Santens discusses basic income’s impact on income inequality by analyzing its effect on Gini coefficients. He concludes that a basic income directly reduces income inequality and can help push the U.S.’s Gini coefficient closer to those of the Nordic countries.
Scott Santens, “Does Guaranteeing a Basic Income Reduce Income Inequality?”, 1 December 2014.
Santens discusses the ramifications of self-driving vehicles on the American economy in the next few decades. The technology already exists, likely to reach the market sometime in the 2020s, but the most popular job in most U.S. states belongs to truck drivers. The economic consequences of displacing these truckers with self-driving trucks may lead to serious unemployment problems due to automation. Santens argues that a basic income can help ease the transition into even further technology-driven automation.
Scott Santens, “Self-Driving Trucks Are Going to Hit Us Like a Human-Driven Truck”, Medium, 14 May 2015.
Shetterly’s post responds to arguments that a basic income should be contingent on people registering for jobs that they must take if asked. He points out that basic income needs to be considered separately from welfare and to be implemented with minimal administration. He argues there simply are not enough jobs available for everyone and that 100% employment is impossible without creating pointless jobs.
Will Shetterly, “Four problems with work requirements for Basic Income”, It’s all one thing, 10 May 2015.
Santens uses John Oliver’s segment on the lack of paid parental leave legislation in the U.S. to highlight how basic income can effectively serve the same purpose as parental leave legislation and how it helps mothers of newborn children. By using the negative income experiments of the 1970s in the U.S. and Canada, Santens argues that the worst-case reduction in hours worked by mothers would be about 10 weeks of time off from work to care for the new child, but these 10 weeks would be voluntarily taken off and would still be less time off than parents in other countries have.
Scott Santens, “Basic Income as Paid Parental Leave”, 11 May 2015.
Simon Duffy, the Director of the Centre for Welfare Reform in the UK, writes this list-style post as an introduction to the main benefits of a universal basic income. The Centre for Welfare Reform supports a universal basic income, and Duffy provides links to support most of his major points.
Simon Duffy, “Top 20 Reasons to Love Citizen Income”, Huffington Post, 21 April 2015.
