The Universal Guaranteed Adequate Income Plan

By W. Robert Arnold

The idea of the Guaranteed Annual Income has been talked about for over 40 years. It is a plan that would get rid of poverty and help the economy too. As I hope that it will be paid on a monthly basis, I have dropped the concept of annual. I have also added the concept of adequate because unless it is adequate, it will not work.

My purpose for now is to get the idea of the Universal Guaranteed Adequate Income Plan [U.G.A.I.P.] back into the arena for public discussion. I also wish to see the issue of adequacy addressed in public discussion and some consensus reached on what this word means in the context of income.

I am hoping to initiate a discussion of the barriers to the implementation of the U.G.A.I.P. This discussion will, hopefully, lead to methods for overcoming those barriers.

I am also hoping for a discussion about ways to pay for the U.G.A.I.P. The simple savings that will result from getting rid of poverty and the savings resulting from getting rid of all of the money disbursement programs administered by governments that maintain poverty will go a long way toward paying for the U.G.A.I.P.

I would like to address the barriers to implementation of the U.G.A.I.P. first. In my opinion the "work ethic" and "greed" are the two big reasons the U.G.A.I.P. has not been implemented yet. I must address them before I start to describe the way a U.G.A.I.P. would work.

The work ethic is derived from the Bible. When God kicked Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden, He told Adam that he would "eat bread out of the sweat of his face." This has been interpreted to mean that Adam would have to work for his bread. Business interests and church leaders used this passage from the Bible to create the "work ethic".

Capitalist interests created the "work ethic" during the Industrial Revolution so that there would be some justification for making workers work twelve or sixteen hours a day.

This distracted the workers from the real truth, which was that the greed of the factory owners and industrialists was the real reason for turning them into wage slaves. It also made them feel guilty if they were unemployed, which came in handy for both industrialists and churches.

Now that we have a real unemployment rate in double digits, believing in the "work ethic" is actually a handicap. The only result to a person in this day and age of believing in the "work ethic" is a sense of guilt when one is out of work. This is supposed to motivate people into taking jobs, no matter how low paid or dangerous they may be. The "work ethic" is now, as it always has been, a tool for manipulating the labor force.

Until we convince all people that this is not a useful belief, we will have little chance of implementing a guaranteed adequate income.

Technology is one big reason for the disappearance of many jobs. Machines work cheaper than humans, and in many instances, better. We need to tax the production of machines.

Rich people and their corporations will fight our efforts to get rid of the "work ethic" with all of the power at their disposal. If we are to be successful we must use every means available to win this battle.

Greed is taught today as a virtue instead of the sin it once was. This change was brought about in part by the fundamentalist Christian right, which says that God wants you to be rich and it has been supported by big business.

People are taught that they are better people if they amass a lot of stuff. They are taught to attach their self-esteem to their jobs and the stuff they own.

Furthermore, people are taught that it is bad to expect to get something for nothing. Yet rich people and their businesses are always getting something for nothing. I am thinking here of tax breaks and free buildings etc. So getting something for nothing is bad for the poor and middle classes but OK for the rich.

We must clearly illustrate the pain and chaos that is created when small segments of the population get fantastically rich, while the bulk of the people become poorer and poorer. The gap between the rich and the poor will not be lessened until we can show that it will be good for both the poor and the rich.

According to polls the most important issues to Canadians today are security and health care. People are afraid of crime in the streets and in their homes. This crime stems from poverty. No one with a $60,000/year job is going to mug you in the street, rob a grocery store or break into your home. They might rob your pension fund; but they won't do it with a knife.

If we had a guaranteed adequate income no one would be desperate enough to commit these kinds of crimes. Everyone in society would be much safer with fewer desperate people on the streets. This is one of the big benefits to the rich of a guaranteed adequate income. After all, the muggers are not looking for poor people to roll.

The way it is now

As I have mentioned, unemployment is now really in the double digits, because so many people are not looking for work. They are fed up and beaten down by the frustration of looking for decent, well paid jobs that don't exist. There are literally hundreds of applicants for every good job that is advertised.

Unemployment is maintained by the powers that be, because they need a large pool of unemployed and desperate people, who will take any job at any wage. This pool exists to frighten people, who are working, into having lower expectations for wages and working conditions. To protect their profits the rich and their corporations condemn a large segment of our society, our brothers and sisters, to poverty.

Unemployment would not be a problem for the unemployed if we had a guaranteed adequate income plan. And employers would have to pay decent wages to get people to work. The U.G.A.I.P. would not subsidize employers as has been feared by the left. We would have to index the U.G.A.I.P. to the cost of living, so inflation would not hurt those whose only regular income is the U.G.A.I.P.

