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Enacting Tiered Disbursement According to Historic Disadvantage A guaranteed income policy proposal that is grounded in racial and gender justice must include a racial and gender equity approach that accounts for the rules, institutions, and norms that have ensured that certain groups reap a greater share of all that America offers while others have been intentionally left out. Without a strategic race and gender equity approach, a guaranteed income will not address and undo the underlying structures of racial and gender exclusion and discrimination that cause people of color and women to be overrepresented among the jobless and low-wage workers in the first place. It is for these reasons that a tiered guaranteed income model that gives stipends based on historic disadvantage and current wealth status is the most promising way forward. Such a model allows for people of color and women-headed households to receive a larger benefit in order to make up for barriers placed on them by policies of our past and present.

In 1966 the Black Panthers released their Ten Point Platform, a series of demands and calls to action that offered a clear statement of their political orientation. The second point of the program demanded that the federal government provide either full employment or a guaranteed income. In 2016 this call was renewed by the Movement for Black Lives. What the Panthers understood in 1966 is what the Movement for Black Lives understands today: capitalism in the United States functions by creating, maintaining, and exploiting class and racial differences to produce antagonistic forms of security. Antagonistic security is security that is created for some people by processes that work against the ability of others to access resources such as wealth and political power. For those on its receiving end, it often generates precarity, from barbed wire fences to predatory police patrols. A basic income that supplemented existing welfare structures could make everyone safer while ending the most pernicious forms of policing. In the right context, basic income has the potential to expand cooperative security, which is security with others: the kind of security that a dam provides a nearby village, or that mass vaccination schemes provide a community that develops herd immunity. However, a basic income advanced as a replacement for labor regulations and other security-enhancing government programs—“UBI-,” we call it—will only further exploit those whose lives are made most precarious by this system. Conversely, a basic income that supplements existing or new welfare structures—“UBI+”—could radically redistribute security, remove incentives for the most pernicious forms of policing, and create the conditions for a more thorough overhaul of the current political system.

There is, in fact, a model of basic income which is not only acceptable but preferable to common proposals: the Universal PLUS Basic Income. It is identical to most basic income 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. Most importantly a campaign around a racially inclusive basic income is a potential opportunity for creating the political will within black communities and across racial and ethnic divides in American politics. Rogers, after all, suffers from the same limited theory of change with which he charges libertarian basic income supporters. How and under what conditions will the political will for his broad public sector program to advance economic security and human flourishing be created? Yes, there have been incredible victories by fast food, retail, and farm workers over the past decade to advance worker power, and these efforts are necessary but not yet sufficient to win national labor law reform. But public opinion around economic redistribution has always been higher among black Americans relative to the rest of the population, and initial polling and focus groups around support for a basic income in the United States suggests this pattern still holds. Thus a U+BI proposal could become a bridge to the increasingly salient demand for reparations and reinvestment emerging from the Movement for Black Lives. And, if nothing else, it serves as a stronger starting progressive bargaining position in political fights over basic income. We are not yet at a moment to argue beyond basic income. We have to build the campaign to win it first.

Last, but not least, UBI could help disrupt the racial tropes and racial resentment pervasive around the existing welfare system. Negative racist stereotypes of lazy black youth and welfare mothers have important consequences. For a start, they force those in need to think twice before claiming benefits, the risk of stigmatization and demonization being high. This explains in part low take-up rates. Racial tropes also serve to shame recipients to keep them in check and incentivize them further to find employment. Furthermore, there is now ample evidence that racial resentment contributes to low support for welfare. Even when programs do not in fact benefit nonwhites more than whites, the myth of the lazy black recipient contributes to a welfare backlash. The pervasiveness of racial stereotypes is thus concerning both because demonized populations are less likely to enjoy the full benefits of assistance and because it contributes to a welfare backlash that is worrying from a progressive perspective. A universal income support system would be less likely to stigmatize the target population, since all members of the community would get a UBI. If benefits are destigmatized, those worse off are less likely to suffer self-respect harms and to drop out of programs they require to live well.

