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Basic Income I-Search
My introduction to basic income best comes through an
explanation of my culture. I am a U.S. resident on the
path to become a citizen. Currently, I still hold an
Indian passport. Therefore, I believe that I should
still keep up with the news of my parent's motherland.
So, I was reading an article on The Times of India
(basically the Indian equivalent of the New York
Times) and I discovered an article talking about
Andrew Yang and his policy on basic income. This was
surprising to me for a few reasons. Why would an
Indian news outlet write a paper about Andrew Yang?
Andrew Yang certainly has his followers as proven by
the fact that he is one of the mere ten Democratic
candidates to qualify for the September 2019 debate,
but he isn't being considered as a frontrunner at the
moment. It was my second question that really peaked
my interest in this discussion. Why is basic income
becoming such an international topic? As far as I knew
basic income was a method of making sure every citizen
would receive payment of the government without any
factors holding that person from receiving his
payment. I'm not sure how is that even possible.
America has the largest economy in the world at around
20 trillion - China's in second place at around 12
trillion - but does the government have enough money
to give its pay its citizens a basic income? That's
just my concern for the United States. Clearly basic
income is a global topic, so how would other countries
manage this monetary situation. How would this basic
income affect normal earning methods. Would this mean
that through basic income, someone who's unemployed
would still make enough money to provide for himself.
Wouldn't that just make people lazier? This led me to
the overarching question that I wished to answer: How
would basic income effect the American way of life?
The first step was to properly define what basic
income is. Luckily there was an official website
called basicincome.org which would detail information
regarding basic income. In that website basic income
was defined as, "a periodic cash payment
unconditionally delivered to all on an individual
basis, without means-test or work requirement" (Basic
Income). The website lays out two types of basic
income. Full basic income is "a policy strategy to
eliminate material poverty and enable the social and
cultural participation of every individual" (Basic
Income), while a partial basic income is a lower one.
The organization concedes to the fact that they have
not attempted to define what monetary payment
qualifies as full or partial. Supporters of basic
income vouch for this idea for two reasons: social
policy and economic policy. Supporters claim the
governments of the world cannot operate the two
policies separately; basic income may be the solution
to poverty relief and full employment.
Surely with basic income being such a global topic
there must have been some place that already
implemented it. That question led me to a podcast by
NPR, a media organization established by Congress. The
podcast mainly went over the basic income experiment
in Finland. I am not an economist but to put it in the
simplest of words: the welfare system in Finland is
not favorable. Therefore a group of people in
association with the Finnish government have created
an experiment where 2000 unemployed Finnish citizens
were randomly selected (did not volunteer) and were
mailed 560 euros a month. There won't be an official
analyzation of the experiment for another few years
since the experiment is so new. However from the
responses from those were experimented on were fairly
positive. Basic income allowed them to have enough
money until they could find another job. Despite the
boatload of information in this podcast the experiment
took place in Finland, which has different policies
from the United States, and it only provided money for
those who are unemployed. The basic income plan
proposed in the United States would pay all citizens.
This podcast highlighted another angle to basic income
which has only recently began to be associated with
economic discussion: robots. People have been
increasingly clamoring at the idea, which is slowly
becoming a fact, that robots will begin to overtake
many jobs. Mark Zuckerberg framed the policy of basic
income as "a cushion to try new ideas" for the
exponential possibility that artificial intelligence
and automation will take over a multitude of
middle-class jobs.
Before tackling the artificial intelligence angle, the
next piece of research on how UBI would affect human
society was through a political filter. How do
politicians differ on this topic? Surprisingly, there
wasn't a clear divide on which side supported UBI and
which did not. Many republicans as well as prominent
democrats have supported UBI. According to the news
article by CNBC, most of the divide between American
who support basic income and those who don't has to do
with the "debate as to whether robots will actually
take people's jobs" (Clifford). After discovering two
different types of sources both discussing artificial
intelligence I decided to explore further research on
that angle. The magazine article by the New Yorker
claims that "if you job can be explained, it will be
automated" (Lepore). Therefore there will be three
class division in the near future. The elite who have
adapted to this technology, the humans who provide
services directly to the elite, and the unemployed
victims of automation, also referred to as the
"useless class" (Lepore), who will need basic income
in order to compensate. Despite the strong stance, the
article later admitted that people have "people have
consistently adjusted to advancing economies"
(Lepore).
