The Arguments Against UBI

You've seen the headlines. This crazy Asian entrepreneur wants to run for President so he can give everyone in the US $1000 per month. It's crazy, right? Nothing is free. It can't work. It's just a headline. 

But actually, the concept of UBI is older than our great nation. And it's not just a crazy theory, it actually has some teeth and solid evidence behind it. Below are some of the biggest arguments I've heard against UBI, and what the evidence and experts actually say about those arguments. My intention here is not to necessarily convince you that UBI is the right solution, because there's actually a lot more content out there to do that. My intention is to show that it's not just some crazy idea that will never work in reality, to prompt further questions and challenges, and to ultimately learn together if this is a feasible idea to implement in the US. 

Landlords will just increase rent by $1000 per month / UBI will cause inflation and the number will just have to keep increasing
Actually, we're in a deflationary period in terms of consumer goods. Technology has delivered the goods on improving our lives and making things more affordable. Remember, there was a time when only the richest households could afford a refrigerator or a car. Those things are much more commonplace now, taken for granted by most households. Clothes are cheaper, you can buy fruits and vegetables from all over the world instead of just what is in season in your local area, and the list goes on. The reason these things have become more affordable is competition. Housing is also subject to competition; if one apartment complex, or let's say even most apartment complexes in a given area, decide to increase the rent because their renters now have $1000 more in their pockets, the prices will go up initially. But all it takes is one complex to not price gouge, or even undercut the price gouging by just enough, and that introduces competition. Then the other complexes would eventually need to lower prices until they are once again at a place where they are competitive. With an additional $12000 per year, renters can choose to live further away if that makes sense to them, perhaps spending a little more on their commute but saving substantially more on their rent. Or, they could choose to just get up and move to a more affordable place and get a different job altogether. Yang calls his UBI the "Freedom Dividend" because it gives people the freedom of choice. People will be "less stuck" and more free to make the decisions that want to make about their lives. Ultimately, UBI is capitalism where the bottom isn't zero. So no, there is no evidence or logical argument that supports a long term rise in rent increases that would negate the UBI.

The two bills in our lives that are most shielded from competition are college education and healthcare. These are also the two places where we see inflationary growth in prices. These are big hairy issues, so I'm only going to scrape the surface here and go in a couple different directions.

First of all, college is overprescribed in this country. We have been telling the last few generations that they have to go to college to be successful. That may have been good advice when college was more affordable and college graduates were more rare, but now students are racking up 2.5 times more debt in student loans, and graduating with fewer job prospects. This idea that everyone can and should go to college is toxic, and creates a stigma around the good work done by mechanics and technicians and other high-skilled labor fields. The irony is that some of the highest-paid college graduate jobs are some of those being targeted first for automation: legal work, examining x-rays, even surgical operations are seeing technology excel beyond human capability. Even journalism (yikes!!) is being automated. Hey, as a college grad, I will say that college was great - it was fun, I learned a lot, I expanded my mind and horizons, had valuable experiences - but I also saw a lot of my peers fall by the wayside; it was tough and it's not for everyone. Bernie Sanders came up with this free college scheme, and that sounds great if you believe that college is the way to a better life. Unfortunately, it's just not the right path for 100% of our people, so sure, maybe a free a college education would benefit some really smart but underfunded young people, but all in all, it addresses only a portion of our society. UBI addresses 100% of adults in the US, period. Now, there's nothing stopping a motivated student to spend their $12000 on college courses, so the trick is getting college to be affordable enough that the UBI can pay for most or all of it, if that's how a person chooses to spend it. College affordability, then, needs to be addressed, and I'll leave it at that, except to say that the UBI proponent Andrew Yang has a really well-thought-out plan for this on his website here: https://www.yang2020.com/policies/controlling-cost-higher-education/

Healthcare is another whole bag of worms. I've been blessed with healthcare tied to my job for my entire adulthood, and was on my father's work's healthcare before that, so I've only seen that side of things. But I can tell you, it is infuriating at times. A recent example comes to mind: I have exercise-induced asthma, and so from time to time I take a hit off my rescue inhaler. I recently realized my inhaler was out of pumps, so I called my Teledoc, which is a neat service where you talk to a doctor on the phone, no travel needed or waiting in the lobby for your appointment, and if they can diagnose or assist you over the phone, they do. You still a pay a copay for it ($40 does seem like a lot for what amounted to about 45 seconds of discussion), but it is exponentially more convenient than going to a regular doctor. It was Sunday. I hadn't used this Teledoc yet because I just started my job back in July, so I had to go through a few extra steps to set up my account. It took maybe ten minutes or so. But once we got to actually scheduling the appointment, I was informed that my insurance was not eligible for Teledoc. I thought to myself, "Hmm, I guess I should have paid attention to the changes they said were coming to our healthcare this year…" So I had the option of paying the non-insured price, or hanging up and sorting it out with my insurance company. I ended the call and attempted to call my insurance, but it was Sunday and they didn't answer the phone. Frankly, a couple weeks went by because I can never remember to do these things during working hours, because I'm, you know, working. I finally carved out some time at work and called my insurer. They assured me I was qualified for Teledoc, so I asked them to make a call and clear it up. They did and got Teledoc back on the phone, and they kept asking me why I wasn't allowed to set up my account before. I don't freaking know, you guys were the ones telling me I wasn't qualified!! Deep breath. I forged on, asked them to go ahead and set me up my account (again), so I could have a call with a doctor that day. I spent 40 minutes on the phone in total on that day, before getting the call from the doctor. So now I've spent close to an hour on the phone just to establish that I can talk to a doctor. I set the call up for asap, and the doctor called me just a few minutes later. The conversation went like this:
    "Hi, I'm Dr. [So-and-So], how can I help you today?"
    "Hi, I have exercise-induced asthma and my inhaler is out. I'd like to get it a new prescription for it."
    "Ok, what inhaler do you use?"
    "I use [Pro-Air]."
    "Do you have any other symptoms?"
    "No."
    "Has your asthma gotten worse?"
    "No."
    "Do you want two refills or three?"
    "Three would be great."
    "Ok, I will send three refills to your pharmacy."
    "Ok thank you."
    "Good bye."
Brilliant, right? Now I don't have to make an appointment with a doctor, carve out time in my day to go over there, drive the distance to the doctor, wait in the lobby, check out, drive home, etc. This is something all Americans should have, really. It's amazing. But then, I went to my pharmacy, and after waiting several minutes for someone to talk to me (there was no one in line ahead of me) I was told it wasn't filled yet, and to come back in 10 minutes. I did some shopping at Target and came back. Then I was told they thought they had had the inhaler but they were out. I waited another 10 minutes or so for them to find an inhaler at a different pharmacy. I had an appointment to get to, and didn't have time to drive over to that pharmacy before it closed, so I had to go the following day. I got there, waited in line behind one person, they were swamped, they had a line at the drive thru, people waiting in chairs, and were barely acknowledging the people in line. An overhead voice chimed every 10 seconds or so, "Call on the pharmacy line," but nobody picked up the phone. The person ahead of me in line finally was greeted and talked with the pharmacist, got what he needed and was on his way. Another few minutes passed, and I was greeted. I got my inhaler and was on my way. It took about a half hour to get home from that pharmacy, not because it was far, but because of the spring break traffic that has set in on my area. So all in all, I spent about 2 hours getting my inhaler, and the most critical step, the doctor prescribing it, lasted less than a minute. If there was better competition, these inefficiencies would be knocked out. The Teledoc agent I first spoke to should have recognized that I was qualified for the program, that would have eliminated the additional 40 minute phone call. The inventory of inhalers should have been accurate, that would have eliminated the need for me to go to a second pharmacy. In fact, something like an inhaler, which doesn't need to be measured, could be just as easily shipped to me, or alternatively, at least picked automatically and made available in a vending machine type device for me to retrieve with my insurance card or something similar. We can get cupcakes out of "Cupcake ATMs" but we can't figure out how to get people the medicine they need in an efficient manner. Besides the doctor, there really was no need for any interaction with a human, it's all just red tape. And really, a robot could have asked me the same questions that the doctor did, too.

