Basic income updates ideas from Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, Martin Luther King Jr., and several Nobel laureate economists. Alaska residents already have a small basic income, since 1982, and they love it. Pilot projects are underway in Canada, Finland, Holland, and other countries. Current supporters include Silicon Valley billionaires and politicians from the left and the right. The plan is fairly simple: Set an amount, say $500, $750, or $1,000, and provide it every month to every adult citizen. Cut welfare, corporate welfare, and other programs that become superfluous. Adjust the amount occasionally to prevent or relieve recessions, and to promote smart economic growth. Let states and cities supplement it or enact their own versions. Every American will have an income, enough for food and shelter at least, a sturdy floor to replace the tattered safety net. Everyone will be free to earn, spend, save, and invest as we choose -- free to earn as much as we can. Basic income will be monthly reminders that we are citizens, and equal; that we live in one country, united; and that we have reasons to work together, We the People. We'll soon achieve meaningful progress on health care, tax reform, global warming, immigration, national security, and other issues. Would you like a basic income, perhaps $1,000 a month tax-free, guaranteed, for the rest of your life? Join the campaign. You can help make history.
Basic income updates ideas from Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, Martin Luther King Jr., and several Nobel laureate economists. Alaska residents already have a small basic income, since 1982, and they love it. Pilot projects are underway in Canada, Finland, Holland, and other countries. Current supporters include Silicon Valley billionaires and politicians from the left and the right. The plan is fairly simple: Set an amount, say $500, $750, or $1,000, and provide it every month to every adult citizen. Cut welfare, corporate welfare, and other programs that become superfluous. Adjust the amount occasionally to prevent or relieve recessions, and to promote smart economic growth. Let states and cities supplement it or enact their own versions. Every American will have an income, enough for food and shelter at least, a sturdy floor to replace the tattered safety net. Everyone will be free to earn, spend, save, and invest as we choose -- free to earn as much as we can. Basic income will be monthly reminders that we are citizens, and equal; that we live in one country, united; and that we have reasons to work together, We the People. We'll soon achieve meaningful progress on health care, tax reform, global warming, immigration, national security, and other issues. Would you like a basic income, perhaps $1,000 a month tax-free, guaranteed, for the rest of your life? Join the campaign. You can help make history.
Steven Shafarman is a Life Member of the Basic Income Earth Network, BIEN; on the coordinating committee of the U.S. Basic Income Guarantee Network, USBIG; and a co-founder of Basic Income Action. He is the author of four prior books about basic income.
Steven is also the creator of FlexAware fitness-healing-exercise, and the author of Awareness Heals: The Feldenkrais Method for Dynamic Health. He lives in Washington, DC.
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