I have argued that a basic income in all but a few forms—those that exclude the incarcerated or result in a net decrease in benefits—would benefit African American communities for the following reasons. First, it would provide an individual-sustaining basic floor for returning citizens caught up in the criminal justice system. Second, even an equal income could disproportionately benefit black Americans. White Americans earn more overall, so a greater percentage of their basic income would be taxed back. More importantly today’s wealthiest Americans benefit either directly from African Americans’ disadvantaged position in our political economy, or indirectly as a result of the cumulative benefits to our nation from centuries of exploiting black bodies. Black Americans either helped build the co-owned wealth of our nation (our infrastructure and banking, legal, and patent systems) or were denied access to our share of it (land, sky, and other natural resources). Even if African Americans receive an income equal to whites, tapping wealth hoarded by racist means and distributing it universally effectively amounts to targeted redistribution. Third, a basic income would be an improvement on portions of today’s current safety net. Some benefits, such as food stamps, are replete with paternalistic restrictions that rest on racist tropes about recipients and their consumption habits. Others, such as the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), are significantly tied to work, which is problematic when structural racism continues to create so many barriers to black employment. A basic income lacks these flaws. A campaign around U+BI could create political will within black communities and across racial and ethnic divides in America. The underlying assumption around welfare and entitlement reform has been that racial minorities do not want to work and that existing social policies provide “disincentives” to work. Basic income fundamentally decouples work from the economic right to basic needs and arguably bolsters individual-level bargaining power in the labor market. It also, by virtue of its universality, is less likely to be viewed as a program solely to benefit one racial or ethnic group. For sure, racialized attacks on cash grants will continue, but progressives are in a stronger position arguing for a universal program, knowing that it will in fact benefit African Americans greatly.

After Marxism, the second existential threat is one of negation and elimination of the subject and here I shall consider conceptions of this from CRT and black existentialism.

Various contemporary educational theories consider the equity and social justice implications of different forms of education with regard to race. The work of Sleeter and Grant (2007) makes the ethical and pragmatic case for multicultural social justice as a key value of education. This has been followed in contemporary work that attempts to consider the various dimensions of social justice. For example, Bhopal and Shain (2014), consider the twin axis of recognition and redistribution as goals of education. Other work examines the role of social distancing from the ‘Other’ by white students as a dynamic process in which Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) and working-class students are disadvantaged. In many ways denial of social justice in terms of lack of resources, recognition or access to social space can be considered to be a form of dehumanisation. However, whilst work on social justice and education might consider the lack of humanity in these systems of oppression (applying concepts such as ‘bare life’, Lewis 2006; or ‘othering’ Lebowitz 2016) they do not consider directly existential threats. Threats to humanity on the basis of difference may arise from totalitarianism as much as through war and threats to the environment. The various genocides which have taken place throughout human history have often had a racial, or ethnic, cleansing purpose to them. They have been eugenic threats that are based upon spurious ideas of genetic and moral superiority. Writers on race from Fanon to Du Bois have considered that the threat posed to racial groups may be existential and that there is a short step from psychic, to real extermination. The negation of individuals through economic, social and psychological processes allows for their physical extermination. Du Bois (2014) deals explicitly with existential threat in his short story ‘The Comet’ where humanity is almost wiped out by a threat from space, leaving only a small number of people to carry on. As one of the survivors of the comet is an African American, this leads Du Bois to consider the state of race relations in the USA. The implication of the story is that the existential threat of the comet (which allows the African American character to live in a world entirely free of racial prejudice) allows release from the existential threat of eugenic attitudes. Building on Du Bois, in other work (Preston 2012), I have considered the ways in which preparation for threats, including existential threats such as pandemics and nuclear war, has been in many ways eugenic in that it prioritises the survival of some more than others based upon criteria which include race and ethnicity (Preston 2012). Preparing for disasters and emergencies often prioritises the interests of white people above those of other ethnic minorities. One reason for this is tacit intentionality which means that policymakers and practitioners do not consider human diversity in considering how people may respond to disaster. Policy is often biased as policymakers expect that people will be ‘like me’ which (at least in the UK and USA) means they will often be white, middle-class, educated, English-speaking men. In planning for threats, there will be various ways in which such biases are included. For example, they may not consider publishing advice in a number of languages, the resources necessary to survive a disaster, the mobility of people and the attitudes of emergency responders. This is unwitting prejudice in that by not considering diversity they are actually making it less likely for BAME people to survive, or protect themselves against, the disaster.

