I’ve come across the idea of a “Universal Basic Income” in the last few months, and the idea is interesting enough that I thought I’d devote some column space to it this week.
The idea is fairly simple to explain: under most schemes, every adult citizen would receive an income sufficient to provide a basic, no-frills life for him- or herself. Wikipedia has a good basic definition:
“An unconditional basic income (also called basic income, basic income guarantee, universal basic income, universal demogrant, or citizen’s income) is a form of social security system in which all citizens or residents of a country regularly receive an unconditional sum of money, either from a government or some other public institution, in addition to any income received from elsewhere.
“An unconditional income transfer of less than the poverty line is sometimes referred to as a “partial basic income.”
“Basic income systems that are financed by the profits of publicly owned enterprises (often called social dividend or citizen’s dividend) are major components in many proposed models of market socialism. Basic income schemes have also been promoted within the context of capitalist systems, where they would be financed through various forms of taxation and reduction or removal of other state benefits.”
One of the more intriguing aspects of the idea is the breadth of ideologies supporting it; both self-proclaimed democratic socialist Bernie Sanders and the Libertarian Cato Institute have expressed interest in the idea.
In researching this column, I discovered that the idea is not new. As far back as the ‘90s – the 1790s, that is – founding father Thomas Paine was taken with the idea:
“There shall be paid to every person, when arrived at the age of twenty-one years, the sum… as a compensation in part, for the loss of his or her natural inheritance, by the introduction of the system of landed property…to every person, rich or poor… because it is in lieu of the natural inheritance, which, as a right, belongs to every man, over and above the property he may have created, or inherited from those who did.
“Guaranteed income would not only establish freedom as a reality rather than a slogan, it would also establish a principle deeply rooted in Western religious and humanist tradition: man has the right to live, regardless!”
While it would be easy to dismiss all this as pie in the sky utopianism, it has actually gained traction in Silicon Valley. An influential start-up incubator and venture capital firm called Y Combinator announced a pilot program in Oakland in late May. Oakland, the firm says, is “a city of great social and economic diversity, and it has both concentrated wealth and considerable inequality.”
Y Combinator will give each of 100 families between $1,000 and $2,000 a month, for between six months to a year, with no strings about where or how it is to be spent.
Jathan Sadowski, writing in the left-leaning U.K. newspaper The Guardian, had a blistering critique of Universal Basic Income (UBI), particularly for those that envision it as a replacement for a government-administered comprehensive social safety net:
“(T)he version of UBI backed by Silicon Valley – and others who lean libertarian and conservative – is a regressive redistribution. With UBI gaining popularity it is not hard to find people making “the case for free money,” as the New Yorker recently put it. Of course, the money is not free. It has to come from somewhere, but where? For many supporters it only makes sense that the budget for UBI would come from cannibalizing existing welfare. UBI would not exist as an add-on benefit. The logic is to shut down “public housing, food assistance, Medicaid, and the rest, and replace them with a single check”, writes Nathan Schneider in Vice. The welfare system can finally be eliminated and the state bureaucracy consolidated into an efficient, simple solution for poverty.
“No wonder that technocrats and Tea Partiers can come together in support of UBI.
“Now here is the regressive part: since UBI is a lump sum for everybody, and if it is funded from the remains of welfare, then the poor would be footing the bill for the UBI paycheck that middle and upper class people receive. The universal quality means it is a salve applied to everybody, not just those burned by economic inequality. “If it’s truly universal, it could help destigmatize government assistance,” argues James Surowiecki. True enough, the simplicity of this “set it and forget it” welfare could make it an easier political sell.
“However, it is cruel to call for regressive measures like dismantling welfare to establish UBI and then demand a piece for yourself – or else stigmatize the assistance. UBI can help give people more stability in their life, the workplace and society. But it should work in tandem with targeted aid motivated by equity over blind equality. The hungry should get a bigger slice of the pie.”
I am fairly agnostic on this at the moment. I am still thinking this through, so this is tentative and provisional rather than set in stone, but my own opinion is that UBI could replace (and be funded by the savings from) the parts of the welfare system that already function as income supports and already take the form of cash payments, but those benefits could be expanded to every adult in the United States, with the additional funding coming from additional taxes, particularly on the wealthy.
I think there would be a real risk that substantial numbers of working-age adults would simply drop out of the workforce, but there would also be power given to workers for whom unemployment would no longer be marked by grinding misery, and so could demand more enticements to be drawn back into the workforce.
I’ll probably write more about this as I give it further thought, but that’s it for now.

Matt Talbot is a writer and poet, as well as an old Benicia hand.

Sharing is caring!