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  • There is No Policy Proposal by Any 2020 Presidential Candidate More Progressive than Andrew Yang's

  • Freedom Dividend

  • Primary season has begun and as Trump marches toward a possible second term, a list of Democrats

  • over 20-candidates-long is vying for the honor of being the one who prevents that from happening.

  • One of those candidates, Andrew Yang, has proposed a universal basic income of $1,000

  • per month that he calls a “Freedom Dividend.”

  • As a longtime advocate of UBI, I have something to say about this, and the details of his

  • plan as proposed.

  • This article is meant to be a detailed response to anyone claiming Yangdoesn't care

  • about the poor,” or that “a VAT makes the UBI regressive,” or that Yang's plan

  • increases inequalityand is a “neoliberal Trojan horse meant to destroy the safety net.”

  • None of those claims reflect reality.

  • The reality is that while Yang's proposal can certainly be improved, if signed into

  • law as proposed, the Freedom Dividend would be the single most progressive policy advance

  • ever signed into law in American history.

  • To understand why this is true, we need to dive into the details, so here we go

  • What is the Freedom Dividend?

  • The Freedom Dividend as proposed is an unconditional cash transfer of $1,000 per month that would

  • go to every American citizen age 18 and up.

  • The dividend is unconditional in that it carries no requirements, including any of the typical

  • work requirements imposed on standard benefits.

  • Unemployed?

  • You get it.

  • Do you have to prove you're looking for a job?

  • No.

  • Do you have to attend any classes?

  • No.

  • Employed?

  • You get it in addition to your paycheck.

  • Can you spend it on anything?

  • Yes.

  • It's cash.

  • You are free to use it in any way you want, to buy anything you want.

  • Sounds simple, right?

  • Well, there are some asterisks involved that people tend to miss, or misunderstand, and

  • these can spread either accidentally with no ill intent, or maliciously with the full

  • intent of eroding support through the spreading of disinformation.

  • The most common inaccuracies being spread tend to revolve around the funding and the

  • opt-out structure being proposed which offers people the choice of keeping their welfare

  • benefits or receiving $1,000 per month in basic income, whichever is preferred.

  • Here's a partial list of programs that people would voluntarily opt out of in order to receive

  • the Freedom Dividend: Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), Supplemental Nutrition

  • Assitance (SNAP), Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), Supplemental Security Income (SSI).

  • These programs provide less than $1,000 per month on average, even when combined.

  • Here's a partial list of programs that would exist on top of the Freedom Dividend that

  • no one would have to opt out of: Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance (OASDI)

  • aka Social Security and SSDIunemployment insurance (UI), housing assistance, VA disability.

  • These programs provide more than $1,000 per month on average.

  • For those concerned about health care, that's a separate issue.

  • People on Medicaid would only lose it if and when replaced by Medicare for All which is

  • one of Yang's two other core policy proposals alongside the Freedom Dividend and Human-Centered

  • Capitalism.

  • As a rule of thumb, programs that are considered entitlements because they are contribution-based,

  • will be earned as additional income to the Freedom Dividend.

  • Programs that are considered welfare because they are based on low income, will mostly

  • be offered as an alternative to the Freedom Dividend.

  • As one example, Anna is a single mother receiving $336 in TANF (median for household of two)

  • and $247 in SNAP (average for household of two) for a total of $583 per month.

  • Opting for $1,000 per month instead, she would effectively get an additional $417 per month,

  • a 72% raise in income, unconditionally, and the conditions for her original $583 would

  • be removed.

  • Question: So why provide people a choice between existing programs and the Freedom Dividend?

  • Why not let them keep everything?

  • Answer: To maximize unconditionality.

  • Consider another recipient of existing benefits.

  • Let's call him Tom, and he receives $750/mo in TANF and SNAP combined.

  • Tom is offered a job that pays $2,000/mo.

  • Accepting this job will mean losing his $750/mo.

  • His net income increase would thus be $1,250.

  • That's an increase of 167%.

  • Now, let's say Tom opts for the Freedom Dividend instead of TANF and SNAP, and gets

  • the same job offer.

  • Instead of $750/mo, he has $1,000/mo as a starting point that doesn't disappear with

  • any amount of earned income.

  • Going from $1,000/mo to $3,000/mo is an increase of $2,000, or 200%.

  • Finally, let's say Tom gets to keep his TANF and SNAP on top of his Freedom Dividend

  • and is offered the same job.

