Universal Basic Income

[canyonwalker]

The issue of Universal Basic Income (UBI) came up in a friend's blog recently. In responding to it I did a bit of reading on the topic— because researching actual facts rather than repeating what some radio/TV personality said in a mocking tone is how I roll— and realized I want to give it its own discussion in my blog.

UBI is a social welfare idea. It's the proposition that government provide all citizens a basic stipend for living. UBI is independent of wages or income earned through other means— meaning, unlike many welfare programs in the US today, you don't lose it if you get even a low wage job.

UBI may sound like some newfangled progressive/socialist idea, or like something that came out of the flower-power 1960s.... Both are right (sort of), and yet UBI is also older. The idea traces back to Enlightenment thinkers such as Thomas More and Thomas Paine. It came up again in the US in the 1920s/30s with proponents such as Louisiana governor and US Senator Huey Long. (Yes, America, there were "socialists" in the US long before AOC got branded one by Republicans looking to draw attention away from their neo-fascism.)

The idea of UBI gained currency again in the US 1960s Civil Rights movement, lasting through maybe the early 1980s. President Lyndon B. Johnson discussed it. Martin Luther King, Jr. discussed it. Even noted economist Milton Friedman discussed it.

Friedman and some other economists proposed a different name for UBI: the Negative Income Tax. The idea there was that the IRS would administer it, addressing the argument from critics that to implement UBI would require a huge and hugely expensive new federal bureaucracy. Everyone would get a certain amount refunded off their income tax; those who didn't earn enough to pay that much tax would effectively owe negative tax, drawing a net benefit instead of paying tax. "Negative Income Tax" is how I remember studying it in college economics classes in the 1990s.

So, the idea of UBI has been around for quite a while— and not just in the US, BTW. I've described the US history because that's what I'm most familiar with. It's a big idea... but would it work? Has it been tried anywhere? Actually, it has! Stay tuned for another blog....

Update: Read about a 2-year experiment in Stockton, California

Comments

[some_other_dave]

Arguably, the grain dole in ancient Rome was a form of UBI.

[canyonwalker]

Not quite. One of the hallmarks of UBI is that it's cash, so recipients can spend it on anything they choose. Ancient Rome's grain dole is more like the US's government cheese program.