That was a long-winded story to show why competition is needed in healthcare. I’m an advocate for applying the same technological advances Amazon and Google use to healthcare. The problem is how to get everyone to comply. Frankly, I don't know the answer here. Yang's answer is Single-Payer Healthcare, and I can't say whether I'm for or against it, it makes a lot of sense, but I just don't know. The point is, the healthcare system is broken. What's neat about UBI is that it gives people a minimum income no matter what they do, a backstop against poverty. With such a cushion, it is possible that more people will become entrepreneurs, because the risk is reduced. I think some really brilliant people working low-paying jobs in healthcare might take that UBI and address the problems they see in healthcare, and could come up with some brilliant solutions. We don't need to legislate it necessarily; I believe in the American ingenuity, and when you remove or reduce the barriers and risk, you open up a world of possibilities.
This looks like socialism, it will never work in America
Actually, this is a very American idea, dating back to Thomas Paine in 1796, and was passed by the House under Nixon's administration before failing to pass the Senate because they didn't think it was enough money. It's not taking over the means of production and giving everyone an equal amount of the total pie. It's capitalism where the bottom isn't zero, plain and simple. Yang proposes we fund it with a VAT tax, which is something that has been implemented in every advanced economy except the US, and he's proposing it at about half that of the European VAT level. People will have more money to spend on what they need, and there are no strings attached like there is with food stamps, housing subsidies, disability and other welfare programs.

Reference: https://basicincome.org/basic-income/history/

Poor people will just spend it on stupid things
This is a misconception that we've had engrained in our heads, and I’m not entirely sure why or where it came from. Perhaps it is just wealthy people's way of rationalizing why they are better off than the homeless beggars on the street. If I'm fundamentally superior to them, then I don't have to pay attention to them or try to help them. The thing is, the overwhelming evidence is that this is simply not true. Giving poor people free money with no strings attached has led to reduced homelessness, reduced crime, better mental and physical health, and so much more. I am not sure I can speak to it better than Rutger Bregman in his TED Talk that first changed my mind about it, so I'm going to say that if you have any inkling that poor people will spend the UBI on stupid things, you need to take the 20 minutes to watch this video. Like, seriously, stop reading this blog and go watch it, I'll wait.

Rutger Bregman: Poverty isn't a lack of character; it's a lack of cash



People will quit their jobs and be more lazy
Again, this is where we have actual data that proves this to be incorrect. $12k is just enough to get every American adult above the poverty line. If Joe Smith is making $50k and the government says, hey, I'm going to give you another $12k on top, Joe's probably not going to quit his job and live off that $12k. But, if Sue Banner is working two jobs for a net of $24k and has a kid at home, and can't seem to find the time to go back to school to make a better life for herself, she might take that $12k, quit her second job and either spend more time with her child or start night classes, or both. UBI gives people choices. It gives minimum wage earners more bargaining power - when you are at a negotiation table and you have no alternative, then you don't have leverage. But now everyone has the option of quitting their jobs and spending time finding better jobs or better ways to spend their time, which means employers will have to pay what the market demands because people won't be so desperate for the jobs. The two groups of people that are shown to quit jobs when given a UBI are people who will stay home to spend time and take care of kids or elderly relatives, and young people who go to school. 

You should just make college free
I've already addressed this above, that college isn't for everyone, and it's not the answer to long-term technological unemployment or underemployment. Making college free would only help a subset of the country in the short term, which would be great for those people for that timeframe. UBI is for everyone, and makes college that much more affordable for those who do want to go.

It doesn't fix the inequality
This is a fair argument, and I agree to an extent. But I would actually say, fixing inequality shouldn't be the goal. If you want everyone to have exactly the same amount of everything, you're no longer talking about a capitalist society, and you're not talking about America. We want people to innovate and create and excel, and to be motivated with rewards for doing so. That is what has made America one of the most (if not the most) creative and innovative countries in the world. If we said to those creators and inventors that what you do won't make a big difference in your life, merely that it will subtly improve the lives of everyone, they may not be interested in spending their time, energy and effort on creating and inventing. People who create amazing things should be rewarded! But, we have enough wealth in our country that we don't necessarily need people in poverty in order to reward innovation. So UBI actually just fixes the very fringes of inequality. Under a UBI plan with the VAT that Yang is proposing, nobody would be under the poverty line, and the people at the top reaping the benefits of the amazing technology they developed would have a thin slice shaved off. But it does even more than that, because it gives people more choice.

Government can't be trusted (to not take it away)
This may be the most compelling reason a UBI may not be successful. The idea that we could be promised $1000 per month, make adjustments to our lives with that cushion in mind, and then have the UBI program cancelled because a new administration decides it doesn't work is even more terrifying than not addressing the need for the UBI in the first place. So perhaps this is more of a caution than anything else: we need to make sure we do it correctly so that it can't be removed. But, I don't think that's an impossible task, and the data supports it. Social Security, while not being properly funded for years and being the flawed system that it is, has continued well beyond its feasible life. We also have an example of something much more closely related to UBI to use as a model: the Alaskan Permanent Fund Dividend, which is funded by oil. This has not only succeeded many changes in government, it has done so in a very deep red state.

$12000 per year isn't enough
My response to this rebuttal is, "Enough for what? Enough to make you rich? You're right!" Look, the $12k wasn't plucked out of the air, it targets the poverty line directly. The thing about UBI is that it is not contingent. It does not keep people down at the $12000 wage line, it lifts people out of poverty and boosts people by $12k. If you're making $6k, then you're now getting $18k. If you're making $20k, then you're now getting $32k. And if you're making $100k, you're now making $112k. It's elegant in how simple it is. It doesn't get taken away from you at some level. It doesn't require that Taco Bell pay high school students a livable wage. It allows the market to work, but ensures that nobody is suffering from poverty.
The technological unemployment thing is a myth - we'll have new and different jobs to replace the ones that are lost to automation
This goes back to the rationale of why we need UBI. It's true that history has shown us a fear of technological unemployment that hasn't come true in past revolutions. In those instances, jobs we couldn't have imagined were created, like Social Media Manager and Airbnb host. The argument is that this time is fundamentally different, because the robots and AI and automation are no longer enhancing humans, they're replacing them. And it's not people on the fringe of society crying wolf and then crawling back to the rock they live under, these are the intelligent entrepreneurs, technologists and job creators who are saying this is going to happen: Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Andrew Yang. Andy Stern's book called "Raising the Floor" has some good insights on this topic, as do "The Future of the Professions", "Four Futures" and "What To Do When Machines Do Everything". There's a great fiction book, also, that's a quick read and so completely out there it's a little crazy, but I like it for the way it lays out paths to dystopia and utopia that are near-real, and I've been referring to it because I think it's a great thought exercise for this kind of discussion; it's called "Manna: Two Visions of Humanity's Future". 

Yang talks about this a little more urgently. He says we're in the third inning of this automation revolution already! Self-driving trucks are being tested, and truck driving is the most common job in 28 states. Food service and checkout counters are being automated, we see those things already, and retail and food service jobs make up a huge portion of the population currently. The typical response from nay-sayers, then, is we'll just re-train them to be programmers. There's some logical fallacy here, and then there's some numerical problems here. First, re-training programs have shown to be 0-15% effective, meaning some are 0% effective, and at best, 1 in 10 people would be successful. Second, truck drivers likely started driving trucks because they weren't really big fans of school to begin with, what makes you think they'd want to go back to school 10 or 20 years later? Third, only about 8% of jobs are in STEM fields, where we put a lot of value. If 100% of the population tried to go for those jobs, somewhere around 90-92% would fail to find employment. And technology will only worsen this problem - AI is getting better at writing code. Finally, programming is hard! I consider myself to be a pretty smart person, and I've learned basic coding, but at some point, it gets too confusing to me. Programming is not something everyone can do, and I include myself in that, so as to say I'm not belittling the intelligence of non-programmers.  

