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Thus feminists might be expected strongly to support the introduction of a basic income.34 Yet this is not the case. Some feminists are critical of the idea because they fear a basic income would reinforce the existing sexual division of labor and women’s lesser citizenship. They argue that the provision of an income without having to engage in paid employment would, in light of women’s position in the labor market combined with lingering beliefs about the proper place and tasks of women and men, give women an even greater incentive to undertake more unpaid caring work in the household, and, conversely, men would have another incentive to freeride. A basic income, that is, would reinforce existing limitations on women’s freedom.35 This objection illustrates the importance of the reasons advanced for supporting a basic income. The probability of feminist fears being borne out is higher, for example, when the argument is made that to avoid weakening the “incentive to work” a basic income should be below subsistence level. This “incentive” is promoted with men and paid employment in mind. A basic income at this level provides no incentive for wives to “work” (i.e., enter paid employment); rather, it would encourage them to do more unpaid caring work. Again, to support basic income on the grounds that it would improve the living standards of the poorest sectors of the population does not promote consideration of the structural connections between marriage, employment, and citizenship, and the private and public sexual division of labor. Without the debates about basic income being informed by feminist arguments, and a concern for democratization (and genuine democratization necessarily includes women’s freedom and standing as citizens), the discussion will revolve around ways of tinkering with the existing system rather than encouraging thinking about how it might be made more democratic. Putting democratization at the center requires attention to institutional structures, especially the institutions of marriage and employment. For instance, Ackerman and Alstott remark in The Stakeholder Society that the “case for stakeholding does not ultimately rest on its effects on employment, marriage, or crime. It rests on each American’s claim to respect as a free and equal citizen.”36 However (leaving crime aside), the respect accorded to women and men as free and equal citizens has a great deal to do with the institutions of marriage and employment. It is not possible to understand women’s lesser citizenship, as Ackerman and Alstott show in their discussion of social security, without understanding the relationship between their position as wives and men’s position as workers.

A Feminist Degrowth Perspective Degrowth stresses the need to move away from economic growth as a sole political objective. Instead, the focus should be on “well-being, social justice and ecological sustainability”. Within the degrowth movement, the feminist perspective is slowly becoming more prominent, with the Feminisms and Degrowth Alliance (FaDA) network launching in 2017. Feminist scholars have criticized capitalist production and consumption patterns for not taking into account the invaluable nature of care work for individual and societal well-being. This approach specifically envisions a society with diverse gender roles, where paid and unpaid work is distributed fairly among all members of society. Degrowth carries potential to rethink the growth-centric economy and lends itself well to feminist economic thought, which seeks to undo patriarchal power structures, which in turn alleviates the undue double burden placed on women at home and in the labour market. Indeed, Kallis, Demaria and D’Alisa have stated that “the degrowth imaginary centres around the reproductive economy of care”[3], with other central proposals of the degrowth school (e.g. work-sharing) emphasizing care as well. Corinna Dengler and Birte Strunk have examined the impact of the current growth paradigm on gender and environmental injustices. Their analysis is based around the ICE model developed by Jochimsen and Knobloch (see Figure 1) which relegates caring activities and ecological processes into the ‘maintenance’ economy, which the formal ‘monetized’ economy largely ignores. Dengler and Strunk’s analysis acknowledges that an increase in women’s labour participation will not necessarily further gender equality. As examined, this creates a double burden of paid and unpaid work for most women, and even when this work is outsourced to care providers, there still exists a divide, but now between the more vulnerable and those who profit. Thus, Dengler and Strunk suggest work-sharing proposals that focus on the working day rather than working week. Since women are most often the ones that are in charge of daily household activities (e.g. caring for other family members), a shortening of the “first shift” for both women and men could allow for a reduction in women’s double burden and a more equal division of these daily activities amongst genders. Though by no means flawless, this proposal is meant to emphasize the potential for feminist economics and the degrowth movement to pave the way for a caring economy and potentially alleviate certain gender injustices. Figure 1: ICE Model The feminist degrowth movement is centred around regeneration – in this sense policies geared towards reforming the care economy are meant to encourage this sector to thrive. In order to do so, redistributive measures should be introduced to ensure that carers are adequately compensated. Consequently, both feminist scholars and degrowthers have been examining UBI (Universal Basic Income) as a potential alternative. Feminist degrowthers have more specifically supported a Care Income that builds on basic income proposals and emphasizes the recognition of unpaid care work performed by women. Universal Basic Income through a feminist lens A Universal Basic Income (UBI) has been supported by degrowthers, with the feminist branch specifically calling for a Care Income as proposed by the Global Women’s Strike and taken forward by the Green New Deal for Europe. This involves the payment of an unconditional regular income paid to adult members of societies, regardless of work status, level of income or living arrangements. Though convincing arguments in favour of a basic income scheme have been made, it has yet to be fully introduced into any modern welfare state due to the objections that it undermines the incentive to work and unsustainably increases public expenditure.[4]

