Date: 2024-12-21 Page is: DBtxt003.php txt00026784
INTERESTING IDEA
A Guaranteed Income for Every American.
Replacing the welfare state with an annual grant is the best way to cope with a
radically changing U.S. jobs market—and to revitalize America’s civic culture
A Guaranteed Income for Every American.
Replacing the welfare state with an annual grant is the best way to cope with a
radically changing U.S. jobs market—and to revitalize America’s civic culture
A universal basic income is our only hope to deal with a coming labor
market unlike any in human history. ILLUSTRATION: TIM PEACOCK
Original article: https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-guaranteed-income-for-every-american-1464969586
Peter Burgess COMMENTARY
Peter Burgess
Replacing the welfare state with an annual grant is the best way to cope with a radically changing U.S. jobs market—and to revitalize America’s civic culture
By Charles Murray
June 3, 2016 11:59 am ET
When people learn that I want to replace the welfare state with a universal basic income, or UBI, the response I almost always get goes something like this: “But people will just use it to live off the rest of us!” “People will waste their lives!” Or, as they would have put it in a bygone age, a guaranteed income will foster idleness and vice. I see it differently. I think that a UBI is our only hope to deal with a coming labor market unlike any in human history and that it represents our best hope to revitalize American civil society.
The great free-market economist Milton Friedman originated the idea of a guaranteed income just after World War II. An experiment using a bastardized version of his “negative income tax” was tried in the 1970s, with disappointing results. But as transfer payments continued to soar while the poverty rate remained stuck at more than 10% of the population, the appeal of a guaranteed income persisted: If you want to end poverty, just give people money. As of 2016, the UBI has become a live policy option. Finland is planning a pilot project for a UBI next year, and Switzerland is voting this weekend on a referendum to install a UBI.
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