can’t be fixed either by cash handouts or traditional social welfare policies. This is not an easy problem to solve, but two obvious remedies are (1) fix the electoral process and other aspects of our Constitution that obstruct the people’s ability to choose a government that really reflects their interest and (2) revive labor unions and other institutions that provide workers with an actual voice in their employers’ policies; Germany would be a good model. In addition, we must find a way to balance the anti-liberal propaganda that is so dominant in today’s media.
2
Being one of the thousands of young people who moved West for the Summer of Love, jobs were very hard to find. Like many others living poor, we shared housing, food, whatever we could. I lived in the back of my truck for a couple of years, having to constantly move to new locations to live, selling my blood for gas money during the hardest periods.
One option that attracted many of us was to sell our creations on the streets of San Francisco and Berkeley. This resulted in a boom of creative entrepreneurism that spread northward up the coast, continuing to impact our lives and the communities we chose to make home.
Having lived without any reliable income, a monthly stipend would have been very helpful, but would not have changed my efforts to build a sustainable life for myself. As with my peers at the time, it would have expanded what we were capable of creating. Now, I'd be happy to share through taxes the possibilities of helping others make their own way.
2
I find it really hard to believe that giving money to the poor is believed to help them out of poverty. Just look at section 8 housing. Low income housing sounds nice, but it oppresses way more people than it helps. Entire generations end up living in low income housing. (Plus Bbsic income was tried in Finland but quickly ended)
There's a belief that most welfare programs do more harm than good. I think a lot more money should be spent on finding viable solutions to helping the poor rather than thrown away without proper management.
2
The point is that this way may do more good than harm and as far as section 8 housing the problem is not as much people living for generations in it but that too many poor can't get it. The wait list is years long, then they are to choose from rat infested, dangerous, missing appliances or far too far from work for someone without transportation so they have to turn it down. This would not be enough to make most people stop working or looking for work- but it would help someone move to where jobs were, drop to part time in order to be a caretaker to old or young or go back to school to improve ones prospects. Since it would go to everyone the idea of fairness or undeservedness would be moot. Well off might use it for college, weddings, savings or even charity. And it would replace Tanf (welfare), food stamps etc. what would give the poor more agency than directing where best to apply it? Yes a few would spend on drugs or foolishness, but that is no different than now, among ALL income groups. Indeed, it would put a stop to the stigma placed on the poor......
1
No, Trump and his fellow conservatives should just give people jobs that pay them enough to buy their own food, decent housing, and medical care. Unemployment and inadequate wages is where capitalism fails and socialism has to step in, one way or another. Businesses are not welfare agencies. They only hire workers when they need the work done and only those people who can do the work to their standards, are available at the times they need the work done, and have reliable childcare and transportation to get to the job site. Let business be business and let government be government. A little "socialism" in the form of a guaranteed government job could make a world of difference in the lives of many families in the present and in the future.
This message is for the misguided Americans, mostly Republicans, who believe welfare has created the American underclass. No, what has created and maintained the great American underclass is our government’s refusal to legislatively redistribute America’s great wealth and income to defeat poverty. It’s 2018. Impoverishment should be a terrible memory in a country as advanced and wealthy as ours. All working Americans should be earning living wages. All Americans should have access to a guaranteed, free basic income from the government to ensure their economic survival and give them a fighting chance at achieving the American Dream.
2
It's all about what will benefit anyone but the poor. They deserve to suffer.
1
This would require basic human empathy, something which this current Administration of sociopaths, led by the narcissist-in-chief, is sorely lacking.
1
Their purpose is to shame and penalize, period. They care nothing about these people and begrudge them the air that they breathe. They also believe, I think, that these people are all black or Hispanic- wait til they find out that they represent and significant proportion of their base. Disgusting, these republicans.
4
So, what are Trump and the Trumplicans doing with all the money that WE pay in taxes to the Federal Government if they are cutting all these programs? THEY ARE GIVING IT TO THE RICH, who can well afford what they need and want without this criminal perversion of our Democracy.
They want US, the non-Uber-rich to pay even more into State coffers to support what we are already paying the Fed for, yet not receiving. The “great” new tax act certainly is not going to pay the HUGE MEDICAL PREMIUM INCREASES that Trump has forced upon us with his “destroy but don’t replace” policies, nor will it pay for our retirement, or job re-training, or college educations. Cigarettes perhaps, so we can shorten our lives even more.
If Trump’s “government” (an oxymoron at best) expects US to carry more burden, they’re crazier than ever. They are stealing our money, handing it over to people who don’t need it, and trying to con us into believing that they are “helping” us. STUPID IS AS STUPID DOES! VOTE!
Oh yes, they are spending bIllinois kidnapping children, separating and imprisoning families without due process and paying Nazi-like ICE absents to do so. Wher are YOUR ethics?
1
Trump IS giving people money.
His entire cabinet, the wealthiest Americans, defense contractors, shysters, hucksters, his gangster cronies, Israel, evangelicals, but most of all, Donald Trump are all getting money from this administration.
2
Surely, many of the 32 million Americans without health insurance will become old, become ill, or have a serious accident. So unless they die or disappear from the planet without consequence, they will require expensive healthcare. And without preventive medical care, they and their children will be less healthy and more likely to become a future burden to society .
While conservatives might prefer that sick and disabled citizens who can't fully pay their way just vanish so that the GOP can pass more tax cuts for the benefit of the Republican Party financiers, that is not what will happen.
Without health insurance, ill and injured working Americans often become poor and unemployed Americans. They stop paying taxes, families lose breadwinners and society picks up the cost of both healthcare and welfare for them and their dependents.
There is no doubt that giving all Americans good healthcare, would extend their ability to work; make them more productive; Keep families together; Avoid bankruptcies, and actually do more to make America great than slogans on hats.
The ACA, (Obamacare), should have been named the keep Americans Working Act, because that is exactly what it accomplishes in the long run. We need to keep it and fix it.
2
Farmers have been getting a basic minimum wage from taxpayers for years in the form of subsidies. Why should only some segments of society get the taxpayer money when the underemployed and low paid Americans could use the basic minimum wage also. Corporations like Walmart, and others, should be forced to pay a living wage and stop getting a basic minimum wage from taxpayers in the form of food stamps etc.
4
Given our dominant cultural values in the US (suspicion of the needy, and pull-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps kind of thinking), it seems to me that expanding the earn income tax credit is a giant win-win. It seems like SUCH a no-brainer. Like social security, how much you get depends on how much you've "contributed" through your labor and earnings.
But the problem with all of these things lies in the margins. When the people who don't qualify are only slightly better off to begin with than those who do, there lives resentment. Or when the people who qualify appear to have made worse choices than those who don't qualify, we have a problem. (ie: They appear to (or do) have less because they dropped out of school, ran up credit card debt, etc, while the non-qualifying family next door just tightened the belt and stayed in school or majored in nursing instead of opera etc..) We have to deal with both the real and perceived unfairness of that.
2
We need a Universal Income and Single Payer Medical, plain and simple. That would allow retiring some programs and blending others all into one package.
Every person should have an income of at least 30K, so this means closer to $2500-2700 per month. This amount, enacted across the board will give everyone a single, equal tax break, if they decide to take their 30K that way, or paid out in cash. This would help end a need for foodstamps (SNAP) and would allow a single parent to raise a child, if needed, and would allow a couple, at 60K, to be able to afford Normal Living in America. Many cannot, even though they may look like they are holding on, are barely clinging by their fingernails.
Giving workers the advantage over wages and time worked, if needs were met otherwise, then employers would have to learn how to pay fairly, to limit their own income and invest locally rather than push for quarterly dividends that only profit the few that can afford to buy stock instead of food, shelter and power.
Dividends and all income from the stock market and investing in general should be taxed at Earned Income Rates, not fake, lower rates due to size and amount of money.
If these Billionaires can make That Much Money, then us "Little People" who actually do the Labor for those Billionaires should be paid properly. And since they have destroyed jobs in their climb to wealth, they need to pay those who have lost their job and career when leveraged buyouts destroyed their business.
5
Not the way it works in the USA. Trump & The Rich want YOU to give them $$$$$$$$$$$$. They just got away with the BIGGEST Welfare for The Rich tax break in history!
Shame on USA silly emotional voters, vote-splitting voters, irrational voters who are the US Citizens without-a-clue who gave us this Republican Tricksters' Scam government FOR & BY THE RICH.
What is truly Dark, Mr. Darker, is that the voters who gave us Trump are receiving more job opportunities than in recent memory going back decades. Not since 1972 has black unemployment fallen this low. Hispanics and women are also doing much better than before. What you overlook is that Trump's policies are working to bring capitalism's benefits to more and more Americans who believe in the American Dream but who, due to no fault of their own, have suffered the American Insomnia, not the Dream, for way too long. Suddenly BECAUSE of President Trump's three-point attack on unemployment, we see real results: limit the size of the workforce to create jobs and drive up wages (i.e., reduce illegal immigration to help our own workers); make our corporations more competitive internationally by subjecting them to competitive taxes so they can create more jobs, and reduce job-killing regulations. That triumvirate has created the boom in employment we see today--the one benefitting all levels of society.
1
The juxtaposition of this article with Balenciago ads says it all NYT.
3
Nickle and Dimed - Barbara Ehrenreich
Hands to Work - LynNell Hancock
Capital - Thomas Piketty
Bait and Switch - Barbara Ehrenreich
The Working Poor - David K. Shipler
Help yourself. Learn stuff.
The take away? People work two jobs, raise kids, try to improve yet live in abject poverty and hopeless in the richest country ever. A country with the richest people to inhabit the earth, more of them in one place than ever.
Why are these poor souls consigned to lives of desperation, discrimination, hopelessness?
Because we want them to be. Its that simple.
This is our choice, and they are living those lives because that's what we want.
We call it the War on Poverty and, just like the Gooks and the Krauts and the Rooskies , the Nips, and the Towelheads (to use polite terminology), enemies from previous wars, we demean and dehumanize the poor and the struggling.
We deny they are struggling. This is how we arrive at the abomination of Republican compassion: help starving families by taking away their food.
That'll get them going.
Instead, we punish employers who refuse even minimal pay; who use broken shifts and unreliable schedules; who refuse sick pay, family leave, or emergency time. And rich people who just don't see how we, the most generous people on earth, can afford to do more.
How about we stop it with training programs to remake people knowing full well there are no jobs for them.
How about we notice the poor are people too, willing and desperate to work.
3
"The take away? People work two jobs, raise kids, try to improve yet live in abject poverty and hopeless in the richest country ever.
Since you are recommending books, why not try Hillbilly Elegy. He talks about why the poor remain so, why they don't know how to handle their money, prioritize spending or choose wisely what to spend their money on. It is truly one eye-opener. And as for working two jobs, most "rich" people work extremely long hours, as do their secretaries and aids at work. To maintain that wonderful lifestyle so many envy, people work long hours and two jobs; they safe; they don't have kids out of wedlock; they get educated, often while holding down a job, and they invest. The rich are often not the ones driving the most expensive cars or flashing their gold jewelry; they don't need to do that; according to the author of Hillbilly Elegy, it is the poor who spend more than they can afford; who are willing to take out a payday loan at exorbitant rates when it is not absolutely necessary for survival; who don't know how to budget, to buy healthy food, to exercise, or to act like adults. He learned all that in the marines. I say--as he does-- one really good way to eliminate poverty would be to reinstate the draft, and make adults out of the children who go around masquerading as grown -ups but making decisions like children.
2
Interesting idea, but Mr. Trump is way too stingy and mean to consider this. He’d hoard it all himself if he could. Look at the ridiculous sums he charges for housing the Secret Service at Mar-a-Logo. It’s all about his personal enrichment and let the “peasants” be damned.
5
Actually, Lisa, Trump is putting more Americans to work than any president in recent memory--especially blacks, women and Hispanics.
He's limiting the labor supply to drive up wages, and he's allowing corporations to become more competitive in the international marketplace and thereby create more jobs. He's killing killing regulations.
But you go right on--you and your propagandized-to-the-gills Left-wingers, talking not about his policies that are actually working, but rather constantly changing the subject to his stinginess, his narcissism, his fascist tendencies, his ego, and all the other kid-stuff nonsense that takes up ink on paper while ignoring his actual progress in addressing society's ills. That is the purpose of drowning all of you in negative Trump propaganda 24/7--you become incapable of recognizing success even when he hits the country over the head with it. We're written off all the people who just won't see; and we're welcoming into the party the Stranger--the newly employed at a good job blacks, Hispanics and women. Welcome aboard: hard to argue with success, isn't it?
3
"...which could be easily financed by repealing the Trump tax cuts and closing loopholes for rich companies and individuals."
Do you honestly think the current Congress, that seems hell bent on slashing the social safety net to benefit the 1% plutocracy, would ever consider UBI?
Second, when has any government program ever come in on budget? Look at the original Medicare cost estimates. Yes, I know, they didn't factor in inflation. Why not? The Federal Reserve has a stated goal of 2% annual inflation. Over the last 30 years, the $USD purchasing power has been cut by 60%. Guess who inflation hits the hardest.
Third, before we plan UBI, how about we stabilize Social Security (slated to run out of funding by 2034) and do something to reduce deficit spending? Without changes, OMB has estimated annual interest payments on the debt will approach $1 Trillion annually by 2028. $1 Trillion annually for just the debt interest, and that assumes stable interest rates.
So while intriguing, unless the blue wave starts soon and we rescue existing programs and get deficit spending under control, UBI is a pipe dream.
1
I am a proponent of a carefully regulated, free money policy. However Generational poverty is psychologically debilitating; it erodes self esteem and crushes any incentive to change. Point being, if not done properly, free money can do more harm than good.
Free money without any stipulations would have dire consequences for our public schools. How would there be any incentive for students to work hard if a future chock full of free money was guaranteed, no strings attached?
Substance abuse can suck up a lot of free money. What can be done to prevent it being spent on drugs and alcohol?
2
Why should free money make anyone less likely to work? Do those Billionaires Not Work? It seems to me that they work very long hours themselves, making decisions and planning.
Having ALL That Money does not stop Them from working, in fact, it appears to be more of an Incentive to work, to have more money.
People working Walmart, who have to get foodstamps and Medicaid just to get by, and then STILL need another wage in order to do anything than bare survival. And a skimpy one at that. Walmart would HAVE to pay higher wages under a UBI, or they would have NO workers.
