Universal Basic Income: The Foundation of a Resilient Society — Nicole Sallak Anderson

These are tremendous times we live in. As I write this, it’s the second week of shelter-in-place here in California. Coronavirus has swept the nation, not in a convenient way, but most certainly in a universal way.

The House of Representatives just passed an emergency stimulus package, in which each American that filed their taxes in 2018 AND made less than $75,000 in that year will get a one-time check. For those of us who made more than that in 2018 but may have lost their jobs or businesses in the last week due to the nation being closed for business, well, you get less, down to almost nothing. And while the Tax Foundation, a DC-based thinktank, estimates 93.6% of Americans will be eligible for some amount, that’s certainly NOT universal stimulus.

In the days leading up to the bill, Twitter was a buzz with the #UBI, #emergencyUBI and #universalbasicincome hashtags. Wasn’t that a crazy idea some Democratic primary candidate based his campaign upon? Suddenly, Andrew Yang, a man whom primary voters completely rejected, was trending, speaking about universal basic income on CNN, and people were asking me about this concept of $1000/mon for every American until the crisis passed.