The truth is, nobody has a crystal ball, not even Musk or Zuck. Maybe they've got it all wrong, and it will be a laughable mistake akin to when the president of IBM said in 1943, "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." 80 years from now we may just as well laughingly say, "Ha ha ha, Elon Musk, thinking that AI was going to take our jobs away. We have more well-paying jobs now than we could ever fill! Silly Elon!" Even if that were to be the case, there's nothing inherently wrong with having a UBI to usher us in to this new unforeseeable age. Afterall, if its good enough for Alaska, why can't the whole country benefit?

On the other hand, the benefits of UBI are amazing, and evidence that shows these benefits will happen whether or not technology drives us all out of jobs. Yang lists many in his book, and I'll summarize what hits home most for me: UBI reduces financial stress, allowing people to make better decisions based on an abundance mindset instead of a scarcity mindset. UBI supports parents and caretakers which will mostly lift up women. UBI will help maintain order, protecting us against riots and chaos from mass unemployment. UBI reduces mental health issues, suicides, drug addiction and incarceration. A side note here, did you know that the life expectancy of Americans has dropped for the last three years?  I didn't realize this fact until recently. Suicides and overdoses have overtaken the previous number one cause of deaths: car accidents. You know who is prone to suicide and overdosing? Middle-aged men who have lost their jobs and feel societal pressure to provide for their families. So even if today is the absolute worst case scenario for the country as a whole, and we'll get back to a higher labor participation rate.





We can't afford it
The affordability is a big issue in UBI. The neat thing is that a lot of people have been working on this, and the same books that I've referenced above will tell you a lot about some proposals. Google just about any video of interviews with Andrew Yang, and he talks about it very simply. In essence, he says, the headline figure is about $2 trillion, against an economy of $19 trillion and a federal budget of $4 trillion. But it starts to become much more affordable when you realize that some welfare programs could be replaced by the UBI, which could mean up to $500 billion already being spent would just shift into UBI. The big game changer is the Value Added Tax, or VAT, which is something that every developed country has except the US. At just half the VAT of the European level, we would generate $800 billion in additional tax revenue. This is like the oil dividend in Alaska, except its taxing the technology and automation, which is the oil of the 21st century. "The beauty" of UBI that Yang talks about is how much we spend on homelessness, hospitalizations, incarceration, healthcare for people falling between the cracks that adds up to hundreds of billions of dollars also. Once a UBI is provided, health and education increase and incarceration and crime decrease. This isn't theoretical, these results have been proven out in real cases. Finally, by putting $1000 per month into the hands of every American, it grows the economy. "The Roosevelt Institute projected that the economy would grow by approximately $2.5 trillion and create 4.6 million new jobs.  This would generate approximately $500 – 600 billion in new revenue from economic growth and activity." When every other developed country is utilizing a VAT, and caring for their people's health, it feels like, actually, we can't afford NOT to implement a UBI. 


These are the arguments against UBI and the counterpoints I've found. What other downsides, pitfalls or problems are there? Let's keep the conversation going, let's vet this thing, and if the benefits outweigh the negatives significantly (VAT tax at half the standard of other advanced countries), as it seems like they do right now, let's implement this thing.

A Republican for Andrew Yang

I am a Republican. At least I think I am. At least I once was.

I have some of the traditional makings of a Republican: white, born to military brats, raised with Christian values. I recently learned that some of my physiological traits point me towards being a Republican: strong gag reflex (the strongest, really, I couldn't swallow pills until I was 25), severe adverse reactions to being startled (I got scared watching Scary Movie 3). My most important beliefs align with Republican values: I believe in small government and free markets, anti-abortion (especially late-term), the right to bear arms, and at my core, believe the US should be the land of opportunity where anyone can make it.

But I drive an electric vehicle. And I recognize the privilege being white has afforded me, among other advantages that weren't necessarily based on my merit or work ethic. I've worked hard, no doubt, but I've had opportunities to work hard in the ways that have made me successful, where other people don't get those same opportunities or they don't come quite as easily. Also, I'm not racist, or more accurately, I fight the internal biases as I recognize them. I also stopped going to church long ago, because I saw more hypocrisy than righteousness there. Do these things make me a bad Republican? Or, heaven forbid, a Democrat?

No, I don't think so. I think it makes me "mixed" as defined in the book "Prius or Pickup." I subscribe to both opposing beliefs, that the world is a dangerous place and we need to protect ourselves, and also that the world is a big, bright, beautiful place to explore. I'd like to think of it as pragmatism, or maybe pragmatic optimism. I believe life isn't worth living if we're just here to shell up, build walls and do the same thing every day. But I also believe we can't go out into the world assuming the best in people without having our guard up, we'll get taken advantage of or worse. Nothing is guaranteed in life - danger lurks around literally every street corner.

I'll speak briefly about my biggest fear. Where there's a vehicle driven by an imperfect and likely distracted human - there's a chance for tragedy and death. But staying at home to hide from this danger, and just passing time until old age, isn't acceptable to me. And moving to a tight-knit commune with no cars is also not very palatable, because I want to explore the world which has long ago become a vehicle-centered place. So I take the chance and get on the road in order to live the most fulfilling life I can fathom until the day something happens to end my life, whether that is tomorrow or 80 years from now. I strongly believe self-driving cars are the way forward, a must-have solution. There will be hazards and issues along the way, but even if self-driving cars improve the safety by 30%, I think it's worth it; and I think they'll improve the safety by 3000% or more.

I voted for George W. Bush, driven mostly by the campaign promise to fix the Social Security system once and for all. Unfortunately, some major events got in the way of his Presidency, and derailed his agenda to focus on more pressing matters like security and terrorism. I believe that we'd be living in a very different world had 9/11 not happened, and Bush would have done some amazing things that would have set us up for a very different future. But it is a dangerous world, afterall, and two airplanes were able to fly into two towers.

I didn't vote for Obama, primarily because I didn't believe in his Democratic vision, and I had a Republican candidate I was more closely aligned with. But, I was damn proud of my country that we finally elected our first black President. It made me think, wow, maybe we've gotten over the largest hurdle in the racism issue. I see now that I was wrong, that Obama's election was not as indicative of the abolishment of racism as I thought, that perhaps its only been mostly overcome in one party, in one portion of our society.

I didn't vote for Trump, either. Call me a bad Republican if you wish, because if voting for Trump makes me a good Republican, I don't want to be a good Republican. Trump's campaign was littered with racism, incoherent and unintelligent spats, and character flaws I just couldn't get passed. As a business person myself, I like, no LOVE, the idea of a successful entrepreneur and business owner taking over a political post - in isolation, this sounds like a brilliant idea to me. But I'd elect Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg before I'd vote for a racist misogynist like Trump. When Trump was elected, I was scared, more than ever before, of war coming to American soil in my lifetime as a direct result of our President. I made decisions about where to live based on proximity to Trump buildings, wanting to distance myself from potential targets, that's how serious my fear was. I suppose I'm pleasantly surprised that Trump hasn't started World War III yet, although I'm not going to throw my support behind him or his wall anytime soon.

I also didn't vote for Hillary in the last election. Call it throwing away my vote if you wish, I honestly thought, like so much of the media that covered the run up to the election, that Hillary had in the bag, although I don't think I would have voted for Hillary even if I knew the tables were in Trump's favor. Hillary campaigned on some of those core Democratic ideas that, frankly, make me gag. For example, while a minimum wage of $15 might sound good to the single mother taking orders at McDonald's, I argue that it would deprive the high school student wanting to gain work experience the chance to gain said experience. A high school student living at home (with parents) with no kids does not need a "livable wage" in order to gain work experience. As an employer, what I am I supposed to do with a bunch of graduates that have no proven track record in work? Statistics say that, all other things kept equal, having a job makes you a better candidate for a job than being unemployed.

