Guaranteed in
come was a mainstream idea in the United States in the 1960s. Leading economists, including several who later won the Nobel Prize, endorsed it. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote “There is nothing except shortsightedness to prevent us from guaranteeing an annual minimum – and livable – income for every American family.” A plan to guarantee cash payments to poor families passed the House of Representatives by a two-to-one vote, but was narrowly blocked in the Senate.
Today, however, most Americans do not know this history. Nor the fact that the idea of income security started with America’s founders and helped launch mass movements in the 1890s and 1930s. Nor that one state, Alaska, provides a small equal income yearly to every resident through its Permanent Fund Dividend.
Yet the dream of a basic income is attracting renewed attention. The U.S. Basic Income Guarantee Network was founded in December 1999 to promote discussion of the basic income guarantee in the United States. USBIG held it’s eighth annual meeting in March 2009. It’s web site is www.usbig.net. Closely affiliated with USBIG are two start-up organizations, the Income Security Institute and the Campaign for Income Security, which share a web site at www.IncomeSecurityForAll.org.
Basic income is in the platform of the Green Party of the United States. “We call for a universal basic income (sometimes called a guaranteed income, negative income tax, citizen's income, or citizen dividend). This would go to every adult regardless of health, employment, or marital status.”1 The party’s political director, Brent McMillan, attended the 2009 USBIG meeting, along with Jesse Johnson, who was one of four candidates for the 2008 presidential nomination and has run for governor of the state of West Virginia.
Other advocates include Joseph V. Kennedy, who was Chief Economist of the U.S. Department of Commerce during the George W. Bush administration, and proposes a somewhat conditional though generous guaranteed income in Ending Poverty: Changing behavior, guaranteeing income, and transforming government (2008). Prominent libertarian scholar Charles Murray called for a conditional basic income in a 2006 book, In Our Hands: A Plan to End the Welfare State. Retired U.S. Treasury Department analyst Richard C. Cooke is the author of We Hold These Truths: The Hope of Monetary Reform (2008), which calls for a ‘national dividend” funded by reforming the money system. My most recent book, Peaceful, Positive Revolution: Economic Security for Every American (2008), presents basic income as a way to unify citizens and promote progress on many social, cultural, environmental, economic, and political issues.
When Americans are first told about basic income, they commonly ask if it is “socialism.” Those who are willing to think beyond the labels are often pleased to learn that it would, in fact, operate with minimal government while maximizing individual liberty. Basic income, in the view of many advocates, is a synthesis of the best aspects of capitalism and the positive benefits of socialism. It would give us a market society with an absolute economic safety net for every individual, “real freedom for all,” which is the title of a 1998 book by Philippe Van Parijs.
The greatest hope for progress toward a basic income in the United States is through efforts to slow climate change. One of the leading climate scientists in the world is James E. Hansen, who works for the U.S. government and is often cited in the media. When invited to testify at a hearing of the U.S. Congress in February 2009, he called for:
Tax & 100% Dividend – tax carbon emissions, but give all of the money back to the public on a per capita basis.
For example, let’s start with a tax large enough to affect purchasing decisions: a carbon tax that adds $1 to the price of a gallon of gas. That’s a carbon price of about $115 per ton of CO2. That tax rate yields $670B per year. We return 100% of that money to the public. Each adult legal resident gets one share, which is $3000 per year, $250 per month deposited in their bank account. Half shares for each child up to a maximum of two children per family. So a tax rate of $115 per ton yields a dividend of $9000 per year for a family with two children, $750 per month. The family with carbon footprint less than average makes money – their dividend exceeds their tax. This tax gives a strong incentive to replace inefficient infrastructure. It spurs the economy. It spurs innovation.
This path can take us to the era beyond fossil fuels, leave most remaining coal in the ground, and avoid the need to go to extreme environments to find every drop of oil. We must move beyond fossil fuels anyhow. Why not do it sooner, for the benefit of our children? Not to do so, knowing the consequences, is immoral.2
This proposal, if enacted, could be expanded and extended into a full basic income. It must be noted, however, that the Obama administration and many members of Congress are promoting an alternative approach, “cap-and-trade,” which Hansen has strongly and repeatedly denounced as ineffectual and therefore counterproductive.
The climate crisis may thus be the vehicle for social transformation. Basic income advocates in the United States stand with our friends and allies in other countries. We hope our mutual efforts can serve people everywhere, and our planet.
