Hallelujah!
What if you got $1,000 a month, just for being alive? I decided to find out.
By Scott Santens, Vox
2 Hours AgoVox
Tetra Images | Getty Images
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My father has a basic income. As a retired United States Air Force officer, he has received a paycheck from the US government every month for about 30 years now, since he was 42 years old. His government pension is a monthly starting point above the poverty line — an income floor — always guaranteeing that no matter what, he won't starve or end up on the streets.
My grandfather had a basic income. His father built up a small fortune and put that fortune into a trust. Upon my great grandfather's death, my grandfather received the income from the interest of that fund on a monthly basis for the rest of his life. That money was his guaranteed basic income floor. No matter what, regardless of anything that happened in the world around him, he never knew poverty.
I too now have a basic income. Mine is crowdfunded. Leveraging the Kickstarter-like platform called Patreon, I've grown a large enough base of patrons through my writing and talking about basic income to perpetually start each month with $1,000 in total monthly pledges. I chose $1,000 as my monthly goal because the poverty line in the US is currently defined as $11,880 per year and I wished to create a floor directly above it.
More from Vox:
White people: what is your plan for the Trump presidency?
A letter to America from Leslie Knope, regarding Donald Trump
I'm a disabled American. Trump's policies will be a disaster for people like me.
Since attaining my basic income, I've learned some things from this new vantage point. The very first thing I learned is possibly the most important of all, and one I guarantee you dear reader won't fully appreciate, until or unless you feel it yourself: basic income is about basic security.
What is basic income?
Basic income is money an individual receives regardless of whether he or she works or not, sufficient to meet our most basic human needs for necessities like food, water, shelter, and clothing. It's an amount sufficient to keep us above the poverty line, not living lavishly, but basically. And most importantly, it's a stream of income independent of all other income that functions as a baseline. It enables, and never in any way prevents, additional income.
Take my father as an example: Did he stop working the day he retired from the Air Force? No--he went on to pursue multiple jobs before finally retiring, and even then, he started his own small business for the fun of it in his late 60s.
Basic income for all people is also a government policy idea being increasingly discussed worldwide, where it's primarily seen as the way to make unemployment brought on by self-driving vehicles and machine learning algorithms work for us all instead of the few. By simply cutting every citizen a monthly check and getting rid of most of the welfare state and tax code complexities we use today, everyone could be better off tomorrow, rich and poor alike. If machines are laboring in our stead, and aren't buying any of the fruits of that labor, should we not receive the paychecks that aren't going to them or us, so as to buy those fruits?...
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/11/15/what...st-for-being-alive-i-decided-to-find-out.html
What if you got $1,000 a month, just for being alive? I decided to find out.
By Scott Santens, Vox
2 Hours AgoVox
Tetra Images | Getty Images
8
SHARES
My father has a basic income. As a retired United States Air Force officer, he has received a paycheck from the US government every month for about 30 years now, since he was 42 years old. His government pension is a monthly starting point above the poverty line — an income floor — always guaranteeing that no matter what, he won't starve or end up on the streets.
My grandfather had a basic income. His father built up a small fortune and put that fortune into a trust. Upon my great grandfather's death, my grandfather received the income from the interest of that fund on a monthly basis for the rest of his life. That money was his guaranteed basic income floor. No matter what, regardless of anything that happened in the world around him, he never knew poverty.
I too now have a basic income. Mine is crowdfunded. Leveraging the Kickstarter-like platform called Patreon, I've grown a large enough base of patrons through my writing and talking about basic income to perpetually start each month with $1,000 in total monthly pledges. I chose $1,000 as my monthly goal because the poverty line in the US is currently defined as $11,880 per year and I wished to create a floor directly above it.
More from Vox:
White people: what is your plan for the Trump presidency?
A letter to America from Leslie Knope, regarding Donald Trump
I'm a disabled American. Trump's policies will be a disaster for people like me.
Since attaining my basic income, I've learned some things from this new vantage point. The very first thing I learned is possibly the most important of all, and one I guarantee you dear reader won't fully appreciate, until or unless you feel it yourself: basic income is about basic security.
What is basic income?
Basic income is money an individual receives regardless of whether he or she works or not, sufficient to meet our most basic human needs for necessities like food, water, shelter, and clothing. It's an amount sufficient to keep us above the poverty line, not living lavishly, but basically. And most importantly, it's a stream of income independent of all other income that functions as a baseline. It enables, and never in any way prevents, additional income.
Take my father as an example: Did he stop working the day he retired from the Air Force? No--he went on to pursue multiple jobs before finally retiring, and even then, he started his own small business for the fun of it in his late 60s.
Basic income for all people is also a government policy idea being increasingly discussed worldwide, where it's primarily seen as the way to make unemployment brought on by self-driving vehicles and machine learning algorithms work for us all instead of the few. By simply cutting every citizen a monthly check and getting rid of most of the welfare state and tax code complexities we use today, everyone could be better off tomorrow, rich and poor alike. If machines are laboring in our stead, and aren't buying any of the fruits of that labor, should we not receive the paychecks that aren't going to them or us, so as to buy those fruits?...
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/11/15/what...st-for-being-alive-i-decided-to-find-out.html
