Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff production of iHeart Radio, Hey brain Stuff,
Speaker 1: Lauren Vogebam. Here near the end of Dr Martin Luther
Speaker 1: King Jr's life, he turned his attention to fighting poverty.
Speaker 1: He wrote, and where do we go from here? Chaos
Speaker 1: or community quote, The simplest approach will prove to be
Speaker 1: the most effective. The solution to poverty is to abolish
Speaker 1: it directly by a now widely discussed measure, the guaranteed income.
Speaker 1: Over half a century later, one in eight Americans, thirty
Speaker 1: eight million people are still living below the poverty line,
Speaker 1: according to the Census Bureau. Millions more jobs are threatened
Speaker 1: by automation and artificial intelligence. Yet mL ka's notion of
Speaker 1: guaranteed income of writing a monthly check to every American adult,
Speaker 1: no questions asked, remains a radical idea in many economic
Speaker 1: and political circles. We spoke with Stacia Martin West, a
Speaker 1: professor of social work at the University of Tennessee and
Speaker 1: co principal investigator with Amy Castor Baker of the University
Speaker 1: of Pennsylvania of the Stockton Economic Power Demonstration or SEED,
Speaker 1: one of the only active programs testing guaranteed income, also
Speaker 1: known as universal basic income on real Americans under the
Speaker 1: SEED program, and twenty five residents of Stockton, California were
Speaker 1: given a guaranteed income of five hundred dollars a month
Speaker 1: for eighteen months to see how this cash payment affected
Speaker 1: their lives. Researchers hoped to release SEEDS first round of
Speaker 1: findings in March. As Martin West explains, universal basic income
Speaker 1: holds tremendous promise for alleviating not only the financial burden
Speaker 1: of poverty, but also the damaging ripple effects of economic
Speaker 1: and security on health and family. Yet she admits that
Speaker 1: the very idea of a federal program paying poor Americans
Speaker 1: hundreds or even thousands of dollars a month faces tremendous
Speaker 1: political opposition, not only for its cost, but because of
Speaker 1: the pervasive, if unproven belief that free government handouts discourage
Speaker 1: people from working and foster dependence on the state if
Speaker 1: you're poor. In the United States, there already exists a
Speaker 1: safety net of both state and federal programs designed to
Speaker 1: help struggling individuals and families, but all of those programs
Speaker 1: are means tested, which means that they come with certain
Speaker 1: strings attached. To receive snap food benefits or housing assistance.
Speaker 1: For example, you need to prove that your income is
Speaker 1: below a certain threshold. To collect unemployment benefits, you need
Speaker 1: to show that you're actively looking for work. To collect
Speaker 1: Social Security retirement benefits, you have to have worked for
Speaker 1: a minimum number of years. And that's why universal basic
Speaker 1: income is such a radical departure from the existing welfare programs.
Speaker 1: There's no means testing or proof required to qualify. Under
Speaker 1: a UNI first basic income plan, every single American adult
Speaker 1: would receive a check maybe five hundred bucks, maybe a thousand,
Speaker 1: every month with absolutely no strings attached. Proponents of the
Speaker 1: idea sometimes think the money should be totally unconditional, leaving
Speaker 1: it up to the individual or family to decide how
Speaker 1: best to use it. In some countries, universal basic income
Speaker 1: grants are sometimes linked to recipients getting medical checkups or
Speaker 1: sending their kids to school. But if it's unconditional, recipients
Speaker 1: of universal basic income could use the extra money to
Speaker 1: pay for groceries, cover rent or mortgage, or buy clothes
Speaker 1: for the kids. They could also choose to enroll in
Speaker 1: an online class or job skills program, take time off
Speaker 1: to raise a baby or care for a sick parent,
Speaker 1: or invested in starting up a new business. Part of
Speaker 1: the idea that's right there in the name is basic income.
Speaker 1: Even at a thousand dollars a month or more, universal
Speaker 1: basic income would not fully replace earnings from a job,
Speaker 1: but it would provide a much needed cushion for the underpaid,
Speaker 1: overstressed workers who have never had the luxury of financial security.
Speaker 1: Martin West said, universal basic income is basic, and that
Speaker 1: it meets your basic needs, and it's guaranteed income, and
Speaker 1: that you know that it's coming. Andrew Yang popularized the
Speaker 1: notion of universal basic income to some extent during his
Speaker 1: presidential run. Yang pitched his thousand dollar a month freedom
Speaker 1: dividend as a way of protecting American workers from the
Speaker 1: impending robot takeover of millions of jobs over the next decade.
Speaker 1: While Martin West understands the concerns about automation and AI
Speaker 1: in the future, she feels there are plenty of other
Speaker 1: urgent reasons to implement a universal basic income plan today.