Operationalized, the evidence of patriarchy as a dysfunctional system is found in the behaviors to which it gives rise, (c), and the unmanageability, (d), which results. For example, in the United States, current estimates are that one out of every three or four women will be raped by someone she knows; globally, rape, sexual harassment, spouse-beating, and sado-masochistic pornography are examples of behaviors practiced, sanctioned, or tolerated within patriarchy. In the realm of environmentally destructive behaviors, strip-mining, factory farming, and pollution of the air, water, and soil are instances of behaviors maintained and sanctioned within patriarchy. They, too, rest on the faulty beliefs that it is okay to "rape the earth," that it is "man's God-given right" to have dominion (that is, domination) over the earth, that nature has only instrumental value, that environmental destruction is the acceptable price we pay for "progress."And the presumption of warism, that war is a natural, righteous, and ordinary way to impose dominion on a people or nation, goes hand in hand with patriarchy and leads to dysfunctional behaviors of nations and ultimately to international unmanageability. Much of the current" unmanageability" of contemporary life in patriarchal societies, (d), is then viewed as a consequence of a patriarchal preoccupation with activities, events, and experiences that reflect historically male-gender identified beliefs, values, attitudes, and assumptions. Included among these real-life consequences are precisely those concerns with nuclear proliferation, war, environmental destruction, and violence toward women, which many feminists see as the logica[is the]outgrowth of patriarchal thinking. In fact, it is often only through observing these dysfunctional behaviors-the symptoms of dysfunctionality that one can truly see that and how patriarchy serves to maintain and perpetuate them. When patriarchy is understood as a dysfunctional system, this "unmanageability" can be seen for what it is-as a predictable and thus logical consequence of patriarchy.'1 The theme that global environmental crises, war, and violence generally are predictable and logical consequences of sexism and patriarchal culture is pervasive in ecofeminist literature (see Russell 1989, 2). Ecofeminist Charlene Spretnak, for instance, argues that "militarism and warfare are continual features of a patriarchal society because they reflect and instill patriarchal values and fulfill needs of such a system. Acknowledging the context of patriarchal conceptualizations that feed militarism is a first step toward reducing their impact and preserving life on Earth" (Spretnak 1989, 54). Stated in terms of the foregoing model of patriarchy as a dysfunctional social system, the claims by Spretnak and other feminists take on a clearer meaning: Patriarchal conceptual frameworks legitimate impaired thinking (about women, national and regional conflict, the environment) which is manifested in behaviors which, if continued, will make life on earth difficult, if not impossible. It is a stark message, but it is plausible. Its plausibility lies in understanding the conceptual roots of various woman-nature-peace connections in regional, national, and global contexts.

3. Respect: Universal, Rather Than Targeted Assistance, Will Defy Stereotypes Historically, feminists not only critiqued outright sexism but also the paternalism of efforts to protect women from the world by robbing them of their autonomy. Paternalism has long been used to justify policies that limit women’s and other marginalized people’s choices, like bans on abortion, or sex work, or women working in dangerous industries, on the grounds that they are incapable of deciding for themselves how to live their lives. Today, many social policies in the U.S. are influenced by extremely paternalistic thinking that perpetuates discriminatory stereotypes about women’s abilities to make informed and reasonable decisions for themselves. Conservative complaints about welfare recipients spending benefits on junk food and luxuries have been part of a more general racialized narrative, which has informed existing welfare policy and also perpetuated offensive and stigmatizing stereotypes about members of marginalized groups, especially women of color. But liberals who support limiting the provision of benefits to housing, food, and health care are subject to the same charges of paternalism when they advocate for in-kind benefit policies (such as food transfers and food vouchers) that perpetuate a politics of suspicion and mistrust, instead of supporting cash benefit programs. Most of the arguments against UBI also ring of paternalism. How could we trust that low-income women would use the money to do the things I’ve detailed here? Low-income people, like the rest of their fellow citizens, are generally the best judges of whether a profession or purchase is in their overall interest, and the evidence suggests that recipients of cash transfers generally spend their income on necessities. Trusting women and all people with the right to spend their money how they see fit, as UBI allows, would push back against decades of paternalistic social policy.

The second argument holds that feminists should embrace the UBI because of its potential to reduce the sexual division of labour. The traditional division of labour is that of the male breadwinner and the female caregiver. If UBI has the potential to raise the status of non-waged work, then it could also, potentially, encourage more men to engage in that type of work. This might allow for some de-gendering of work roles. The mechanisms for this are likely to be indirect. The UBI wouldn’t actively reward unpaid work, it would simply make it a more viable option. I’ll be talking about this more in part two. The third argument holds that feminists should embrace the UBI because it could reduce existing labour market segregation. This is essentially just the flip-side of the previous argument. One of the problems with the sexual division of labour is that it impairs women’s access to paid employment. If women are forced, demanded or expected to engage in unpaid work within the home — and if men are not — then the opportunities for women to access paid employment are limited. So if the UBI can reduce the sexual division of labour, it could also increase the access to paid employment. This would also represent an improvement over existing welfare systems where entitlements are dependent on total household income. In support of this, Fitzpatrick gives the example of systems in which the benefits payable to an unemployed man are actually reduced if his spouse/partner is working. This can encourage women in low-pay work to give up that work. The fourth argument holds that feminists should embrace the UBI because it will reduce the burden placed upon women by the welfare state. The idea here is that women are often the chief “victims” of the bureaucracy of the traditional welfare system. Due to social panics about “welfare queens” and the like, women often experience intrusive means-testing and enquiries into their personal lives in order to prove eligibility for welfare. The unconditional nature of the basic income cuts out those intrusions.