It is amazing what real people can do if they vote with dollars and their hours worked. Walmart and McDonalds would find that corporate profits are one thing, scamming all of America by robbing the poor to fatten the already rich is not fair play and they will lose out if they keep trying it that way.
If people had guaranteed Income not only would they be more ready for work, with the right clothes, better fed, and not as stressed as to where living arrangements will come from, will increase the health benefits and decrease the mental and emotional problems that are exacerbated by the stress of being poor.
There Has to be a strong UBI along with a Single Payer Health Program and THEN America will Truly be Great Again.
Until then it is just a Mission Accomplished sign on a garbage lot that is for sale to the lowest bidding inside trader.
1
Its no wonder the liberal press is outraged about people having to either go to work or show they are looking seriously for a job in order to get government free stuff. Since the liberals either don't know or ignore the fact that there are no real solutions to the dilemma of how best to assist the poor - there are only "trade offs". Everyone with even a meager understanding of economy and mankind understands this. If you make things good for saving the trees the loggers will suffer ( at least for an interim period of time) and home construction prices will rise. We can help all the snail darters and partially cripple the Port of New York. Nothing is without cost and making it necessary to work; if of course one is capable of working- is a good thing. It's not a bad thing as the liberal would tell themselves.
6
Sounds so simple. But consider this opinion piece in The Times:
"A family of four earning $117,000 a year is now classified as low income in the San Francisco area."
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/06/opinion/san-francisco-housing-homeles...
While people are developing a plan to hand out "free money," these same people should consider the fiscal condition of Social Security and Medicare.
2
Yeah, I guess they should just move to oklahoma. Hey! These are the working poor!!!!!
Well, considering government, based on my experience, does not even follow anti-discrimination laws when it comes to age, race, disability, sexual orientation, sex, etc., how do they expect to be the lat place of resort fro forcing the poor and the elderly, to work?
What is missing, once Trump, and the GOP, wreck the safety net fro the poor, they will force work requirements for Medicare and collecting Social Security. Or, cut benefits to the point, that they becomes useless.
Then seniors will have to seek work, when age and medical discrimination is rampant.
Finally, Trump, and the GOP, want to lower taxes even more; certainly not raise them. And, certainly not give a gift of $500 - $1000 a month to those who are poor or over 65. These are the same people who called, those who collected unemployment, about 7 years ago, lazy, free loaders.
So, you want more people working, Trump and the GOP, enforce anti-discrimination laws, instead of embracing discrimination.
1
The future - see Russia in 1990s. I recommend gold & Swiss Francs for your IRA....
1
Go into any park in the nation and you are likely to see signs stating "Do not feed the animals. They will become dependent on feeding and lose the ability to find their own food" or words to that effect.
7
But there are not enough living wage jobs for everyone. And not everyone is able to work. Can’t you understand that?
I hope that unemployment never happens to you when you are 60 years old and no one wants to hire you. Maybe then your opinion of the various probrams available to those in need will soften.
1
Or become criminal - which also costs alot of money.... but I'm sure you will always vote for higher taxes for police and prisons...
As we so often hear from the hollow corridors of American politics, "This is not who we are," and "We're better than this."
Yes, it is; and no, we're not. Not now, anyway.
2
"This" is a very vague term.
Trump's neo Victorian policy of "punishing the undeserving poor" was the obvious direction he would take as president. The Republicans in Congress and in states they control around the country are all on board. Mick Mulvaney is Freedom Caucus front man for complicating everything involved with poor people in America. The giant corporate tax cut passed that has enriched the rich was never intended to trickle down. The greed is good nastiness is now coming full circle as the programs that Nancy Collins and the supposed moderate Republicans saved are now being savaged now that is safely out of the public eye.
2
What great fortune, then, isn't it, that even though "the giant corporate tax cut passed that has enriched the rich was never intended to trickle down," it has nevertheless accidentally created more jobs, especially for minorities, along with limiting the supply of labor and reducing job-killing regulations?
And don't forget - enrichng the undeserving rich!!
"Yet study after study [not identified] have shown that most people will work if they can."
I notice "most" is not defined. Study after study also has shown that nearly all people who work believe that there should be zero free-loaders and cheaters, living off the work of others. Government largesse comes from the taxes that working people pay.
Now a number of posts complain that if only the large corporations would pay a living wage, "we wouldn't have to give away money," but they never connect the very obvious dots: wages go up--wages HAVE TO GO UP--when employers can't find labor. If your policy is to constantly grow the labor supply through immigration, wages will remain constantly low, but once that labor supply is limited, as we are beginning to see already (those of us who are widely read), then wages automatically rise. And as for Arkansas and other states with pockets of poverty, I recommend everyone read Hillbilly Elegy. The fault is sometimes that of the labor force itself. And a labor force that does not fathom what it means to hold down a job and do it well is not going to attract industry.
5
Except most living wage jobs are being decimated by anti-union laws and automation. Immigration is a cause but not the primary one. H1B visa abuse is rampant though. What has trump done here? Very little!!!!!
1
Bless you for recognizing that the tactic of "frittering" is deliberate. Republicans have fostered anger at government by simultaneously making everything work less well and blaming Democrats for the problems. Frittering our time away reduces productivity, creates unproductive frustration and anger, and most of the time it is used to make life harder for the people who can least afford it.
Private industry does this adeptly by hiring too few people to handle problems and making customers wait endless hours to get appropriate service. But Republicans have turned this into an art form, where it can often take so long to find an answer that the rules have changed by the time the answer is revealed.
Work requirements, with appropriate exemptions and grace periods, make sense for many types of income support program. That is why it was acceptable to centrist Democrats and to "compassionate conservatives" who really were compassionate.
But it's wrong to push such requirements for healthcare and many other parts of the "safety net" (Reagan's phrase). Rather than pushing people to work, it can make it harder for them to do so. It also extends to a much larger population the need to justify their lives to bureaucrats.
One of the most frustrating thing for many Republicans who did not drink Trump's Koolaide is that his people use the same language to support draconian ideas that we used to support what we still think were good policies.
2
This makes god sense and is supported by experiments that have done using this approach. But evidence also suggests that a major determining factor in defining ones political views is whether or not you believe people are inherently bad (are poor because they’re lazy) or inherently good (are poor because of circumstance). Religion tends to favor the former (we’re all born in sin and require religious discipline) whereas social science tends to favor the latter (better social circumstances results in better behavior).
I favor a form of social security for all, for all the reasons proposed, though I have grace concerns about linking it to the number of children a person has.
2
Other major determining factor sin defining one's political views are simply one's upbringing, one's social circle, the bubble that one lives in, and how widely read one is in viewpoints that differ from one's own; how tolerant one is of people who may vote differently from one's own set, and how much one understands the basic precepts of capitalism vs marxism.
1
Medicare for all would go a long way toward alleviating poverty in this country. I believe people want to work, and would be more able to do so if barriers to work were removed. One of those barriers is lack of healthcare. If their healthcare was secure, people could more easily move to areas with more jobs, retrain if they need to, and take a chance on a new line of work.
The lack of healthcare security is holding back many people from making changes or taking risks, because a major illness without affordable healthcare can drop a family into the pit of poverty and homelessness faster than you can say MAGA.
3
Basic income is a sound and easy solution to a host of social problems. Ontario has a limited basic income trial in effect and has a program for seniors and mothers that is basically the same. The opposition to basic income is the usual crowd who resist all and any efforts to end poverty, and to grow and build an economy by directly putting money into it. It's a system where everyone wins, and so does our society and economy. Few solutions can do that.
2
Curiously, the Right wing republicans have no compunction in providing massive give-aways from the US Treasury to the top 1% with no strings attached - the amounts of which dwarf anything being talked about with the various programs being micromanaged (and which micromanagement will cost the difference in what the program would be without the additional layers of bureaucracy required to monitor the work requirements). If the tax breaks to the obscenely rich had been tied on a 1 for 1 basis to investing in employee health care, benefits or additional hires - but no tax break if these benefits to the country did not materialize - then there would be at least some sense of fair play. All that is going on now is simply mean spirited "I got mine, and gimme yours while your at it...."
4
Is there any way this essay could appear in the Times every day in perpetuity? It says so well so much of what needs to be said and done for this country. It shine a light on the path to life where Trump and the Republicans are only about destruction in all its forms from petty to great.
Paul Ryan is one who has been trying to reduce the safety net including Social Security.
His father died when Ryan was a teenager and Ryan got Social Security survivor benefits which helped him get through college.
And now with 20 years in the House of Representatives, Paul Ryan will retire with a lifetime annual pension of $85K with cost of living adjustments and full healthcare.
All paid for by our taxes.
6
This idea has a lot of merit logically and ideally but I will never live to see such a distribution of income downwards in America in my life time. Too many Americas have bought into the fairytale of pure Calvinism. Sadly, it may be generations until enough pain and suffering has been inflicted for people to understand what is really going on and rise up.
3
The real argument in favour of a UBI is that it would make rich people richer - just not at such a rapid rate as they are becoming rich now, at least relatively.
The economic factor that creates wealth in any economy is not saving money, in any sense, but spending it - circulation. The more often any one dollar circulates through the economy through a transaction, the more people make a profit off that one dollar.
If a UBI was introduced, the great majority of any extra income received from any source would be spent by the individuals receiving it. People who are below the mean living standard now are the great majority, and they would tend to spend everything extra they received up to the point where that mean living standard is reached and they have socially disposable income.
In a service-based economy such as the United States, everyone who profited from economic activity would profit more - but perhaps have to pay more taxes to see that profit generated. So they would profit more but at a slower rate than they profit now - perhaps.
The significance of this is that the rich who oppose raising the mean income of the economy know that. This is what makes it so clear that their political campaigns against the poor are motivated by hatred, not economics. The mean-spirited rich, and there is no better example than Trump, want to amplify their own self-aggrandisement by reducing a large part of the population to abject despair.
Poverty in America is just economic sadism.
11
Back in the early 1950's, there was a radio program, "Cavalcade of Progress", then sponsored by DuPont that I enjoyed listening with my father. A most memorable episode on factory automation extolled its benefit of a drastically shortened workweek. Imagine the boost it would give to the following economic areas, travel, leisure, education and hobbies. Unfortunately, the opposite has come to pass in which fewer and fewer workers availed the opportunity of gainful employment with increasing hours of non-overtime pay hours. As a results, technological advances in automation has become of threat, not a blessing for so many. A good start would be a substantially shortened workweek combined with a truly living wage for balance to be restored to the economy!
5
Raise the federal minimum wage. It's a concept we are already used to, it just needs re-calibrating, as it has not kept up with living expenses by a large degreen. Currently working full time at a minimum wage job gets you $1160 per month (before taxes, only some of which are waived for low income). No one who is working full time should be stuck in such poverty.
And the Earned Income Tax Credit sounds nice for working mothers, getting a credit for each child, but what it really means is that my tax dollars are subsidizing cheapskate employers to pay too little to hardworking people.
Tax capital gains as regular income so that corporations are not chasing perpetual growth in stock prices, a philosophy which crushes workers under the idea of "cutting costs" and ironically endangers the companies themselves who make decisions in pursuit of short-term gains at the expense of long-term stability.
7
UBI or partial UBI is a better idea - if you just give every adult $12K a year & every child $500K a year and couple it with mandatory Medicare for all, an incredible amount of problems are solved immediately. Currently if someone is 'disabled' - going back to work is a scary proposition because then they lose the disabled status. The money going to everybody eliminates the 'stigma', and would allow for many more people to work part time and have the flexibility spend more time with their kids or elderly parents. Coupled with a progressive income tax it immediately accrues more benefits to the people who need it the most without a whole lot of unnecessary and costly paperwork and red tape.
6
Just came home from the Philippines. There, they fish for their food, use coconuts for various things, and live off the land. Work? From sun up to sun down doing various chores. They aren't begging the government for work or asking for handouts. They are always smiling and put out good vibes.
I would love to see Americans try to survive with nothing.
6
And they die from diseases and live less long and send their children here in hopes of better. The Philippines (and similar) are all the poorer for so many of their citizens having to live hand to mouth. The extreme income disparity feeds guerrilla groups and criminal gangs. And they have someone like Duterte in charge. But go ahead, enjoy their smiling over the usable coconuts and kid yourself that they don't want better.......
You first. In Fargo during the winter. That would give me good vibes and keep me smiling.
The only way Universal Basic Income can work is if the immigration rate is brought down to zero.
3
Not really - universal basic income would only apply to citizens & it takes a long time to get citizenship.
Why on earth would that be? In fact, immigrants are a net gain for our aging populace and provide plenty in taxes. Without immigrants, we'd be pretty stagnant.
If you live in America, you have 2 choices:
1. You work, and you have to pay taxes
2. You don't work, and you have to accept penury and the
approbation of your fellow citizens.
The reasons that Democratic Socialism "works" in countries such as Norway and Sweden are twofold:
A. The population has been traditionally homogenous ( racially, genetically, religiously, socio-economically)
B. There is a strong tradition of work ethic, and social disapproval of sloth and indolence
Where societies are highly diverse, and the dominant ( i.e. White/European) classe is seen as productive and more affluent, the stratification makes that model less workable
8
UBI is more likely to work in the US than 'welfare' because everybody gets it - poor, rich, uber wealthy, everybody. And everybody gets the same amount. (The difference is that those who earn additional income pay taxes progressively & therefore 'pay back' a proportional amount of UBI). I guarantee you that white folks who make 32K a year would be more than happy to get an extra 12K per year even if they had to pay back 4K of it in taxes. It would strengthen the middle class & reduce inequity. This is why programs like medicare and social security work - because they are far more inclusive than the programs that only help those at poverty or near poverty levels.
4
Only certain European Americans see them as more hard working and productive. Most people with any knowledge of other places and people understand that the vast majority of all peoples are hard working and productive....or would be given access to jobs and freedom from the trauma extreme poverty can bring
1
Whatever the Trump radicals say, the goal is to destroy Social Security and Medicare.
Owning 99% of everything isn't enough. They want it all, then expect us to be grateful.
14
Here is an idea completely out of the box, in fact crazy like a fox...
The poor, working poor and the middle class of all races should have a few crowdfunding sites to specifically "buy politicians," just like the Adelsons, Kochs and assorted super rich do.
If we buy a dozen or so of these politicians in the House, Senate and key stingy GOP states like Florida, Texas, and the taker states in the south, their new "employees" will go to bat for them. While we are at it we could also "buy" a couple of supreme court judges, the third political branch of the Government. At a minimum they will block any egregious policies from taking effect.
