Peter Yang Has The Right Idea

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Hello Everyone:

It is the start of a brand new week and, judging by the warm weather, summer has finally arrived.  Yours Truly hopes that the American readers had nice, socially distant Fourth of July holiday.

One of the many novel ideas to come out of the primary elections is the universal basic income or "Freedom Dividend" if you are tech entrepreneur and former nominee candidate Andrew Yang.  What is a universal basic income?  A universal basic income is

...a government-guaranteed payment that each citizen receives.  It is also called  citizen's income, guaranteed minimum income, or income" (thebalance.com; June 10, 2020; date accessed July 6, 2020)

The purpose of a UBI is "to provide enough to cover the the basic cost of living and provide financial security and provide financial security.  The concept is also seen as  way to offset job losses cause technology" (Ibid).

Universal Basic Income stepping stones
newyorker.com

The concept of a UBI originates some time in the second half of the twentieth century.  Initially, the idea of the government giving every citizen a sum of money however frequent (i.e. monthly) was considered a utopian fantasy.  In the United States, variations of the UBI were very much kept in the public discourse by Civil Rights icon the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. and economist Milton Friedman (basicincome.stanford.edu; July 6, 2020).  Countries such as Finland, Kenya, Namibia, India, and Canada conducted experiments in distributing UBIs (Ibid).  Other than isolated trial runs, there was not a lot of discussion on the subject.  This changed in 2016.

In 2016, former Secretary of Labor Robert . Reich, Service Employee International Union president Andrew Stern, and futurist Martin Ford wrote about the Universal Basic Income.  "Notably, the technology incubator Y Combinator started testing UBI in Oakland, California" (Ibid).  The same year, the Economic Security Project was launched, dedicate millions of dollars to research and advocacy of the UBI.  As recently as March 2019, the Mayor of Stockton, California launched a pilot UBI program (Ibid).  In the wake of the COVID pandemic and the racial justice protests, other cities have committed to exploring the idea that is grounded in the Civil Rights movement.

Stockton, California Mayor Michael Tubbs
stocktongov.com

Martin Luther King Jr.'s 1967 book Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?, Rev. King laid out a vision vision of a country where poverty was completely abolished, not incrementally but in one fell swoop.  Rev. King argued "Guaranteeing jobs wouldn't be enough,... The government would have to guarantee an annual income" (bloomberg.com; July 2, 2020; date accessed July 6, 2020).

Over 50 years later, the concept of a UBI has become closely connected to "job-killing robots as civil rights" (Ibid).  Mayor Tubbs told Bloomberg "...the need to explore regular, unconditional cash payments as a means of achieving racial and economic justice is more urgent than ever,..." (Ibid).  Mayor Tubbs is leading one of the first major U.S. basic experiments in his hometown of Stockton.  Since February 2019, The Mayor has been working with researchers to distribute $500 a month to 125 residents.  Mayor Tubbs said,

It's important for me that any discussion of a basic income is grounded in those roots, and understand that it's not a new conversation,... With the twin pandemics of racism and Covid-19, it's time for us to extend the social safety net (bloomberg.com; July 2, 2020).

Last week, Mayor Tubbs announced the formation of the Mayors for a Guaranteed Income Coalition, a group of civic officials who are committed to exploring a way to launch  direct income payment projects in their cities, and advocating for state and federal remedies (Ibid).

The majority of the mayors are African-American and are from cities such as Los Angeles and Compton, California; Atlanta, Georgia; Newark, New Jersey; St. Paul, Minnesota; and Jackson, Mississippi.  In total, there 12 cities, including, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and more are expected to join the coalition.  Mayor Tubbs added,

We don't necessarily agree on everything, but we do agree that our constitutes deserve an income,... (Ibid)

Andrew Yang
en.wikipedia.org

 The details of the initiative are still scarce regarding what cities will launch UBI pilot programs and when.  However, coalition approval "has another, broader, goal: raising consciousness about the transformative power of no-strings-attached cash" (Ibid).  Onetime Democratic candidate Andrew Yang  gave the UBI a national platform.  Now as the United States confronts pandemic and protests, Mayor Michael Tubbs has found the ideal moment to drive home his vision.  The idea has also found traction in the halls of Congress.