Conclusion Feminist political theory has in many ways moved on from critiques of theories of justice, by moving beyond the focus on questions of economic inequality to questioning the value or legitimacy of such comprehensive theories altogether. While much recent work has indeed extended feminism’s critical project into important new areas, it is crucial that our attention not shift entirely before the insights gained in the realm of economic inequality are institutionalised in policy. The Scandinavian version of the universal breadwinner model of citizenship – a generous welfare state with policies designed to induce men to take caregiving leaves from paid employment – offers one model of a gender-egalitarian society, but one that continues the prioritisation of the male-dominated public sphere of paid employment over the sphere of care. The feminist version of the liberal egalitarian tradition that has as its foundation a universal, unconditional basic income at a level to meet basic needs, on the other hand prioritises the emerging norm of combined care work and paid employment throughout adulthood. The latter attempts not so much to mould individual behaviour to a socially dominant norm, but to allow for the emergence of alternative norms of behaviour beyond the dominant universal breadwinner norm. By socialising the cost of supporting care – not only among fathers, but also among all those whose high earnings suggest protection from the burdens of care – a basic income promotes reciprocity not only within families but also between those with care responsibilities and those without. Finally, by providing an unconditional floor of income to low-skilled workers, basic income provides bargaining power for those who might prefer to stay home and take care of their own children or parents over working as low-paid caregivers for higher-paid women and men, or for women and men of all classes to demand workplaces more accommodating of universal care responsibilities. A universal, unconditional basic income does not promise a gender-symmetrical society – an unreachable goal anyway, until men can bear and breastfeed babies. But it may lead to a society in which remaining, and perhaps essential gender differences do not penalise women (or men) who choose not to pursue androcentric ideals of citizenship by relegating them to poverty, dependence on their spouses or employers, and second-class citizenship.

The freedom not to be employed runs counter to the direction of much recent public policy and political rhetoric (especially in Anglo-American countries, though the policies are international), and this makes stakeholding more palatable than basic income in the current political climate. The effect of such policies and rhetoric is to draw even tighter the long-standing link between employment and citizenship, at the very time when a reassessment has been made possible by changing circumstances. The institution of employment is a barrier to democratic freedom and citizenship in two ways. First, economic enterprises have an undemocratic structure, a point that I shall not pursue here.23 Second, as feminist scholars have demonstrated, the relationship between the institutions of marriage, employment, and citizenship has meant that the standing of wives as citizens has always been, and remains, problematic. The Anglo-American social insurance system was constructed on the assumption that wives not only were their husbands’economic dependents but lesser citizens whose entitlement to benefits depended on their private status, not on their citizenship. Male “breadwinners,” who made a contribution from their earnings to “insure” that they received benefits in the event of unemployment or sickness, and in their old age, were the primary citizens. Their employment was treated as the contribution that a citizen could make to the well-being of the community. Ackerman and Alstott acknowledge this in their criticism of “workplace justice,”24 and their recognition that unconditional retirement pensions would be particularly important for the many older women whose benefits still largely derive from their husbands’ employment record.25 That is to say, only paid employment has been seen as “work,” as involving the tasks that are the mark of a productive citizen and contributor to the polity. Other contributions, notably all the work required to reproduce and maintain a healthy population and care for infants, the elderly, the sick, and infirm—the caring tasks, most of which are not paid for and are undertaken by women—have been seen as irrelevant to citizenship.