Ultimately, I voted for an independent, not because I thought he would win, although he was far more palatable than the two primary candidates as a potential President, but because I wanted to make a statement to the Republican party that, as a registered Republican, the candidate you gave me does not work for me. Well, it doesn't sound like my statement was heard, because here we are with a Republican President whom I did not vote for. 

Why Andrew Yang & His Big Idea

Alright, so I've set the stage that I'm maybe not the most far-right out there, that I see flaws in the Republican party, the views and the current POTUS. But on the issues most core to me, I do lean Republican. Now, I'll explain why I am open to and excited for Andrew Yang's run at the White House. First of all, Yang isn't a career politician, which I love - he has been in touch with, and the lead the way for, the business and entrepreneurial communities in successful American-Dream kind of ways (not bankrupt-y and tax-evasion-y ways). That's pretty awesome, right? Also, he's a minority, one that hasn't yet been elected to the White House, so I'd be happy to see the second minority President so early still in my lifetime. Third, he's not pitching the usual Democratic nonsense that turns me off from the likes of Hillary and Obama. In fact, he could very well be the Republican's Democrat. I wouldn't expect that the Republican party would run a candidate other than Trump in the next election, so if you're like me, a Republican who doesn't like Trump, I think Yang is going to be a really good option.
Now, Yang has a lot of really well thought out, detailed and specific plans and ideas for his Presidency, which I think any intelligent voter will appreciate. I'll come back to this point later. The primary platform that Yang is running on is incredibly novel, and yet, not entirely new or unvetted: he is proposing a Universal Basic Income, or UBI, namely, $1000 per month given free and clear to every US citizen of 18 years of age or older.

Stay with me here. I know the visceral reaction you're probably having if you lean right and if this is the first time you're hearing this. I've been there, but hear me out. If you lean right, you probably agree with me that the US is spending far too much on things like welfare, food stamps, disability, tax breaks for charities, Social Security, etc. I'm going to refer to all these programs and others like them as simply "welfare" for the simplicity in this post. Not only are we already dolling out millions of dollars to people who aren't working or can't work for various reasons, we're paying people to administer these programs. That means, we're shoveling out cash for government workers to create forms, read forms, reject incomplete forms, process forms, interview welfare candidates, independently verify claims, follow up on applicant candidacy conditions, audit welfare candidates records, and finally, write checks. We're also discouraging certain classes of people from going back to work even if they can. Anecdotally, we've all heard stories of someone living better off than his gainfully employed neighbor. These welfare programs are only good until a certain income is acquired, so a proportion of people getting these benefits will elect not to risk the welfare income and will choose not to work even if their conditions change and they could go back to work. We're breeding dependency on the system, expanding these welfare programs and discouraging looking for gainful employment or betterment. This is the status quo. If we do nothing, elect no leader willing to make the tough changes, this is what we will continue to do. 

UBI Makes Government Smaller - A Republican Ideal

Now, hypothetically, what if we could eliminate all welfare programs and replace them with one simple solution that's fair to all Americans, requires no oversight and minimal administration, and encourage citizens to go back to work when/if able? This is a hypothetic exercise for now, and by no means is what Yang is proposing. But doesn't that sound like a good idea? Even if you make good money, could $1000 more per month be useful? For people who don't make good money, wouldn't $1000 per month go a long way in improving their lives? Most people are not going to quit their jobs with a UBI, because $12000 per year isn't a very good salary. But maybe people will quit their second jobs and spend more time with their kids, or go back to school, or pursue the startup they've been thinking about. Some people will quit their jobs, because they were unhappy there but felt trapped. People on disability that no longer need it could look for jobs while still having an assured minimum income even if the job fails them. If we eliminated Social Security, than those that are employed will get more of their paychecks, while not leaving those relying on Social Security without anything. We could save our tax dollars from going to administrative bureaucracy.

I'm not going to get into the details of how to fund the UBI here, nor am I going to discuss which programs stay and which get cut. There is a ton of literature out there, books, articles, you name it, with a lot more information on various proposals to get there; I'll reference some at the bottom. My intention with this post is not to define the way forward, but rather, to ask you, my reader, to have an open mind about the possibilities. I'm not 100% sold that UBI is the perfect answer, honestly, but it’s the best thing I've seen as a solution to a lot of our problems, and I'd like it to be debated on a national stage and frankly, I want it to be tested definitively. There have been a number of smaller studies that showed remarkable results. This concept was almost passed into law decades ago in the US Congress, but was squashed by what amounts to a misunderstanding. What I want you to take away from my post here is this: implementation of a UBI with offsets in other government areas will in fact shrink the government. Thus, this is a very Republican idea. It's being pitched by a Democrat now, but if a Democrat is all we can expect to oppose Trump, and if that Democrat is pitching something palatable, even a better alternative than status quo, to Republicans, then I think we have our Republican's Democrat. 

UBI Empowers the Free Market - A Republican Ideal

Beyond diminishing the administration of existing welfare programs, UBI speaks to Republican values in other ways. For example, food stamps are only accepted in certain places on certain things. This is because we have core beliefs that we think we know what people need better than they do. In the same way that it is better to send money to hurricane-devastated areas than to send blankets, clothes and canned food, it is better to give people the power to get what they need for food, etc. The arguments that poor people will spend the money foolishly on drugs and alcohol or junk food, etc., are only beliefs and do not have strong evidence supporting them. These are biases we hold (I'm including myself in this, because I, too, believed it) that says that if you're poor, there must be something wrong with you, you must have made bad decisions. If you hold these biases/beliefs, I'd encourage you to spend just 15 minutes to watch this TED Talk: Rutger Bregman: Poverty isn't a lack of character; it's a lack of cash or read the speaker's book "Utopia for Realists." The essence of it is, poor people are not stupid or bad; the lack of financial certainty acts like a mental block, and causes poor (short-sighted) decisions. By simply giving homeless people $1000, those people have turned their lives around. It's pretty incredible. It's almost unbelievable. But then, I've seen both sides with people I know, and I've come to agree that poverty is simply a lack of cash.

All this to say that my second take-away is: UBI empowers the free market. It empowers people to choose what is best for themselves, instead of limiting them with food stamps and other such welfare programs. Beyond food stamps, I had a debate on social media recently about this border wall Trump wants to build (it still kills me that Mexico was supposed to pay for it, and now we're talking about the US paying for it and nobody seems to care about that multi-billion dollar reversal). The focal point of the debate, although it side-stepped what I initially posted, was that one house very near the border, which wasn't occupied on a regular basis (like a second home or vacation home almost), was easily broken into, robbed and damaged, and the criminals left track marks showing how they carted the goods across the border. The premise on one side was, if we had a border wall, that wouldn't have happened. My argument was, maybe it wouldn't have been so easy, but it still could have happened.

I moved to Florida just in time to be hit by the worst hurricane in history, and saw not only nature-made devastation, but some of the best and worst in human nature. Some of the best in human nature as neighbors checked on each other and helped each other, including hard labor and risking their own lives, and companies giving help in amazing ways, free bottled water, free ice, free showers, free laundry, free medical services, etc. Some of the worst in human nature as people from neighboring states drove into the wreckage to loot, carrying guns and injuring people that got in their way - leaving behind bodies of humans who made it through what they thought was the worst, only to be shot and killed protecting their home days later. In reaction, large spray-painted wooden signs appeared all around town threating life and limb to would-be looters, like, "I WILL SHOOT," or "YOU LOOT, I SHOOT" and "YOU LOOT, YOU DIE," the latter was just a few doors down from me. Here's the thing that sucks - we don't have a border with Mexico here in Florida. These weren't illegals. These were opportunistic American citizens. There were other problems, too, like unlicensed contractors or pretend contractors coming in to "help" repair damages and taking advantage of the hurricane victims. Crime takes many forms, and it's all pretty crappy.

