Basic Income Guarantee (B.I.G.) / Living Wage

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Basic Income Guarantee (BIG) / Living Wage

Are we socially obligated to ensure that people who work can achieve a minimum level of material well-being? Are we socially obligated to provide a basic income or living wage (BIG/LW) to everyone in the society regardless of their ability to work?

• Resource Needs:

• Information about full time workers living on current minimum wage in US
• Information about the costs and claimed benefits of schemes like basic income guarantees and living wage
• Arguments about the theoretical rationale for accepting or rejecting the kind of obligation involved in BIG/LW
• Arguments about specific approaches, experiments, and experience with BIG/LW
• Research on effects of wage and income guarantees on economic activity.

Information

• Post summaries of something you learned about the topic that is important to thinking about it. Consult the resource needs list above for ideas. Use both Google searches leading to authoritative information and online databases, books, and articles linked through Foley Library. Look especially for databases in economics and politics.

• One proposal for how to install BIG, which is a way to guarantee that no one's income falls below a certain level, is to eliminate existing welfare programs and introduce a flat tax rate and "social responsibility tax." These would be used to give income to people who fall below the poverty line. Research on this approach suggests that this IS affordable. This would be an alley for social justice in the modern world. (Citation: Pigeon, M. (2003). The basic income guarantee: Ensuring progress and prosperity in the 21st century. Journal of Economic Issues, 37(4), 1182-1185. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/208848548?accountid=1557) -Jordan Thurston

• Proponents of BIG suggest that it would provide economic security, for example, child poverty could be removed and there would be less homeless people on the streets. It could provide this economic security WITHOUT harm to the U.S. government-- all their spending and current activities could continue as usual. Opponents ask what the effect of a basic income guarantee would be on the economy. According to this article, there would be no negative effect on economic growth because no money is actually being removed from the economy. The money is being redistributed, not taken out. Only certain people would be taxed, removing the money from their hands and placing into a more needing set of hands. Similarly, opponents worry about the effect on the labor market because a BIG would mean people could forgo work and still get paid. From experiments with BIG, however, there is no evidence that people dropped out of the labor market. They may take more time to find a new job after being fired, but people did not just drop out of the labor market because they could. An example experiment this article gave was the Alaska Permanent fund, a very popular government program that covers people's basic needs. (Citation: A BIG idea: A minimum income guarantee. (2009). Multinational Monitor, 30(3), 30-34. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/208862729?accountid=1557) -Jordan Thurston

Arguments

• Post arguments that you find or want to put forward on this topic. You can research arguments by doing a Google search, but also by consulting databases like Philosopher's Index, Academic Search Complete, and Proquest.

• This news article proposes that the U.S. give each family an income check in order to help the 15% of American citizens living below the poverty line. A bill in the 1970s called Nixon's Family Assistance Plan was never passed but is similar to this idea. The article includes arguments of opponents and supporters of this idea. It also gives examples of where this basic incomes plans similar to this has been implemented; in Switzerland and in the division of oil revenues in Alaska. (http://www.newsweek.com/2014/12/26/how-fix-poverty-write-every-family-basic-income-check-291583.html) -Kate Pratschner

Insights

• Post here under your name (or login anonymously and either use your saint name (if you want me to know who you are) or make up your own. Post a brief statement of your views as they are evolving on the topic. What arguments, values, and facts are central (or gaining prominence) in your thinking?