What is a solid vision, a goal, for every human being to have, to eliminate poverty and promote human health and happiness? Something tangible, something that can be enumerated, and then systematically approached.
I think every single person should be able to have, at a minimum, even if they're unemployed:
1) Basic decent living, accomplished via a Universal Basic Income (UBI), ie. Social Security for All, such that everyone could afford the following:
- 1 bedroom apartment (studio if a big spendy city, small house if rural) that is safe, hygienic, in an area that is walkable, accessible, safe, and environmentally clean
- full utilities including high speed internet, electricity, climate control, clean water
- nutritious, decent food, with reasonable and convenient access; as well as the means to prepare and store reasonable amounts of food safely
- basic healthy transportation (see below in the social programs for details)
- a few hundred per month of additional discretionary income
2) Universal Social Programs:
- high quality healthcare with no premiums or surcharges, including mental health, vision, and dental. workplaces may offer supplemental insurance above this, and the insurance system can be a hybrid public/private system if desired, but it must be simplified and there must be a public-option to buy-in to Medicare. private insurance employs millions of people, but they must learn to be competitive with Medicare and cut down on all the administration costs.
- high quality education up through graduate level and/or tradeschool; it's also perfectly ok, social resources able to bear it aside, for people to learn more than one thing. in fact, it's ideal if they do, as cross-disciplinary people are awesome. this will also include life skills throughout the lifespan, including comprehensive sex ed, health, nutrition and cooking, financial literacy, entrepreneurship, elder care, child development, continued education, fitness, sports, etc. Education never stops, there's always more to learn.
- reasonable transport and transportation infrastructure built to accommodate. for an able-bodied person, this would mean a bicycle and a bikeable/walkable neighborhood with job, service, and community access. it may also include a transit pass, inexpensive car, a high-quality wheelchair and/or motorized wheelchair, and/or para-transport depending on ability. this would also include greatly scaling back roads where appropriate, like in large cities, and replacing them with open space, parks, trails, and dedicated transit lines
- high quality childcare for anyone who needs it, including workers and students, but also for stay-at-home parents to have a few half-days per week for themselves
- financial support grants for people to relocate to different parts of the country / city / state, to break the poverty traps and revitalize otherwise decent places
- social workers to facilitate appropriate access to everything on this list
3) For workers:
- generous paid medical leave, paid vacation leave, and unemployment benefits
- full-time work-week pegged at 35 hours per week, *total*, and all employers must share the burden of overtime. scheduling to be fair and humane, and planned two weeks in advance, otherwise, it is paid at overtime or double-time like an oncall worker.
- the fulltime workweek would be gradually scaled back by 5 hours per week every two to four years, so that it would eventually be set at 20 hours per week, with overtime after that, and double-time after 30 hours, 2.5x after 40 hours, etc. This will serve the purpose of spreading the good jobs around further.
- the creation of public works to fulfill much of the above. the budgets would be semi-protected from arbitrary changes by politicians. the budgets would ebb and flow with the economy: when the economy is roaring, the budgets for public works would reduce to allow surplus labor demand be absorbed by the private sector; when the economy is receding, public works would ramp up to absorb excess labor which is not in demand by the private sector. we don't want excessive competition between the public and private sector for employment, as this can drive inflation and reduce efficiency. this would keep employment healthy, infrastructure healthy, and protect workers from stagnation.
I think this would be be done with a UBI at base, as well as funding all of the above social programs (education, healthcare, childcare, work benefits) via a stronger progressive tax system which has the enforcement resources to collect what is due. This is a set of goals that is very tangible. There should also be the goal that this basic standard of living will improve over time. Paired with ending the War on Drugs, Mass Incarceration, and the War Against Undocumented Workers & Visa reform, we would definitely see major economic improvement.
Homelessness costs money.
Unnecessary incarceration costs money.
Poor public health costs money.
Under-educated / Under-skilled workforce costs money.
Poverty costs money.
All of the above should be seen as an investment in our society, with an expected return. There are plenty of economists who support such plans, and there are plenty of countries that are more or less run this way already. It requires no more Federal control than our existing system, and in some cases greatly reduces control granting more freedom (eg. letting people out of prison and back into society, with guaranteed income, healthcare, and housing gives far more freedom; reducing poverty in a neighborhood gives more freedom to the residents and business owners, etc.)
Invest in our society, and the returns and dividends will be fantastic.
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Question: What about choice and preferences? Who provides the housing and how is it divvied out?
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Answer:
Yep, you get choices. Lots of them. :)
The basic idea is that a UBI (basic income) would be high enough that everyone would be able to afford all of the above as a minimum. For challenging housing markets, there may need to be interventions to expand affordable housing options. In cases where folks have trouble securing such things, social workers would be involved to figure out how best to assure it. I also mentioned the moving grant - folks with low incomes would be assisted and encouraged to move to less expensive, better areas.
So yea, at base, you'd be given a UBI that would be sufficient for all of that. Then you buy what you need. If you couldn't make it work, a social worker would help. You could use your income as you see fit, but the potential is there. If you had additional income, you could obviously get more. If you wanted to have roommates somewhere really cheap, your UBI goes further.
At most basic, every person gets cash and certain benefits (eg. healthcare, education) guaranteed. Then the system adjusts to ensure their cash can accomplish at least the basic essentials I outlined.
Anything additional you earn is also yours, though progressively taxed. Your taxes would probably overtake your UBI benefit by the time an individual is making $50-80k a year, and a family double that (ish). Your taxes would probably overtake the cost of your total social benefit around $80-100k as an individual, and double that as a family. The tax system wouldn't necessarily prevent anyone from becoming wealthy, but there'd never be a point where the very wealthy pay a lower percent than anyone else, and there'd be no income cap for paying into social programs. A wealth tax on extremely high wealth would probably also be in place to reduce massive concentrations of wealth.b