Andy Stern, former head of the SEIU, makes the case for a universal payment to end poverty—and offers a strategy for how we get there.
The idea of a universal basic income (UBI) potentially solves a lot of problems at once. By sending a regular payment to all citizens, we could end abject poverty, deal with technological unemployment, reduce the overall cost of government, give more autonomy to people, and gain support from across the ideological divide as we do it (in theory, anyway). In its long history, some form of UBI has been supported by everyone from Martin Luther King to the libertarian economist Milton Friedman, indicating its unusual appeal.