  • In this case, in accepting the job, he would go from $1,750 to $3,000, which is an increase

  • of $1,250, or 71%.

  • Between these three scenarios, there are three key takeaways.

  • First, the scenario where the Freedom Dividend is instead of TANF and SNAP results in the

  • greatest incentive to work.

  • Employment makes Tom in that scenario three times better off, financially speaking.

  • Second, the scenario with the worst incentive to work is the scenario where Tom keeps TANF

  • and SNAP in addition to the Freedom Dividend.

  • Tom actually has a better incentive to work in the scenario that exists today, than he

  • would with everything stacking, because his relative increase with everything stacking

  • would be smallest.

  • Third, in the everything stacking scenario, in absolute terms, Tom is no better off than

  • in the pure Freedom Dividend scenario and is objectively worse off.

  • He still ends up with $3,000/mo, but he has to do a lot of paperwork and dehumanizing

  • bureaucratic hoop-jumping along the way to maintain conditions compliance.

  • To emphasize this point, because it needs emphasizing, those who believe the entire

  • existing welfare state should exist on top of the Freedom Dividend are demanding that

  • we make everyone's incentive to work even worse than the existing system already does.

  • Because people would be lifted higher with the dividend, but then dropped the same distance

  • upon losing their benefits as they are now, there's even less reason to accept any form

  • of employment.

  • Instead of eliminating the welfare trap, it would be made into an even bigger trap.

  • Fewer people would earn additional income, which would only serve to reduce instead of

  • increase economic mobility.

  • I would argue that increased economic mobility is a progressive goal to achieve, and thus

  • as proposed by Yang, the Freedom Dividend meets this goal better than stacking welfare

  • on top of the Freedom Dividend.

  • Besides enhanced mobility, another reason for welfare benefits not to stack is because

  • of all the restrictions imposed, and the damaging effects of those restrictions.

  • TANF is a prime example of a welfare program that is functionally regressive.

  • Designed as a federal block grant provided to states to use essentially as they please,

  • states have been using less and less of it on cash assistance to low-income people.

  • It now pays non-profits to teach pregnant women to get married, helps fund the college

  • educations of middle and upper-middle income kids, and is actively responsible for 15%

  • of the black-white child-poverty gap in America.

  • How is it that conditional welfare programs like TANF are actively increasing the racial

  • divide?

  • In the book Disciplining the Poor, it's described asneoliberal paternalism.”

  • Because a dollar in welfare has about three to five times as many strings for someone

  • who is black than someone who is white, the severity of the conditions themselves, and

  • the punishments applied for not meeting those conditions, can actually function to leave

  • people (disproportionately people of color) worse off than if they'd never applied for

  • assistance in the first place.

  • Not only that, but people exposed to the worst conditions and punishments learn lessons that

  • hurt democracy.

  • They retreat from participating in politics.

  • They become less likely to make their voices heard, and less likely to participate in elections

  • and community organizations.

  • Too many assumptions are made about conditional welfare, and these assumptions tend to be

  • made by those who have never experienced the process of getting, using, and keeping them,

  • and these assumptions tend to be based on whether one is liberal or conservative.

  • If liberal, these programs are godsends that save the lives of everyone in need.

  • If conservative, these programs are demonspawn that rob hardworking Peter to pay lazy pill-popping

  • Paul.

  • Nuance, lived experience, and data are missing from these assumptions.

  • Here's the reality beyond the racial elements already covered.

  • Thirteen million Americans living in poverty are entirely disconnected from the federal

  • safety net.

  • They receive no assistance at all.

  • A third of those in severe poverty defined as half the poverty line, get nothing.

  • By any conceivable measure of need, these are the neediest Americans, and conditional

  • benefits don't reach them.

  • Why they don't is a combination of not knowing the help is possible, not wanting the help

  • because of the stigma, not properly applying, not qualifying despite living in poverty,

  • and being kicked off.

  • When it comes to TANF cases, 20% are closed due to non-compliance, 15% are ended because

  • of sanctions, and 13% of people just quit.

  • Only 16% get off TANF because of employment, and only 1.3% reach the time limit.

  • About two out of five people who qualify for SNAP never even apply, and to qualify for

  • SNAP or SSI one must have less than $2,000 in assets and keep it that way.

  • Did you know that in some states, you must prove you're homeless by providing a document

  • you can only get from an approved homeless shelter verifying you're homeless?