So back to the house near the Mexican border that was robbed - what if, instead of a wall to keep Mexicans out of the country, we spent that money on protections for our own property? If you have a mostly-empty house near the border that is in danger, maybe something more than standard door locks is needed. Americans can be bad too, as I've seen so recently after Hurricane Michael, so it would be awfully ironic if the border wall was erected, and then looters from the American side of the wall went and damaged and stole from said house. And also, if Mexican criminals elected to cross the border to rob your house, a wall may just be a nuisance in the grand scheme of things. My point is, a wall will not end crime. If we can agree on that point, then why not use the money instead to let the free market work to protect our properties better? 

UBI Protects US Citizens - A Republican Ideal

A lot of the literature around UBI is based on the prediction that automation will reduce and eliminate jobs. I'm not going to tell you this is true or not true, because the verdict is still out for me on this one. On the one hand, we've had these fears time and time again in the past, and history has shown that new and previously unimaginable jobs have been created. I

could see this being repeated once again as more jobs are automated into the foreseeable future. But on the other hand, there are compelling reasons why "this time" might be different: namely, artificial intelligence not only makes people faster, it eliminates the need for people altogether, and some automated solutions are actually better than humans in ways that make it hard to see what value humans will have in terms of economic production. Either way, UBI is not a bad thing in terms of job loss. If automation does in fact lead to the rise of technological unemployment or underemployment, then we have UBI to ease the blow. If new jobs are created faster than we can fill them, then UBI provides a cushion while we educate ourselves and transform into candidates for these new jobs. If new jobs are created at the same pace as old jobs are replaced by machines, then UBI merely gives us some certainty in a changing world. What's more, it gives US citizens a head start on the often-villainized illegal immigrants, because our poorest citizens won't need to compete with under-the-table employment of illegals, they'll be able to demand their market worth. And these are really just the direct effects.

Indirectly, the certainty that comes with a UBI (at least theoretically) protects our poorest US citizens against making the bad decisions that lead to things like drug addiction, crime, unwanted pregnancies. Imagine less incarceration, eliminating the opioid crisis, reducing gun violence and mass shootings, fewer women turning to prostitution or remaining in abusive relationships. When people have stability, they are less likely to do drugs, commit crimes and take desperate measures. In turn, this not only helps our poorest US citizens, it protects all US citizens from being the victims of crimes.

But Wait, There's More

UBI may sound like a very leftist ideal on the surface, but actually, it’s a simple, pragmatic and economic solution that beats all other solutions to a lot of our issues. At it's core, it actually supports many of the values of traditional Republicans in ways that you won't get from President Trump or other up-and-coming Republican candidates. And here's the kicker: when it was brought to Congress initially, it was supported by, gasp, a Republican President! A lot has happened since then, and our party lines have become more divisive and more personal. I think, as a Republican, it's only fair to look back at some of the greatest achievements of our government: regulating work hours, or women's suffrage for a couple examples. Those started with a Democrat's audacity and are now taken for granted by Republicans and Democrats alike. It's okay to vote Democrat, especially when that Democrat is pitching something that Republicans can get behind. Andrew Yang's Presidential race is centered around UBI, and I've spent a lot of time here talking about why UBI isn't so far-fetched for a Republican like myself. But I want to circle back to the man behind the UBI platform, because his job would be far from complete if he gets to the White House and implements UBI. I would encourage you to go to his page and read about his other ideas and plans on Policy: https://www.yang2020.com/policies/ He has a quote on his policy page from the Democratic Party Leadership in Iowa that says, "Mr. Yang has the most detailed and comprehensive set of policy proposals we have ever seen at this stage in the campaign." After reading a number of them in detail, perusing the rest and reading his book, I tend to agree with that statement. He has really outdone any candidate before him in terms of detail and number of policies, and I think you'll agree with me that they aren't the outrageous, impractical ideals we often see from Democrats, but rather, practical, pragmatic approaches that could almost be called bipartisan. In a world as divisive and plagued as ours, I think Yang as a candidate is more than a breath of fresh air.

First and foremost, Mr. Yang needs to be given a spot on the stage to debate and discuss his ideas. What's more, Yang as President could be just want this country needs right now, not for Democrats, and not for Republicans, but for the United States of America. 

Links / Sources / Resources

History of Basic Income: https://basicincome.org/basic-income/history/

Elon Musk: Free cash handouts ‘will be necessary’ if robots take humans' jobs: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/18/elon-musk-automated-jobs-could-make-ubi-cash-handouts-necessary.html

Yang on Policy: https://www.yang2020.com/policies/

TED Talk - Poverty isn't a lack of character, it's a lack of cash: https://www.ted.com/talks/rutger_bregman_poverty_isn_t_a_lack_of_character_it_s_a_lack_of_cash

Utopia for Realists: https://www.amazon.com/Utopia-Realists-Build-Ideal-World/dp/0316471917/

The War on Normal People (Andrew Yang's book): https://www.amazon.com/War-Normal-People-Disappearing-Universal/dp/0316414247/

Humans Need Not Apply: https://www.amazon.com/Humans-Need-Not-Apply-Intelligence/dp/0300213557/

What to Do When Machines Do Everything: https://www.amazon.com/What-When-Machines-Everything-Algorithms/dp/111927866X/ 

Raising the Floor: https://www.amazon.com/Raising-Floor-Universal-Economy-American/dp/1610396251/

A fiction book about the potential if we continue with status quo or do something drastically different, called Manna: Two Visions of Humanity's Future: https://www.amazon.com/Manna-Two-Visions-Humanitys-Future-ebook/dp/B007HQH67U/ 

The Future of the Professions: https://www.amazon.com/Future-Professions-Technology-Transform-Experts/dp/0198799071/

Freakonomics podcast: http://freakonomics.com/podcast/andrew-yang/

Technological Unemployment: Friend, Foe, Future or Fiction?

Let's play a game of what if. Let's assume that newspapers can no longer make money covering the news. The world expects free information at its fingertips via the web - if you make me pay for this article, I'll go get my news somewhere else for free (and either assume it's just as good, or I don't care about the quality as much as the price). Online advertising is not making the return on investment it once promised, with ad blockers in high use. Environmentalists have pushed to reduce the amount of printed newspapers, and the market for the physical copy was dwindling anyways.

Now, take each of these questions one by one, and consider the implications before moving on to the next.
   

Do we let newspapers go out of business?      

Let's say that the New York Times, Chicago Tribune and The Wall Street Journal are all that remains of a once highly-penetrated news media market. Would we consider government loans to keep them alive? Are they, either collectively or individually, too big to fail?      

What if it was down to just one remaining publisher? And what if that last one standing announced it would be letting go of 90% of its reporters?      

What if it files for bankruptcy and makes plans to close shop for good? 

And what if we let it?

We demand information to be free, accepting ads as a sort of coverall for our distaste of paying for things we find of value, but also using ad blockers because, well, who wants to look at ads? Yet a quick informal poll confirmed for me that we deem it absolutely necessary that reputable news coverage is available on an ongoing basis. How do we ensure that reports keep reporting and that news is held to some kind of a standard?

The worst case scenario (in regards to news) might be the following:

All reputable news publishers shut down, and give way to rising crowd-publishing sites of supposed and unverifiable eyewitness testimonies with no professional filter or attempt at eliminating bias, and uninformed articles that would be considered opinion pieces today but are touted as fact instead. Boycotts and fake news accusations fill our lives like the Salem Witch Trials and consume our news feeds rather than focusing on the things news should be covering like the economy, business, politics, culture, etc. Articles written by robo-journalists are also prevalent, a practice that started with the coverage of local sports and less popular Olympic games when the money-making reputable news organizations were still up and running, but has long been bastardized into a way of automatically filling the internet with propaganda about whatever it's originator wanted to promote. Some sites will tout their efforts to stem the auto-propaganda while others will embrace it as an intelligent technology that is only feeding off our data of what we click on to give us more of the same crap it thinks we want based on our usage history. We don't know what's real and what's fake anymore, and really, it's all fake to an extent because the coverage is so slanted and misrepresented - like when you played "Telephone" as a kid and the message got skewed the more it was repeated until it is completely unrecognizable and absurd.

