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 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.
This article highlights the gross misappropriation of federal antipoverty funding in the United States through the welfare program Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, known as TANF. A large proportion of the TANF block grants given to states are used for other state programs instead of alleviating poverty. This misuse of antipoverty funding would not occur under a basic income, since there would be no bureaucratic middleman to withhold antipoverty funds from the poor.
Scott Santens, “TANF is Terrible”, 1 April 2015.
The article contextualizes the idea of implementing a basic income within the American political and economic context, while emphasizing the importance of discussing basic income in America. Sam Beckens draws a line from increased poverty and growing inequality towards the possible benefits of basic income, while also pointing out what he sees as the two main biggest issues still to be solved: who is still going to work, and who is going to pay for this?
Sam Beckens, “America, We Should Talk About A Basic Income”, CheatSheet, May 8 2015.
The Sustainable Economies Law Center of Oakland, California is hosting an event titled, “Income For All: A Basic Right? A conversation with author Peter Barnes” on May 18, 2015, at the Impact Hub Oakland. Peter Barnes’s recent book With Liberty and Dividends for All discusses the desirability of a universal basic income that comes from wealth instead of labor.
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