I would hazard a guess that this mass of people could fund at least a couple of dozen of these politicians far into the future.
It is just too tiresome to listen to all of them come election time to get our votes and then they go back to serving the top 10%. It will be a "tea party" or a green tea party?" for the rest of us. If they don't perform find someone else the next election...
Why not give this a try, everything else has failed for the last 40 plus years and it did not really matter which political party was in power in Washington or most states.
3
At first I smiled and then I thought, why not?
If the past is any guide the wealthy will only agree to bribe the poor if they are personally threatened with physical violence. I don't think any supporter of UBI would want to live through the kind of domestic chaos necessary. I certainly don't.
Actually, Trump is amenable to giving people money, as long as it comes from someone else.
1
as long as it does not come from rich people would better describe trump
Trump and the Republicans following him are much more likely to go in the direction of Dickensian poorhouses. Private companies could run them, just the way they are now operating immigrant detention facilities and many prisons. There are so many large retailers that have failed or at least closed many of their stores — that space is available. Or of course, there is the possibility of tent cities, like the one put up for immigrants in the Texas desert. Another advantage of this approach is that panhandlers, beggars and all sorts of undesirables will be removed from the streets so that rich people, on their nights out, won't be bothered by such unsightliness. Out of sight, out of mind.
2
All of these ideas are certainly worthy of discussion, Annie. But given the Calvinist underpinnings of American culture, blaming the poor for their poverty is precisely the point.
Calvinism, you may recall, basically starts from the assumption that God bestows favor to the heaven-worthy (membership in the Elect) by allowing them to accumulate wealth and resources on Earth. If you are not materially successful, then you're not "one of us", and it must be your own unworthy fault. Therefore, you don't deserve any sort of help or charity anyway, because, being unworthy, you'd only squander and waste it, and it rightfully belongs to those who have proven their worth by already being rich.
It's doubtful the Trump/Pence/Koch/deVos/Adelson axis is aware of the religious underpinnings of this Social Darwinist, "if you're so smart why aren't you rich" attitude, but you see it in their behavior and viewpoints and in those of so many other reactionary oligarchs, and it doesn't take much to extend it from the poor to anyone else designated as "other".
We're not going to get very far in not blaming the poor for their poverty, or combating our various bigotries and xenophobias, until we deal with this whole mindset. And given how unconscious this precept is for so many, even the poor themselves, I'm not optimistic about change anytime soon.
8
This is exactly why UBI would work. Every citizen gets it, every man woman and child. If you work, great, you still get it. Generally speaking it's 'good' for everybody except the uber wealthy - by tacking on a couple extra percentage points on the the wealth people make on income or capital gains over 250K, everybody (even those making up to around 350K) benefit. It's why SS and Medicare are popular - they are programs that benefit not just the poor but a very broad swath of society.
4
It has been demonstrated that handouts of cash (Yes, handouts of cash.) are much more effective than piddling "assistance."
3
The market economy does not guarantee jobs. It is designed to maximize profits for owners (and labor typically is the biggest expense). This leads to market mechanisms to reduce the costs of labor...outsourcing to cheap labor overseas...reducing benefits....eliminating unions. The US economy is run by people whose priorities are contrary to helping our citizens earn a livable wage...
12
You mistake is in thinking that the Republicans want to solve social problems. They want first of all to enrich themselves, and second of all to create the politics that lets them get by with it. That means making some social problems worse. That means buying the votes of the wealthy with lower taxes, not higher. It means creating divisions between the middle class & the poor, getting the middle class to blame the poor for their frustrations, rather than blaming those responsible. It means, oddly enough, blaming the government for the problems they in fact exacerbate by using the power of the government.
10
We already tried lump benefits with each child in the 1970’s. It did not work out well. An entire generation of poor young women passed into adulthood by having babies, in part, to get money for their own apartments. That same system encouraged them to send away fathers as a drain on that income.
6
It is not the same thing at all. Under UBI EVERY citizen get a UBI - it's generally proposed to be 12K per year for adults and 4800K per year for kids - of that $400 per month per kid, about $200 would be required to be paid back into health insurance, $200 per month would go to the school system for every kid enrolled to cover a minimal breakfast and lunch for every enrolled student. Given that the adult parents are getting 2K a month, they no longer would get housing subsidies etc, the 'bonus' per kid would be negligible - it would cover diapers & formula at best for infants & a bit of childcare for the toddler years. The point being that the parents would have to did into their own UBI if they have kids.
2
PricewaterhouseCoopers predicts that almost 40% of US jobs could be taken by robots by 2030. As more people are replaced by machines, work hours must be reduced to maintain full employment. This reduction in work hours will eventually have to result in guaranteed incomes for Americans to remove them from the workforce.
The living standards of our progeny will be diminished by the progeny of any future immigrants.
There are millions of Americans who do not have a high school diploma and compete with immigrants for the low-level jobs.
Employers prefer to hire immigrants because it makes them more money. A few dollars a day less for each worker means thousands of dollars a year in extra income for the owners; a good incentive to skirt the law.
Businesses do not hire immigrants because citizens are not available; businesses hire immigrants because there no American citizens who are willing to work under the slave-labor conditions which provide the greatest rewards for the owners.
7
I am shocked that the author didn't mention the one Democratic Presidential candidate who has officially declared, Andrew Yang, Found of Venture for America who support Universal Basic Income #UBI in anticipation of the displacement of so many workers, particularly truck drivers (#1 job in 29 states), due to automation and the introduction of Artificial Intelligence into on a mass scale, into the economy.
Andrew Yang, not only understands the effect of UBI on the economy, but also has more creative and openly express ideas to help the poor and middle class on his website than I've ever seen any person running for POTUS display. He's the real deal, has had incredible success in the startup world and would implement the author's suggestions to it policy in the United States, an act that the Trump Administration would never be so bold, or more to the point, caring to consider.
4
Republicans want everyone to work, just at poverty wages. Why not raise the Federal minimum wage?
9
We do give poor people money. It's called welfare and food stamps and rent supplements and a dozen other programs -including free medical insurance that many working people cannot afford. But it's never enough for those in the poverty industry. They want yet more taxpayer money funneled to the poor. More and more and more. Republicans are benefitting from this by saying Enough! And thereby gaining popular support and winning elections on the state and national levels.
8
Universal Basic Income is universal - meaning every citizen regardless of income gets it. If you make 50K a year and UBI is 1K per month - you would still get your 50K from work, but you'd also get 12K for being a citizen (the assumption being that by being a citizen you should reap some of the 'natural resources' of the country). Of course, you would end up paying taxes on the 12K whereas the poorest person would not - still you'd end up with an extra $8000 or so a year. That would be really great for the economy overall as it would allow a real 'cushion' for the middle class.
1
Good contribution. I think we should separate these two ideas of a) whether more money will solve poverty; and b) whether people receiving assistance could contribute more to society in terms of productive work. Having worked as an activist in poor neighborhoods I know that there are plenty of people who see their "job" as figuring out how to access twenty, thirty, or even forty thousand a year in government benefits. Many of these people may also work productively, and sometimes that income is under the table. I also agree with posters who say that many of the people in poverty are there through illness, trauma, and circumstances that work rules won't address. And, ironically, these extremely poor people are the ones least equipped to navigate and exploit complex rules regarding benefits that could improve their situation.
4
Even with a college education, at times I still washed dishes, waited tables, loaded freighters, worked hard manual labor, taught people to drive, IN ORDER TO SUPPORT MYSELF AND MY FAMILY! More folks need to try THAT!
8
Try it for forty years and then get thrown out into the streets at the age of 58. See how wonderful your retirement will be then.
1
Lookit, government, even a sacred democracy, can’t be expected to make policies that hold up over time. The best we can expect is a topical response to a topical stimulus: a deep depression, millions of veterans dropping into the job market, wild swings in weather making farming erratic. Or, in the present, a truly global economy, pharma addicting the public for profit, medicine hobbled by law and failing. True, the evil creeps at the top are deliberately raping our country for personal gain, but maybe they just assume that it’s over for us anyway, and why not loot the place before it all falls in?
Universal income is a moving target, one among many. In the background is a population collision with available resources; the basic unsustainability of human numbers relative to the planet’s capabilities. We tend to push this out of consideration when we consider other issues, like trying to keep all of us fed, clothed, and well. The common weal guarantees that the end comes sooner!
So, what’s a good government to do? Subsidize farmers, mining, drilling, war? Feed everyone by conquest? China-style family limits? Outlaw private transportation? Outlaw for-profit medicine? Mandate college curricula to suit current job needs?
Personally, I think the lasting effect of our nasty transformation of America is going to be restructuring of our moral and ethical standards to accommodate a world where there are no obligations to the poor, the weak. Get a jump on it, kids.
2
The Republicans could easily sell and finance a guaranteed annual income plan by rolling all the other assistance plans, including state and local into one. On top of this you would be decreasing the civil service through the redundancy of those employees who administer and support the various assistance programs and eliminate those who enforce the myriad of regulations.
Q. What happens in a city when landlords and grocery store owners know that everyone is getting $500 or $1,000 per month in "free" guaranteed minimum income? A. Rents and food prices rise because sellers know there is more money available to pay for the same items. Ms. Lowry, it's called "Economics". You are living in a world that does not exist. Our country was not founded to hand out money to people automatically. Continuously handing money to people is statistically likely to only increase the cycle of dependence - on government, which politicians like. And goods will just get more expensive for poor impoverished people. Annie is free to donate as much of her income to poor people as she likes, But the US will never be providing a guaranteed minimum income to people.
7
The authors point is that is is not cost effective to put work requirements on federal aid. It's not helpful, but rather political to do so. Your comment about increased dependency and voting patterns are assertions commonly heard in right wing circles, but they are false flags and baseless.
America, land of the free and home of the brave.. do we help people in need or not? You seem to be saying no, conservatives seem to be saying no. Thats immoral in the most wealthy nation on earth. Hiding behind lies about work requirements doesn't fool anybody.
You mean prices depend on what people will sell for rather than what people will pay? That is your version of economics?
You mean if people get money from the government programs prices will go up but if they get money from their new job prices won't go up? How does that work?
Please provide a synopsis of your economics, paying particular attention to money supply and marginal values per unit of work.
The Republicans are very stingy when considering welfare, of any type, for the poor. But when it comes to welfare for the rich and corporations, they become very considerate and generous. At last count I read that corporate welfare amounted to 59 billion a year. I'm not sure, but I think this figure does not include farm subsidies and tax breaks for industries.
My favorite story is about the failed Enron. The year Enron went under they were scheduled to receive about 300+ million dollar "tax' rebate--or what ever our politicians called it. Funny thing is they paid NO TAXES.
Nice work if one an get it.
14
Trump is no bargain for us taxpayers, but neither is the Republican Party as a whole. As a matter of fact the worst of Trump, begins with the Republicans in congress and the Republican professionals appointed by Trumps administration. We will be encountering the highest debt since WW2 as a percentage of GDP. Cutting social programs will do little to affect the debt. The welfare we need to encounter is corporate welfare .Resist and Vote!
12
The Trump administration is doing a lot to hurt the "undeserving poor" and even more to help the "undeserving rich". The "undeserving rich" who receive the maximum allowable gift from each parent and grandparent from birth are starting off in life with $4 million plus in stocks and bonds and more than $100,000 a year in dividends and interest.
Rather than punish the Poor and reward the Rich, perhaps we should require the "undeserving Rich" to contribute to society to obtain the wealth their parents and grandparents have gifted them. Let's require them to be in the military for two years or to do volunteer work for two years in order to obtain access to their inheritances.
11
Most non-functional people in our society had very difficult childhoods. I work with foster youth and see some of the situations these kids faced.
If we want a high-functioning, full-employment society, we need better supports for small children. We need to reduce developmental trauma, and increase secure attachment.
The government's separation of families at the border shows total ignorance of traumatization of kids and the legacy that is left.
12
As we rapidly move toward a time when jobs will not exist for many, if not most citizens, a national disbursement of funds to all makes great sense.
As automation mates with outsourcing the pool of workers will shrink further and more.
A day may arrive when one will have to pay to work. Not working bores most people. They only discover what a good work ethic they had when they’re deprived of work altogether.
3
Can't do that. It might put a squeeze on the massive corporate welfare that Republicans support and that we taxpayers (less and less the wealthy) have to pay for.
7
Ms. Lowrey cites selective evidence to argue that work requirements that were part of welfare reform had no effect on employment. The ONLY study she cites is an article by Pamela Loprest (Urban Institute scholar/advocate and long time critic of welfare reform) about another article that presents some simplistic assessment. So, no real evidence. In fact, there is little good evidence of the effect of TANF work requirements on employment because work requirements were part of a package of reforms and it is difficult to identify separately the effects of work requirement form other aspects of reform such as time limits. However, the evidence is overwhelming that reform significantly increased employment with virtually no adverse effect on poverty.
2
I didn't see you offer anything but assertions to counter this basic point; work requirements increase poverty and bureaucracy. The right wing direction to shaft recipeints of federal aid is political, not practical. It's also immoral and beneath the wealthiest nation on earth. Does America help it's citizens in need or not?
I was born in 1943, and lived in a Government housing project. I remember a few people I believed were WWII veterans. One was deaf but somebody had a job for him, one lost a leg and he was given a job as a railroad crossing monitor. He sat in a shed near the crossing and when a bell rang he got up, hobbled to the gate with a huge "wrench" and lowered the gates. One lost an arm but he was still able to be a photographer. There was a newspaper article about him.
My mom was a war widow, and the company where my father worked before he left gave her a job. Wile she got government assistance because of his service ($30/month for the rest of her life) she always worked until she retired at age 65.
I don't believe our nation does that any more. If our government won't do it perhaps the Bush & Cheney families can help some of the damaged veterans - and their surviving families - in our country now.
The city and state made sure that these people had some sort of employment in spite of their disabilities. That's missing now. There are many forgotten people in our country.
24
Trump has been giving money, just to the wrong people -- millionaires, billionaires, CEOs, multinational corporations and those with enough disposable income to play the stock market -- in the form of a $1.5 trillion tax cut financed largely by the working poor. If he had invested that kind of money in a single-payer Medicare for all healthcare system and tuition-free universities we'd have far fewer poor people dependent on the social safety net.