I had an abusive boyfriend once. He lured me in with promises of provision and vindication. But he was a perfidious son of a gun, because the initial half of his Janus face was insidiously torn aside, to reveal his deft capacity for creating insecurity, isolation and intellectual dissonance. My boyfriend, my great, devastating, intoxicating love, was prostitution. Yes, like any other lover of an abuser, I was hooked in by his exaggerated claims of support and potential for actualisation — “I will empower you! I will make you free!” — smoke screening an undercurrent of exploitative tendencies. For me, for others, by the time we understand this, we have become trapped. Some people may wince at my comparing prostitution to abuse. I have been usefully informed, on a number of occasions, that it is a simply a job as any other. That it is not sexual exploitation, because women choose to enter into it freely. But even if that were so, what if the same women can’t manage to leave when they decide they have had enough? How many times, after that point, must they be utilised for sex effectively against their true will, before it becomes a violation? Being trapped in prostitution, relationship violence and cycles of survival sex can indeed be crushing to a person’s sense of capacity and the “outside” world can look increasingly hostile and difficult to negotiate. Coercive control, which often operates in these situations, is manipulative and extremely sophisticated. It tells you that you are not capable of surviving — let alone thriving — in any other way, just as it depletes you. It is like living with a blade at your throat, but being told it is for your own protection. What does all this have to do with Universal Basic Income (UBI)? Because as with all of the most effective manipulations, it contains a kernel of truth. If a woman is told by her abuser or her pimp — or by the propaganda of living in prostitution — that she could not survive without them, that voice is solidified by the material experience of structural inequality that poor women suffer. The crossroads between class and sex-based oppression is, indeed, best exemplified by a woman having to make a daily decision between sexual or domestic abuse, and poverty. So if our toxic situation has been the source of our “income” — in exchange for domestic, reproductive or sexual labour — what do we do if we want to leave? Refuge recommends that women escaping abusive or exploitative situations should seek out emergency accommodation from friends or family, but often abuse victims have been systematically disenfranchised from such social support and, as with high numbers of women in prostitution, have come through the care system, many didn’t have it in the first place. Women’s refuges are suffering from closures and on average 155 women are turned away each day, according to Women’s Aid. Shockingly, women escaping domestic violence are not automatically considered in priority need for social housing. That is even before you even get to prostitutes; an even less likely group to be considered a “worthy” cause. Indeed, our current welfare system is based on nebulous arbitrations of “need” and “worthiness,” which are often further gunned through the dubious prism of abstract bureaucracy. The Conservative government has seemingly decided that it cannot trust the word of doctors in assessing someone’s capacity for work and so subject often extremely vulnerable people to further “assessments.” Women who have been in prostitution or domestic violence often suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other psychological fragilities. For them these processes can be intimidating, due to the fear of being judged, blamed and dismissed as “undeserving.” This is even before we even get to the trials of unemployment benefit, not available to anyone whose partner works more than 24 hours per week — not much good if said partner has a predilection for controlling every aspect of your life. And if you’re under 35 and have no children you cannot suddenly decide to no longer submit to unwanted sex with men you don’t know, because you are not eligible for housing benefit contributions for your apartment. Or because you cannot find another job, due to your lack of experience or your anxiety, or both. Yes, I’ve seen many a woman make her Great Escape from abuse only to find her road blocked at every turn. Back she goes, to her hard fisted boyfriend or her brothel pimp — now more vulnerable and more convinced of the absolutenesses of her “destiny.” What is the first thing a woman escaping violence needs? To not have to “explain herself” to society — to beg even — to get the ticket out of her situation. Because asking such people to make the case for their right to freedom from abuse is an extension of that abuse. She has already had to try to explain to her “lover” why he should allow her to sleep safe that night, or to her pimp why she cannot work because her vagina has become torn and bruised. The idea behind UBI is that every member of society gets a basic monthly amount, irrespective of their social circumstances or their assumed worthiness. I am not going to make a more general case for UBI, as those arguments can be found elsewhere. However, it has instigated the twitching of my feminist ear because as a policy it has, under the right conditions, the potential to give victims of domestic violence and sexual exploitation a slightly easier out. In the 1970s there were a lot of debates about whether or not women should receive wages for housework, but many feminists felt that this would crystallise the idea that domesticity was women’s work. UBI on the other hand is a basic economic sustenance that is paid to a woman by virtue of her humanity, not her femininity, which is in any case a social imposition demanding of her submissive agreeableness. Of course UBI is not the full answer to the question of women’s exploitation. But because it does not require women to be the perfect victims, it is at least starting to ask the right questions.

The male bias inherent in (patriarchal) democracy has led to forms of patriarchal structural violence that relegate “women’s issues” to the “private” realm where they become “private matters” that the state does not address. This bias is perhaps nowhere clearer than in the issue of domestic violence, where male bias greatly impairs the ability of police, judges, and lawmakers from recognizing the violent behavior in the family. “The view that ‘as a family matter’ battery is less important, is based on men’s, not women’s perceptions” (Murray & O’Regan, 1991, p. 45). The multiple forms of domestic violence that women suffer have profound physical and psychological effects (Herman, 1992; Kelly, 1993), prompting international calls for domestic violence to be recognized as a form of torture (Copelon, 1994). Governmental support of patriarchal structural violence through its inattention to “private” matters is apparent throughout the world. Until 1991, the murder of a wife in Brazil was legal—it was considered an honor killing and was done to preserve the family’s honor because of a woman’s transgression. In many areas of the world, men are free to rape their wives with no threat of legal repercussions (Mertus, 1995). Other examples of government-sponsored patriarchal structural violence include laws and systems that condone particular forms of violence against women, deny women control over their bodies, provide no assistance with child care and maternity leave, make no attempt to remedy child support defaults, and fail to provide unemployment protection to women who work within the “private” realm in domestic service or farm work (Waring, 1988; Murray & O’Regan, 1991). Because governments rarely address patriarchal structural violence or fight for women’s rights, progress for women is largely made by women working for the recognition and enforcement of women’s rights. As a result, in countries such as Australia, Brazil, Britain, Columbia, India, Sri Lanka, and the United States, violence against women in the home has been identified and some forms of it criminalized (Fineman & Mykitiuk, 1994).

