Universal Basic Income programs have been rolling out across the country since the COVID-19 pandemic, which came with its own form of universal basic income which the United States government called Economic Impact Payments. Since that time, more cities have been experimenting with universal basic income, and despite the fact that they work to help keep people out of poverty, Republicans have consistently pushed back.
Sean Kline, the associate director of Stanford University’s Basic Income Lab, told the outlet that he is worried that these programs will end in the future. “I’m worried that these guaranteed income demonstrations are going to sunset and then it’s just going to go quiet.” Kline also said that arguments that these programs need conditions undermine the dignity of those who receive the payments. “There are positive outcomes from conditional cash, there are positive outcomes from unconditional cash,” Kline said. “But I think for me, making it conditional misses a really fundamental value around trust, dignity, agency, freedom.”
Last year, Business Insider spoke to Anna Jefferson, a principal investigator at Abt Associates who studies data from basic income programs across the country. Jefferson indicated that part of the reason basic income programs are popular is because inequality in America is currently greater than it was during the Great Depression. Jefferson noted that the projected $3 trillion cost of the program on a national scale could be offset by improvements to society if the net benefit ends up “reducing the need for food assistance or housing subsidies or criminal justice systems or burdens on healthcare systems, it may be something that pays for itself.”
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Source: Black Enterprise