Speaker 1: She gave the example of the millions of Americans who
Speaker 1: work physically taxing gig jobs with unpredictable pay and hours
Speaker 1: and no benefits. She said, there are people dying from
Speaker 1: capitalism now. The inability to predict what your next paycheck
Speaker 1: is going to be from week to week or month
Speaker 1: to month has pretty devastating impacts on a person's stress
Speaker 1: levels and manifests, and poor health outcomes like cardiovascular health decline,
Speaker 1: increased rates of diabetes, and more. Stockton resident Thomas Vargas
Speaker 1: was one of those chosen to receive a five hundred
Speaker 1: dollar check every month through the Seed program. His shifts
Speaker 1: at a warehouse job were unpredictable, so Vargas had to
Speaker 1: work odd jobs late into the night to support a
Speaker 1: family he hardly had a chance to see. With the
Speaker 1: extra five hundred dollars, he was able to skip a
Speaker 1: shift at the warehouse and interview for a new job
Speaker 1: with better pay and fixed hours, freeing him to spend
Speaker 1: more time with his family. Proponents argue that this is
Speaker 1: one of the secondary effects of guaranteed income. A cushion
Speaker 1: of five hundred or a thousand dollars makes workers feel
Speaker 1: less desperate to take any job that comes along, even
Speaker 1: if the pay is bad and the working conditions are lousy.
Speaker 1: Martin West explained, nobody cares more about labor supply than
Speaker 1: these big companies that tend to not treat their employees
Speaker 1: very well. If you have employees saying I can do
Speaker 1: better than this, and now I have this bargaining power,
Speaker 1: then you may see improved working conditions by far. One
Speaker 1: of the biggest benefits of universal basic income is that
Speaker 1: it would provide a steady paycheck to people currently doing
Speaker 1: critical work for free, namely stay at home parents and
Speaker 1: other unpaid caregivers, who are far more likely to be women.
Speaker 1: The biggest criticism of universal basic income is how much
Speaker 1: it would cost. Under Yang's Freedom Dividend plan, each of
Speaker 1: America's two d and thirty six million adults would receive
Speaker 1: twelve thousand dollars a year, for a total of two
Speaker 1: point eight twillion dollars, which is more than half of
Speaker 1: the federal budget. Yang's plan allows older Americans the option
Speaker 1: of keeping their current Social Security and Medicare benefits, while
Speaker 1: other universal basic income proposals vow to replay the entire
Speaker 1: welfare state with one guaranteed monthly check. Even though some
Speaker 1: of the money could be offset by doing away with
Speaker 1: other entitlement programs, the federal government would have to raise
Speaker 1: taxes substantially to pay for universal basic income program. Some
Speaker 1: of those taxes would target the wealthiest one percent and
Speaker 1: the very technology companies that are making human workers obsolete,
Speaker 1: but regular Americans would get hit too. For example, Yang
Speaker 1: and others propose a value added tax of ten on
Speaker 1: all manufactured goods. Yang also thinks that his freedom dividend
Speaker 1: would produce more economic growth, therefore increasing the tax base,
Speaker 1: but of course we have no way of knowing whether
Speaker 1: that's how it would actually shake out. The supporters of
Speaker 1: universal basic income agree that a nationwide guaranteed income program
Speaker 1: would be enormously expensive, but they disagree that it's not
Speaker 1: worth the investment. Martin West said, like all the decisions
Speaker 1: this country makes, it really comes down to what is
Speaker 1: our priority. If our priority is to let people waste
Speaker 1: away in poverty, have ill health, have their work not
Speaker 1: be valued, then we won't prioritize a guaranteed income as
Speaker 1: part of our national budget. But if we do, in
Speaker 1: fact honor the social contract that we have in the
Speaker 1: United States, that means we should likely look at something
Speaker 1: like a universal basic income, which leads to the second
Speaker 1: and arguably more difficult obstacle to creating a national universal
Speaker 1: basic income program. The belief deeply held by many Americans
Speaker 1: that a guaranteed income is another form of government handout
Speaker 1: that encourages people not to work. There have only been
Speaker 1: a few real world studies so far on universal basic income.
Speaker 1: For instance, people involved in a trial in Finland reported
Speaker 1: less stress and the greater feelings of well being compared
Speaker 1: to people who didn't receive the extra cash, but they
Speaker 1: were not more likely to seek out employment, even though
Speaker 1: they wouldn't lose the benefit if they did. The truth
Speaker 1: is that we won't know if universal basic income plans
Speaker 1: work until there's more data from experiments like Seed and
Speaker 1: a half dozen more pilot programs being launched by a
Speaker 1: group called Mayors for a Guaranteed Income. We'll have to
Speaker 1: see how they turn out. Today's episode was written by
Speaker 1: Dave Ruse and produced by Tyler Clang. For more on
Speaker 1: this amounts of other topics, visit how Stuff work dot com.
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