my guest tonight is a contributing
editor for the Atlantic and author of
the new book give people money how a
universal basic income would end poverty
revolutionized work and remake the world
please welcome Annie Lowrey
[Applause]
welcome to the show thank you for having
me this is a book that will get some
people really orgasmic and some
Republicans nightmares for years people
money yes not let them earn money just
give people money on a basic level what
does universal basic income mean so the
idea would be that a government in this
case our government would give everybody
the equivalent of a Social Security
payment so you would just get five
hundred or a thousand dollars a month
maybe just for living and breathing and
being in the United States so you would
just get paid to just be yes that's it
that's it it's a very very simple
revolutionary idea right okay so simple
idea complex in execution yes you know
because as soon as you say universal
basic income immediately people jump to
communism socialism you are going to
give people money then your first
question is why would people bother
working right so the idea is that it
wouldn't be enough money to stop people
from working so if you had five hundred
dollars a month from the government it's
very unlikely that you would quit
working we have actually a lot of
studies that have shown that even with
more money than $500 a month people
don't stop working and the people who do
stop working there's not that many of
them tend to be the parents of young
children right they tend to be young
folks who are staying in school for
longer and then they tend to be older
folks who perhaps retire take it easy a
little bit earlier so you have groups of
people who may be using universal basic
income to improve their lives you know
to raise children to to earn an
education in the title you say how a
universal basic income would end poverty
revolutionized work and remake the world
why revolutionising work so the idea is
that if there were a future in which a
lot of jobs started to be replaced with
AI and automation how would a lot of
people support themselves it's a really
pressing question it's one that people
are really worried about and the idea is
that the government would kind of have
to step in to help people keep people's
heads above water in that kind of
circumstance but there's also an
argument for doing something like this
now so if you had
thousand dollars a month to fall back on
you might not take a job with poverty
wages you might ask an employer to
actually improve working conditions
right so it could be really good for
workers and we've seen just a remarkable
reduction in the power of the labor
force versus their employers and so this
would be kind of a solved for that when
you speak about the labor force I mean
you've gotten a lot of pushback on this
book you know the Wall Street Journal
for instance saying why give people
money why not focus on giving people
jobs isn't that more important than just
giving them a handouts yeah I mean so
people want to work and it's not
necessarily a bad idea but imagine
having the government run a giant jobs
program that was designed to employ like
50% of the labor force that would be a
really hard and expensive thing to do
and the great thing about giving people
money is you give them choice and you
support the economy in that way you
don't have to come up with 30 million
jobs right how do you pay for it because
that's the big question you have yeah I
mean like if you look at the numbers I
mean if if I if I understand correctly
1,000 dollars per person per month yeah
would cost three point nine trillion
dollars per year which is about
one-fifth of the GDP so how do you how
do you pay that even if you take away
all of the Republicans tax cuts let's
say you over you overturn that right
that's still gonna be 5% of paying for
it so where do you get the money from
the United States is a loke low tax
country by OECD standards I heard it's
the highest taxes in the world it is not
it is not even close to it and the
government does less redistribution than
other similar economies do it's part of
the reason that we have the kind of wage
stagnation and Allen quality that we've
had it's why we have more poverty than
other countries that are equally rich as
us so I think that the idea is that you
would probably get rid of some
government programs and then you would
raise some money maybe through something
like raising the estate tax financial
transactions taxes things like carbon
taxes maybe a VA tee but this idea that
there isn't enough money for really big
ideas it might not be popular it might
not be easy to pass but the money is out
there that's not the problem if you look
at people who are already paying texts
there are many people in America who
would say I pay my fair share of taxes
they're already programs that help as
you said Social Security there are
people who get grants from the
government why should they now also get
another
level of assistance in basic income
while I have to pay more tax how would
you respond to that so it probably
wouldn't be everybody who would be
paying more in tax right it would be
very rich people and perhaps
corporations that would be paying more
in tax but the thing that this would do
was it would really give more help to
low-income families right the United
States over time has actually given less
money to people who are extremely poor
the United States has a rate of child
poverty that is 2 3 even 4 times as high
as in similar kind of countries and so
the idea here is that you know right now
we have a safety net with gaping holes
in it we allow and we choose for people
to be in poverty even now with the good
economy that we have 1 in 7 Americans is
in poverty more than 20% of children and
so the safety net that we have isn't
working in a lot of cases and so I think
that you've seen a lot of you know
political strife and concerns about
inequality in this country and this like
feeling that there's a need for bigger
solutions if the problem is going to be
so big it's a it's a powerful issue
that's I mean everyone is debating you
have many tech leaders joining in and
saying I think we need to look at this
President Obama in South Africa any
speech actually just said the same thing
he said maybe we should be looking at
universal basic income there is I guess
one question that would always loom over
and that is historically in America
you'd be naive to propose any idea
involving giving people money if we
don't acknowledge that race will always
come into it there'll be effect yes and
that is race yes do you think it is a
program that could be passed in America
thinking of how like welfare has been
attacked etc etc yeah it's a real
challenge so the reason that we don't
have the kind of safety net that you see
in sort of similar countries whether
Canada or Europe is largely because of
race and racism right we as a country
have just really hated the idea of
giving money to people and then you know
we judge them for how they use it right
you see this embedded in the programs
that we already have you know if you
have food stamps or SNAP benefits we say
you can buy this kind of food but not
that kind of food right and we have a
lot of requirements for programs that
very low part that very low income
people use and so this would be a
counterbalance to that but I do think
it's right that you know you would have
a large group of people in the United
States
we have a culture that really valorizes
work that would object to this and say
you know they I'm just not okay with
that do you think that it's a very big
challenge to it but it's not a reason
not to do it it's a challenge it's
exciting it's fascinating and it's one
of the reasons I enjoy the book thank
you so much for being on the show people
money is available now any Lowry
everybody
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you