The Alaska Permanent Fund is a fund for all residents of the U.S. state of Alaska which averages $1,600 annually (in 2019 currency), and is sometimes described as the only example of a real basic income in practice.
The idea of providing a basic income to all members of society goes back centuries. The 16th century English philosopher and statesman Thomas More mentions the idea in his best-known work, Utopia.
Thomas Paine, a pamphleteer whose ideas helped spur the American Revolution, proposed a tax plan in which revenues would provide a stream of government income “to every person, rich or poor.”
And Martin Luther King, Jr., proposed “guaranteed income” in his book Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? published in 1967.
The American Rescue Plan, signed by President Biden on March 11, 2021, included generous tax breaks to low- and moderate-income people.
Data shows that the injection of funds is what allowed people to keep it together over the late pandemic and even now into the current inflationary environment.
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If everyone has $1,000 then no one has $1,000. Money only has value because it is comparative. This is simply inflationary.
@JasonHerrera UBI is not printing new money, but redistributing existing money. UBI can boost the economy and reduce poverty, without causing inflation. Especially within local economies.
@HumanITy The implementation matters a lot for whether I'm "in favor" of it; where is the existing money being taken from for this redistribution?
@JamieWahls implement a taxation of automation for the removal of paid human workforce. Still cheaper than the cost of human labor & allows for reimbursement into the working economy.
@JasonHerrera That is not how money works at all. Cash does not have value because I have it and you don’t. The current value basis for the USD is debt. The suggestion that value is derived from inequality is ludicrous.
@HumanITy Automation doesn’t pay tax. Its owners do, and they pass the added cost on to consumers, who pay with after-tax cash. This is just another tax.
For every $1000 of “free money” distributed, about $300 will be ground up in the gears of Washington.
If you want to make an impact, CUT TAXES by $1000 per capita. No friction, direct spending money in your pocket.
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