As the horses force the sparrows to wait for the oats to pass through, the thought comes that there must be a better system. With 44 percent of homeless people having jobs and 43 million people living in poverty, we’ve got no time left for bootstrapping theories. Every opinion article and research paper ends up in the same place: The poor stay poor, and the rich stay rich across generations. However, it turns out there is an answer to capitalist woe in basic income — the radical idea of free money.
Basic income privileges cash disbursements are given to all citizens to be used on what they deem fit as the route to fight poverty. And while I am hesitant to embrace any policy supported by Milton Friedman, the libertarian model and Pinochet apologist, I must admit it makes sense from a libertarian and liberal point of view. After all, these would be the same supporters of helicopter money. The idea remains the same down to the cash component, with the difference being that basic income is methodical and even.
Now, one might be tempted to ask what the difference is between this and our welfare system. Since the 90s, welfare has been heavily regulated. It’s now released only if you can prove you’re looking for work, and most legal immigrants aren’t allowed to be involved. It also privileges families. And the shrinking Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, disallows hot food or household items. The 90s reform, though, was largely successful: There was an increase of affected family income by 30 percent. Also, these same reforms that moved people into work increased deep poverty by 150 percent.
There are two studies which need to be invoked in any discussion on the topic. The first is a study of sugar cane farmers who lived in fluctuating wealth because of the harvest. What it found was that before harvest, when the farmers were effectively poor, they had, on average, 14 less IQ points than after. This leads to the conclusion that poverty increases stress, which in turn decreases ability and focus.
The second study is that of Dauphin in the 70s. In rural Canada, a study was done in basic income, or Mincome, as they deemed it. And while there were no final results as the study was shut down by a conservative government, it resulted in poverty being effectively, entirely eliminated. The study has been replicated in several towns to varying, but constant, success.
Now, there is the idea that this would decrease incentive to work, and while during Mincome there was a decrease in hours worked, the groups these statistics reflect were mothers and teens who worked to support their family. In Omitara, a settlement in the Steinhausen electoral constituency in the Omaheke Region of Namibia, it actually increased economic involvement because of the introduction of small business.
It’s funny. When I was little, I thought the solution would be to print more money. And while it’s more nuanced than that, the idea turned out to be right. We do need to print money. Or rather, we need to redistribute what we already have from taxation. What’s needed, though, is strong support for the ideal. If we can’t achieve it, at least we could take welfare reforms in the right direction. This is important because Benjamin Radcliffe has demonstrated that the more welfare a society produces the more life satisfaction there is within it for all classes. That, and one in 30 children experience homelessness.
Levi Cooper is a UF english senior. His column appears on Wednesdays.
