“Gisele Huff is convinced universal basic income is finally having its moment,” reports the Bay Area newsgroup, describing the 84-year-old president of a nonprofit promoting universal basic incomes to honor their recently-deceased son, a Tesla software engineer:
While Huff’s organization is only a few years old, it has already made its mark in the Bay Area. Santa Clara County’s Board of Supervisors is considering a pilot program that would provide youth exiting foster care with a basic $1,000 monthly income. If approved later this year, the program would likely be the first of its kind in the nation…
Q: Different people have different ideas about what exactly UBI should look like. What’s yours?
A: It would be $1,000 a month and it runs like social security. It’s an automatic system. All you need is a bank account. So UBI is a direct payment to your bank account on a monthly basis. It has no requirements. When you’re 18 it starts and it goes on until you die.
Q: And everyone would get the same amount? Including the wealthiest households?
A: Yes. For the people who are wealthy, it will disappear because $1,000 doesn’t mean anything. But it will mean the world for the people who are so marginalized now, like foster kids or abused women who can’t leave a situation because they don’t have a dime to their name. It is a huge incentive for people to move on, to do things, take risks that they would not do before.
Q: Some critics of UBI say that it could incentivize people not to work, because no matter what they do they will get a monthly paycheck. What is your response?
A: If you have a job, you’re not going to stop working for $1,000 a month. What you’re going to do is you’re going to tell your boss: “No, I’m not doing this because it’s not acceptable and I have $1,000 dollars that I can use for the next two months until I find a better job.” So if you want that job done as a boss, you’re going to have to improve the conditions or the pay….”
Q: And your son was concerned about those same issues? How did he come to his perspective on UBI?
A: Gerald was the software engineer for the Model 3 Tesla. So he has been a techie all of his life and what really spurred him on to look into this in a deeper way was his fear of technological unemployment. The robots are coming. And the potential of that technology is what Gerald was aware of — it’s immense.
of this story at Slashdot.
Source:: Slashdot