The medical community has recognized poverty as the biggest single indicator for ill health. Greater poverty yields a greater number of sick people. Therefore, poverty creates stress on medical plans.

These medical plans are now under attack from right leaning governments in this country. I believe they think they can get away with this attack because the people who will suffer are poor. After all, the rich can afford better health care.

Governments think poor people have no power and cannot resist their onslaught effectively. I think they are wrong.

Poverty and homelessness are now big issues in this country, and are being reported on and talked about wherever one goes. People are becoming aware of the problem and are asking why it exists in a country as rich as the one in which we live. They are also asking for solutions.

One of the real solutions to ballooning medical costs is to treat the illness and not the symptom. The illness is poverty. We cannot continue to allow the poor to be condemned to illness and early death to support large profits for the rich.

Poverty leads to many costs in our society. I believe it leads to health problems, crime, family breakup, addiction, suicide and violence in the streets. All of these have their attendant costs. The costs of investigating crimes and trying and incarcerating the guilty are very expensive and growing. The costs of illness are astronomical. The costs of family breakups go far beyond the monetary realm, into the realm of human suffering.

There are also environmental costs that stem from poverty. If survival were not dependent upon working at the job, perhaps loggers could not be made to clear-cut vast areas of forest. If people were not desperate to make a living for themselves and their families they would likely be less able to be manipulated into doing things that hurt the environment. Better environmental protection is another benefit of the U.G.A.I.P.

As a result of our discussion of the concept of adequacy, I am hoping that we realize we need less of a lot of stuff and more of some. I am hoping we can cut back on the stuff that is environmentally damaging.

We cannot continue the kind of consumption we now must do to keep up with the Joneses. Corporate and individual greed is killing this planet.

Next, I would like to discuss what present trends in society indicated to me for our future.

What is to come if we do not have a guaranteed adequate income

Homelessness is already a problem in our society. Municipalities are trying to pass laws that make impossible for homeless people to panhandle. Businesses are afraid that their profits are being cut because homeless people are panhandling in front of their establishments. If the business interests want the panhandling to stop they should be pressuring government to eradicate the poverty that gives rise to it.

When they realize that eradicating poverty means making more customers for them, I believe they will begin to support the implementation of a U.G.A.I.P.

The phenomenon of home invasions has grown by leaps and bounds over the past 10 to 15 years. This is also a direct result of poverty and desperation, in my opinion. Unfortunately, it is the old and frail who suffer these invasions. Elderly people living alone are especially vulnerable to this kind of attack. The senior's organizations should be lobbying for a U.G.A.I.P.

These home invasions are usually blamed on dope addicts, who are in need of money to support their habits. It is my belief that dope addiction is both a result and a cause of poverty. It is also my belief that when we eradicate poverty we will also decrease dope addiction to a great extent. Self-medication with heroin, alcohol and other harmful drugs to escape the kinds of suffering brought on by poverty is all too common.

The more affluent citizens of the society are now finding themselves living in walled communities as a result of chaos that exists in the streets. The walled communities with their private police forces will become more and more prevalent as time goes on if we do not get rid of poverty.

Police forces, both government and private, are being increased daily and are still ineffective in dealing with the crime in the streets. These forces are unable to keep order even in the prisons. What chance do they have in the streets? Yet governments and private concerns continue to hire more and more police. The logical outcome of this trend is a police state where the police themselves are the gangs. This is often the case in very poor countries.

Many people are now predicting the final breakdown of the capitalist system. In my opinion the only way to save that system is to change it. The implementation of a Universal Guaranteed Adequate Income would, in my opinion, make the kind of changes to the capitalist system that would allow some semblance of it to continue. We must be very careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater while we are making these changes.

To prevent economic meltdown we must raise some taxes, create others such as death duties and a wealth tax, and make sure that high-end earners actually pay their taxes.

Our future looks very grim if present trends continue. But, what if we make the changes I am suggesting? This is the question I am hoping to answer in the next segment of this paper.

The effects of guaranteed adequate income on our society and the economy

A guaranteed adequate income would provide more people with more disposable income. Poverty and unemployment would cease to be problems in our society. People who had been poor would then become better consumers, creating more demand for goods and services, more jobs, and a greater tax base for the society.

Freed of the necessity to work for survival, the people would have the time and energy to create their own means of production to support themselves at levels above that available on a Guaranteed Adequate Income.

Cottage industries would blossom. These cottage industries would be expressions of people's own creativity. The money that these people made from selling the things they happily make at home would augment their incomes and the tax coffers.

