The universal basic income (UBI) movement is gaining momentum in the United States, where cities like Stockton, California have implemented pilot programs and 2020 presidential candidate Andrew Yang is running on a platform heavily based on principles of UBI, including the idea of giving every American a “freedom dividend” of $1,000 per month.
On today’s episode, Ali explores the challenges and possibilities of UBI with Annie Lowrey, author of Give People Money. They discuss prevailing myths and stereotypes about low-income families and “personal responsibility,” the ways UBI addresses racial and gender inequities, what it means to have “enough,” and much more.
Annie Lowrey is a journalist and staff writer for The Atlantic. She has written for the New York Times, The New York Times Magazine, Slate, and other publications. She is the author of Give People Money: How a Universal Basic Income Would End Poverty, Revolutionize Work, and Remake the World (Crown, 2018).
Earlier this week, she published a new piece in The Atlantic, “$350,000 a Year, and Just Getting By: Financial confessionals reveal that income inequality and geographic inequality have normalized absurd spending patterns.”