19
We grew up impoverished. Circa '60-early 70's. A divorced, uneducated mother, incarcerated father. There is 4 of us kids. We did not receive any "help" from the government~she as too ashamed to even try~not even reduced or free lunches in school, but her parents helped some. She worked for low wages, but somehow it was enough. We always had a roof, food most of the time, clothing~from hand me downs or thrift shops~were told be thankful you have a TV~a black and white set. Each of us from a young age found ways to earn money. Yard work, finding/fixing old bicycles to sell, babysitting anything for a couple of bucks. That was used to "treat" ourselves to a movie or a coke & new clothes.
Each of us without college have made decent lives for our families without help from anyone. What made us do it? We just knew we had to. Live below means. Be thankful for what we have through hard work.
From my life choices/experiences I lack sympathy for those that seem to not try to rise above poverty. As I observe some appearing to not try, but keep expecting hand outs. Yes it is judging, but it is what we all do. This opinion piece brings up some valid points, but to give some money for doing what? Not going to happen.
15
We 'give' more money to corporations and billionaires via legislated tax credits, scams, and grifts than we've ever given to the poor, disabled, unstable, elderly, young.
Trump has never lived below his means. Unpaid contractors, scammed investors, pensioners who never saw the condos they purchased, and 18 yrs tax free via an old law that allowed him to claim $ lost by investors as his own loss, kept him gilded. Bronzed. And some of those contractors lost businesses, buyers lost savings, investors lost $, and taxpayers lost his contribution to our shared infrastructure, military, security, etc. Romney is another billionaire thanks to Bain's ability to load debt onto companies and hoover up a tax bail-out.
If you were clean enough to land a job baby sitting or had tools to perform yard work, you weren't impoverished. Just, like a lot of us, living a no frills life. Lucky none of you became seriously ill. Because you can't often choose to become well without access to medical care.
45
If the U.S. government starts providing basic universal incomes to everyone, why not basic universal cable as well, since that will be what many people will do once they start getting money for nothing.
What happens when wealthier countries become too dependent on government? Perennial double-digit unemployment. See Europe.
Common sense alone tells us the best way to trust people making decisions with their money is when they earn it themselves.
It is a good idea to have the government as the last resort for employment. But this doesn't have to mean more government jobs necessarily. The gov't can work in concert with the private sector in placing people who can't find jobs into one.
8
What is it with the Cable TV thing. I hear this argument all the time when the poor are being discussed. In our entertainment focused society consider I could purchase basic cable for my family for the cost of taking a family of four to the movies just once in a month. Ask them how often they go out to dinner or a movie and then you might become more compassionate. Try to find a job these days without internet access.
5
Americans will never enact a no-strings form of support for a large amount of the population. Because thinking people know that the extension of an asymmetric benefit must respect both those helped and those taxed to support it. If you fiddle with the broad social contract too aggressively you undermine all those things you now take as givens to move toward beliefs.
6
The goal of the GOP since before WWII was to keep the poor down while the rich reaped the benefit of democracy (defined by them as economic liberty). They will fight, fight dirty and do everything they can to prevent the intent of this piece from becoming reality. Read 'Democracy in Chains' by Nancy MacLean. Then vote 2018.
12
I do not believe the GOP is trying to keep the poor down . Instead , the GOP is indifferent to poverty .
I also believe basic healthcare for all must come before everything else .
Basic guaranteed healthcare is the bedrock foundation of a healthy country .
7
Instead of giving people cash, which may be squandered, it makes more sense to establish universal health coverage, and give everyone food/clothing/housing stamps.
7
The think tank class loves UBI, but not a single politician supports it. Progressive politicians are moving towards policies like Medicare for All, Federal Jobs Guarantee, tuition free college, all of which have been completely ignored by the think tank class. Think tanks need to engage with the real world.
5
A potential problem with guaranteed income is inflation. If you give everybody $1000 a month, then landlords, car dealers, grocery stores, etc will just raise their prices because they know everyone has more money to spend. So after a period of time, a $1000 a month would seem like poverty wages, and you'd have to increase the amount.
23
Trump Should Just Give People Money? Right that's going to happen. The title alone screams the total absurdity of this entire column's premise and the intellectual bankruptcy of progressives. But even judged on the merits the facts cited in this article are wrong. We all know it's a joke when the author says this program would cost "something like $200 billion or $300 billion a year". The progressive version of guaranteed income is expensive to the point of impossibility. Consider an annual grant of $12,000 for all American adults aged 18 to 64, like what many progressives economists are pushing. Such plan would cost between $1 trillion and $2.5 trillion. Almost 200 million people, would receive a monthly check for $1,000, with a cost of approximately $2.4 trillion every year, or one-eighth of GDP. Social Security beneficiaries currently receiving less than $1,000 a month would also get a supplement, adding an estimated $52 billion a year. By comparison, our entire existing social safety net costs $2.6 trillion. That includes Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, & Unemployment Insurance. It’s not clear whether it’s even possible to raise enough revenue for this initiative. The federal government took in approximately $3.3 trillion in 2017, so a taxes-only approach to funding might require an unheard-of 73% increase in federal revenue. This isn't well though out policy. Lets be honest. This is poorly thought out politically directed propaganda. We can do better than this.
19
How about raising the funds by the following:
Recind the tax reform bill; reduce the Congressional office budget by 25%; provide Seurity only for the President and the Vice-president, no Cabinet members or anyone else in the Administration or Congress; take away their health benefits and replace it with Medicaid; change their vacation time off to two weeks like most of the country; no fund raising while in session; remove cap on Social Security deductions; demand that Trump only entertain guests in the White House or Camp David not at his personal properties, just like his predecessors did; and of course then we could look at the military budgets.
Trump has shown us what a poor businessman he is, five bankruptcies and all that that, so of course he cannot clearly know how to budget. But he does know how to fleece the country. It is not the poor who are doing this
It is the Leader and his cronies who are responsible.
Not the Progressives. Not the Liberals. Not the Moderates. All fingers point to the Conservatives and the Trump Administration.
9
Funny, no one worried about how we'd pay for the Iraq war in either of its iterations nor the straight into the pockets of the rich bank bailout. Funny, no one asks how we're going to pay for the ridiculously troubled F-35 program designed for any enemy that doesn't exist in a geopolitical world that doesn't exist. But keeping kids from homelessness and malnutrition is just a fiscal bridge too far, it seems. Why is that, Bill?
1
The majority of our current GOP congress would balk at universal income--they only want to "give" money to those who are worthy in their eyes, such as the wealthy, white small business owners, and farmers (who are already given money). No one else is worthy of a handout, even veterans, who we tolerate being given substandard care after their extreme sacrifices.
There are those of us who are horrified that people who cannot work will have health care taken away, and those who are horrified our country is giving free health care to people who "won't" work. And never the twain shall meet.
7
I agree with the author in that the U.S. should provide a stronger, simpler safety net.
This is a complex issue though, and the poor are poor for different reasons. Republicans may generally think it is because "the poor are poor because they choose to be." What does research say are the causes of poverty? Is it lack of a high school education? Becoming a parent in your teens? Let's provide a safety net and also work toward reducing the incidence of poverty in this country by helping teens finish their education and delay parenthood.
5
The argument offered by this author is one of the more clueless I’ve ever heard from the left.
Why can’t conservatives simply become liberals? Why can’t conservatives simply accept that America no longer is and maybe never was a nation where its people are independent, self-reliant and free, but really always was one where people needed to be taken care of by an ever-growing and more complex administrative state dedicated to making the conditions for survival trivial; that the simple price for this is selling your soul to Uncle Sugar; and that we’re only now coming to realize that we’re really at heart … merely Finns.
“Why can’t a woman … be more like a man? Men are so honest, so thoroughly square; eternally noble, historically fair; who, when you win, will always give your back a pat. Why can't a woman … be like that?”
Giveth me an ever-lovin’ break.
These existential differences of conviction lie at the heart of the ideological divide in America. An argument of mere paperwork-convenience hardly will get half our country to strike its head and exclaim “I could’a had a V-8!!”
You want to make excessively conservative deep-dives into a paper-chase manageable while still securing work requirements objectives for safety-net programs? Impose draconian reporting requirements on beneficiaries, then subject their paperwork to software passes that select for investigation only those with the most obvious reporting discrepancies, then random-select the rest – target no more …
8
… than 2% of the total for investigation, simply IGNORING the rest. For Medicaid, that would be about 1.4 million people (about 70 million people are on Medicaid). There would be enough enforcement to keep people careful, and the sheer inconvenience would force millions either OFF Medicaid regardless of consequences or to work when they’re not already working. Problem solved and conservatives get their pound of flesh – which could literally become that in some cases.
You will never see the U.S. government simply “giving people money”, short of a bottom-up transformation of our founding ethos. We’d have another civil war. But leave it to someone who authors a book on universal basic income to hold up her hand cluelessly and ask “Uh … why don’t we just give people money?”
We don’t get off that easily.
We need to consider doing what some states are dong, which is providing the support for beneficiaries of our safety-net programs (which are massive) to find work that pays a living wage, and we need to re-architect these programs to be more effective and FAR more fiscally sustainable so that less motivation exists for conservatives to eradicate them.
I mean … really.
4
Let's go back to the pre-13th Amdt days but expand the opportunities to include everyone with an income of less than $250,000/yr. Unemployment and its lack of dignity would immediately vanish and America would be whole again.
Darsan54:
In the pre-13th Amdt days, everyone who couldn't pull his own weight without help of any kind … died. Badly. And that included slaves, of whom there were many, who died young and many badly indeed, one way or another.
I have no desire to return to those days, even with moderated policies that society patently was not organized to provide and that couldn't afford them even if they sought such organization.
In response to commenters asserting the unfeasibility of the plan -one comment observing that cash payments of $1000 per month would cost 3 trillion per year, though he overlooks the increased tax revenue and stimulus effect that would partly, even substantially, offset that staggering public expense- I'd suggest a compromise measure exploiting modern technology.
Instead of giving everybody, even the rich, such payments ($500 max per month) make the grant available upon request w/ the recipient's satisfaction of a few requirements, as follows:
Recipient would stipulate what he needs the money for, and the purposes must fall into the categories of food, rent, car or mortgage payments, bus/train passes, fuel, credit card interest, student loans, or perhaps some special category like emergency situations like unexpected funeral expenses or the like.
Cards would be issued that were programmed to only pay for charges of the type (eg, up to $237 at grocery stores, food only) stipulated in the request.
Every type of charge in the relevant industries would be coded to be able to receive payments from the card.
The alogrithms would be relatively simple compared to current software. The very rich would not bother if it were hassle enough, and the income would be taxable for recipients above certain income thresholds.
Policies could increase payouts for services & expenses primarily needed by the poor, & diminish ones likely to operate as unneeded windfalls among the affluent.
3
Btw, mortgage payments on homes not exceeding $200,000 in value, or car payments on autos worth $18,000 or less.
These are arbitrary figures, obviously. The scheme could be tweaked to ensure the benefit flows almost entirely to those who actually need it.
In fact, I'd consider making the card conditional on the recipient reporting to facilities (where ID woukd be confirmed) to write book reports on Aristotle, Russian literature, economic theory, Michael Sandell, John Rawls, Michael Walzer, or Japanese art. One thing's for sure: few Wall Street banksters, Donald Trump types, or even lawyers, doctors or accountants would be claiming the benefit, most of these filtered out by the effort not worth their time or in perhaps most cases, having been habituated to using their brains almost purely tor career accomplishment at the expense of receptivity to challenging intellectual culture. Basically only the intellectually inclined, unemployed, underemployed, and desperate would seek the grant.
3
Not to mention all the social program costs that would be eliminated and infusion into the general economy.
1
My two cents--people would trade the cards for drugs, alcohol, or whatever it is that they want to buy that isn't permitted. The cards would become currency and could be sold at say, 82 cents on the dollar for hard cash. It just wouldn't work to restrict purchases with the card.
4
In these turbulent economic times of the digital revolution, where whole industries can disappear overnight, when even a college education guarantees nothing, the social safety net becomes essential. The paradox for Trump is that his mean-spirited programs will affect his staunchest supporters; those who have lower levels of formal education and lower incomes than other Trump groups. This group favors higher taxes on the rich and back the social safety net, just the opposite of the Trump tsunami coming their way. It seems by voting for Trump, they cut off their noses to spite their faces.
12
Trump is generous to a fault: his first and only signature act as president was to preside over $2,000,000,000,000 in give aways to the rich. The intercept reported that the Koch brothers, 6 and 7 on richest list, an annual tax cut of $1,200,000,000. That's every year. That man, Trump, is a giver.
40
A recent article/interview with one of Facebooks's founders (not Zuckerberg) had a great idea: tax data. FB, Amazon, Google, Yahoo, Comcast--you name it--collect massive amounts of data on all of us. When they then sell. Tax that sale. Put the proceeds into a sovereign wealth fund, the way Norway does with it's oil revenue. Norway uses those funds to support its social programs, but we could just cut every citizen/resident a check--like Alaska does with its oil revenue.
I love this so much I'm shocked no one has thought of it before. Revenue from selling data is a newfangled thing; we all pay the price with our privacy. We all deserve a cut of the profit. The massive volumes mean the tax could be small.
Similarly, a small (even micro) tax on Wall Street trades. Put it in the same pot. Basically, you tax the spread. No current beneficiary of the spread will go broke--in fact, they are looking at ways to measure money in tiny increments because the volume is so high it's in their interest to do so.
Now, if only you could tax wars...
20
This idea is obscenely appealing. It is beyond that: It is Solomonic fairness.
Big data (FB, google et al.) have found -in some respects, just plain stumbled into- a way to build themselves inextricably into our lives as a basic necessity along with food and shelter, and in return, they monetize and commodify our data, eyes and ears for their own profit.
This amounts to a def acto "tax" on users imposed by big data. Quite simply, because it is society collectively that generates this value being capitalized by big data, society collectively should demand back (in the form of a tax) a substantial proportion of the value it has been creating.
It is no different than if a drilling company were granted a monopoly to extract vast oil from beneath public land: they would deserve a cut for their effort, but the oil itself as a public resource should primarily enrich the public.
Indeed, the obscenely outsized windfall enjoyed by big data should be legislatively retro-taxed by creating a special tax on all corporate wealth derived from data.
A similar tax should be levied on Amazon (maybe Ebay as well) for its use of public resources to effectively displace vast swaths of the economy for the enrichment of primarily one person and secondarily his investors.