Articles written by robo-journalists are also prevalent, a practice that started with the coverage of local sports and less popular Olympic games when the money-making reputable news organizations were still up and running, but has long been bastardized into a way of automatically filling the internet with propaganda about whatever it's originator wanted to promote. Some sites will tout their efforts to stem the auto-propaganda while others will embrace it as an intelligent technology that is only feeding off our data of what we click on to give us more of the same crap it thinks we want based on our usage history.

We don't know what's real and what's fake anymore, and really, it's all fake to an extent because the coverage is so slanted and misrepresented - like when you played "Telephone" as a kid and the message got skewed the more it was repeated until it is completely unrecognizable and absurd.

The loop of misinformed news becomes so overwhelming that we just shut it all off, unsubscribing for all alerts, disliking all articles on social media, and we stop searching for answers about current events or topics we care about because we just don't have a reliable way to determine what is fact and what is fiction. We give up on understanding the world around us, and try to content ourselves with living our day-to-day lives and just generally trying to tip-toe around anything that could possibly happen.

The richest 1%, of course, will hire a new kind of private investigator of sorts to research what is real and definitively advise on what their employers should be concerned about. They will have a huge leg up on the other 99% who can't afford to pay these premiums and have to suffer through misinformation or pay specialists for the specific kind of advice they need at the moment without learning about anything else that is really going on. These specialists will make it their business, literally, to be in the know about changes in law, the economy, culture, finance, etc., and will charge by the hour for doling out the same advice to 50 different clients per week, where they could have lowered their costs by publishing it to a subscriber base that would reach a much larger audience - but that wouldn't bring in sufficient profit, we tried that, remember?

Maybe, as the circular thinking above suggests, it will be an issue of supply and demand, and as supply for reliable news coverage diminishes, the market will step up and become more willing to pay for their news, and the news market will find a new equilibrium in a purely-online basis. 

Maybe the use of automation will instead improve the efficacy of the human reporters, exponentially shrinking the number of reporters and editors needed while still sustaining our beloved reputable sources of news at a much lower cost. Then, do the remaining reporters get paid really well, like millions, because they are the remaining hold outs who have successfully navigated the layoffs and learned to collaborate the most effectively with the robo-reporters? Or do

they get paid minimum wage because there are 100,000 other unemployed reporters who'd happily take their job (and could do so easily because of the brilliance coming from Artificial Intelligence rather than the employed reporter)? Either way, this might feel like a small victory for society, but if this happens to 99% of jobs in America, or even 50%, we'd be looking at the highest unemployment rates in history, far worse than the Great Depression or even agricultural days.

I've been reading a lot lately about two related up-and-coming topics: technological unemployment and the universal basic income. By my casual definition, technological unemployment is basically where robots or artificial intelligence-powered computers either replace or greatly subsidize the jobs most people do, diminishing the need for human workers in potentially drastic and devastating waves until maybe 30% or maybe 1% of what used to be the work force have traditional or non-traditional forms of paid work. What to do with all those unemployed people is the paradox that only seems to have one answer in my research: a minimum payment regardless of employment status or contribution to society that is capable of keeping all citizens (just barely) above the poverty line, a universal basic income, or UBI. Sound expensive? I thought so too! But then, we also spend unimaginable amounts of money on programs like welfare, and you hear anecdotes about people cheating the welfare system and living better than people who are working. Then there's all the bureaucracy and administration of such programs, people having to accept and evaluate application forms and determine which cases are worthy, and then having to follow up with people on welfare to make sure they're fulfilling some pre-determined obligations in order to maintain their welfare status. Sure, by having all this administration, we're giving government employees jobs, but we're also maintaining a system that keeps people down and discourages getting better jobs or working harder.

Previously calling myself a Republican, and then changing my tune to economic conservative with liberal views in other areas, it's been a tough internal battle for me to see universal basic income as anything but a communist fairy tale, but I do now, and I would caution any skeptic not to dismiss it casually as well. I'm still not completely sold on the idea myself, but it's the best alternative to our current path that I've found. I could be persuaded of a better alternative, in fact, I'd prefer one, I just don't know what that would be. So for now, I'll use UBI as a possible solution that we should consider.

But before we jump to the solution, let's start with the problem which stems from technological unemployment. If it wasn't a concern, then UBI has a lot less to stand on. But I'm pretty convinced that it's already a little problem, and it's going to be a bigger problem in the future. I think the biggest counter-argument to technological unemployment is that, in the past when technology replaced human power, we were freed up to do other things and created new jobs that couldn't have been envisioned previously, and so the expectation is that as robots and AI replace current jobs, new jobs will be created that will require the human touch. A TED Talk I recently listened to disspelled this and a couple other myths in a way which I had also been thinking and agreed with. Mainly, the key for me is this: past technological advances were still below human ability, but we're talking about computers that are SMARTER than people, far BETTER at tasks than people, and more SENSITIVE to situations than humans could possibly be. So my answer to that argument is that I think this time is different.

Don't think your job can be automated? "The Future of The Professions" details a long and well-thought-out research study that shows that most people see how every other profession could be automated, except their own. Maybe that's simple naivety regarding the complexities of other people's work, or maybe it's a little bit of ego that in fact gets in the way of seeing a realistic possibility. It also shows how even the most reputable and highest-paying jobs are being broken down into chunks that can be outsourced, off-shored or automated. This is the path towards technology unemployment.

Andy Stern, the former president of the Service Employees International Union, researched and wrote perhaps one of the best pieces on the future of employment and UBI called, "Raising the Floor: How a Universal Basic Income Can Renew Our Economy and Rebuild the American Dream." In his book, he takes the skeptical reader through the evidence that is pointing towards technological unemployment, and focuses a lot of his attention to the rapidly growing "gig economy," where people are now subsidizing their incomes or making their complete incomes via side-hustles like online stores and services and one-time jobs. I knew about some of the things happening in this space, having a small side-business of my own and having exposure to other areas like the sharing economy, but I was greatly impressed at the breadth of opportunities and functions that the gig economy now covers. Yet these things, too, can eventually be commoditized and automated to the point of being practically worthless to the gig workers.

So my ultimate challenge is this: How do we handle all this unemployment in the future, if not with universal basic income? In his dystopian fictional book "Manna: Two Views of Humanity's Future", Marshall Brain paints a picture where the welfare system just grows in efficiency and volume, absorbing more and more people as each job and profession become automated, making the welfare people's lives more and more miserable and giving them no way out of the system. And that does, indeed, feel like the inevitable future with the path we're on. He then poses an alternative which is a bit too sci-fi for my taste, but ultimately feels a little bit like a UBI-driven utopia.

I think my bend towards the belief in both technological unemployment / underemployment and UBI stems from a vision of a more balanced life. I've long been convinced that shorter work days and shorter work weeks was not only inevitable but highly desirable from both the employee and the employer standpoint. Namely, workers aren't really productive for 8 hours straight, or even 4 hours straight with a break. This has been proven time and time again with no contradicting data to my knowledge, yet we continue to act as if working longer hours means we're working harder or that we're more dedicated. This is absurd! When I hear of someone working 12 or more hours a day consistently, or working for 8 or 10 hours on the weekend, I shun them.

Dedication to your job should be defined by your ability to manage your work time appropriately and then to shut it off and do things for yourself. Overworking yourself, working off-hours, working when you're tired could all lead to mistakes. In an office environment, if you're not sure of something, you can often ask a co-worker. But if you're working when everyone else has gone home or when you're supposed to be relaxing on the weekend, you have nobody to ask. So for the sake of getting something done, you go ahead and do it even if you're not sure. Then you find out on Monday morning you did it wrong, and have to undo or redo your work anyways.