  • Did you know that over 10,000 people die every year while waiting with over one million other

  • Americans to prove they're sufficiently disabled enough to receive disability benefits?

  • The average wait time is now two years, and there is a minimum wait time of five months.

  • Did you know that people receiving $5 per day in SNAP benefits can be forced to spend

  • eight hours a day in a “work-search officewhere if they are five minutes late they can

  • lose their benefits?

  • That works out to 63 cents per hour, even less if one considers the cost of getting

  • to and from the office.

  • Did you know WIC can only allow mothers to purchase cow's milk that is fat-free or

  • low-fat, cheese that is domestic only, and eggs that are white and smaller than large?

  • That's the level of control these programs have over everyday decisions that non-recipients

  • take for granted.

  • Source

  • According to Kate Miechkowski, a social worker who has begun asking her clients if they'd

  • prefer to keep their conditional welfare assistance or receive an unconditional $1,000 per month

  • instead, out of 38 asked so far, only 2 have said they'd prefer to keep their conditional

  • benefits.

  • One even replied that the Department of Social Services (DSS) makes themwant to blow

  • their head off,” because of how they're made to feel like a “shitty person.”

  • Another said they'd work three jobs if they could, to not have to deal with it.

  • Why do some progressives want to continue subjecting people to such dehumanizing and

  • humiliating treatment?

  • Because unless people get an extra 15% per month in SNAP that prevents them from having

  • more than $2,000 in assets, and that requires doing pretend-work eight hours a day for the

  • luxury of the extra $5 a day they can't even spend on hot food or diapers or hygiene

  • products, that they'll be worse off?

  • Progressives need to accept that conditional programs aren't progressive.

  • They are paternalistically neoliberal.

  • The most progressive thing to do is to lift everyone up without conditions, and to remove

  • the conditions of the cash and cash-like welfare benefits already being received.

  • If what they're currently receiving is more than $1,000 per month, then let them keep

  • those benefits if they choose, but let them also opt to escape them if they choose.

  • Conditions exist as they do for a reason.

  • Although popular belief is that the conditions exist to make sure to target the deserving

  • and exclude the undeserving, the real purpose of these conditions is punishment.

  • The more punitive the programs, the fewer people will be on them.

  • The goal is to discipline people into escaping poverty, to teach them that becoming poor

  • was a mistake, especially if they are people of color.

  • And as long as they are given any help, they need to be manipulated and restricted into

  • making the right decisions, because if they could make the right decisions on their own,

  • they wouldn't be poor in the first place, right?

  • No.

  • That entire line of thinking is regressive.

  • Okay.

  • Not stacking conditionality onto UBI is progressive, but what about how Yang plans to fund his

  • UBI with a 10% value-added tax (VAT)?

  • Isn't that a regressive tax that would make UBI's tax burden fall disproportionately

  • on the poor?

  • The 10% VAT

  • It is indeed true that a VAT is a regressive tax.

  • Because it is a tax on consumption, and those with low incomes spend a larger percentage

  • of their incomes on consumption goods than those with high incomes, those with low incomes

  • are disproportionately impacted.

  • However, in the case of a UBI-VAT, the revenue is fully rebated, and in such a way that those

  • with low incomes receive far more than they pay, and the rich pay far more than they receive.

  • Think of it this way.

  • Let's say you wanted to provide $90 to a homeless person, free and clear.

  • One way of doing that is to hand over $90.

  • Another way is to hand over $100, and ask for $10 back.

  • Both result in them having $90 more.

  • It's nonsense to claim that the second example is regressive because the homeless person

  • loses $10.

  • The net outcome is a $90 gain.

  • Furthermore, the $90 is coming from corporations like Amazon, reducing their profits, and also

  • the spending of the rich, reducing their total disposable incomes.

  • Amazon is able to avoid federal income taxes (they paid $0 on $11.2 billion in profits

  • in 2018), but they can't avoid a VAT because it is applied to every step of production,

  • which is why it's a tax used in more than 140 countries worldwide, including progressive

  • champions: Finland, Norway, Sweden, and Denmark.

  • Businesses like Amazon primarily have two choices with VAT.

  • They can avoid price increases by reducing their profits, or they can pass on price increases

  • to consumers.

  • If they reduce their profits, that effectively increases the buying power of consumers.

  • If they pass on the VAT to consumers, because of the $1,000 per month UBI, and assuming

  • all 10% is passed on, consumers would need to be spending $10,000 per month to not see

  • a net increase to their incomes.