So there are many answers for why basic income is
required to save workers, but wouldn't basic income
just discourage people from finding other jobs if they
were already given money to survive by? The question
presented me with Scott Santen's blog. Santen has
written for many well-known publications and has been
on news programs as an expert on basic income. He
approaches the question in an interesting way. His
main argument revolves around the fact that "we are
one open society" (Santen). Those who work for
themselves believe that people will stop working if
they are given basic income. However, the American
system works in such a way that you normally end up
working for someone else. As long as the amount of
basic income provided is not some outrageous amount,
people will naturally have to come to work for someone
else. Unfortunately that wasn't very clear so an
article by Adi Gaskell on Forbes gives an example of
Basic Income already present in the United States.
Alaska provides people with $2000 per year. This has
no effect on full time employment and actually was
found to raise part time employment by 17%. Like the
Finland experiment, the data has not been properly
analyzed so the meaning behind this isn't clear, but
it is an indication that basic income will not change
our way of life. So far all the information about
basic income leaned too much on its positives. In a
way that's good because it outlines that most people
believe it is a promising idea that is worth
implementing. On the other hand the negatives must
also be weighed in. An essay by Robert Rector and Mimi
Teixeira provides examples of past experiments to
highlight the downside of basic income. For them the
main issue is that basic income will increase the
scope of the government. This expansion would power
may lead to a dependence on the government for
individuals who should be able to provide for
themselves. Since basic income does not discriminate
against any individual, it blurs the line between all
sorts of people To connect with the other sources,
despite the threat of artificial intelligence adopting
basic income would decrease social aid for those who
have a legitimate problem and cannot support
themselves.
Throughout the research a common statement was rolled
around: not enough data. There has not been any
examples with significant observations and data
collections of basic income for anybody to conclude
how basic income will surely change the way of life.
An artificial intelligence revolution is an almost
guarantee, but there are many aspects through which
one can approach this reality. A similar situation
occurred during the industrial revolution which led to
"unprecedented economic and social disorder" (Lepore).
Despite this policy makers should not ignore that
technological growth in the current 21st century is
exponential, especially when compared to the growth of
the industrial revolution which has been categorized
as linear growth. There is more room for damage.
However, there are too many variables to suddenly
begin a wide scale basic income program. Economic as
social factors such as "hyperinflation and wealth
inequality" (Santens) will always be at play.
Furthermore, the topic is quite new in mainstream
politics, so not enough people even understand it
enough to even formulate an opinion on it.
If I were to pick a course of action the U.S.
government would find a way to gather enough money to
pay American citizens without causing inflation. Then
there needs to be strict guidelines upheld in order to
prevent disturbance with other government activity and
to ensure that only the necessary amount of money is
being given to the people. There will be benefits, but
there will likely be consequences as well. The
meticulousness by which basic income is handled by the
American government will tell the tale on how it will
affect us.
References:
Lepore, Jill. "Are Robots Competing for Your Job?" The
New Yorker, 4 Mar. 2019,
www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/03/04/are-robots-competing-for-your-job.
Accessed 2 Oct. 2019.
Scott Santens, www.scottsantens.com/. Accessed 2 Oct.
2019.
"About Basic Income." Basic Income,
basicincome.org/basic-income/. Accessed 2 Oct. 2019.
Clifford. CNBC,
www.cnbc.com/2019/06/27/free-cash-handouts-what-is-universal-basic-income-or-ubi.html.
Accessed 2 Oct. 2019.
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