And it feels like weekends are always too short. Friday night I'm just completely exhausted from the week and don't want to do anything productive, I barely want to do anything entertaining if it requires effort, or, you know, putting a bra back on. Saturday I'm still recuperating, wanting to do something fun and relaxing. I sleep in a little, we go for a walk, we eat good food, I clear my head. Sunday I start being productive, but before long, it's time to go to bed or I won't get enough sleep for my oh-so-important Monday. If only I had one more day to finish whatever I started on Sunday and get a little more rested before having to go back to work.

Some have argued with me that if I had a 4-day work week, I'd get used to it and think that a 3-day weekend was too short, and then if we had a 3-day work week, I'd again want it to be shorter. I agree that greed is a real thing and presents such a danger, but I adamantly disagree with the principle that we'd never be content with a work schedule. I think highly-motivated individuals want to work, at least in a place where they feel both challenged and valued, but that over-working people causes these otherwise ideal employees to burn out.

I don't know exactly what the "right" work schedule is, but I believe that there is a balance that can be struck somewhere that optimizes human productivity (and I believe it's less than 40 hours per week). Maybe it's four 8-hour days, or maybe it's three 9-hour days. Maybe we ditch the 7-day week schedule, and go to a three day on, three day off schedule. Maybe, it's variety that we need: we work a 9-hour day in one job one day, the next day go to a different 9-hour job, repeat each once more, than have a three-day weekend. Maybe one of these jobs is analytical, and the other is creative. Maybe one job has more physical activity embedded in it, and one has more brain-power requirements. Maybe we rotate between three jobs: physical, analytical and creative. Going down this path starts to look more and more like making a living solely via the gig economy, and I'd be lying if I said it wasn't an appealing idea.* But then there's the uncertainty of the gig economy, and the certainty of a paycheck and healthcare. So I do my best to keep myself to a 40 - 45 hour work week, and do not permit myself to work on the weekends or on vacations, and I call that the best balance I can do for now.

Regardless of what the "right" work schedule is, we're clearly not there right now. I've always felt that by the time I got home from work on a typical week day, I was too exhausted to do things like exercise, cook a healthy meal, read, write, take a class, paint, etc. In fact, often times I felt like the only thing I was capable of after work was watching TV and eating junk food on the couch. Sound familiar? I know for a fact that I'm not alone in this notion. No wonder America has an obesity problem! So I said, okay, I need to get up earlier to go for a run in the mornings. Cool! I did this. But there's only so much you can cram into your morning before your boss expects you at your corporate job. It felt like I was constantly faced with a choice: do I want to work on my physical health, my mental health, my side business, my artistic side, or my education? Because I couldn't do all of them, nor could I even do more than one at a time. I went back to school, and gained weight. I started working out consistently, and didn't write for three months. I started working on a book I wanted to write, and fell behind on my reading. There's just NOT enough time in the day if I have to work 40 hours per week (which is really 45 - 50 hours in a typical week) with a typical hour of commute time minimum unless I forgo sleeping and showering altogether.**

So there I was, already feeling like my corporate work schedule was far too overbearing in my life, not willing to take the plunge into the gig economy or some semblance of entrepreneurship without a steady paycheck, but still also believing that a good education, hard work and dedication is what was needed to succeed in this world. After all, I did work hard to get to where I'm at. I also do not take for granted the fact that I had the opportunity to go to college full-time, and that I was able to get a student loan to fund grad school as well. I am grateful for those and all the many other opportunities that helped shape my intelligence and academics, my creativity, and perseverance and my personality. So my success is a combination of opportunity and seizing it, executing my dreams with hard work and perseverance, and making good decisions that have opened up other doors of opportunity.

I held a bias against homeless people that they just want handouts without working for them, that they made bad choices over and over again to have gotten to where they are, or that they are mentally ill. For all of these reasons, handing them a couple bucks or giving them my leftovers never felt like it would do any good. I always had a small, deep desire to help them, but to actually help them, not to just get them through the next hour or the next day. I envisioned something of an educational shelter, like a rehab but for job training and personal finance skills, with the hope that they would leave the program better people and not return to poverty. But the cost would have to be astronomical, I thought. So I continued to work hard and climb that corporate ladder in hopes of maybe one day being able to afford such a program. I guess it wasn't a novel or original idea - as soon as I found a charity that does much of this, I immediately started donating a good amount of money to that charity and still do to this day. This, to me, was helping the poor and homeless.

It was within this backdrop that the concept of UBI struck a chord with my initially. I thought education, work ethic, intelligence and creativity were basically a formula for success - that you could always find a job if you had these things. As a conservative, I believed in a smaller government, less handouts and taxes, and letting the market determine the economic value of labor and things. At first pass, UBI sounded like a ridiculous liberal pie-in-the-sky pipedream.

Perhaps one of the most compelling points in favor of UBI was an idea from a TED Talk that first really turned my head on the topic, that "the effects of living in poverty... [is] comparable to losing a night's sleep or the effects of alcoholism." It's not that poor people are stupider or lazier than middle-class workers, or that they have bad luck. They make bad decisions because it's like they're too tired and dazed to see the long run - they're so overwhelmed with the burden of this financial hardship that they are unable to make the decisions that would get them out. I may be explaining that poorly so forgive me for my errors here, but that's how I understood it. And I get it! This makes sense to me - I have seen it all too many times with people who are really struggling financially. The poorer they are, the more short-term thinking they apply to get themselves out of this immediate problem without considering the long-term, assuming they will find a way to make it work in the long run, but then they don't, and they have this vicious cycle. Or maybe they know they won't be able to get out of the long-term problem, but they are procrastinating on fixing it because they feel pressed by the urgency of this short-term problem.

The conclusion of this TED Talk was, "Poverty is not a lack of character. Poverty is a lack of cash." An example I've heard somewhere, anecdotally as it might be, was of handing homeless people $1000 each, and that little bit of seed money was used to turn their lives around. If an average panhandler is given just enough to buy food for the day, maybe get a motel room a couple times a week to shower and sleep and wash her clothes, she'll never get ahead. But give her $1000 all at once, and she can rent a small apartment for a couple months, buy nutritious food, maybe a new outfit, maybe a bike to get to work in, and could get a job that would actually allow her to support herself on an ongoing basis. It's not a case of giving a man a fish versus teaching him to fish, they know how to fish, it's about giving the homeless and poor the fishing rod and a place to store and cook the fish. Don't give them fish, give them the ability to fish themselves!

Let's not worry about how to fund a Universal Basic Income just yet, and instead just assume that everybody in America got a minimum $11,490 per year, or $23,550 per 4-person family (if you're wondering where these figures are coming from, I just googled poverty line in America and am using that as the minimum). There are no conditions other than being an American resident, no requirement to work or contribute to society or have a basic education. Some people would inevitably choose not to work, and that's okay. A single mother might use that money to quit her second job and spend that much more time with her family. Someone else might go back to school instead of working his second job. That writer who felt stuck waiting on tables might finally quit her job and write that novel. A woman with an aging mother might retire early to take care of her mother and spend more time with her kids, now in college and starting their own families. An aspiring entrepreneur might use the extra bump to invest in the startup he's dreamed of getting off the ground while maintaining his full time job. Corporate employees might use the new bump towards their kids' college education or for better vacations. A person feeling burnt out in her job might use the extra income for more massages, or maybe it gives her just enough of a cushion to seek out a better opportunity. All of these options are okay.

And yes, there may be some people who use it in ways we think are bad - an alcoholic may buy more booze, a prostitute might be pressured into giving up her share to her pimp, I'm not even sure I can think of the worst case scenarios, but I don't want to pretend that it's all sunshine and rainbows. That's the thing with having no conditions on it, its use is based on free will. Generally, though, I think it would be good - it gives people opportunities to take risks, to better themselves, to spend more time doing what they want and less time making a buck, and it can open doors for the entrepreneurs and dreamers and artists to create new innovations and works that will ultimately make society a little bit better in their own ways. Imagine eradicating poverty and homelessness - now that's helping the poor!