Legislation and tax code must catch up with emergent industries not contemplated by legislators & tax schemes predating the digital era.
12
Here's the cold arithmetic on UBI.
There are 250 million adult Americans. $1,000 a month UBI = $3 trillion a year. That's more than Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and the defense industry combined. Doubling individual income taxes wouldn't pay for it. Political chances of this happening in your lifetime or mine: zero.
14
UBI has been an idea that has been around a long time going back to the 1930’s. With or without UBI we are still left with the fact that capital has long eclipse labor to the point that labor is increasingly of lesser value as it is lesser needed and easily replaced. I once managed a business that was owned and held in trust by a family that was no longer working in the business I managed for them. My compensation was greater than the owners’ profit. This just does not happen today, as labor just is not as valuable relative to capital as it once was. Capital rules, and the rest of us are fighting for table scraps with or without a UBI handout.
7
Yep. And the more that capital is taxed, the more it moves away. Which is one reason the Trump tax cuts have been such a boon for the U.S. economy. The cuts are encouraging domestic investment. Unfortunately for labor, much of this investment is focused on automation and artificial intelligence. Automation and AI are unstoppable forces, and actually the best arguments for some form of UBI.
1
But Annie, instead of giving people money which I agree would be good for the economy, why not give them decent jobs or training for such jobs? That wouild still get the money into the economy, but the country would get something for it.
There are plenty of things that need to be done--fixing roads & bridges, education, research etc. BTW there are plenty of support jobs in education and research that do not require a degree. As with unemployment benefits today, you could require each worker to show that he had applied for a comparable private sector job periodically.
How would we pay for it?
A) It would to a certain extent pay for itself.
1. When people are working, producing, & spending, they pay more taxes than when they are out of work. The money they spend provides jobs for others who also spend & pay taxes.
2. We could reduce much of what we currently spend on welfare.
3. It would raise private sector wages and thus taxes.
B) We could raise income tax rates on the Rich as we did during the Great Prosperity of 1946 - 1973. This would not only raise revenue, it would reduce inequality and financial speculation, both of which are bad for the economy.
C) We could sell Treasury bonds both to the public locking in low interest and to the FED which returns the interest.Since we would be producing more, there would be little inflation.
See http://www.levyinstitute.org/topics/job-guarantee
7
Why not give them jobs or training? This is why: most people who receive needs tested benefits have serious obstacles to getting and keeping a job, especially a job that pays a living wage. I realize that unless you've spent time with, worked with, this part of our society, it may be easy to think that most of them could just go to work. The resources you and I take for granted are not available to everyone, like a dependable car to get to the job, and money for gas to put in it. We incarcerate more citizens than South Africa during apartheid, leaving them with a permanent criminal record that can make real employment nearly impossible. Chronic health problems, particularly mental health issues, prevent people from functioning well enough to get and especially, KEEP, a job. Parents struggle to find childcare even for a healthy child; if you have a child with disabilities it's even harder. I could keep going, but you get the point. We've created a safety net system wrapped in a huge, expensive bureaucracy whose only purpose is to deny people heel, based on arbitrary notions of deservingness.
58
wynterstail - I agree there will always be some people who cannot work and who will always need direct aid, but there are millions who are not working and who could work. Like those with a record. Like those older people. Like those who have given up.
And there are millions more who are not being paid enough who would leap at a chance for a federal job with decent pay.
You would have to show me the figures.
Odd, isn't it , that millions of people who come here illegally not only find work that "is not paid enough" but manage to send money back home.
What is "enough"? What is wrong with a starting wage? What is wrong with sharing an apartment with strangers (as most college kids do both in the dorms and later in our cities while they hold down their entry level jobs?)
"Work requirements do little to aid individuals who would be working anyway, and nothing to aid individuals unfit for the labor force because of trauma, health issues, problems finding child care and so on."
I'm ready, willing and able to work. I graduated from college with a degree in biology and a minor in chemistry. I worked in research for 18 years. I switched careers and went into IT. 5 years ago, 3 months shy of my 55th birthday I was downsized from a good job. My last two jobs ended because the funding disappeared. In the last one the funding disappeared because of Donald Trump. A work requirement would penalize someone like me because no one wants to hire me. I've been on any number of interviews that go well but in the end I'm turned down. All any employer has to do is put my name into a search engine and see my age.
American can't have it both ways: penalize people for being unemployed while letting employers outsource jobs, underpay, discriminate agewise, experience (same as age), etc. and claim that there are plenty of jobs out there if only people would look. If unemployment is so low that employers are taking anyone why can't skilled older people find jobs?
If no one in America wants to hire certain people for whatever reason, why should they be forced into poverty because they fall into that unhireable category? I can't change my age. Others can't change their disability or skin color. A UBI would solve part of the jobless problem.
99
"given that a job is one of the surest paths out of poverty"
Not all jobs.
A job that leaves the worker on food stamps is a subsidy of the employer, enabling low pay.
The way to encourage more work is to pay people more for working. Increase wages at the lowest end, until people take the jobs.
They are voting now, by not taking them, just as they sometimes vote now by not voting. If you care to listen, you can hear the voice of democracy. If you tune out and look down on them, well then you won't hear it, but it is still there.
89
@Mark
Excellent comment. Too many do not listen ( even to the ones that elected them to office )
We. of course, need to change that.
11
Such a radical proposal surely merits experimentation. Ms. Lowrey should show us the way: she--and those who write comments supporting her--could find 7 friends and supply each of them with an unconditional, perpetual income of $1000/month from her own assets. That's how the US tax system works: about 15% of people pay more into the system than they take out, while 85% of people take out more than they put in. Any volunteers at the 85th income percentile ($89,500) who would enjoy being on the wrong side of Ms. Lowrey's clever scheme? Anyone? One gets the sense that people support the universal basic income only as long as they imagine riding the wagon and never having to pull it.
Just as there will never be an end to poverty, there will never be an end to jealousy and the harebrained designs appealing to those blessed with more envy than ambition.
8
@TB
A true progressive tax system is one where you make more and then pay more taxes progressively upward - not less
On the flip side of that, I am sure if you polled people (majorities where the government should reflect those majorities, but don't) they would say that they do not want so much money being spent on the military. (or wars for that matter)
Finally, we are discussing redistribution of wealth (aye, I will readily admit that) but at what point do you think too much wealth is being concentrated in too few ? ( not at all perhaps, I would suspect)
Having a billion dollars is obscene on so many levels, and having multiples thereof ( over a 100 ) is ridiculous. There will come a point in our existence (that means all of us) that it will not matter one iota how many decimals there are in your personal bank account, because there will be nothing left to produce, buy or let alone, own. That scenario is rapidly progressing.
So, I get what you are trying to say, that who shall be the first to give up a little money, or who will be the first to open their door to their home, and I have a simple response.
I will.
28
Actually, there are a considerable number of people who favor basic income who would be putting lots more in than they would be taking out. Tech entrepreneurs who understand where automation and AI is taking us and how many jobs may be made obsolete by their innovations are among the leading voices on this. They understand that the people that they will almost inevitably be side-lining will not be "riding the wagon" instead of pulling it by choice. They also understand that the growing capacity to provide loads of goods and services with a minimum of labor would, under our current system of distribution, leave them with a minimum of users of the stuff they create. Believe it or not, there are people out there who get that production is intended for use and not simply to make a few people obscenely rich.
5
Oh my goodness. The system, as humans constantly devise, always means very few can be wealthy and most are going to be relatively poor. Capitalism creates this dynamic. It is simply not possible for everyone to be rich, it would make the rich jealous.
But it's "entertaining" that you think the healthcare needs the non-rich are a manifestation of jealousy of the rich.
Giving everyone a basic minimum income would be wonderful. It will never happen here, whoever our next president is. We're not even close to having health care or housing be basic rights. Americans, not all of us, but most, are basically punitive.
11
While I think the concept of UBI is a good one, I find it difficult to believe that $1000 per month is going to help the poor enough once SNAP, TANF etc are eliminated.
One thousand dollars is just not enough to feed and house the poor.
And of course the likelihood is that the GOP, who espouse government staying out of peoples' personal lives but who in fact act the opposite, would call a lump sum payment a guarantee for drug use and fiscal mismanagement just as they see SNAP as rife with people choosing to eat differently than Republicans are willing to accept.
They will fight tooth and nail to ensure that any funds for such humanitarian programs stay in the pockets of the 1%.
Over the course of the next decade, should the GOP have its way with "entitlement" programs, we shall see an explosion of homelessness, despair, worsening health and lifespan statistics as well as starvation. All in a country that prides itself for being the richest in the world.
My mind is boggled.
9
The amount would have to be adjusted for cost of living. In NY $1000 per person isn't even half of rent. In most of America its rent and food and even books for education.
Giving people money is a wonderful idea as far as it goes. But, $500 or $1,000 a month won't cut it. A better idea is to ask people how much money they want, because they are the ones who know what they would want to spend the money on - like paying off student debts, taking vacations, buying a nice home in a nice section of town, and so on. They could basically be given a credit card with unlimited credit with the monthly bills going to the US Treasurer. The money given to them would quickly be recirculated into the economy, creating a bonanza for everyone. Multipliers have that effect. And, best of all, those former poor folks would remember the source of their new found self respect and they would vote overwhelmingly for Socialist Democrats. Two problems would be solved with one program - the End of Poverty and the End of the Republican Party. Sweet!
3
How did we get here? Just a few thoughts we eliminated the Eisenhower tax rates which contributed to the soaring inequality. We permitted companies to minimize or eliminate health care as well as do away with pensions and replace them with 401k plans They are not pensions The way out is to just go back to what worked. Easily done but the politicos controlled by the one percent lack the set of nerves to act
23
So, what happens to all of the social workers and advocates whose job is to help the poor understand what is available to them? How many people that are on board with this would find themselves out of a job without transferable skills?
1
In a complex economy every policy change puts money and jobs in some people's pockets and takes it out of others. The same is true for technology advances. But a complex economy will never do away with new policies or new technology. The wisdom is in knowing how to cushion those who are hurt. Except for FDR and LBJ, no US president has even tried.
10
Climate scientists and other scientists (Letter to Humanity) have been screaming at us the last 30 years that we need to completely change our energy, transportation, and agriculture infrastructure. THERE ARE SO MANY THINGS WE NEED TO CHANGE IT BOGGLES THE MIND.
We can start with a WWII style mobilization like Ocasio-Cortez has called for.
14
A Marshall plan for us!
1
Trump may, ironically, be the perfect vehicle for carrying forward a basic income program. All that has to happen is for someone to gain his attention long enough to explain to him that basic income could replace much of the current welfare structure. I've got to believe that upending much of what has been created by his predecessors over decades might have tremendous appeal to him. "Only I was able to end poverty .............by simply making people un-poor."
10
"All that has to happen is for someone to gain his attention long enough to explain to him that basic income could replace much of the current welfare structure."
That would be a major challenge!
6
A country that encourages work from its population traditionally becomes richer, more powerful, and more stable. Simple logic. However, as pointed out by Ms. Lowrey, may be too briefly, technological changes are upending this formula. With advances like automation and deep learning, most jobs that require human now can be done cheaper and more reliably by robots and machines. What are the consequences? First, how are the fruits of the machines' labor be distributed? If they all belongs to the companies of the machines, wealth will be concentrated in even few hands with disastrous impact on social instability. Second, I hope that we will learn to fairly distributed resources without destroying ourselves (I do not use the word "wealth" as wealth has little meaning when its creation is automated), what will human do? Psychologically, physiologically, and spiritually, we are not meant to be idle. Human society is at a cross road. We may reach an era when we can finally overcome poverty but the path there will be perilous and finding meaning in a plentiful world will challenge the nature of us all.
4
The total cost of this program would be $3.9 trillion. That assumes 325 million people in the US receiving $1000 per month (the federal poverty level for an individual). That is slightly more than the total tax revenue of the federal government in 2017.
5
Easy fix. Just like the ACA is not truly "universal" healthcare, put a restriction on individual (not household) income. You pick the number. Anyone making over (blank) per year does not get the UBI stipend.
How can it cost 3.9 trillion when multiplying 325 by 1 is 325, not 390. Plus it is 350 billion $. Your math is way off.
Rich people don't need money. Give MORE to poor people, including adequate housing vouchers, and yes, food stamps.
Instead of a UBI, institute a negative income tax (like the one designed by (yes) Milton Friedman. This would work like the Earned Income Credit, but also apply to unearned income (like Social Security) or no income. Work is rewarded under this system.
Our Social Security benefits at the bottom are pitiful--$770 per month or even less-- not enough for a studio apartment most places. Do we want our seniors homeless or in SRO's?
The real estate craze starting in the 90's wiped out the ability of Social Security recipients to pay rent, while the 55% who own homes were getting welfare in the form of MID's and property tax credits, while their assets grew. We must stop these forms of welfare for homeowners.
7
The solution wouldn't be immediate, but long term it makes more sense to increase subsidies to education, including some (or 4 years) of college, by the government. Then "encourage" early retirement for all, again with government subsidies.
The goal is to take the young and the old out of the labor force so that 25-55 are the years of full employment; hence putting upward pressure on wages by restricting the available labor pool. Near "universal" K-12+ education then provides the educational level we appear to need for emploment in the US now.
Subsidizing a "blue collar lifestyle" when blue collar jobs are disappearing is not a good solution. That would appear to be what "universal income" is proposing.
4
Now, if all poor people showed up at the voting booths and defended their rights, Republican politicians would be out of a job.
56
If all the poor people showed up at the voting booths to defend their rights, Republican politicians would make sure those voting machines were properly hacked.
1
Trump has neither time nor sympathy for anyone who doesn't bring him some immediate cash value. Trump's daughter is married to someone who makes money from the poor and disabled. Many of the Kushner properties are huge apartment complexes. The Times reported on the treatment residents receive.
Neither Trump or anyone immediately around him even comprehends the value of investing in one's fellow American. They couldn't care less about anyone other than themselves.
As we approach a world without work for a large chunk of this planet's populations, America has yet to do anything to begin to figure out how Universal Basic Income might work. We couldn't even have a conversation about free college in 2016. Those who were left holding the bag in the Great Recession, too young to retire and too old to get hired, will suffer a great deal in the twenty years that are coming, with jobs that don't sustain and housing that is out of sight.
As for Democrats and UBI and our safety net? They need to stop triangulating with Republicans who never had any intention or incentive to help the 90%. Triangulation is just another word for taking credit for the other party's policy. That's what happened with the TANF work requirements. It was a Reagan policy that Clinton was able to take credit for.
