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.

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?

This article is a posting from BasicIncome.org reporting on a recent parliamentary recommendation vote regarding a basic income initiative in Switzerland. The initiative was strongly opposed in parliament but in a poll taken of Swiss citizens in regards to the basic income initiative showed there is strong support for it. Being a recommendation vote there was no decisions actually made in this vote but it does give a good example of how an idea like this one would be handled in a democratic government. (Citation: Jourdan, Stanislas. "Switzerland's Lower House Rejects Basic Income, but Poll Shows Popular Support." BIEN. 2015. Web.) Retrieved from http://www.basicincome.org/news/2015/10/swiss-parliament-opposes-popular-initiative/ - Jack Pearce