  • A net decrease is physically impossible for anyone earning less than $120,000 per year.

  • One caveat is that for those who choose to keep their existing benefits, their spending

  • power could be reduced by the VAT by up to 10%, and in response to this, Yang has suggested

  • boosting their benefits to compensate for this loss of buying power.

  • A distributional analysis done by the UBI Center concluded that given the details of

  • Yang's plan, 86% would come out ahead.

  • Looking at only those earning under $25,000 per year, 90% would come out ahead (those

  • that don't come out ahead are mostly non-citizens).

  • The bottom 10% would see their disposable incomes increased by almost 120% while the

  • top 10% would see their disposable incomes reduced by 4%.

  • This is a highly progressive outcome that also provides stability for all.

  • Furthermore, when it comes to reducing poverty, 74% fewer households would have disposable

  • incomes that fall under the federal poverty line.

  • That's a huge reduction in poverty.

  • The only program that comes close to that level of poverty reduction is Social Security,

  • which reduces poverty among seniors by 75%, except instead of only impacting seniors,

  • the Freedom Dividend would impact everyone.

  • It would virtually eliminate poverty among seniors and also further reduce poverty among

  • those with disabilities because of stacking with OASDI (Old Age, Survivors and Disability

  • Insurance).

  • In fact, because everyone receiving Social Security and SSDI would receive an additional

  • $1,000 per month, it could be seen as the largest expansion of Social Security since

  • its creation, and because everyone would get it, it would essentially be Social Security

  • for All.

  • When it comes to reducing inequality, America's Gini index score would fall by 15%.

  • We would be 15% more equal than we are now.

  • No other policy being offered by any other candidate achieves that level of inequality

  • reversal.

  • The Rub of Conditions

  • One of the main reasons inequality is reduced so much by UBI is because of how many people

  • in poverty are excluded from the existing safety net.

  • Right now, 76% of people who qualify for housing assistance don't get it.

  • There are 65 million adults in the US living with some form of disability, and only 14

  • million of them receive SSI or SSDI.

  • That's 23%.

  • The remaining 77% are left to compete with the fully abled in the labor market where

  • they experience poverty at over twice the national average.

  • When it comes to cash welfare, in Texas, only 4 out of 100 families living in poverty receive

  • TANF.

  • 18 states out of 50 provide cash to the poor that's less than $200 per month, and 16

  • states entirely exclude more than 90% of those living under the poverty line from cash assistance.

  • The Freedom Dividend would change those numbers to 50 out of 50 states providing $1,000 per

  • month, and 50 states excluding 0% of citizens living in poverty.

  • That's why inequality would be reduced so much by UBI, because conditionality ends up

  • excluding far too many people.

  • Additionally, do you think it would be fair if conditional benefits were stacked on top

  • of the Freedom Dividend, so that for every 100 impoverished families, 23 were lifted

  • above the other 77 equally impoverished families?

  • Is it progressive to provide more to some than others, despite them both being equally

  • poor?

  • The conditions that exclude so many people in need from assistance are also the same

  • conditions that kick people off assistance.

  • As the system exists today, if everyone won a lottery that paid out $1,000 per month for

  • life, virtually everyone would immediately lose their welfare benefits, because most

  • everyone would be earning enough money to no longer qualify.

  • The entire point of these programs is to only benefit thedeserving poor,” so why is

  • it so important to stack TANF, SNAP, WIC, and SSI on top of UBI, if by existing definition,

  • someone earning $1,000 per month is not considered deserving?

  • The same result would occur if everyone got a job earning $1,000 per month.

  • Does that mean employment is a Trojan horse designed to destroy the safety net, because

  • if everyone had a $1,000 per month job, there would be far fewer people on benefits?

  • Does that mean a job guarantee is in fact the ultimate Trojan horse, because it intends

  • to disqualify as many people as possible by paying everyone $30,000 per year to do the

  • guaranteed jobs?

  • Hyman Minsky certainly saw it that way when he said, “The guarantee of an income through

  • a job is the first step toward the elimination of the welfare mess.”

  • All of these welfare programs are also temporary.

  • TANF lasts for a maximum of five years.

  • Assuming someone is fortunate enough to receive $1,000 per month in TANF, and they receive

  • the payment for the full five years, and they live for another fifty years, the Freedom

  • Dividend is ten times larger because of its unlimited lifespan.