Capitalism needs to change. Trump isn't the one to do it.
---
https://www.rimaregas.com/2017/09/04/triangulation-when-neoliberalism-is...
19
The next wave of automation will require some change to compensation,job-sharing,or something more innovative. Or we could just let homicide,addiction,and suicide handle the "excess capacity",as we are doing now.Why change what works?
6
Universal basic income sounds like the best idea. It is simple, no regulations, universal, and allows individuals to decide for themselves what the best use of the money is. Many people who do not need the money would likely donate it for good causes. Maybe it could be tested on a smaller scale in various locations for a year to see how it works out.
1
UBI is going to be tested in Stockton, CA this fall with $500/month.
our Republican brethren would HATE this concept because they would see immediately it would be taking from those who have unimaginably too much and redistributing it to those who have nothing.
why, that's Communism, sir, Communism!
much better to have armies of the needless and bereft roaming around angry, addict, and ill. perhaps they could become serfs, tending the manicured gardens of our golf clubs?
French Revolutions were fomented from less.
Most SNAP recipients are in desperate situations not by choice but by circumstance.
A single mom (or dad) who receives food stamps can not be said to be out of work. Raising children is a lot of work.
A person who has to care for a family member because of a sudden medical condition should be given help.
Most people who get government help do want to work but can't. Life just threw them a lemon. Not everybody can make lemonade during a time of sudden and unforeseeable change.
Just help them.
44
If only we could convince Trump voters that cogent social safety net programs are in actuality cruel, vengeful, and a stick in the eye to HRC, they would support candidates who fight for the programs and policies from which their own demographic most benefits.
5
When Oklahoma went to 4 day a week public schools, the teachers worried that kids' health would be affected--not because they didn't have school on the 5th day in the school week, but because they would lack the free lunch that was given to poor kids on day #5.
Does that tell you something about the state of poverty in this great land of ours?
Ivan gets it. Daycare, transportation, appropriate job hunting clothes, aside from skills, are all necessary before getting a job.
Give the poor money. Just like our senators gave the 1%.
85
alas, a bandaid solution because each year fewer and fewer workers are needed, and those who can scrape up a job get something hardly worth paying for and so yielding an unliveable wage.
1
How about we just arrange for them to have a job. First step is to train many welfare mothers in how to do child care on a commercial scale. Then use charity to establish child care centers that allow other mothers to have jobs. Then train them to do the work that illegals currently do. Then deport the illegals. Several problems improved, and welfare programs can be reduced, not probably eliminated. Simple!!!
3
@vulc
If governments around the world, were of the people, by the people and working for all of the people (not just all of one kind), then there would be absolutely no need for ''charity'',
A basic income for all would eliminate a large portion of the government (don't all conservatives want to eliminate the government down to bathtub size ? ) that administers and controls social payments.
A living wage income for those that do work (at least $22hr and tied to COLA) would again eliminate a large portion of the government ( and the massive costs ) to subsidize (social corporate welfare - a thing that conservatives DO like, sorry ), thereby from all of the above, free up taxpayers's money to fund the THREE trillion dollars needed to upgrade all infrastructure ?
These are sensible ideas that essentially pay for themselves, but again conservatives always cry government redistribution and that ''charity'' will fill the void.
Nope,
11
If you go back to the tax rates of the Eisenhower administration when the economy was booming you could afford this program and finance Medicare for all too with change to spare for deficit reduction. But economic decision never made on rational basis when half of the country still believe in supply side voodoo economics.
15
Great idea, go back to the population size and diversity of then and I might think it would work. How about you just give the difference to some charity.
3
Because charities are woefully unable to handle the huge problem of poverty. It takes a government to do it.
vulcanalex: As Michael says, we need to go back to the Federal income tax rates of the Eisenhower administration. During his Republican administration, the top tax bracket was 91%for income over $200,000 for an individual and $400,000 for a couple In today's dollars, that's about $1.8 million for an individual and $3.6 million for a couple.
After the big tax cut for the rich, the top tax rate today is 37% on adjusted income over $500,000 for an individual and $600,000 for a couple. Pretty good deal for those at the top, but there's not enough revenue for infrastructure projects like the 41,000 mile interstate highway system.
Population and "diversity" have nothing to do with the problem, although I'm sure Donald Trump and his gang think so. Another problem in income inequality. Since the Eisenhower years, the top 1% in the US have have more than doubled their share of the nation’s income since Ike's time.
More can and should be done to reduce child poverty, but Lowrey fails to wrestle with the overarching context that must be considered here. First, the countries she cites have very, very low birthrates, making it much more reasonable to pay for a child or two versus in America where there seems to be an inverse correlation between income and fertility. Similarly, the Scandinavian and European countries have had much less immigration (both legal and illegal) than the US has had over the last 50 years and those countries rely on a merit-based system meaning that generally only refugees and some undocumented migrants are coming into the country poor and uneducated.
If we want to offer up more generous benefits without crushing the middle class in taxes, we must first close off the pool of potential recipients for these benefits by turning to a merit-based system, cracking down on illegal immigration and rethinking who can receive said benefits. A more practical proposition would be to streamline the benefits programs so instead of separate bureaucracies and benefits a needy person need only deal with one department that would deal out all eligible benefits based on income and family composition. This would streamline both the staff necessary to administer these programs and the process of applying for and receiving benefits.
Lastly, we would do well to look at why Social Security and the earned income tax work so well. Is it simplicity or the fact that they rewards work?
8
It is simple to reduce child poverty, those that can't afford to properly raise and support a child should have none. Thus over time only children with parents that can support them will exist.
1
Actually JP, Sweden, for example, has a higher percentage of foreign born people than we don. This has been true for quite a while.
2
The “simple” solution is being taken away from women in poverty. By removing access to reproductive services and family planning, the GOP and their white, hillbilly-Christian base are creating a vicious cycle from which impoverishment women will be unlikely to free themselves from.
I like "Social Security for all (ages)" more than "negative income tax" as a name, but the idea is the same. Combined with "Medicare for all (ages)" we could enable everyone a chance to make it. Need to be a student for a while ... do it! Need time off for a child or an illness ... do it! Imagine how much better a world it would be if enough people could escape the drudgery of poverty and were enabled to invent the next World-Wide Web, the next iPhone, etc.
20
Not sure I like this, where does the money come from? I have paid into Social Security for 45 years and have 10 years to go for retirement- yes I have worked since I was 12 years old. I am reasonably sure that this money will not be there when I go to retire as those who never worked, or became disabled, or whose parent died when they were young received benefits. Find some other way to fund it than the money they take from my check every week.
11
I doubt you have been paying into SS since you were 12. But that is not the point. You might be "reasonably sure that this money will not be there when I go to retire..." but you would be wrong.
There is a very easy fix to dispel any notion that SS will not be able to fund benefits. Eliminate the cap on taxable earnings.
Those that have benefited the most from our system should pay the most back to our system.
6
East wind, ask the question, "Where does money come from?"
The answer is that except for a limited amount temporarily created by banks lending it comes from the federal government thru the FED. It can create as much money as it needs.
The federal government will run out of dollars the day after the NFL runs out of points.
7
In theory basic income seems like a good idea. Given the nature of our economy the cost of living would inflate and gobble up all that extra money. Wages would still be stagnant, especially with companies that already rely on their employees receiving government assistance.
3
It should be illegal for corporations to operate in the USA if there employees qualify for government benefits.
90
So just disqualify them. Simple solution. Your idea is well foolish.
There is no doubt that a portion of people getting benefits are bilking the system. But the majority don't, and I would rather help them than sacrifice them to punish the abusers.
116
nobody can "bilk" a UBI - one of its advantages
The last paragraph said it all - we need to stop judging the poor.
I am astonished when I hear apparently good people blame the poor for being poor, the ill for having bad health, the undereducated for being undereducated. It is completely misleading and false to think that everyone has the right environment to thrive. It has been proven over and over again that that there are no vast swaths of American who are deliberate malingerers just so that they can live on the governments dime. So why do we treat everyone with such suspicion and make unreasonable demands?
Every civilization has those that need help from the community in one way or another. Most Americans can recognize it when they see it in other countries, but have blinders on when considering that population within the US.
To those who don't want to pay for a safety net, I would say that they should think deeply about how they would want to be treated should they be in a perilous situation.
194
Agree with your thoughts. Now I will take it to an even more base level. Hungry people are going to eat. Period.
You have a choice. Some of your tax dollars can go to provide food, and yes, a UBI. Or they can stick a gun to your head and say give me your money. I would prefer to go the tax route. Much safer.
@HN
“We need to stop judging the poor.”
That might include calling them “deplorable”.
1
Ideas like this, if they catch hold among a sizeable portion of Democrats, will ensure that Trump wins two terms, the Republicans hold the House and the Senate forever, and every social program in this country will bite the dust, along with every environmental protection. I've no doubt that are many Republicans are hoping that this harebrained idea becomes part of the Democratic platform, since it will guarantee the death of the Democratic party.
16
There are many governments around the world that have policies close to what the article proposes. The political parties that supported these policies did not die a guaranteed death.
27
Or the contrary. A candidate that proposes such a fantastic idea would be guaranteed to get my vote and the vote of millions of other sensible Americans.
24
None of them has the size or diversity of our population, so those examples don't apply. And it is not "many" either. The vast number of countries are very poor and have no real safety nets at all.
Trump has been giving money directly to people; the only problem is that he has been giving it to the wealthy and to shareholders in corporations. It is well established that the biggest beneficiaries of the personal tax cuts were the rich, and that corporations used much of their tax cuts to finance stock buybacks, which benefit their shareholders.
164
Not stealing via taxes people's money is not giving the money. It's their money to start with and the rich pay a disproportionate share of taxes. The top 10% pay 70% of taxes.
5
But corporate America needed a tax cut to be paid for by your grandchildren and mine ? Tax cuts that are paid for are one thing, but borrowing from future generations for the benefit of executives and stockholders is just plain wrong.
19
Reader-
Yes the top people pay 70% of the taxes. But the problem is that they garner 93% of the wealth. So that is 23% of their wealth that is not taxed at all.
In other words, they are not paying their fair share of taxes.
2
"Why should these people get my tax dollars for nothing!"
-Giving them stipends is actually cheaper than requiring an entire new layer of bureaucracy.
"I don't care, it's unfair. I have to go to work, why shouldn't they?"
This is what makes this idea a non-starter.
19
The problem is that #1 & 3 are false. The poor work.
https://www.vox.com/2014/11/14/7027823/nairu-natural-rate-unemployment
That is conservative economic policy that the US has followed since Reagan. It shows why we force there to be unemployment.
3
Everyone would receive the "Social Security for all," whether employed or not. Does that restart it for you?
It is unfortunate that I must remind Ms. Lowrey of the late British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's admonition (in paraphrase) that, "Socialism tends to fail wherever it has been tried, since one will eventually run out of other people's money to spend."
I suggest that Ms. Lowrey re-read her economics books. She will find that (warts and all) capitalism is one of the best ways to lift people out of poverty.
While some people are not able to work (for various reasons), most people are capable of doing gainful work. As one earns money, one can prioritize on what to spend these earned funds on (e.g., the goods and services that are desired).
If work isn't a required function of these programs, then the likely outcome is that the recipients will (over time) simply want more benefits for themselves [irrespective of the alleged bottomless pit of people like me obliged to support these initiatives/programs via their income/payroll taxes].
I suggest that Ms. Lowrey operate a lemonade stand. In this manner, she will recognize that it is hard work, prudent pricing, and treating customers right that wins the day.
Giving a hand out to a healthy individual does not enable this individual to grow. Yet, this is exactly what Ms. Lowrey suggests.
28
Capitalism is great for the rich, not for the poor.
When I was growing up, capitalism was described as dog eat dog, winner takes all.
That is great for the winners, but everyone else loses.
And giving a hand to anyone, even the healthy does work. It gives them a chance to get back on their feet.
4
You inadvertently make the larger point. A lemonade stand, no matter how effectively run, simply will not support an adequate standard of living. Too many people are marooned in circumstances that are similar. Virtue economics does not put food on the table.
1
And capitalism is such a success? Have a look around!
'The price would be significant, though financing it would not raise taxes higher than they are in similarly prosperous countries.'
Of course. Simple...and clear
7
There are no similarly prosperous countries that support half the world as the US does via the UN, NATO and other US taxpayer gravy trains.
2
The only thing that will bring this idea to the forefront will be the continued advancement of AI. Sooner, rather than later, robots will be doing most jobs, but humans will still need cash. Government is going to have to step up to the plate...but you can guarantee it won't be this slipshod administration!
19
The wealthy have hoarded the gains from the industrial revolution. We need to reverse that before the robots come to take even more jobs.
In 2017, Ontario, Canada started a three-year experiment, wherein 4,000 people receive up to $17,000 a year ($24,000 for couples). Another 2,000 will be paid to fill out surveys as part of a control group. Participants with disabilities will get an extra $6,000.
The first major result in 2018 is that all but 6 of the Ontario Liberal government members lost their seats in the June 2018 election. However, because Ontario citizens were unhappy about many freebies made by the Liberals, the newly elected Conservatives will keep the basic income experiment for 2 more years to see if the experiment works or not. Despite a few successful families, it does not look promising.
15
This betrays a fundamental lack of understanding of economics as really being all about incentives, and can not possibly work. It's born of too-rarified, oxygen-starved, so-called "economics" academia...and will live on there in zombie-like fashion.
18
Better an idea from the too-rarefied, oxygen-starved. . . academia than the constant reuse of the tired Republican ideology of trickle-down economics. As Trump said, "Why not try something new? What do you have to lose?" Also, you remark isn't really a rebuttal of the idea. It only shows your disdain for anyone with an education.
1
"to working Americans given leverage to demand better wages"
More likely it would mean that low wage jobs (unskilled labor) would just assume this fixed monthly payment, like how Walmart, fast food, etc. pay so little that workers still receive government assistant.
A UBI at least passes the "common good" and "equal protection" ideas.
6
I agree, David. I can't imagine how giving people UBI would enable to them to demand better wages.
3
It would make it easier to quit jobs that were disagreeable or noxious or punitive in any respect.
1
If you could afford to quit your job at walmart and get another, walmart would have to raise their wages.
Right now economic policy is designed to keep wages low for the majority of people. This would stop that economic policy.
