Hawaii is the 1st State to Pass Legislation to Study Full Basic Income
What is Basic Income?
A basic income is a periodic cash payment unconditionally delivered to all on an individual basis, without means-test or work requirement.
-Basicincome.org
Those that receive the basic income get a fixed amount of money and can be used however they would like to. This can be to pay bills, home repairs, or even to start a business.
Hawaii Democratic State Representative Chris Lee
In June, State Representative Chris Lee introduced bill HCR 89 that created a working group to study full basic income in the state of Hawaii.
"to convene a basic economic security working group," a request that can be seen as the first tangible step toward a US basic income program."
The legislation passed unanimously and Lee said that he has not encountered opposition to the proposal. It had support from labor unions, the business community, social justice advocates, and from the Hawaiian community.
The working group will analyze the state's exposure to automation and look for potential solutions, possibly basic income being one of them. The working group will also look at the efficiency of the current social services system in the state to determine if it is adequate to handle the challenges in the future.
Lee first heard about basic income on Reddit and became intrigued by the idea. His thoughts about the idea were shifting the American Dream and exploring this new way of wealth distribution.
Lee joined a UBI Podcast to discuss the legislation.
Lee stated:
“It’s safe to say, that if we do nothing…these programs that we are already spending money on are going to go through the roof. To say nothing of unemployment and other changes in the economy that is going to exacerbate income inequality and limit the opportunity for people to work and make a living.”
The working group has no end date but is expected to produce enough research within the 6 months by the next legislative session in January. The results will possibly push for further funding more research into evaluating various proposals on basic income and lead to potential pilot programs tailored to the local economy and not administered by the state.
Lee also goes into saying:
“I think this is definitely an inflection point where we have to acknowledge that the challenges that face us are far larger than our existing infrastructure and economic system are equipped to deal with.”
“I think that ultimately we have no choice and it is inevitable that we see some sort of paradigm shift in the way we are doing things.”
You can listen to Chris Lee discuss the legislation below.
Zuckerberg Supports Universal Basic Income
Mark Zuckerberg CEO of Facebook
On July 4, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg made a post and shared his thoughts about his recent trip to Alaska. He talks about how different the social safety net programs are there since they have a form of basic income called Permanent Fund Dividend.
Every year, the revenue generated from the state's oil is put into a fund. That fund is then divided yearly among the Alaskan residents which normally comes out to $1000 or more per person. The Permanent Fund Dividend is funded by natural resources rather than raising taxes and it comes from conservative principles of smaller government. Zuckerberg says:
"This shows basic income is a bipartisan idea."
Zuckerberg believes the U.S. could benefit from this system.
"Alaska's economy has historically created this winning mentality, which has led to this basic income. That may be a lesson for the rest of the country as well."
He goes on to talk about how Alaska also has another example of basic income where native land is owned and developed by private corporations, which are run and owned by Alaska Natives. The corporations also pay annual dividends to shareholders which are largely natives. The dividends are based on the resources they develop. So Alaska Natives get 2 dividends, one from the Native Corporation and one from the Permanent Fund.
You can read more details on his Facebook post.
Then There is Dan Larimer
Dan Larimer CTO of Block.One
I don't completely agree with the idea of basic income but it's great that there has been a lot of discussion about it and made me think back to what Larimer wrote about property rights and basic income. Dan co-created the Steem blockchain as well as developed bitshares and now his latest project EOS. I would try to explain what Dan wrote on basic income here but I think it's best to read his post because it goes into great detail on how this could work.
Basic income has its flaws since as Dan mentioned, it encourages consumption without production. But the rest of his post explains that a viable solution is possible.
I definitely think the way Dan described it is in the right direction to grow this system and have it in a way where it does not take from those that have produced and be a type of immoral system.
"For this to work a community of people must adopt a currency with a monetary policy that recognizes all individuals own an inalienable share of the means of production. If enough people were to adopt such a currency then society could function with an incorruptible distribution of the means of production."
Then Dan came up with this post right after on a hypothetical price stable crypto-currency with basic income.
If it required adopting a currency with a monetary policy like the one Dan came up with, then that made me think what if Hawaii could look into a blockchain based token that has this type of policy or have it tailored to the local economy?
Now it is stated the Basic Income Currency(BIC) token is hypothetical but maybe there's something here.
Will we see a shift towards basic income and have a global economic change? Or is there other solutions to the economic issues that we are facing?
What do you think?
Sources:1,2,3
