Lawmakers in Hawaii have put forward the notion of further exploring the idea of a universal basic income, as more and more jobs that Hawaii's tourism-dependent economy is built upon are being replaced by machines. For those unfamiliar with the concept of 'universal basic income', it's the idea that every individual would receive a fixed amount of money that, supposedly, would be enough to meet basic needs. There have been many suggestions on how this could work in more developed countries, such as taxing carbon emission and, in turn, distributing the money as a form of basic income. There have been test-runs of this idea (at a much smaller scale) in a village in Kenya, where all villagers in the village will be receiving twenty-two dollars each month--enough to buy essential goods.
While the idea of a universal basic income for all residents of the United States sounds pleasing at first, there are still many obstacles to hurdle in order to make this distribution of money at such a grand scale possible. A question that comes straight to mind is how unemployment would be affected as a result of a successful implementation of this basic income. It's fairly probable that this could lead to a negative effect on the overall work ethic of the American population. It was odd to me that, of all states, Hawaii was the one to propose further implementation on the subject; Hawaii has a serious growing homeless population. Although a state-wide basic income might reduce the issue at hand, it would also attract many unemployed and homeless people to the state. What I did enjoy about this article (and the Associative Press in general) is that it stood beside a very unbiased, informative stance. It showed why people stood beside the proposal, and it also showed the ideas of the critics of the basic income notion.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_FUTURE_OF_WORK_UNIVERSAL_BASIC_INCOME_QA?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2017-09-04-17-15-51
I agree, for there are definitely too many factors that have to be examined before this could even be considered.
ReplyDeleteI believe that a standard universal income would be very beneficial to the state of Hawaii and the rest of the country. But I do agree with you that there are many obstacles and agree that sadly, considering the current state of America, I don't think implementing a system for a universal income would be possible at this time.
ReplyDeleteWould there be a way in this system to make sure that people take care of their basic needs instead of their wants? I know that people don't always use government money the correct way, and how to ensure the people of Hawaii use the money that they aren't earning, but receiving (if unemployed) to fund things not worthwhile would be an issue if this system were to be used in Hawaii.
ReplyDeleteBrooke Simpson