What If We Just Gave Poor People a Basic Income for Life? That’s What We’re About to Test.

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185. Have you done any research on this matter?

In the debates of the 1990s on Welfare Reform, one of the problems they found with the Aid for Dependent Children (AFDC) was that when a person on welfare wanted to work, they would LOSE benefits more then the job would bring in income. If there were NO loss in benefits, more people in welfare would look for work. Congress addressed this problem by reducing the reduction in benefits rate to 50% from the previous 33 1/3%. It was some help, but not much.

Studies involving Social Security Disability recipients had the same results, if there was a loss in benefits if someone went to work, you had less people looking for work then if they was NO loss in benefits. When SS adopted the nine months trial work period (Which for nine months you can work and NOT lose your SS Disability benefits), SSA found a HUGE number of people on Disability taking jobs to see if they could do that job.

Yes, there are people who want to lay on the beach and collect food stamps, but they are so rare that it took FOX months to find such a person, and then only found one (no one else could find any).

My point is the people who have ACTUALLY worked in this field, basically have found that people on Welfare what to work, but also do not want to lose their benefits. The system even today PUNISH such people if they decide to work. My favorite rule on Welfare, is if you are over paid, even of it is the fault of the GOVERNMENT, you have to pay it back, and that payback is done by reducing future benefits. You can get forgiveness of an over-payment of Unemployment, Social Security, SS, and even for failing to pay taxes, BUT NOT FOR ANY WELFARE OVER-PAYMENT EVEN IF THE OVER-PAYMENT IS THE FAULT OF THE GOVERNMENT. That is how bad people on welfare are treated. The purpose is to save Government Money, even if it cost the Government more money then they are saving.

This is not new, the main reason the US embraced Separation of Church and State in the 1790s was to reduce Welfare costs. Welfare prior to the 1790s was run by the Churches. The States, to reduce costs, disestablished the Churches. The state claimed it was to separate Church from State, but the real reason was to end welfare payments to widows and orphans. The States adopted a policy of sending such Widows and Orphans to the frontier to steal lands from the First American, rather them give them money to survive on. The South embraced this move first and thus disestablished their churches in the 1790s. Massachusetts did not do it till 1837, during the next "Great Depression" in American History and for the same reasons, to free the state from paying welfare. New York City was still shipping widows and orphans out west as late as the 1920s, when the Western States put a stop to it, by shipping them back (This is believed to be how Billy the Kid went from New York City to New Mexico in the 1880s).

When most people lived on the farm, if your home was taken from you, either by your landlord for failing to pay rent, by the bank for failing to pay the Mortgage, or by the Government for failing to pay taxes, you were entitled to harvest any crop planted on that farm. This was to guarantee you food and income to start over. It was the Courts accepting the concept of making sure people had a basic income.

I bring this up for the concept is NOT new, it is very old and has worked in the past. It is only in the last 200 years that people have adopted the concept that they are people who will NOT work if they were given a basic living allowance. This is found first in urban areas, then after the Great Depression the rest of the nation. In most urban areas the concept was tied in with breaking strikes (and the main reason the concept has been rejected). If strikers had money to fall back on, a strike could last for months, but of they had to live paycheck to paycheck, workers are reluctant to go on strike. In such situation a Basic Income would encourage workers to go on strike, for they basic needs would be taken care of by the basic income. Thus the 1% hate the idea of Basic Income for it encourages strikes and they keep repeating all the bad things you hear about basic income for the 1% does NOT want to say WHY they oppose it, for most people will say that is a GOOD reason for a basic income (i.e. encourage strikes by making sure strikers will have their basic needs meet). This is why the 1% hate Social Security, for as people need their retirement age, they start to tell their employers "What is the worse thing you can do to me? Retire me?". The 1% hate retirement plans, for it strengthens workers, especially workers who can retire. The 1% hate welfare programs (and strikers as a rule can NOT get Welfare OR unemployment benefits) and sets up Welfare Program so to punish workers and worker's children whose spouse goes on strike.

Yes, the above is all tied in with basic income, for it strengthens the 99% for with a basic income the 99% can quit or go on strike AND STILL FEED THEIR FAMILIES.

By the way Congress has set the Minimum amount needed to survive at $733 a month. This is called the "Standard of Need". The "Standard of Need" is what Social Security Administration (SSA) pays out in the Supplement Security Income (SSI) program. SSI is reduced by any other source of income including any Social Security one may be entitled to.

The Federal Government will match dollar for dollar what any state will pay anyone on Transitional Aid to Needy Families (TANF, it replaced AFDC in 1994) up to that amount. NO STATE HAS EVEN SET ITS WELFARE GRANT TO THAT LEVEL (and that includes from the days the program was known as "AFDC" i.e. from the 1960s till today). Every state PAYS LESS then "Standard of Need". In my home county it is $174 a month, the state pays $87, the Federal Government pays $87 (if the state would agree to pay $366 a month for one person, the Feds would pay $366). Now people on Welfare only get one check and that is from the State, but the Fed reimburse the State its half of the payment.