And because a basic income would make the decision to work more voluntary, women would no longer choose to remain in toxic jobs solely because they can’t afford not to. In this way, a UBI could address gender-based mistreatment in workplaces. By freeing women of their economic dependence on employers, a UBI would also improve women’s bargaining positions, enabling them to negotiate for more flexible hours or better conditions. But a UBI would not discourage work to an extent that would undermine the economy. People would still need to work to afford most consumer goods and luxuries. And unlike minimum wage requirements, touted by Fight for $15 activists, a UBI neither raises the cost of employing low-income workers relative to other workers nor disproportionately burdens employers to provide a decent standard of living for people in their communities. With an even starting ground, the opportunities to move beyond the lowest-paying work could be more readily available to marginalized workers who’ve been left out for too long. 2. Women Could Make Unfettered Decisions About How to Structure Their Families and Lives Child care is extraordinarily expensive, and women, especially single moms, end up shouldering an enormous burden for this cost. Some parents who would prefer to work are unable to because they cannot afford quality child care for their kids. Women are more likely to leave the workforce for this reason than men. A UBI for mothers and children would enable women who want to work to pay for child care. In addition, a UBI (including child benefits) would formally recognize and reward socially valuable labor that people currently perform outside of the paid economy, such as caregiving for children, disabled people, and elderly relatives. The UBI could amount to “wages for housework,” something feminists in the 1970s pushed for. Furthermore, because a UBI aims to pay all individuals and not households, it allows people to make decisions about marriage and cohabitation based their intrinsic desires, not based on tax policies such as the “marriage penalty” that working couples currently face or means-tested welfare programs that withhold benefits from women when their household income increases after marriage. A further benefit for families? With an added, guaranteed boost to their income, women in abusive relationships would have the financial security to leave, even if they lack qualifications or credentials that would enable them to support themselves and their families. UBI would do more than almost any other economic policy imaginable to make women less susceptible to abuse both in the workplace and at home.

2. Women Could Make Unfettered Decisions About How to Structure Their Families and Lives Child care is extraordinarily expensive, and women, especially single moms, end up shouldering an enormous burden for this cost. Some parents who would prefer to work are unable to because they cannot afford quality child care for their kids. Women are more likely to leave the workforce for this reason than men. A UBI for mothers and children would enable women who want to work to pay for child care. In addition, a UBI (including child benefits) would formally recognize and reward socially valuable labor that people currently perform outside of the paid economy, such as caregiving for children, disabled people, and elderly relatives. The UBI could amount to “wages for housework,” something feminists in the 1970s pushed for. Furthermore, because a UBI aims to pay all individuals and not households, it allows people to make decisions about marriage and cohabitation based their intrinsic desires, not based on tax policies such as the “marriage penalty” that working couples currently face or means-tested welfare programs that withhold benefits from women when their household income increases after marriage.

The case for a basic income, a policy that would give all citizens cash payments at regular intervals throughout their lives, is gaining traction. Prominent tech entrepreneurs like Elon Musk, academics across the ideological spectrum from Philippe Van Parijs to Charles Murray, labor organizers like Andy Stern, and policymakers such as Michael Tubbs, the 27-year-old mayor of Stockton, California, support basic income policies as a way of reducing poverty and mitigating the negative impact of unemployment due to automation. But they understate the feminist case for giving people cash. Proponents of the UBI would do well to acknowledge the gender implications of the policy, and feminists, in turn, should throw their support behind the movement. Here are the top three reasons UBI is a feminist cause: 1. Women Are More Likely to Be Poor Globally, women are more likely to live in extreme poverty than men. In the United States, women as a group are poorer than men due to the economic burdens associated with caregiving and the segregation of women into “pink-collar” industries that typically pay less than male-dominated industries. One of the main benefits of implementing a UBI in the U.S. and elsewhere is that giving people cash is a relatively direct and effective way to fight poverty. The basic income is also a matter of economic justice for women as a whole. While capitalism has been beneficial to women on balance, the current system reflects historical patterns of female exclusion from labor markets and policies that denied property rights to women. For example, throughout the 19th century and into the 20th century, married women lacked legal protections for their property rights under the legal doctrine of coverture. And until the 1980s, husbands retained unilateral control over marital property in some jurisdictions. As I have argued elsewhere, a UBI would make capitalism more just by compensating those who live with the legacy of historical and enduring economic injustices. And because a basic income would make the decision to work more voluntary, women would no longer choose to remain in toxic jobs solely because they can’t afford not to. In this way, a UBI could address gender-based mistreatment in workplaces. By freeing women of their economic dependence on employers, a UBI would also improve women’s bargaining positions, enabling them to negotiate for more flexible hours or better conditions. But a UBI would not discourage work to an extent that would undermine the economy. People would still need to work to afford most consumer goods and luxuries. And unlike minimum wage requirements, touted by Fight for $15 activists, a UBI neither raises the cost of employing low-income workers relative to other workers nor disproportionately burdens employers to provide a decent standard of living for people in their communities. With an even starting ground, the opportunities to move beyond the lowest-paying work could be more readily available to marginalized workers who’ve been left out for too long. 2. Women Could Make Unfettered Decisions About How to Structure Their Families and Lives Child care is extraordinarily expensive, and women, especially single moms, end up shouldering an enormous burden for this cost. Some parents who would prefer to work are unable to because they cannot afford quality child care for their kids. Women are more likely to leave the workforce for this reason than men. A UBI for mothers and children would enable women who want to work to pay for child care. In addition, a UBI (including child benefits) would formally recognize and reward socially valuable labor that people currently perform outside of the paid economy, such as caregiving for children, disabled people, and elderly relatives. The UBI could amount to “wages for housework,” something feminists in the 1970s pushed for. Furthermore, because a UBI aims to pay all individuals and not households, it allows people to make decisions about marriage and cohabitation based their intrinsic desires, not based on tax policies such as the “marriage penalty” that working couples currently face or means-tested welfare programs that withhold benefits from women when their household income increases after marriage. A further benefit for families? With an added, guaranteed boost to their income, women in abusive relationships would have the financial security to leave, even if they lack qualifications or credentials that would enable them to support themselves and their families. UBI would do more than almost any other economic policy imaginable to make women less susceptible to abuse both in the workplace and at home. 3. Respect: Universal, Rather Than Targeted Assistance, Will Defy Stereotypes Historically, feminists not only critiqued outright sexism but also the paternalism of efforts to protect women from the world by robbing them of their autonomy. Paternalism has long been used to justify policies that limit women’s and other marginalized people’s choices, like bans on abortion, or sex work, or women working in dangerous industries, on the grounds that they are incapable of deciding for themselves how to live their lives. Today, many social policies in the U.S. are influenced by extremely paternalistic thinking that perpetuates discriminatory stereotypes about women’s abilities to make informed and reasonable decisions for themselves. Conservative complaints about welfare recipients spending benefits on junk food and luxuries have been part of a more general racialized narrative, which has informed existing welfare policy and also perpetuated offensive and stigmatizing stereotypes about members of marginalized groups, especially women of color. But liberals who support limiting the provision of benefits to housing, food, and health care are subject to the same charges of paternalism when they advocate for in-kind benefit policies (such as food transfers and food vouchers) that perpetuate a politics of suspicion and mistrust, instead of supporting cash benefit programs. Most of the arguments against UBI also ring of paternalism. How could we trust that low-income women would use the money to do the things I’ve detailed here? Low-income people, like the rest of their fellow citizens, are generally the best judges of whether a profession or purchase is in their overall interest, and the evidence suggests that recipients of cash transfers generally spend their income on necessities. Trusting women and all people with the right to spend their money how they see fit, as UBI allows, would push back against decades of paternalistic social policy.