5
Indeed! The Trump family and the campaign’s rich donors could, maybe should, finance Universal Basic Income, particularly since so much of their wealth comes from under-paying regular workers who provide the bulk of the labor that generates income for their businesses.
55
What a remarkably simple idea—based on evidence—that would benefit not only those most in need but a very large slice of American society. But there are some issues with the proposal.
First, it requires honest math when calculating costs and benefits. That’s not the GOP way when they can assert that tax cuts add to families’ incomes and create jobs. Second, it involves rational empathy, seeing the world from another’s point of view and seeking methods to help. That’s a hard sell for people who see skin color first, real needs rarely, and character never. Finally, it will benefit those with the least wealth, education, and other resources. That’s not the new American way where the staggeringly wealth get the benefits of government actions.
Therefore, it has no chance of success in the age of government by, of, and for trolls.
66
Yes this should happen in the richest country on earth. But it won't happen until Trump and the Republican lawmakers are voted out of office. Until then Trump and his oligarchical administration will continue to chip away at, and end if they can, the programs that help poor families make ends meet and offer opportunities for their children to rise out of poverty into a life of dignity and meaningful work. I admire the Scandinavian countries, which put social services to their citizens above money grubbing by the wealthy. I like the identification being used now by some Democrats--Social Democrats--to chart the path they wish to pursue. But it all starts with voting--November 6!
70
I'm sure he'd love to, but he just gave it all away to corporations and the rich, and now the deficit is soaring. Oh, well ...
155
A guaranteed basic income would almost pay for itself, considering there is a massive portion of all levels of government that are in the ''business' of deciding, administering and ''policing'' social payments of many kinds.
I think actually there would be a net positive or profit.
Anyways, even if that were enacted, you would need to do some other things that would lock in the buying power, or standard of living. ( low as it would be )
Payments would have to be locked into COLA's, while the minimum wage would have to be enhance to a living one (at least $22 hr) and locked into COLA's as well,
Private entities would have to be brought back into the public sphere such as health care (Single Payer), education (Public schools instead of charter ones), the prison system, military and government itself.
There would have to be a complete change of thought to portion a MASSIVE amount to the military, and instead reroute monies to education and social spending. The laws would have to be rewritten so that prison and judicial industrial complex does not continue to grow at the expense of lost generations.
Finally, all of the above is going to have to be completely scrapped (Aye, you heard me) as we get away from money (meritocracy) altogether. We will have to come together as a single populace to fight climate change and a whole host of other threats to our being wiped out as a civilization.
That is going to come much sooner than people think.
80
And what about seniors, whose benefits are in many cases 50% BELOW the Federal level and who no longer see COLA increases?
10
@me
Well they would (at a minimum) have to have a guaranteed income as well. (tied to COLA) Their pensions (if they have any) should not be clawed back. Social Security should be EXPANDED and all FICA contributions should have their cap eliminated. Single Payer would eliminate Medicare. (more efficient anyway)
Does that work ?
Your last paragraph and concluding statement have convinced me that you should run for a high office.
I am quite serious. We need people who can think past the next quarterly report if we are to survive in anyway close to the way we now exist.
This tends to be the age of hyperbole in many respects. However, the opposite is true in realizing just how perilously close we all are to doom.
Do not just "resist", my good man. Consider running for office.
6
This misses the point.
Trump and his dupes and enablers, the Kochtopus, the Mercers, Sheldon Adelson, and other powerful and weathy people just want rid of "those people". Poverty, death, disease, inability to vote, jail, deportation, whatever it takes to keep them and their donors in power.
They're trying to roll back the 20th century.
Making America mean and dishonest.
239
@Susan
Too bad we can't just vote them all off the island...sigh
OH WAIT !
1
Remaking America in their own tarnished image.
19th century.
As more occupations are replaced by machine labor we will have a large portion of the population that is not needed to work. Eventually we will need to consider a base living wage that is not dependent on work, but is given as a right of existence. This will be a difficult transition for our societies where the concept of a capable, able bodied person receiving pay without working is considered immoral by many. However, the alternative to a base living wage without a requirement to work will be to have a large segment of the population who have no legal way to make a living.
http://www.wealthexamined.com
48
We could start by reducing all the "do good tyrannies" that harm economies for the poor -- since the UBI would give people money, we could let freedom and market forces work better, such as minimum wages that may be higher than employers find the value of unskilled labor, making drugs/prostitution/etc. legal, loosening regulations on transit solutions, food solutions, etc. that tend to price out the poor (food trucks, vending, jitneys, etc.).
Agreed. The whole workforce environment is changing and will continue to do so. Automation, online shopping, even online education, will all reduce the number of jobs that need to be done. Some of those jobs will be replaced by occupations we probably haven't thought of yet. But I think maybe we also need to re-think what full time work means. A 40 hour week is not sacred. How about 30? Or 25? That would allow more people to stay employed & free people to persue other things, like further education, etc. Many more women would stay in the workforce if, in addition to subsidized childcare they could get a living wage by working fewer hours. And with the supplement of a basic income, working parents, caregivers for elderly or disabled family members, etc. would be able to devote more time to family without slipping into poverty.
1
With robots we have finally realized the schmoo, which will inevitably destroy our economy and moral notions. Since robots are perfect slaves, we must develop ways for us all to be slaveowners; once there are slaves, those who do not share in their ownership will wind up competing with them and suffer the fate of John Henry.
Spot-on analysis. It is a matter of when, not if, universal basic income is enacted. The march of human progress will demand it.
99
And overcrowding and stingy employers will force it.
Trump marches to the beat of a different drummer...to the music of the Koch's, Big Pharma, Big Oil, Coal, trampling the poor, elderly, and infirm while the wealthy fall into lively step behind him.
2
I’m fascinated by the possibilities. I have a saying though that there is dignity in all work, but there is no dignity without work. Providing everyone with a cash hand-out just doesn’t seem to support the self actualization of people. I see people working as urban gardeners, rehabbing delapidated homes while learning skills, painting murals, caring for elderly in their homes, learning to cook healthy foods, playing on neighborhood sports teams in parks rebuilt through these programs. Neighborhood centers could provide education programs and even lectures. This could work.
37
This could only work if free child care was part of the program. Parents with no affordable child care simply cannot afford to work.
16
Painting murals, that's the answer! It's grasshoppers and ants--the grasshoppers are winning.
1
There is dignity in doing something well that is worth doing. There is no dignity in being exploited or abused by an employer except the dubious, easily abused one of persevering and enduring. A slave who nevertheless does a good job has a certain sort of dignity. A slave who malingers successfully so that the owner makes no profit from ownership has a different sort of dignity. Southen journals for slaveowners treated such behavior as a medical condition rather than a form of rebellion which would have recognized the slave's humanity or at least agency.
If the government want unemployed or unemployable people to work then they should guarantee them not just a job with a living wage, but also free daycare and transportation so that they can get to and do the job without being arrested for child neglect. The idea that people decide to live in poverty if they have viable alternatives is the absurd fantasies of people who have lived in privilege all their life.
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Good point. I bet a lot of those people on universal income who are able to work could be trained to provide daycare in return for their stipends, either in their homes or in central locations.
https://www.vox.com/2014/11/14/7027823/nairu-natural-rate-unemployment
The government doesn't want full employment because businesses don't want full employment. Full employment forces businesses to raise wages and their efforts have been to decrease or at best keep them the same.
4
You certainly point out one of many reasons people don’t work. There are many others, the npr article on the rise in disability points to another.
http://apps.npr.org/unfit-for-work/
1
I doubt if this essay will convince anyone who doesn't already share the humanitarian and egalitarian ethos of the authors. I do share those values but I would like to add that we are approaching a point where there will be a massive downsizing of retail jobs as online shopping becomes the norm. If we add that to the continued effect of AI and automation we are looking at a situation of greater unemployment and poverty. Even if we have little sympathy we reach a point where products can be produced and delivered by fewer and fewer persons. But then who will there be to buy those products? Some have predicted that within 20 years there will be no truck drivers. Yes we can talk about how they can all be retrained to be pre-school teachers and web designers but that is far from realistic. At some point a universal basic income will become an issue that trade organizations embrace. it will become necessary not for the purpose of supplanting capitalism but to save it. I don't support this lightly, as a disabled person who can't get relief I wish for nothing more that a job in the field, education,I devoted my life to.Nonetheless, the logic of the market renders this inevitable.
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Social Security for all! Keep it simple as the author lays out in this article. Such a position should be music to the ears of conservatives and liberal alike, as the cost and size of government would be shrunk by getting rid of the alphabet soup of programs, with the savings passed on directly to citizens. There would be still rich people in America (just like in Europe) under such a system as the vast majority of people would want to work to live better than a guaranteed income could support. By eliminating the Trump personal tax cut and cutting back on military spending which is bloated, we can afford such a program now. Of course, we should roll out such a program incrementally, and adjust as needed. Starting off with children and their families makes a great deal of sense for a universal income/universal health since child poverty is so high in this country.
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What this means in reality is cutting SS benefits for seniors, those people who actually worked and paid for their starvation level benefits, and instead giving the money to younger people who never worked and never paid anything.
2
As mentioned in the piece, there are lots of proven as well as disproven ways to aid people lower down the income/wealth scale. Bottom line, there's no excuse for child poverty in the richest country in the world.
On the other hand, universal basic income (UBI) for working age people is unproven as an effective means to lift everyone up. It might be. But it also might be far from the best use of our money. It deserves to be studied and then expanded to the extent it proves the best option within our national means.
Nothing like UBI will be enacted any time soon, but meanwhile there are a host of other measures to improve lives from the bottom up. These overlap with ones mentioned in the article but include universal healthcare, universal pre K education, more support for working mothers, high quality public education through high school, affordable public college and trade school education, efficient and inexpensive mass transit in urban centers, support for affordable housing, protected and portable pensions, and modest changes to secure Social Security and Medicare indefinitely.
It's a long list with significant costs. Fortunately the country's ROI here should be far higher than what's likely from the recently enacted tax giveaway to the rich. Add in a potential trillion a year in savings from a revamped healthcare system and modest cuts to our bloated military and prison system, and we'd be well on our way to improving America for everyone.
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A UBI would be fair -- of course the richer would pay the most in comparison to their benefit -- and applied broadly, creating an economy in which everyone would like either spend or invest the sums, both of which are good. Whether it create degenerates is unclear, but we have such actors today, and even the homeless who receive no benefits have a large cost on society (making areas less appealing, harming retails businesses, blocking sidewalks, making parks scary for the majority, periodic cleanup, drug/crime, etc.). This would at least help them spend money and build an economy for merchants and others that can serve this troubled class.
11
David, I agree UBI would be fair in some sense and perhaps easy to administer. And it might be useful among a package of social welfare programs that vary by age, region, and economic circumstance. I'm arguing it's best to study UBI and let it evolve over time to the best level amidst other programs. I also worry it might end up cannibilizing other successful social programs to our overall detriment.
On the issue of homelessness, it's far from simple but the key is to help people get into safe housing. That's been shown to help related issues such as chronic illness, mental illness, substance abuse, and the ability to work and participate in society. It can actually save gobs of money otherwise spent on social services for the homeless. I'd favor specific housing vouchers to get things going where needed. Obviously, housing shortages and gentrification also need to be addressed in many areas.
We have been giving farmers a minimum basic income for decades. They are called subsidies or crop support/insurance.
Similarly, incentives paid for by taxpayers for companies to build, move, hire or for R&D are effectively minimum basic incomes.
Now we have tariffs, taxes really, ultimately paid for as higher prices by the consumers. In addition, the administration is looking into additional price supports to those whose businesses are suffering from those same tariffs.
Yet helping the poor, even those who manage to juggle a few low paying jobs to stay afloat, is a disincentive to work.
Am I the only one who sees a serious disconnect here?
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Farm subsidies: yeah, I guess you can call it minimum basic income. But I've always thought of it as corporate welfare.
1
Trump Should Just Give People Money? Right that's going to happen. The title alone screams the total absurdity of this entire column's premise and the intellectual bankruptcy of progressives. But even judged on the merits the facts cited in this article are wrong. We all know it's a joke when the author says this program would cost "something like $200 billion or $300 billion a year". The progressive version of guaranteed income is expensive to the point of impossibility. Consider an annual grant of $12,000 for all American adults aged 18 to 64, like what many progressives economists are pushing. Such plan would cost between $1 trillion and $2.5 trillion. Almost 200 million people, would receive a monthly check for $1,000, with a cost of approximately $2.4 trillion every year, or one-eighth of GDP. Social Security beneficiaries currently receiving less than $1,000 a month would also get a supplement, adding an estimated $52 billion a year. By comparison, our entire existing social safety net costs $2.6 trillion. That includes Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, & Unemployment Insurance. It’s not clear whether it’s even possible to raise enough revenue for this initiative. The federal government took in approximately $3.3 trillion in 2017, so a taxes-only approach to funding might require an unheard-of 73% increase in federal revenue. This isn't well though out policy. Lets be honest. This is poorly thought out politically directed propaganda. We can do better than this.
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(SOME farmers . Mainly large ones. Not all.)
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Finland was recently trying this give-away (free money for no work) on some scale and stopped part-way through the experiment because of the push-back from those who were paying for it (the taxpayers). Seems taxpayers really resisted giving people free money for doing nothing, and the politicians ran for cover.
From each according to his ability, to each according to his need does not compute, and never will. This is basic socialism/communism, which most Americans will never support.
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Most Americans may never support it, but most Liberals posting here do.
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It's very easy to give away--or propose giving away--other people's money.
Most Americans pay taxes, and that is the source of the money that is given or to be given away. Even all the US billionaires and millionaires don't have enough money to cover the astronomical costs of "free money", so just imagine how loudly the middle class and wage earners will complain when their taxes go up, too, in order to give away free money to those who do nothing in return for it. They might even vote out of office those who promoted the concept.
Americans are fair. If poor people are able to work, they should do so in return for their stipends (free money). If they are unable to work, they should be supported. (There is no shortage of useful public works projects in American cities and rural areas.)
By the way, I couldn't find anything in the US Constitution that guarantees all Americans universal basic income. But then the founding fathers didn't have a clue about socialism and communism, which hadn't been developed yet.
16
there is aleays plenty of money for expanding the bloated military budget to keep the makers of weapons systems happy and to protect the flow of oil from the Middle East. "special appropriations" for the unending phone "war on terror" are quickly approved regularly as is the establishment of bigger useless bureaucracies which have been so effective at keeping large bottles of cosmetics off our airplanes.
