An introduction to universal basic income

As college students, it’s safe to say that when we’re offered “free money,” we take the opportunity whenever we can. The list of what could be done with an extra $100 a month could extend into infinity—far less for $500, or even $1000 a month. However, there are more practical benefits to such free money that extend beyond important things like saving or binging more coffee from Einstein’s.

Universal basic income (UBI) is basically a theoretical model for providing a country’s citizens with a given sum of money. This is regardless of income, employment status, resources, assets, and so on. Though the primary purpose of UBI is to mitigate poverty and increase equality, as we become more technologically sophisticated, the need for UBI may become more pressing as a potential solution to dealing with automation. It’s estimated that roughly 73 million jobs will be lost to automation by 2030: that’s 73 million potential people without jobs. This impending threat of loss of jobs is slowly creeping onto us, and UBI is a crucial step to surviving it.

A large advocator of fighting this threat with UBI is American 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang. One of Yang’s flagship policies is implementing what he calls a “Freedom Dividend,”: a universal basic income of $1,000/month, $12,000 a year, for every American adult over the age of 18. Yang states that this Dividend “would enable all Americans to pay their bills, educate themselves, start businesses, be more creative, stay healthy, relocate for work, spend time with their children, take care of loved ones, and have a real stake in the future.”

Consequently, Yang also generally stresses the importance of approaching automation in a way that doesn’t leave millions jobless at the hands of machines, stranded, and slowly impoverished. Naturally, there are just criticisms of the UBI policy, such as how would the US sustain it, where would it come from, and so on. However, there are frameworks, such as the one Yang proposes, that frames UBI as not only a sustainable solution for American citizens but a largely fruitful one as well.

Darlon Riviere - Staff Writer