Racial Injustice In Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community [2010 (1967)], the last book of Martin Luther King, Jr., the guaranteed income proposal is introduced as the simplest and most effective solution to poverty. MLK welcomes what he sees as a “cultural change” from old times, when we would see poverty as a result of individual inability or immorality, to new times, when we understand it as stemming from market failures and discriminatory practices that force people into unemployment. Because of this shift, he hopes that we may come to accept radical proposals like guaranteed income as a response to the poverty endemic to our economic systems. In October 1966, the guaranteed income proposal also appeared in the Black Panther Party ten-point manifesto under the second commitment of the program. It was envisaged as a compensation for involuntary unemployment among African-Americans stemming in part from discriminatory practices by white businessmen. The proposal was radical: If it cannot ensure a decent income to its citizens, the federal government ought to return the means of production to the community to guarantee a good living standard to its members. Decades later, the Movement for Black Lives also endorses a form of UBI as part of the economic justice platform of their manifesto. If the UBI proposal was relevant for racial equality at the time of MLK and the Black Panther Party and remains relevant today, it is primarily because unemployment, underemployment, precarious employment, and bad jobs disproportionally affect the lives of people of color. This is true because of discriminatory practices, still, and also because of broader inequalities in access to education, training, and opportunities (Shelby 2012). Interestingly, both MLK and the Black Panther Party were arguing for guaranteed income or guaranteed employment. They saw the proposals as interchangeable to some extent. After all, both policies are indeed designed to restore dignity by alleviating poverty. Guaranteed income can also help keep job guarantee proposals in check. This is because, with a high enough UBI, recipients would only be willing to take on “decent” jobs that provide them with more than just an income. If caring for a relative, volunteering in their community, or starting a business seemed like better options, then they will not be compelled to accept the jobs under the guarantee plan. This comment mirrors Standing's (2013) response to guaranteed-jobs proponents who oppose UBI: The right to an income is a prerequisite of a meaningful right to work. The contemporary proposal for UBI on grounds of racial justice comes from Dorian Warren (2016) in the Movement for Black Lives' manifesto. Under most UBI proposals [excluding those that would overall reduce the benefits available to the worse off, like Charles Murray's (2016)] those most disadvantaged stand to benefit most. Since black families in the United States are disproportionately found at the bottom of the wealth and income distribution, and since unemployment is twice as high among black workers as among white workers, black families stand to gain most from the policy. Warren (2016) also argues that the proposal's commitment to universality would make it harder for governments to exclude felons and ex-felons from the safety net. Under a system designed to target the deserving and screen out the undeserving, those tied up in the criminal justice system would be more easily excluded. This is important for racial justice given the overrepresentation of people of color in prisons, and given the discrimination experienced by ex-convicts in the labor market.

