National
Andrew Yang is running for President in 2020 on a platform of making a Universal Basic Income for the USA. He produced a video and was recently interviewed on FOX News.
Sam Altman, president of YCombinator has personally and through YCombinator pushed for Universal Basic Income.
Robert Reich has advocated for Basic Income just recently as well.
People have been speaking in favor of a Universal Basic Income on the Left and on the Right of the political spectrum for decades, but in all this time hasn’t been done on a national level. Perhaps it is too big of a change? On a local level, things have been done:
Local
The Alaska Permanent Fund gives each citizen of Alaska around $1000-2000 a year from the state’s oil revenues. And it turns out Alaska has the lowest inequality among states in the union, many years running. Here is its Gini coefficient. Coincidence?
The mayor of Stockton, CA has expressed interest in a local Basic Income. And some cities around the world have made experiments with Basic Income.
Experiments done in local villages in Africa have shown great promise and success
My own opinion is that, since the cost of living varies from place to place, the UBI should be based in local communities. Also, it’s much easier to implement something new in a smaller community than on a national level.
Scott Santens is a writer who spends much of his career advocating for Universal Basic Income. He has written an article why he thinks a National UBI makes sense.
What do you all think?