The struggle against racism will be long, difficult, without intermission, without remission, probably never achieved, yet for this very reason, it is a struggle to be undertaken without surcease and without concessions. One cannot be indulgent toward racism. One cannot even let the monster in the house, especially not in a mask. To give it merely a foothold means to augment the bestial part in us and in other people which is to diminish what is human. To accept the racist universe to the slightest degree is to endorse fear, injustice, and violence. It is to accept the persistence of the dark history in which we still largely live. It is to agree that the outsider will always be a possible victim (and which [person] man is not [themself] himself an outsider relative to someone else?). Racism illustrates in sum, the inevitable negativity of the condition of the dominated; that is it illuminates in a certain sense the entire human condition. The anti-racist struggle, difficult though it is, and always in question, is nevertheless one of the prologues to the ultimate passage from animality to humanity. In that sense, we cannot fail to rise to the racist challenge. However, it remains true that one’s moral conduct only emerges from a choice: one has to want it. It is a choice among other choices, and always debatable in its foundations and its consequences. Let us say, broadly speaking, that the choice to conduct oneself morally is the condition for the establishment of a human order for which racism is the very negation. This is almost a redundancy. One cannot found a moral order, let alone a legislative order, on racism because racism signifies the exclusion of the other and his or her subjection to violence and domination. From an ethical point of view, if one can deploy a little religious language, racism is “the truly capital sin.”fn22 It is not an accident that almost all of humanity’s spiritual traditions counsel respect for the weak, for orphans, widows, or strangers. It is not just a question of theoretical counsel respect for the weak, for orphans, widows or strangers. It is not just a question of theoretical morality and disinterested commandments. Such unanimity in the safeguarding of the other suggests the real utility of such sentiments. All things considered, we have an interest in banishing injustice, because injustice engenders violence and death. Of course, this is debatable. There are those who think that if one is strong enough, the assault on and oppression of others is permissible. But no one is ever sure of remaining the strongest. One day, perhaps, the roles will be reversed. All unjust society contains within itself the seeds of its own death. It is probably smarter to treat others with respect so that they treat you with respect. “Recall,” says the bible, “that you were once a stranger in Egypt,” which means both that you ought to respect the stranger because you were a stranger yourself and that you risk becoming once again someday. It is an ethical and a practical appeal – indeed, it is a contract, however implicit it might be. In short, the refusal of racism is the condition for all theoretical and practical morality. Because, in the end, the ethical choice commands the political choice. A just society must be a society accepted by all. If this contractual principle is not accepted, then only conflict, violence, and destruction will be our lot. If it is accepted, we can hope someday to live in peace. True, it is a wager, but the stakes are irresistible.

Policymakers have responded by ending welfare as an entitlement, replacing it with strict time limits and work requirements for benefit eligibility, and cracking down on urban crime, and especially on the drug trade, pushing for long prison terms and aggressive enforcement measures. The idea is to encourage work in the licit economy by changing the incentive structure. But implicit in this policy response is the assumption that the black urban poor’s reasons for refusing to work are insufficient. This assumption is widely held, quite old, and sometimes accepted by respected black leaders. But while I would not deny that high jobless rates in ghettos are worrisome and have far-reaching consequences, it does not follow that inducing or mandating work is the right solution to the problem of ghetto poverty. Indeed, many of the black urban poor have sufficient reason to refuse to work. One of the basic problems with the current work-welfare regime is this: many of the ghetto poor who have submitted to its requirements nevertheless remain poor. They simply become part of the working poor, often serving the private needs of the well-off—performing the roles of maids, nannies, dishwashers, maintenance workers, and so on. Others fall back into poverty because of recessions and economic restructuring. And because many of the schools available to the ghetto poor are so substandard, they do not allow for opportunities to develop marketable skills, limiting upward mobility. Thus, when work requirements do not allow for skills enhancement or promotion to better paid positions, these requirements are reasonably interpreted as attempts by the affluent to profit by extracting burdensome and unrewarding labor from the weak and vulnerable. Under these circumstances, mandating work to receive welfare benefits is disempowering—it ensures that the ghetto poor are a permanently exploitable class. To submit to an unjust and exploitative regime that stigmatizes and conveys contempt for poor black people is, for some at least, a fate worse than the ghetto. Many descendants of slaves embrace the imperative to resist race-based oppression, particularly those forms that are similar or related to past racial injustices. Blacks are therefore suspicious of and often bristle at any social arrangement that has the look or feel of race-based servitude. Perhaps some do not accept the jobs available because they believe that the basic structure of U.S. society is deeply unfair, and thus, on grounds of justice and self-respect, refuse to accommodate themselves to their low position in this racially and economically stratified social order. The ghetto poor have grounds to refuse work if their fellow citizens have erected a work regime because of racism. Poor black mothers, for example, are often forced to accept employment in order to receive much-needed benefits. But the work available to them is often domestic service in the homes of affluent white families. By refusing this kind of work, they are resisting the ideological image of the mammy—the self-sacrificing, deferential, faithful, and obedient house servant—and its associated social roles. As Patricia Hill Collins has argued, a lot of the work in the contemporary service industry—preparing and serving food in restaurants, janitorial jobs and hotel housekeeping, and looking after kids in childcare centers—is reminiscent of traditional domestic service.

