Universal basic income: US residents will be paid hundreds of dollars just like that

Several U.S. cities are about to launch universal base income projects. Despite the fact that experiments in paying fixed benefits to citizens failed in other countries, they are still going to test this concept in America, the channel’s author writes. NEWS.ru on Yandex.Zen.

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And one of the possible Democratic presidential candidates Andrew Young in his election program promised to pay all Americans $ 1000 per month, regardless of their financial situation. Although he eventually pulled out of the race, his proposal sparked widespread public debate.

The promise to introduce universal basic income is perhaps the only thing that Andrew Young’s campaign remembered. The implementation of this initiative, according to economists, would require the US budget, already record-breaking, a few trillion dollars. Young offered to pay for the fulfillment of his election promise by combining existing social programs and raising the value added tax by 10%. That is, in the end, running a hand into the pockets of the Americans themselves.

“Over the next 12 years, one in three American workers will be at risk of losing their jobs due to emerging technologies,” said Andrew Young. “And unlike previous waves of automation, this time new jobs will not appear in large numbers so quickly to offset the losses. To avoid an unprecedented crisis, we will find a new solution."

On the subject: A city in California just pays residents $ 500 per month: how does this affect their lives?

The fear that robots will rob Americans of their work has been in the air for a long time. Therefore, at least at the time to study the concept of universal basic income in practice, at different times the head of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg and the creator of Tesla Ilon Musk spoke out. Several cities are already testing similar programs or are going to do it. Among them are Milwaukee, Newark and Stockton.

The first two municipalities plan to launch an experiment this year. And the 18-month program in Stockton is already half completed: 125 specially selected low-income residents receive $ 500 a month. According to preliminary results, recipients of benefits spent them on food, gasoline and utility bills. Thus, the suspicions that state assistance will be squandered on elements of luxury have not been confirmed.

“This idea is new, so people don’t take it seriously,” Newark Mayor Ras Baraka was quoted as saying by Politico. “So it’s important for us to launch pilot projects and show people that this is serious.”

In fact, the idea is not so new. In particular, since the 1980s, every resident of Alaska has been paid $ 1000–2000 per year, depending on oil prices. This is a fraction of the state’s oil income, but it’s hard to call it universal base income: it’s nice to receive about $ 100 a month, of course, but this amount does not make a significant contribution to the family budget.

The Italian city of Livorno, the Dutch Utrecht, the Canadian province of Ontario, several departments of France, as well as the governments of Scotland and Finland have expressed interest in the experiment at different times. The largest pilot project was launched by the Finnish authorities. From January 2017 to December 2018, 2000 unemployed citizens of the country received € 560 per month. The stated goal of the experiment was to combat unemployment.

The fact is that many unemployed in Europe are not too actively looking for a job place, fearing to lose their benefits. According to the idea of ​​the authors of the experiment, the Finns, knowing that work will not deprive them of state subsidies, will begin to work more actively. In fact, it turned out that universal basic income did not affect the level of employment. Although the project participants announced that they began to feel happier.

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The main obstacle to introducing universal basic income is financing. Until now, such experiments were carried out on a small scale, so they did not put a heavy burden on the budget of the country or municipalities. Projects in the United States are almost entirely funded by personal donations and funds from various organizations. Thus, $ 3 million to launch the experiment in Stockton was received from the Economic Security Project Fund and individuals.

Supporters of universal basic income are on the left and right flanks of American politics. But if Democrats want it to be paid to the poorest segments of the population in addition to the benefits they already receive, then Republicans are in favor of replacing all social payments with a single grant. In any case, the composition of the Democratic primaries shows that the ideas of socialism in America do not scare anyone else. Andrew Young was out of the game, but socialist Bernie Sanders, who offered free health care and higher education for everyone, on the contrary, took the lead in polls.

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