The afterlife of MLK’s call for a guaranteed income
In 1967, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote that “the solution to poverty is to abolish it directly by a now widely discussed measure: the guaranteed income.”
Decades later, while still a divisive idea, the conversation around guaranteed income is starting to simmer, and pilot programs looking at universal basic income, a similar idea, are popping up around the country.
“It became a real practicality in 2017-2018 with Mayor Michael Tubbs, then of Stockton, California, creating the Stockton Economic Empowerment Demonstration which got a lot of national traction,” said Stacia West, director of the Center for Guaranteed Income Research at the University of Pennsylvania.
On the show today, West explains why King called for a guaranteed income, why UBI is gaining traction today, and what early results from pilot programs are showing us about its impact.
Then, after a great deal of haggling, Congress came to an agreement on expanding the child tax credit. We’ll get into it. And, when China’s economy slumps, we all slump. But things may be looking up for the world’s second largest economy.
Later, why one listener avoids the horror genre. And, historian Thomas Jackson was wrong about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s vision for the American economy.
Here’s everything we talked about today:
- “Remembering Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Solution to Poverty” from The Atlantic
- “Global Map of Basic Income Experiments” from The Stanford Basic Income Lab
- “Stockton’s Universal Basic Income Experiment Increased Employment And Well-Being” from NPR
- “The first results from the world’s biggest basic income experiment in Kenya are in” from Vox
- “The Power of Cash: How Guaranteed Income Can Strengthen Worker Power” from Economic Security Project
- “Musk Wants 25% Voting Control of Tesla Before Building Its AI” from Bloomberg
- “Chinese Premier Makes Surprise Economic Growth Disclosure” from The Wall Street Journal
- “Tax breaks for parents, businesses possible in last-minute deal” from Politico
- “Opinion | Changes to the child tax credit are a win for Congress and America” from The Washington Post
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