I’m not sure how I feel about this. It could be valuable, but it may also be destructive, further erode individual responsibility. It certainly has nothing to do with the popular buzz word “inequality.” Lessing inequality is not achieved by making some people more dependent on others. It is achieved by encouraging independence.
How do such payments do more than continue the status quo for most recipients? Look below at the claimed use of these payments – the two views are in conflict even. At the end of the period of support what has been achieved?
Shouldn’t we be engaging in apprenticeship programs, skill training, education, even subsidized employment that have a chance of making a permanent difference?
The programs are also intended to address racial, wealth or income inequalities. Guaranteed income was a proponent of the civil rights movement in the 1960s, backed by Martin Luther King Jr. to address racial income inequality.
These programs have been lauded by recipients, who say the payments have acted as a support system and offered mental and financial relief.
Recipients have said the money has gone toward things like bills, debt repayment, childcare and more.
Some research has indicated programs have the ability to increase employment in participants, improve financial and housing stability and improve physical and mental health in participants.MORE: Guaranteed income experiment for Black women aims to tackle racial wealth gap
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge initially hosted an income program for 130 residents for 18 months, who received $500 a month starting in 2021.
The city’s latest campaign announced in May it has committed $22 million from the federal American Rescue Plan Act to provide assistance to all low-income Cambridge households that meet the requirements.
Families must have at least one child 21 years of younger and earn 250% of the Federal Poverty Level or less. They’ll be given $500 per month for 18 months, the city says.
“People are using these payments to provide them with more opportunity, more resilience, more financial security,” said Cambridge Mayor Sumbul Siddiqui in a previous interview with ABC News.
She added, “There’s also a notion that people are going to spend this money on drugs, booze, and the list goes on. And that’s also incorrect. We know that people are spending and making purchases, on diapers, on clothes, on personal care products, they’re buying groceries.”
ABCnews
QUINNSCOMMENTARY 
Again, once more with feeling. “Poverty” is an income measure. Most people who are living in “poverty” have substantial assets. “Poverty” is not poor, but low income.
I have no problem if the folks in Cambridge want to fund a guarantee for others in Cambridge. We can all sit back and watch the outcome of the pilot.
I can predict what would happen, so can you.
Just don’t ask me to pay – for the pilot in Cambridge, nor any other program. I’m already subsidizing too many things with my taxes, and have for the past 53+ working years.
LikeLike
What assets do you refer to?
LikeLike
Retirement savings, investments, home equity, government transfers (food stamps, public housing, Medicaid, etc.) everything. Poverty is defined by income. Here’s the official US Government definition: The official poverty definition uses money income before taxes and does not include capital gains or noncash benefits.
So, if you have no income and a $10MM home in California, you live in poverty.
LikeLike
I find it rather strange that we just had a “disagreement” over the debt ceiling (I just read the debt has hit 32 trillion in a matter of days since the agreement was signed) and we now jump to how the government can spend money that as far as I can tell, doesn’t exist except if it is just newly printed. It doesn’t matter whether it is good or bad for people to get more handouts because there is nothing to give.
This society has gone from a government that maintains a level of civilization to one where freebies are the order of the day. Why bother with school or work, just ask and you will receive.
LikeLike
The ideal of guaranteed income for doing nothing more does not sit well with me. Even social security requires you to have worked to have the minimum benefit. The whole purpose of social security was to have a guaranteed income in old age to prevent old ladies from dying in the streets. Why are we trying to come up with a program for people who can work? The government already has welfare programs that give the poor money for doing nothing. We have minimum wage laws that should guarantee a minimum income.
Now I have several issues with the government in their stats. Is the poverty truly what they say it is or is it 250% more? Is minimum wage where it really needs to be? Is this just not an expansion of welfare? Are we going to give the mentally ill and the drug addicts living in tents cities this money too just because they have checked out of society? How will this improve their lives and get to the point they will not be dependent on this free money? Or will this just become another transfer of wealth from the middle class workers to the non-workers?
How did people use the free covid money? Did people use it for needs or did they buy things they wanted with this free money? I know what I did since I didn’t need this money in the first place.
Do get me wrong. Some people do need welfare. Some people need help even making up to 250% of the poverty level. But the ideal of money for nothing does sit well with me. Why did I work hard all my life if I could just get free money?
LikeLike