Because of the lack of stress in this new world, we would have a much healthier population. People would self-medication with drugs and alcohol and tobacco to a lesser extent because of less need to escape the realities of their daily lives.

As there would be less crime, there would be less need for police, prisons, lawyers and judges. We would save in court costs and the costs of incarceration. People, both rich and non-rich, would feel safer and be safer. The savings in this area alone would be monumental. The money saved could be put towards the Universal Guaranteed Adequate Income.

The definition of work would then change. In practice, people would work for specific periods of time for specific material goals. For instance, when a person wanted to buy a new television or computer, they would go to work at a job that was available to them for the specific time they would need to work for that material goal. Then, they would leave the job for someone else, and go home and play with their new toy. This is a way to job-share that would work.

There would be a new renaissance. Arts and crafts would blossom in this new age. People would finally have the leisure time to actually enjoy their lives and recreate themselves.

Other jurisdictions would quickly see that this system worked so well that they too would implement it. Within a very few years this would spread throughout the developed world. This would benefit the undeveloped world as well. By implementing this system in the Third World many of its ills would be eradicated.

A way to implement the U.G.A.I.P.

People have asked how I would go about implementing a Guaranteed Adequate Income. I would like to describe a simple but direct approach to this implementation.

The first step would be to raise the welfare rates to the poverty line. This would obviously make a lot more people eligible for welfare. Many people who are living in poverty are making a little too much to be eligible for welfare now. If we raise the rates to the poverty line, those people would become eligible.

We need to engage in a discussion about what adequacy means. Once we have reached agreement on that issue we will be able to institute a Universal Guaranteed Adequate Income at that level.

Some right-wing think tanks have propounded definitions of poverty that, in my opinion, are unreasonably low. They would not be so parsimonious if they had to live on that kind of income themselves. One of the steps in implementing a guaranteed adequate income will be to challenge those forces marshaled against us in this fight to live on what they say we should live on. Then, and only then, will they get the message and agree to a reasonable definition of adequacy.

The plan I envision is a universal one. Everyone, including the rich and middle-class will be eligible for the guaranteed adequate income. People will be taxed only on the income they have over and above the guaranteed adequate income. But, they will have to pay those taxes.

People, who were poor and who are now making money from their creative endeavors in their own homes or small production plants, would be paying taxes on the money over and above the UGAI. In other words, people who don't now pay taxes because they have no taxable income would be contributing to the tax base as well.

The fact that formerly poor people would be paying taxes and that the UGAI would be available to everyone, rich or poor would get rid of the stigma presently attached to welfare payments. When people are no longer stigmatized, they will have better self-images, higher self-esteem and will be less mentally and emotionally damaged.

How to pay for the guaranteed adequate income

Many people have asked how we can pay for such a plan. When I first began thinking about this question the first and simplest answer that occurred to me was to get rid of all of the present money distribution systems we now have and put the money distributed plus the administrative costs into the guaranteed income. This would, indeed, go a long way toward paying for the guaranteed income. But, I am told it would not be enough.

The savings we get from having less crime and illness would certainly help pay for the U.G.A.I.P.

Having the rich and their corporations actually pay their taxes would help.

Creating a tax that would keep the fantastically rich from leaving their children more than a couple of million dollars each would certainly help. Why should the children of the rich benefit from the work or their fathers to an extent that hurts others? A rich kid could, at the very least, invest the 2 million and get an after taxes income of $60,000 per year. It is not as if they would have to work or anything. At least not unless they wanted to get into the acquisition game their parents played.

I am not an economist and have not researched this information, so I am not in the position to support this hypothesis. I will leave it up to the economists to either prove or disprove this theory. I believe we in Canada can raise enough money so that we can afford to implement the Universal Guaranteed Adequate Income. All it will take is the political will to do so.

Conclusion

We have a choice. We can go on as we have been and create a world that no one wants to live in; or we can implement a Universal Guaranteed Adequate Income and create a world we all would like to live in. All we need to do is create the political will to implement the U.G.A.I.P.

This piece leaves one question unanswered. That is how to go about organizing people so that we can take back the agenda from business interests and make our government create and implement this UGAI.

I believe this will take a concerted movement to involve the most powerful stakeholders in this program: the poor and their allies. We need to form a non-partisan voting block made up of the poor and their allies. The rich have the money, but we have the votes. We can use our electoral power to make the government institute a U.G.A.I.P.

I would like to see an organization of Anti-Poverty Electors in every constituency in every province as soon as possible, so that we can influence and perhaps even dictate who will win a subsequent election. This is the next job of our movement.

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