On $11,880 & how to end Poverty
$11,880
That is the US poverty level marker for 2016 in the 48 Contiguous States.
Which means if you currently make 12,000 dollars a year, you are not in poverty, officially.
It also means that if we were to establish a minimum basic income of 12,000 a year, for everyone, that we could effectively end poverty in the US.
Which would also boost the economy tremendously, both in the short term and the long term — if it was joined by effective taxation and current program continuation along with reasonable regulations for ensuring that wealth is shifted away from the current redistribution format to a more effective one.
No means testing, no “making sure it isn’t being used improperly”.
Just flat out give the money in order to help out everyone.
A lot of folks will say things like “it will increase inflation and raise prices and..”
It is all bullshit. In none of the pilots done anywhere in the world has that ever happened.
Even if it did, when you tie the amount to the index used to determine that figure, it undermines the argument.
Yes, some folks will waste it on drugs or other substance abuse problems and become a burden that we have to deal with — but we live in an era where nearly a fifth of the nation is struggling with opioids addiction from legal sources, and folks are still smoking, and folks are still drinking.
So that argument is pretty freaking hollow.
Plus, you forget the impact on a single parent household, because you are thinking in terms of adults.
I am not. A single mother with two children suddenly has enough money to be able to provide her children with clothes, food, and more.
Yes, that means everyone. As the bad guy in The Professional screams:
EVERYONE!
Babies need diapers, immunizations, clothes every week, babyfood and formula — and suddenly a family that would otherwise be struggling has enough to do that.
That means college is suddenly something that is in reach even at today’s costs.
If programs were established to focus on savings, it would reduce personal debt as well, and suddenly people aren’t living paycheck to paycheck.
Want to get rid of current non-medical programs?
Double the amount for adults. Suddenly social security and all the rest aren’t as necessary.
How to pay for it? Taxes, of course. Fewer deductions, higher corporate and upper 10% income levels. Reduced military spending. Without the other programs, it becomes really affordable.
Pass single payer, and you remove a further hurdle.
Now we have a nation that generates enormous growth at a higher rate.
The math is so good around this that it has only one kind of opposition:
The illogical, emotional, selfish kind. From people who will get the money themselves.
Here’s another take on it: https://www.tulevaisuustalo.fi/en/articles/basic-income-new-universalism/