Let's go back to our newspaper scenario from the beginning. Newspapers could be free and still maintain reputable journalists if the journalists wrote not for money but because they loved their jobs. Editors could still edit, because they have a UBI to fall back on, and maybe they do other things that make more money but they also spend some of their time editing. The key to accepting UBI as an option, I think, is separating livelihood from holding a job. Healthcare, too, for that matter. For so long it's been engrained in our thinking that if we get a good education and work hard, we will be successful. But college grads are finding fewer jobs available to them, and having to settle for jobs that don't require degrees. Young adults are moving back in with their parents to save money. Raising the minimum wage curtails retail stores and restaurants from hiring younger people with no experience.

If we take technological unemployment or underemployment as a reality, then as jobs disappear, we need to separate a living wage and basic healthcare needs from doing low-paid jobs. This is not a redistribution of wealth like in socialism, nor is it a welfare system where only the neediest get money. This is an unbiased payment to all that will open more doors and provide opportunities for people to better themselves, whatever that means to them. The capitalist economy will still work on top of the UBI - the middle-class can still make money to keep them well above the poverty line, and the top 1% will still be rich. The title of Andy Stern's book is exactly what it is, it's "Raising the Floor," not lowering the ceiling or putting everyone on the same level. I don't think we'll ever be 100% unemployed, I think we'll do fulfilling job and gigs and combinations of things that make money, but that those earnings will sit on top of the minimum UBI instead of being the only money we have to live on.

Funding a UBI seems daunting at first, but rest assured, there are a lot of people much smarter than me thinking about these things and running real numbers. But for the sake of accountability to show this line of thinking isn't completely cray-cray, I did some of my own math. I googled the population of the US and got 325.7MM people in 2017. Since I gave two figures earlier, one for a single person and one for a family of four, I'll average those two per person figures together. 

($11,490 + $23,550) / 5 = $7,008 per person (Kids need less money than a single adult because they don't pay rent, those darn kids!)

Multiply that figure by the number of people in America in 2017, and rounding up, we get $2.3 trillion. That's an astronomical figure. But what do we spend today on other programs?

According to a quick search I did, I found that the Obama budget proposal in 2017 included $1.39 trillion in Social Security, Unemployment & Labor, $1.17 trillion in Medicare & Health, $179 billion in Veterans' Benefits, $109 billion on Food & Agriculture, $109 billion on Transportation, not to mention $303 billion on Interest on Debt.  Let's assume that the UBI replaces Social Security, Unemployment & Labor completely - that takes care of more than half of our requirements, bringing the balance down to $910 billion that we need to cover. For the sake of this exercise and without knowing any detail, I will assume some of the Veterans' Benefits could be taken care of with UBI, so let's chop that in half, bringing our need to $820.5 billion. Under a long-term UBI society, we will have opportunities to take better care of our mental and physical health, so let's say we chop the Medicare & Health budget by 25%, bringing our total down to $528 billion.

Automation should make transportation and food & agriculture more efficient, so I'm going to take 50% from both of those budgets, bringing us down to $404.5 billion. I'm not sure what goes into Housing & Community, but I would think the UBI would cover some or all of this, let's assume all for this purpose, bringing us down to $314.5 billion. That's less than half the military budget, but I'm not going to chop there (although it's definitely a possibility), and it's just a hair over what we were going to pay in interest on our debts in 2017. I feel like we're so close here, we can taste it. Maybe we raise a little bit in property taxes or a little in corporate taxes or tariffs or something. As a conservative / kinda Republican, I hate all of those options, by the way, but they are a reality, since I hate a growing national debt even more.

All this to say, I don't have the complete picture or all the answers, but it's not as unyieldy or unreasonable as a number as it may seem. If we cut the benefits in half, it would be more than covered by the Social Security, Unemployment & Labor budget alone, with no other changes to the budget or taxes or anything else. Maybe we start there and see what we can do about the debt interest and other areas where efficiency and automation could help, to get us to the full benefit I proposed.

Alright, so we've played out a lot of hypothetical scenarios here, and I know you've had to suspend some of your beliefs or concerns in order to play along. I will ask you now to suspend nothing - question the math, question the theory, question why poor people stay poor, question why the rich get richer. I've linked to a number of great resources that I've found, and here's perhaps one of the most compelling findings of my little research: I've not found anything to persuade me that this is wrong. I want these things to be proven wrong, both technological unemployment or underemployment, and that a Universal Basic Income would work. But the arguments against them that I've found are so weak and unfounded, almost laughable. I can find more compelling "evidence" that you shouldn't vaccinate your child than evidence or arguments showing that UBI won't work. Maybe it's not big enough to attract the naysayers yet, I'll buy that for now. But it's gaining momentum after hundreds of years of idlely hanging out on the fringe, and this may be the generation to see it happen. 

One more thing to think about; I briefly alluded to the minimum wage earlier. While I think UBI or something very similar could be a solution to technological underemployment, I would differentiate it vastly from the minimum wage. People fight for a livable minimum wage, and I think this is the wrong approach. A minimum wage, by definition, is the minimum a person could be expected to be paid. A teenager living with her parents and with no kids of her own, working a part-time retail job with no previous experience does not need to make enough to support a family of four. That is to say that if you are supporting a family of four, you should not be making minimum wage. Now, I get it, there's a cycle of poverty that keeps that working single parent down or whatever the case may be. But I believe teenagers have a right to work for crappy, non-livable wages to gain experience. Hell, some college grads take unpaid internships for experience. By raising the minimum wage, I believe we are only depriving these inexperienced young people the experience they need to get the next job up. This is where the "magic" of UBI comes in to play - if we instituted UBI roughly as outlined here, we could actually lower the minimum wage and let market forces do more of the driving on hourly rates. This is because that minimum wage would no longer be the sole income of any adult, ever! Every adult would get enough to stay out of poverty without working. They should be able to afford minimal housing, three meals a day and clothes and supplies. That means if they want to take a minimum wage job to make more money, to live in a slightly nicer home or eat slightly more interesting food or have slightly nicer things, they can, and if they want to go to school in hopes of maybe getting a better job in the future, they can, and if they want to stay home with the kids, they can. Then those poor teenagers can go to work for their crappy pay and get that experience while living with their parents and not having kids of their own, and I think that is a damn good thing indeed.


*Footnote:
I've criticized myself harshly at times for being too unfocused - I love so many things, from crafting and interior design to finance and economics, from technology and entrepreneurship to language and culture and travel. Imagine if I actually quit my corporate job and worked in the gig economy: spend an hour designing a logo for a client, then an hour teaching English via video chat to a student in China, take a break to work out, and then spend two hours writing a report for the Associated Press, and call it a day, or work on something else. If it weren't for the uncertainty of the gig economy and the certainty of my paycheck and health insurance, I'd do this right now. It sounds so much more fulfilling than my 9-to-5 that's really  7:30-5:30-ish-with-a-half-hour-lunch-break-if-I'm-lucky-instead-of-the-hour-lunch-break-we're-supposed-to-have. The path to this type of gig-based lifestyle just feels so risky still, but maybe it will be less so in the future. Or, maybe I'm delusional, and the cost of burn out from my corporate job is much higher than I know, and I could be spending my time better in the gig economy. How does one know?


**Footnote:
I took my recent job relocation as an opportunity to change my lifestyle such that it naturally incorporates more physical activity and minimized my commute. Specifically, I live so close to my new office that it makes no sense to drive, so I walk to work and also to shopping and restaurants for the most part.  Thus, I naturally walk a lot more than I used to without having to think about traditional exercise.  Plus, I have about an hour back each day from my commute, which helps with the balance of my personal time. It still takes monumental efforts, at times, to do things like coursework, reading, writing, art, and actual working out, but those other steps have given me more time to motivate myself.