  • Is it progressive to prevent someone in poverty from gaining $660,000 in order to prevent

  • them from losing $60,000?

  • Lifelong income from age 18 to death is far more progressive than any temporary program,

  • especially when 1 out of 5 welfare recipients stops receiving their benefits within 7 months,

  • and the average total benefit is less than $833 per month.

  • Making sure someone in poverty receives $5,831 in exchange for 7 months of 20 hours a week

  • of job searching will never be as progressive as making sure someone in poverty is lifted

  • out of poverty, without conditions, for as long as they live.

  • A permanent unconditional income also means never being made worse off by a raise, or

  • a gift, or some inheritance.

  • Because the Freedom Dividend is never lost, there's no possible situation where additional

  • income would leave someone worse off.

  • If conditional benefits were stacked on top of the Freedom Dividend though, that would

  • no longer be true.

  • Earning $15 per hour instead of $13 per hour could mean a loss in benefits larger than

  • the raise.

  • Unconditional basic income is also the only way of finally remunerating the 1.2 billion

  • hours of unpaid work going on every week, and enabling even more of it.

  • For anyone who supports a living wage in the belief that no one working full time should

  • live in poverty, this belief should be extended to include all forms of work.

  • Paid work is not the only way of contributing to society.

  • With UBI, we can for the first time liberate our most meaningful work from employment.

  • And by creating the option to choose unpaid work and even more leisure over paid work,

  • we also grant the power to demand that paid work actually pay.

  • Conclusion

  • I believe that nothing is less progressive than the perpetuation of an inhumane and undignified

  • system built on a foundation of distrust, control, and humiliation.

  • It is a conservative ideology to wish to maintain the status quo, to avoid change, to protect

  • what exists for the sake of stability in fear that change could lead to worse results.

  • Progressives on the other hand, are concerned about making changes that make things better,

  • butbetteris inherently subjective.

  • This is why progressives have a hard time agreeing on what steps to take despite fully

  • agreeing that steps need to be taken.

  • Some progressives are scared that one step forward could lead to two steps back, and

  • thus support no steps forward.

  • Other progressives believe that unless five steps forward are taken, no steps forward

  • should be taken.

  • Some progressives have less interest in measurable progress than they do an ideal where a romantic

  • notion of revolution is of greater seduction, however violent and full of suffering, than

  • peaceful evolution.

  • These progressives are willing to burn it all down in the hope something better will

  • emerge.

  • I however believe that progressivism is about pragmatic progression.

  • A step forward is a step forward, and we should always be stepping forward.

  • After every advance, there's always another advance to make, and we should not refuse

  • to make those advances or misrepresent them becausethey aren't big enough.”

  • We should care about measurable improvements, and we should do so with unceasing empathy.

  • If a program makes people miserable, is that a program to defend?

  • Or is it a program to move beyond?

  • If unconditional cash has been shown to lead to improved physical and mental health, reduced

  • crime and intimate partner violence, improved educational outcomes, more entrepreneurship,

  • increased social cohesion, increased trust, greater life satisfaction, enhanced resiliency

  • to disasters, fewer deaths of despair, and numerous other positive effects with no negative

  • impact on work, why would we not evolve our system to what obviously works better?

  • Is the goal of the progressive movement revolution or evolution?

  • Your answer to that question as a progressive may very well decide whether you support Andrew

  • Yang or not.

  • The Freedom Dividend is the evolution of our safety net into a solid foundation, one that

  • should rise with the rise of automation, so that technology always benefits everyone as

  • MLK himself suggested when he wrote, “the guaranteed income must be dynamic; it must

  • automatically increase as the total social income grows.”

  • If you believe what Yang is proposing we start at isn't enough, then fight for what you

  • believe would be better, and demand that all candidates fight for your ideal UBI.

  • And if those candidates refuse to consider your UBI, you need to ask yourself a question

  • Is it progressive to not support the greatest reduction of poverty and inequalityand

  • greatest increase in freedom and dignityever proposed in American history, because you

  • insist upon preserving paternalistically neoliberal conditionality?

There is No Policy Proposal by Any 2020 Presidential Candidate More Progressive than Andrew Yang's

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沒有比楊偉雄的自由紅利更進步的政策建議了。 (There is No Policy Proposal More Progressive than Andrew Yangs Freedom Dividend)

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    王惟惟 發佈於 2021 年 01 月 14 日
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