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Universal basic income is here!

serfserf Member Posts: 9,217 ✭✭✭✭
edited June 2021 in Politics

Just wait when they can't pay rent or their mortgages this summer! Biden will be enacting emergency powers soon to stem the tide if congress doesn't act to fund free housing for all.

serf

Universal basic income is here—it just looks different.

https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/05/07/1024674/ubi-guaranteed-income-pandemic/

In the United States, proponents of guaranteed income as a matter of economic justice have included the Black Panthers and Martin Luther King Jr., while the libertarian economist Milton Friedman advocated it as a form of negative income tax. Even President Richard Nixon proposed providing cash directly to families, without conditions. His plan—produced after 1,000 economists urged it in an open letter—twice passed the House, but got rejected by the Senate.

Stimulus payments and increased unemployment benefits—that is, direct cash transfers to Americans with no conditions attached—passed with huge public support. And earlier this year, an expanded Child and Dependent Tax Credit (CTC) was introduced that provides up to $3,600 per child, paid in monthly installments, to most American families. 

This new benefit, which is set to last for a year, is available even to families that don’t make enough money to pay income tax; they had been left out of previous versions of the tax credit. And by sending monthly payments of up to $300 per child, rather than a single rebate at the end of the year, it gives families a better chance to plan and budget. It is expected to cut child poverty in half. 

Washington might not have used the language of guaranteed income, but these programs fit the definition.

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