Money was quickly found for saving the largest financial jnstitutuions (without regard for the obvious moral hazard of saving them from the consequences of their moral turpitude and felonious activities).
The founding fathers wrote the Constitution for a small agrarian society which had yet to encounter the hazards of an unfettered capitalist industrial economy.
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Yes most americans pay taxes and they work. Two important things you seem unaware of.
1st Our system demands that a certain amount of people be unemployed. It is conservative economic policy in order to keep[ wages down. Full employments means more pressure is brought to bear to increase wages. And businesses are against that, so the policy is to not have full employment.
2nd The wealth of the nation has been going to the top and being taken from the bottom. This is due to wages being kept low, tax cuts and tax deductions for the rich. This has resulted from the 80s' where the bottom 60% having 15% of the wealth to where they have only 3% of the wealth of the US. And that wealth has gone to the top.
If you wanted fairness, stopping the giveaway to the rich, raising wages, and doing away with tax cuts and deductions for the rich would be done. That would be fair, not giving the wealth to the rich and making people poorer.
There are many things not in the constitution. Even the framers passed laws that were not in the constitution. That is what lawmakers do. What makes the law legal is whether the constitution would forbid it and nothing in the constitution does,
In fact the clause the general welfare of the country could easily be used to make such a law legal.
As for there being plenty of work, yes, which costs money that no republican has been willing to spend. In fact they throw the money to the rich and military instead of fixing the country up.
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Mon Ray, you don't understand the purpose of taxes.
You believe that the purpose of taxes is to pay for government operations. If you ask yourself the question "Where does the money I use to pay my taxes come from in the first place?", you will see you are putting the cart before the horse.
The federal government can create as much money as it needs. It then spends this money on government operations, e.g. the military, roads & bridges, research, education, etc. In this way money gets to you.
Now while there is no theoretical limit on the creation of money, there is a practical one. If too much money is sent to the private sector, there will be excessive inflation. Taxes take some of this money back. Hence the purpose of taxes is to adjust the amount of money in the economy.
Note, however, if the budget is balanced, there will be no new money sent to the private sector to support a growing economy. Even worse, if the government shows a surplus & pays down the debt, money will be leeched out of the private sector. If enough money is taken out of the private sector, the economy will crash. This has happened every time, 6 times, the debt has been paid down 10% or more.
Also a trade deficit takes money out of the economy. Hence to support a growing economy, the federal deficit must be larger than the trade deficit. Except for a brief period in 2003, this condition was not met from 1996 to 2008. And the economy crashed.
4
Good article here that opens up the dialogue about some Americans' need for feelings of worth rather than shame for needing just the basics of life in this increasingly expensive nation.
Rather than just cold cash, I'm wondering if someone in the current administration wouldn't like to dig around in the National Archives and dust off all those documents that show exactly how various government programs were devised and implemented during the Great Depression of the 1930s: we could use some of those decent paying government jobs to fix our infrastructure (some bridges, local buildings, parks, etc., haven't been structurally attended to since they were built originally during the Depression years), revive public arts and crafts programs, offer public theater, and so forth.
A sense of national pride and dignity was often the outcome of ordinary Americans' participation in these programs as they were paid a decent wage while they worked via government funding. In our current jobs climate that seems to offer so little in a living wage capacity, perhaps it's time again for our government to offer innovative ways to keep people working and give them something to be proud of.
Just a thought...
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An idea whose time has come again. Stop throwing money at the military machine, and repair our roads, bridges, and revitalize our railways, so that we are not so dependent on the miserable airlines. It is appalling that we let the Chinese dominate and decimate our manufacturing base, but you cannot put the genie back in the bottle. While we were fighting unwinnable wars, they were enlarging the railways, building roads and bridges, and improving the lives of their citizens, in breathtaking speed. NOW they are ready to impose their will on us... while our stupid and mean spirited President wants to replicate the third Reich, and embraces the dictators of the world, and wrecks the planet.
2
I’m doing okay but I’m not wealthy. I work hard for my money. So, you want me to work harder and pay more in taxes to support the child of someone who has had kid(s) who they can’t financially support?
Have you spent any time with the ‘the poor’? Sounds harsh, but it’s true of many of them - they have sex out of wedlock - get pregnant - then have a baby that they can’t afford to feed, clothe or house. Trying to get support from the ‘baby daddy’ is a complete joke as many times he is not working or he is in jail.
Again, have you spent any time with the poor? Their diets are awful and many of them are extremely overweight. Not because they can’t afford healthy food - SNAP provide more than enough to feed a family. No, it’s because they choose to eat unhealthily. So, again, you want me to work longer and harder so that I can pay to support the increasing cost of Medicaid that is due to the unhealthy life style choices of many Americans.
I’m not a young guy - I worked my tail off to support my kids and pay for their college tuition. We did without and sacrificed to insure that our children had the opportunities that we didn’t have when we were young. So, I think it’s a reasonable request: if you get pregnant and decide to have a child....have a plan to financially support the child. Don’t expect me to work longer and harder to support the kid while you don’t work.
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As we consider universal basic income, don't view it as an add on to the existing tax structure. As we must rethink safety net programs, we must rethink the tax structure.
Every tax payer receives a personal exemption and at least a standard deduction. These are in the same vein as UBI. Should they be taken into account? At least a rethinking of all the personal, and corporate tax rate and brackets.
Affording the program is easier (the politics is harder) if a clean sheet of paper is used.
18
The way society can afford to pay for a universal basic income is almost counter-intuitive. The country needs to decriminalize drug possession. Portugal has done just this and the cost savings is tremendous. And, counter-intuitively, drug use has gone down because the user has no criminal record to interfere with getting a job. In this country, we make it impossible after incarceration to find employment, which is another hindrance for the poor.
12
This seemingly good idea, being promoted by the tech industry, is both bad policy and bad politics, and while the author may think she means well, this is an incredibly demeaning idea that actually comes from an understanding that a large swath of people are so utterly worthless that they cannot contribute anything meaningful to society, or build a future without relying on handouts.
The politics are a complete nonstarter. We're fighting to maintain the meager safety net we have that's under terrible attack from Trump and the far right, aka the modern Republican Party. No way is giving large cash handouts to the poors in any way politically feasible, and this very bad idea just undermines support for liberals to come up with something more feasible.
Lastly, people are not so worthless and unable to be self-sufficient as the author and the tech masters assume. Our safety net and public programs should be based on giving a handup, and not a handout. A handout model is totally unsustainable. There is no better social program than a good job. A job provides not only compensation but pride and a ladder to a better future, while contributing to the economy. And despite science-fiction beliefs that jobs are disappearing, there are more jobs now than ever before, just as there is more technology than ever before. We need to leverage better pay from the jobs we have. That means more and stronger trade unions, not this universal basic income nonsense.
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The idea of government (local) as the employer of last resort is an old one, that has been abandoned. One small example in my own state, Delaware, is highway maintenance. Sixty years ago Delaware was famous for its beautifully landscaped and maintained highways. Crews of men, receiving minimum wage pay, but also benefits and potential retirement, worked mowing, trimming and picking up litter. Today we use massive machines to mow and trim, very poorly, with many fewer men and women. And in a ridiculous maneuver, we now boldly announce with roadside signs, that the litter is picked up by volunteer groups. Following the methods of the “old days” we could make a significant impact on poverty - and have beautiful roads again in the bargain!
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These are some interesting ideas. The GOP must get out of the mindset that the poor are lazy. While that might be the case with some, it is not he case with most. Poverty is generational and has roots in situations often outside the control of the current generation. Second, for anti poverty programs to work in the long term the federal government must make the choice to choose butter over guns, which is unlikely to happen during the current hawk administration.
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Even if I were to concede that for anti poverty programs to work in the long term, the government must choose butter over guns --and I don't concede that for one moment--poverty is not the nation's only concern; national security is the primary concern. You can disburse al the butter you want, but what good will it be if we are overtaken by governments we would never wish to live under. Usually when the latter happens, it isn't we who end up with the butter, but the victor. That's one reason why we fought the Revolutionary War. The limited view reflected in your post, which appears to be to me to be alarmingly naive concerning the true nature of the world and why we remain a free people, is disconcertingly widespread among denizens on the Left.
Universal basic benefits, not income, is the only way that will work.
The recent hospitalization of a family member shows why this is so. They had excellent health insurance and significant assets. Sharing the room was a patient obviously on Medicaid, with much more significant and complicated health problems.
While my relative worried about the cost of deductibles and co-pays, the roommate with no assets still got the same excellent care with no worry about costs. Obviously this seems unfair to anyone who works hard and saves diligently. So what is the solution?
The answer is not to deprive the poor of basic needs like healthcare, food and housing. This might satisfy some sense of fairness, but it will not help the working and financially healthy in our society from being faced with unaffordable medical bills. Nor is it to give everyone a universal basic income. This will not make a medical emergency affordable for the middle class. Only meeting basic needs for all citizens can make things equitable. The middle class will not resent the poor who are getting the same basic services as everyone else, and the wealthy can still buy premium goods and services.
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I agree with your comment and want to focus on the statement "this seems unfair to anyone who works hard and saves diligently." What also seems unfair to me (possibly because I come originally from a country with universal single-payer healthcare) is that someone who works hard and saves diligently can be reduced to penury by medical costs. My late husband and I lived very modestly (and healthily), saving for retirement, until he had a catastrophic stroke in his late 50s; three years and hundreds of thousands of dollars (spent on health & care costs alone) later, he died & I, in my 60s and struggling to get back the work I'd had to give up to care for him, was left almost penniless. But never once have I resented Medicaid recipients who in the same circumstances would have received free treatment and IHSS care. I just wish politicians would recognize that life is capricious and that a civilized society that claims to "promote the general welfare" should offer government-funded health care to all.
1
The absurd argument goes that people must be working to obtain aid, but the government, city or state or federal, must not provide that work.
Absurd, because job availability is highly variable from one local to another and public transportation is likewise often pathetic in areas with high poverty and unemployment.
Absurd because it assumes people are equally qualified to work, healthy, and able to meet standards private employers seek.
Absurd because it ignores the fact that many citizens have medical, police, or public media records that make it very hard to obtain private sector work.
Absurd because it ignores the substantial biases that are rampant in workplace hiring - gender, age (young or old), physical appearance, religion, manner, and race.
In 100 days in 1933 FDR led the nation into massive hiring for public works and helped millions of famalies. That is a course that works, not trying to starve people out of poverty and unemployment and by denying medical care to the work-impaired.
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We were in the midst of a terrible recession in 1933; today we are in the midst of an economic boom. People are coming out of the woodwork to find jobs. All across the country, employers are begging for labor.
People with prison records still find work--just usually it is work that doe not place them in close proximity to honest people. Tell me, Tom, with regard to this subject--what efforts have been made in our schools to regularly explain this fact of life to students: do the crime; do the time; thereafter find it really, really difficult to find a job after that? That is why you have to learn your math and English: to find a job so you won't have to become a criminal .
How many programs are out there today?
The core belief of American conservatives is that people get what they deserve in life. The wealthy are wealthy because they are smart and work hard. The poor are poor because they lack intelligence or the moral character that inspires hard work. For wealthy conservatives, this dogma only confirms their personal virtue and status among the elect. For poor conservatives who believe they are doing "all the right things" and still falling behind, their indigence is evidence that someone (usually perceived to be a coalition of elites and disreputable "others") is stealing from them what is rightfully theirs. Other poor conservatives accept that they are being justly punished for their sins. Regardless of whether one is wealthy or poor, the conservative dogma means that any action to redistribute wealth, limit the wealth-building activity of the rich, or help the poor upsets god's divine order. The rich deserve to be even more richly rewarded. The poor deserve to be punished even more harshly until they are motivated to reform themselves.
None of this matches reality—where wealth and poverty can both come from either good or bad actions and where luck plays such a large role in success or failure. But I guess there's a certain religious comfort to believing one is in complete control of one's destiny and that god dispenses wealth or poverty as reward or punishment for one's free choices. But mostly this dogma simply excuses taking no responsibility for anything beyond oneself.
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In part this is why UBI would be successful. The money goes to everyone - that means the poor aren't portrayed as getting more than their fair share. The UB income would count as income on tax returns and would therefore be taxed progressively - with the net result being that the poorest would 'keep' more of their income.
3
I haven’t spoken to my sibling for 2 years since it was expressed to me that the fortune said sibling had amassed over the past 30 years was due to “hard work.” Of course this had nothing to do with the compensation received which far outweighed any measurable “work.” So my sibling is wildly wealthy and the rest of us aren’t because we didn’t work as hard. Sure. Oh, and the expressed fear that if Hilary won she’d nail the heirs in inheritance tax. So much winning.
2
It is hardly a universal belief among conservatives that redistrubution "upsets God's order". That's an incorrect and dismissive stereotype. If you were religiously educated, you would understand that so-called "God's order" is actually in contraindication to natural purely biological hierarchy, which is what you actually seem to mean. Case in point, the revelation of Grace. But moving on: What would make your assertion more correct (yet still intellectually unsound) would be to assert that conservatives think redistribution "upsets natural order" i.e., a natural hierarchy informed by both nature (IQ and other natural aptitudes) and nurture (which informs diligence, ambitiousness, etc.).
One of the states mentioned that will impose work requirements is Arkansas. What a coincidence--it's the home of the bazzillionaire Walton family. If the large corporations in this country actually paid their employees a living wage, and provided decent health care and a pension, then maybe large numbers of people would be healthy and happy to go to work. But as things stand, workers often can't even get by without food stamps. We don't have to give away money. We just have to pay people a decent wage.
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Under the new rules, most Walmart employees will end up making just enough to be too much to qualify for assistance - further impoverishing the working class. They won't make enough to move elsewhere for a job either, as the only ones being opened up for most people will be the ones paying similar wages - remember, the US Supreme Court gutted employees ability to organize or litigate better working conditions or wages.
1
It is also the home of William Jefferson Clinton who ran on a promise to make the US just like Arkansas; he succeeded. Increased poverty, discrimination, failing schools, failing infrastructure, less regulated Wall Street, etc.
1
Clinton should have fought thr republican reactionary congress more. He assummed the good economy of 90's would continue. Who could have foreseen the catastrophic economic and budget policies of george w.... I sure didn't.
A wasted decade...
What do economists call it - lost opportunity cost!!!