Why Bernie Sanders fans must support a Universal Basic Income
I’m a huge Bernie Sanders fan — I mean I even wrote songs about him. I definitely #FeeltheBern. But I also feel there is one very important policy missing from Bernie Sanders’s platform: Universal Basic Income (UBI).
Universal Basic Income is a guaranteed monthly income for every citizen, sufficient enough to afford the basic necessities of life, such as food and shelter. I like to think of Basic Income as the right to afford the rights of life and liberty, granted to us in the US Declaration of Independence. Ready for some more radical ideas?
Here’s 10 Reasons why Bernie Sanders and all his supporters must support the elimination of poverty with a Universal Basic Income:
1. Solidarity
Nobody working 40 hrs a week should live in poverty. I think we can all agree on that. And I support increasing the minimum wage to $15/hr because it will help lift employees out of poverty. But what about people working over 40 hrs/wk who are not employees?
Think of stay at home parents, charity workers, and the quickly growing numbers of self-employed / small business owners. And how about all the independent journalists, activists, and volunteer workers (to whom the Bernie Sanders campaign owes most of its success)? All that work doesn’t even pay minimum wage…It pays nothing.
If you want to achieve real solidarity, you need a movement that includes everyone. Not just those who are traditionally employed.
2. The Future of Labor
Automation will soon be costing us more jobs than overseas labor.
For 30 years, Bernie Sanders has been fighting to save America’s shrinking middle class. He rightfully blames a large part of our growing inequality on free trade deals that make it easier for American corporations to move jobs overseas. But everyone should also be aware that such jobs are not only becoming unavailable to Americans, due to off-shore manufacturing. They are becoming unavailable to humans anywhere, due to automation.
Oxford research predicts nearly half of all American jobs will be automated in the next 20 years. While 2016 candidates have yet to discuss this important issue, just last month the U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee had a hearing over growing concern about “The Transformative Impact of Robots and Automation”, where Basic Income was brought up as a “potential solution” and maybe even “necessary down the road”. Minimum wages and revised trade deals will not protect working families from the growing trend of job automation. But a Universal Basic Income would.
3. Healthcare
Economic insecurity has devastating consequences for both physical and mental health. Not only is it harder to afford healthy food with an insecure income, but research also shows that long-term stress negatively affects our immune systems, making us more likely to have high blood pressure, cholesterol, and become obese or diabetic.
Evidence suggests a Basic Income would save money on healthcare by alleviating our economic insecurity. When a minimum income was provided to everyone in a city in Canada, hospitalization rates fell by 8.5%.
A right to healthcare will help treat the symptoms of poverty. But a right to a Basic Income will cure it. If we’re serious about improving the health of our citizens, we must adopt a Basic Income.
4. A Moral Economy
If we just organize life around market principles, food is no longer grown to feed hunger, and housing is no longer built to provide shelter. Each is produced solely to make money.
Is it moral for the US to throw away 40% of the food we produce while children go hungry? Is it moral to have over 6 vacant homes for each homeless American lying in the street? Rather than waste our abundant resources, let’s give everyone the access they need to those resources with a Universal Basic Income.
5. Job Creation
Right now a growing number of working age adults spend their days desperately looking for work that isn’t there. Basic Income is the only policy that would create a new job for every single American — a job spending their time on what they themselves find meaningful.
6. The Environment
Tree cutters and fossil fuel industry workers continue harming the environment because they need a paycheck to support themselves and their families. A basic income frees people to pursue work that is socially and environmentally practical in contrast to the kinds of work many are now pressured into out of pure financial necessity. Also, fewer people would feel the pressure to commute to work. We’d reduce fuel emissions, letting people stay where they are to pursue work locally, or online.
7. War & Peace
The truth is that economic insecurity is an influential recruitment tool for any military group, whether it’s the US Army or ISIS. With Basic Income, no one will ever again be so easily coerced into war for a basic paycheck.
8. Crime Reduction
Most crimes are a result of desperation and lack of opportunities to earn money. If you eliminate the desperation with Basic Income, you eliminate the majority of crime along with it.
9. Expanding Social Security
Bernie Sanders wants to expand Social Security. And Basic Income would be the best way to do that because it’s less confusing, more fair, and would benefit everyone, not just seniors. Why wait until people are old? If we want our citizens to give back to their communities, their community should give them something to begin with.
The current Social Security system is unfair to lower income earners. On average poor people start working earlier (due to financial insecurity), while the wealthy start work later (after going to college). The poor also die sooner, while the wealthy live longer. Consequently, the poor pay more into SS while benefiting less than their rich counterparts. Basic Income would eliminate such unfairness.
10. Government Efficiency
No other policy in the history of government would accomplish so much and as efficiently as would a single Basic Income program. Welfare in the US is a complex maze of 126 separate anti-poverty programs. That’s 126 bureaucratic departments reviewing, rejecting, re-reviewing, then maybe accepting applications and doing the same thing over again week after week. What a waste of time and money. In the wealthiest nation in the history of the world, it’s sickening that each month we pick and choose who is worthy of bare bones survival, and who is not. The basic needs of life should be there for all our people. Basic Income would enable that with one simple program.
Basic Income is so simple and efficient that it’s effectively transparent. So there would be a lot less bureaucracy for government corruption and fraud to hide behind.
Bernie Sanders on Basic Income
When asked if he would support Basic Income, Bernie Sanders replied, “…If the goal is that in America everybody should have at least a modest standard of living — with healthcare, with educational opportunity, the answer is absolutely yes.” And although Bernie Sanders has not yet explicitly advocated for Basic Income, he encourages the crowds at his large rallies to “Think outside the box,” and to “Think big, not small.” So let’s do that. Let’s all start thinking seriously about Universal Basic Income.
This resource was created thanks to a crowdfunded monthly basic income. If you find value in this article, you can support it along with all my future work with a monthly patron pledge of $1+.
Special thanks to: Aaron Brodeur, Amanda Amarotico, Andrea, Arjun, Arthur Egendorf, betastarchild, Beth Nawrocki, Bob Bogardus, Brandy, Chris Brosz, Christina Vircillo, Christine Collie Rowland, David Ryal ‘Pug’ Anderson, Dreama, Eleanor Kuser, George Kao, James, Jeff Oplinger, Jenna Wikler, Johnny Proctor, Laura Ballard, Liane Gale, Liz Arriaza, Margaret Lion, Mary Burke, Mary Kay Benson, Michael Scott, Michelle A OHara, Monica, Nancy Clifford, Pedro Alexandre Moreira, Sandeep Mangla, Scott Santens, Sebastian, sherrie Parks, T Cutler, Tanu Kaskinen, Waldir Pimenta, & Zak Groner
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