"Federal aid in the form of $1,200 checks and extra unemployment assistance has gained bipartisan support" (Ibid).  Although the one-off payments have be slow and sporadic, "research show the aid has tangibly helped keep families out of poverty" (bloomberg.com; July 2, 2020).  This past Tuesday, the U.S. Conference of Mayors unanimously voted in favor of a resolution affirming the need for increased pilot programs and greater federal advocacy around guaranteed income (Ibid).  Amy Castro Baker, an assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania and co-principal investigator of Stockton's UBI program, said,

Two years ago when we started this project, we were a bit on our own with Mayor Tubbs and the [Stockton Economic Empowerment Demonstration] team,... Fast forward in time and we're having a real conversation at the federal level and across multiple cities about the power a cash.  That to me shows that there is political will and that the public is ready for it (Ibid)

vox.com

Real fact: the COVID-19 virus kills a disproportionately higher number of African Americans and LatinX people, who are overrepresented in essential fields like agriculture and care work and are entering a recession burdened with historic income disparities (bloomberg.com; July 2, 2020).  Compare it to the median white family holding nearly ten times as much net worth as the median African American family.  Further female African American and Latinx consistently make less on the dollar than their white male co-workers (Ibid)

Although some supporters of the UBI argue that "aide should be truly universal, regardless of need" (Ibid), the majority of the pilot programs in the United States take these inequities into account.  Stockton's program focused on disbursing funds to the city's poorest census tracts and using philanthropic money, not taxpayer dollars.

classy.org

Jackson, Mississippi Mayor Choke Antar Lumumba supports the Magnolia Mother's Trust, a guaranteed income initiative aimed at extremely low-income African American mothers begun in 2018 by the local non-profit group Springboard to Opportunities.  In 2018, a group of 20 women were give $1,000 a month for 12 months; they used to pay off a collective $10,000 in debt (Ibid).  All of the women reported feeling about their future.  This past March the program was expanded to a group of 100 mothers.

Other mayors participating in Mayors for a Guaranteed Income Coalition have expressed interest in starting their guaranteed income project, but have only taken limited steps: "Last year, Newark, New Jersey Mayor Ras Baraka launched a task force on guaranteed income, concluding that Americans--and Newark residents--needed 'more cash in their hands'" (bloomberg.com; July 2, 2020).  The median income for Newark is less than $40,000 a year and almost 20-percent of poor families, who would be eligible for federal assistance for food or the Earned Income Tax Credit fall through the gap (Ibid).  In pursuing a UBI pilot program, Mayor Baraka wrote in a report, introducing the task force's findings,

...we will make a direct impact on hundreds of lives immediately, and join with out sister cities from around the country in advocating for a federal guaranteed income policy  (bloomberg.com; July 2, 2020).

Chicago and Atlanta have launched their own UBI task force.

Breakdown of SEED recipients
recordnet.com

Although Stockton's program was supposed to end this summer, the pandemic introduced a new set of stressors and a last minute donation from a private philanthropist, SEED was extended, "allowing recipients to keep getting their monthly disbursements until January 2021" (bloomberg.com; July 2, 2020).  Mayor Tubbs acknowledges the fact that the need will not dissipate next winter, be that as it may, SEED was originally conceived "as a short-term support, and a long term learning experience" (Ibid).  The Mayor's coalition gives him an opportunity to build on Stockton's conclusions.  Mayor Michael Tubbs told Bloomberg,

I always knew that once we ended the initial trial for Stockton, we'd want to use what we'd done to inform other cities (Ibid)

He added that in recent months, his staff has been inundated with questions about how to launch similar UBI programs.  Fortunately, Mayors for a Guaranteed Income Coalition is a good resource sharing platform.

Paternalistic naysayers of the programs believe that recipients will not make good decisions with the money, or erroneously think they will stop working--even promulgated the racist myth of the "welfare queen."  Thus far, the people of Stockton have proven the detractors wrong, spending most of their money on basic necessities: "Food typically made up around 30% to 40% of the tracked spending each month in the earlier phases of the pilot, and when the pandemic started in March, that proportion jumped to nearly half" (bloomberg.com; July 2, 2020).  Still other naysayers warn that universal basic income programs are support by tech leaders like Elon Musk as a pretext to do away with low-wage jobs and replace them with automation, and the expense of these policies would require cutting other social safety-net programs, at a potential net loss to poor people.

Mayors for a Guaranteed Income Coalition's website attempts to dispel these arguments: "Guaranteed income is a supplement to the safety net, rather than a replacement for other social programs,..." (bloomberg.com; July 2, 2020).  The Coalition argues that "It's necessary,... given the Federal Reserve Board's findings that an estimated 40% of Americans don't have enough of a cushion to cover a $400 emergency... it has to be flexible, they argue, because every family will choose to spend their money differently, and should be given the respect to make that choice" (Ibid).

Mayor Ras Baraka, wrote in his report,

A guaranteed income implicitly recognized that poor and working-class families, like all families, should be able to lead self-directed,... In doing so, it provides an essential recalibration of our societal values: We all deserve dignity, and we all deserve self-determination.  This is where our nation should be heading" (Ibid).