If we want to see real change in America, we have to come to terms with the fact that anti-Black sentiment, xenophobia, and sexism have permeated our history and led to unconscionable economic stratification. We have to be prepared to see, name, and face some uncomfortable truths about how racist and gendered our underlying beliefs are in regard to who is deserving and who is not and who (had) has access to opportunity and who (did) does not. And, we have to be willing to do something about that learning through our policies moving forward by incorporating an intersectional race and gender equity lens in the design of our policies. Practically speaking, this means never assuming a “tide that lifts all boats” strategy in policymaking but rather using policy to right the wrongs of our past by being intentional about who a policy is intended to lift. We have to be willing to center and honor Blackness and the Black experience and use that frame to draft and implement policy—with the understanding that by centering Blackness, we create a pathway to economic prosperity for all. Reckoning with Race and Gender in America to Promote Healing and Transformation While a tiered guaranteed income program gets us on a pathway to gender and race wealth equity by ensuring more money gets in the pockets of women and people of color, this policy must be paired with a truth and reconciliation process that takes us through a complex discussion and reckoning on the impact of race and gender in this country. Lessons can be learned from the process done in South Africa and Rwanda post Tutsi genocide. This will help build the political and public will needed to implement a tiered disbursement system. At the core of a truth and reconciliation process is the recognition that injustice took place and a retelling of history that uplifts the voices and experiences of those who survived those injustices. This involves acknowledging how things came to be, naming responsible parties, and admitting the consequences—intentional or not. Lastly, healing needs to occur for communities that have been shortchanged, stolen from, and discriminated against. As part of our reconciliation process, we must recognize the long-term trauma that exists in communities from having to live in constant flux and scarcity for generations. Once we acknowledge this trauma, impacted people need tools to think differently and adjust to a society where everyone is truly seen and given the opportunity to thrive. We cannot expect people to just know how to live in this new world as America has never been a fully inclusive place. We need to uplift and tap into community based interventions that provide holistic support systems, including mental and physical health programs, cross-cultural unity building, anti-bias curriculum, and restorative justice programs. Eliminating State-Sponsored Wealth Extraction Policies That Are Executed through the Criminal Justice System We must recognize and eliminate the ways in which our state and local governments continue to strip and extract wealth from communities of color and women through our criminal justice system. The move towards mass incarceration and the criminalization of poverty have led to what amounts to debtor’s prisons where people are incarcerated simply because they cannot afford to pay a fine or fee or post bail (Los Angeles Times Editorial Board 2019). States and municipalities have to stop balancing their budgets on the backs of poor people of color and women through oppressive fines and fees, and we need to end the practice of money bail. Recognizing and eliminating all of the ways in which government extracts wealth from poor communities of color is a key step in reaching racial and gender equity. Curbing Corporate Power Policymakers and the public at large have to also take a hard look at how corporate America’s profit-motive outweighs the need to protect and care for people. The prioritization of profits over people has led to unprecedented levels of corporate power and greed, has left working people with little to no power, and has forced most of us to live deeply constrained lives with little to no room for economic mobility. By taming the power of those at the top of our economy and reviving worker power, we can build an economy that works for the many, not the few who can pay to play. CONCLUSION The pursuit of racial and gender economic equity should guide every single economic policy debate. A better nation is possible, and we need to have the tough conversations to get there. To achieve an inclusive, more equitable economy, we stop relying on single policy interventions and recognize—and implement—the plethora of complimentary approaches that are capable of redefining the American economy and our society.

It is important to note some important assumptions about these policies. One is that all of these models would include every member of society, including those who have been involved in the criminal justice system, all permanent residents regardless of immigration status, and the unemployed/underemployed. These basic tenants are non-negotiable when bringing an equity lens to the guaranteed income conversation. Another important assumption is that a guaranteed income policy would live in conjunction with—and not replace—most of our present day social safety net programs. This is not necessarily a standard assumption among advocates of a guaranteed income, but it will be critical to ensure that the guaranteed income program is both progressive and will achieve wealth building in communities that have historically been excluded from such opportunities. However, there may be some existing programs which are paternalistic towards the poor— e.g., food stamps—that might better serve these goals by changing them to unrestricted cash.

Rogers is spot on to warn us that basic income could be “designed to serve white nationalist ends.” We know this from our own historical experience. Seemingly “universal” social policies, from the New Deal to the Great Society, have had intended and unintended consequences of maintaining or exacerbating existing racial and gender inequalities. Many supposedly “universal” policies ultimately were not. But Rogers’s rightful skepticism and warning about a white nationalist basic income comes down to a question of political power. President Franklin D. Roosevelt compromised on his New Deal programs because southern Democrats insisted on it. The race-based occupational exclusions of agricultural and domestic workers were ultimately included in Social Security, the National Labor Relations Act, and the Fair Labor Standards Act to appease political elites protecting the southern Jim Crow racial and economic regime over the protests of racial justice organizations. Black workers were excluded as a result of this previous iteration of white nationalism and populism. But advocates for a truly universal social policy did not give up, eventually winning racial inclusion in Social Security but not the other two major New Deal policies. Similarly we should not limit our political imaginations about the promise of a basic income because of the very perilous questions around race, immigration, and exclusion. Quite the opposite. We should imagine a robust basic income that advances racial and gender justice while simultaneously addressing the ills of twenty-first-century capitalism.

There is considerable evidence that some Americans oppose welfare entitlement programs because they are prejudiced against blacks, with whom such programs are generally associated. A longstanding and deeply offensive stereotype about blacks is that they are lazy. The ghetto poor would also have grounds to refuse work, then, if they have a justified belief that their fellow citizens have erected a work regime because of racism, whether as a means to punish shiftlessness or as a paternalistic effort to correct habits of indolence. High-poverty neighborhoods with few good employment options lead some residents, especially those unemployed for long periods, to consider securing income through unlawful means. Ghetto poverty creates desperation and feelings of shame, and some, seeking to escape the weight of their social conditions, resort to crime. As a result, many who reside in ghetto neighborhoods have been incarcerated. Upon release their felony records make it difficult for them to find work or housing, as it is not illegal to deny a person a job or an apartment because they have been convicted of a felony. Most convicted felons were already disadvantaged by their limited skills, low educational achievement, and lack of work experience, and they are not eligible for many forms of public assistance. The formerly incarcerated are thus among the worst off in ghetto neighborhoods. Families who depend on them for support are also made worse off by high incarceration rates and the treatment of ex-convicts. Rogers rightly worries that if convicted felons were to be ineligible for basic income, they would likely become a permanent laboring underclass, forever stigmatized, exploited, and poor. But given the employment discrimination they face (particularly if they are black), many would turn, not to menial labor, but back to crime and so likely end up re-incarcerated, where a for-profit prison might still exploit their labor. Given the history of slavery and Jim Crow—three and a half centuries of gross and far-reaching injustices—no one can plausibly argue that the current, racially skewed distribution of resources is entirely the result of just appropriations and fair market exchanges. Nothing approaching adequate reparations for slavery or Jim Crow have been offered to the descendants of slaves or the victims of the segregation regime. Given that contemporary ghetto poverty is plausibly explained, at least in part, by historical injustices in appropriation and transfer (what some term structural racism), it is far from clear that welfare conditional on work or the denial of public benefits to former felons is justifiable. Therefore one of the strengths of basic income is that it would empower marginalized black workers by enabling them to refuse demeaning, insecure, exploitative, and low-paying jobs. They could do so without having to live in degrading forms of poverty and without having to bear the risks of the underground economy. Basic income would deal a real blow to ghettoization and mass incarceration. It would not solve all problems of racial or economic injustice. But any civil rights–labor alliance should seriously consider fighting for it.

I come to basic income from a very different political tradition: black politics with a focus on race and political economy. It is this tradition that led both Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Black Panther Party to argue for full employment and a “guaranteed income” fifty years ago. Though they wanted these specifically for African Americans, they hoped they would be made available to all Americans. Five decades later it is about time the rest of us caught up to their vision. Black workers today face the exact same dual crisis of high unemployment and low-wage work that they did fifty years ago. The black unemployment rate is twice that of white workers at nearly every level of education. Thus one need not be only concerned with future trends to speculate that a basic income would help black Americans today, especially those who continue to be locked out of access to labor markets.

At least 45 cities in the country started some kind of guaranteed income pilot program in 2020 or a few years preceding. The number of programs increased in the pandemic’s wake. Generally, a lottery determines recipients from a pool of eligible applicants. Payments vary from $200 to $1,000 a month. Some cities issue bi-weekly payments. “I was headed towards a deep depression, literally just a week prior to getting the call that I was accepted to the program,” Shamonique Jones, a Newark, New Jersey, resident told ABC News. Jones is a single mother who lives with her four children in a one-bedroom apartment. “I didn’t know how I was gonna get my kids’ uniforms [for school] … I was able to use that to get them their uniforms for school and be able to help us with the holidays and be able to provide Christmas presents for them. It just saved our lives.” Tashonna, a 24-year-old Louisville woman, told the Courier-Journal that her monthly payment of $500 from the city’s guaranteed income program lightens her burden. “It gives you a really big cushion to just make those decisions. If I have $500, do I still need another job or is this enough for me?” The pandemic disproportionately affected Black households, a number of which already survived in poverty. Before the outbreak, the unemployment rate for Black citizens in America was just over 6%. By the time COVID-19 hit, it exceeded 16%. Mayors for Guaranteed Income, a coalition that advocates for more cities to adopt guaranteed income programs, released a dataset that included demographic details and spending information on 20 pilot programs in America. Forty-one percent of the program participants were Black, and 77% of them were women.

We should imagine a robust UBI that advances racial and gender justice while simultaneously addressing the ills of 21st century capitalism. In fact, there is a model of UBI which is not only acceptable, but preferable to common proposals: The Universal PLUS Basic Income. It is identical to most UBI proposals but includes a pro-rated, additional amount for black Americans over a specified period of time. The Universal PLUS Basic Income draws on the concept of “targeted universalism” in designing social policies. Such a proposal would take into account the historical and cumulative disadvantages of income, wealth and inheritance afflicting black communities, and it would recognize that potential changes in the nature of work will disproportionately hurt black Americans. It would effectively function as reparations, in a grand bargain with white America: All would benefit, but those who suffered through slavery and continuing racism in the economy would benefit slightly more.