The Need for a Basic Income in the United States

By Lisa Clemons

Imagine…

…you were provided funds enough to cover your most basic needs, like shelter, food, clothing, and other necessities – say, $1,000 or $1,500 per month. You’d only need to be a citizen to qualify, so any income earned from working would only be an addition and not a cause for reducing or ending that monthly income. What I’ve just described is called a Basic Income and we need to make it a reality as we move toward the future.

Why we need a Basic Income

Under our current system, most people are working just to earn wages to meet their basic needs. Some of us may be in a position where we have the luxury of exploring our passions and tapping into our potential, where we can feel engaged and challenged at work – but not very many of us. We already recognize the financial inequalities, and we address them through various government programs and many of us (including myself) have been fighting for an increase in the minimum wage. But these solutions neither address the fact that most of us are stuck working only to survive nor the very real disappearance of available jobs with which to earn that mere survival.

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The internet, smart phones – technologies that were a matter of fiction 20-30 years ago are now a reality and have become an integral part of our lives. These advancements often save us time and make our lives easier. But they come at a cost: Jobs. This is not a new story. History is littered with examples of machines cutting down the numbers of workers needed.  Automation has already claimed a chunk of the job market, which makes it that much harder for people to find work at all, let alone enough to support themselves. I see it when I walk into the grocery store and see one employee manning a central computer that controls multiple self-checkout stations, all of which used to need a cashier not even a decade ago. We already know from history that trying to fight the technology is a losing battle. We cannot stop these advancements. We can only adapt to them.

But how are we supposed to fund it?

HR 1027, the Healthy Climate and Family Security Act introduced just last year, is a “cap and dividend” bill that both addresses climate concerns (another pressing issue impacting our future) and generates revenue that could partially fund a Basic Income by “[capping] fossil fuels, [requiring] energy companies to purchase pollution permits at auction and [returning] all the auction revenue in equal amounts to every U.S. resident with a valid Social Security number.” Basic Income Action, a non-profit organization working to make the Basic Income a reality, has a few ideas on where funding could come from following revenue from HR 1027:

  • Because food, shelter, and other needs would be taken care of by Basic Income, we could cut welfare, food stamps, housing assistance, and such.
  • Eliminate corporate welfare and crony capitalism, the hundreds of billions of dollars government gives big corporations.
  • Reform the tax code, making it fairer and simpler by abolishing tax breaks, loopholes, and deductions, most of which go to the rich and super rich.
  • Other options include a financial transactions tax on Wall Street speculation, reducing the defense budget, land rent fees, increasing the money supply, streamlining government operations, and the list goes on.

What you can do: