First up is a discussion about
universal basic income. Please
welcome up the CEO of HandUp,
Rose Broome.
Hi everyone. Buy now, most of
you have probably heard about
the universal basic income. It's
a social safety net that gives
everyone a payment that covers
their basic cost of living. The
basic income has had support on
the left and the right. Martin
Luther King believed that it
would help end poverty.
Conservative economist Milton
Friedman like it because he
thought it would cut down on
government bureaucracy and
promote freedom. That was 50
years ago. Now everyone's
talking about because the robots
are coming. I'm guilty of this,
too. While it's true that the
nature of work is changing,
historically, technology and
automation have actually created
more jobs. That gets us to the
big question, could the basic
income actually happen in the US?
I think so. I'm going to outline
the three main steps that I
think we need to take to get
there. The first is that we need
to accept that poverty is here
now. We need to start now. We
don't need to wait for self-
driving cars. 50 million
Americans live below the poverty
line. It's already affecting our
political stability. I see this
up close in my own work. I'm the
CEO of a tech startup called
HandUp that lets you donate
money directly to people who are
experiencing homelessness and
poverty. We work with people
like Julianne who became
homeless for the first time when
she was seven months pregnant.
She used HandUp at first to help
pay for her food, for her baby
and supplies. Now she uses it to
help pay for school. She's
studying accounting. With the
basic income, Julianne would
have these basic needs met. Of
course, she can turn to our
existing social safety nets, but
it's a mess. We have over 80
programs that cost a trillion
dollars a year. Which of these
programs should we cut? Which
should we keep? How would we pay
for our basic income? I think
these are really interesting
questions. Unless you're a
policy wonk, I think spending
too much time on these questions
can be a big distraction.
Instead, I think we need to
start small, step two. Great
examples of these are Y
Combinator that's launching a
pilot of the basic income in
Oakland and the universal income
project that host meet ups and
hackathons that help get the
word out. We need to support
efforts like these and create
more. Another example is
starting small is looking at
existing programs, like in
Alaska where everyone gets $1,
000 a year from oil revenues.
Social Security is another
example. These existing programs
could be grown into something
like a basic income. We don't
have to start from scratch.
Starting small is how Finland is
doing it. They just launched a
pilot of the basic income with 2,
000 citizens who are unemployed
and each will get €560 a month
for two years. They think this
will create, excuse me, security
while also helping promote work
because it doesn't dis-
incentivize people from getting
a job. The third and most
important step is that we need
to build a movement with a broad
coalition of people in
organizations who will rally
behind the basic income, who
will get the word out, give
ignite talks about it and fight
for experiments and policy. A
movement that's inspired by a
new American dream where
everyone has the basics economic
security, where poverty is seen
not as a character flaw, but as
the systemic issue that we know
it is, a dream where everyone
can pursue the work that they
care about like teaching our
children and where that work is
valued and imbued with meaning
even if it doesn't pay. Where
everyone, regardless of their
background, can be an
entrepreneur or start a business.
It is so much more than an
answer to automation. The basic
income represents a paradigm
shift about the way we live our
lives. Imagine if everyone
around you actually was free to
do what they love. That's the
dream of the basic income that
will inspire a movement to make
it a reality. Only a crisis
produces real change. When that
crisis occurs, the actions that
are taken depend on the ideas
that are lying around. Just a
few months ago, Obama said that
over the next 10 to 20 years as
a nation, we will need to debate
the basic income. Let us start
now, start small and build a
movement so when that time comes,
the basic income is one of the
most researched and loved ideas
that is lying around. This is
some of my work. I hope you'll
check it out and join us.
Thank you.