Why? More importantly, today’s wealthiest Americans benefit either directly from African Americans’ disadvantaged position in our political economy, or indirectly as a result of the cumulative benefits to our nation from centuries of exploiting black bodies. For the first 25 decades of this country, we relied on racially-based slave labor to build the wealth of this country. For the next 10 decades after the Civil War, we relied on “slavery by another name”: Jim Crow. It’s been only 5 decades since the Civil Rights Movement in the long sweep of American history. 25–10–5: we can all do the math. Black Americans helped build the co-owned wealth of our nation (our infrastructure and banking, legal, and patent systems) and were denied access to our share of it (land, sky, and other natural resources). Even if African Americans receive an equal income with whites, tapping wealth hoarded by racist means and distributing it universally effectively amounts to targeted redistribution. Most importantly, a campaign around a racially inclusive UBI is a potential opportunity for creating the political will within Black communities and across racial and ethnic divides in American politics to win. Public opinion around economic redistribution has always been higher among black Americans relative to the rest of the population, and initial polling and focus groups around support for a UBI in the U.S. suggests this pattern still holds. Thus, a UBI+ proposal could become a bridge to the increasingly salient demand for reparations and reinvestment emerging from the Movement for Black Lives. And, if nothing else, it serves as a stronger starting progressive bargaining position in political fights over UBI.

A. Research Question Dozens of US cities, including Hartford, Connecticut, have begun to experiment with Guaranteed Basic Income (GBI) programs as a solution to generational poverty and racial inequality. Most GBI programs operate by giving citizens monthly cash payments with no strings attached to spend as they see fit. This cash flow helps recipients meet basic living costs, increase opportunities, and better their quality of life. The Connecticut Women’s Education and Legal Advocacy Fund (CWEALF) is focusing on GBI programs because they help create an equitable society for all, especially the underserved or marginalized. CWEALF hopes to advocate for statewide GBI programs to combat the high levels of income inequality and racial poverty that exist throughout Connecticut. CWEALF invited me to partner with them to answer two research questions: What lessons have advocates learned in similar settings that may help CWEALF with supporting similar programs in CT? What have recent initiatives for guaranteed or universal basic income in the US shown about the outcomes of women’s opportunity to accumulate wealth, improve family health, and reduce reliance on other governmental programs? B. Why is it important? This research is incredibly important as it will help CWEALF and citizens of Connecticut better understand the benefits of basic income programs and how best to advocate for them. Millions of Americans struggle every day to meet their basic life needs. Parents forfeit time with their children, people pick up second or third jobs, and some even refuse jobs that would push them into a certain bracket as they are reliant on other governmental programs. Cash is one of the most direct and effective ways to provide financial stability to those who are most in need. It offers the dignity and self-determination that other programs do not and allows citizens to take ownership of their own life and spending decisions. Years of research demonstrate that when given unrestricted payments, participants in UBI and GBI programs are able to pull themselves out of poverty and create economic stability for themselves and their families. The work CWEALF is doing is crucial to moving towards UBI programs in every state.

By now the Mincome experiment is well known. In the 1970s, every resident of Dauphin, a small Manitoba town, was given the option to collect substantial cash payments without work requirements. Economist Evelyn Forget’s findings about Mincome’s positive effects on health and education helped to resuscitate the concept of a basic income in Canada. With basic income pilots on the horizon, it is worth considering new lessons from an old experiment. One of the most important, but overlooked, virtues of basic income is the absence of social stigma. The routine humiliation of the poor, an enduring feature of highly conditional social assistance systems, melts away in a universally available basic income regime. As one Dauphin participant wrote midway through the experiment, “It trusts the Canadian people and leaves a man or woman, their pride.” Mincome collected data on an extraordinary range of issues, most of which sat in boxes for decades. I have been digitizing a number of those lost surveys, and I recently reported on findings related to social stigma during the Mincome years. When you compare people’s views of Mincome to welfare what stands out is that people took ardent, moralistic positions about welfare, but were pragmatic when asked about Mincome. In fact, the social meaning of Mincome was powerful enough that even participants who opposed welfare on moral grounds and believed strongly in the principle of earning one’s own living felt able to collect government payments without a sense of contradiction. One person refused welfare, writing, “I feel that [welfare] is more for disabled or people which are too lazy to work. It doesn’t include us, we’re both able and willing to work but can’t get a job due to the low employment rate.” They joined Mincome for pragmatic reasons: they were “short of money.” The design of our social policies has an important but under-appreciated effect: To increase rather than decrease social cleavages among the country’s poor and working people. If you’re older and need a steady income stream we have one set of policies for you. If you can’t find work, and meet certain criteria, we have another policy. And if you can’t find work, but don’t meet that criteria, we have another still. Together, the policies place recipients on a gradient of deservingness.

In addition to issues of sustainability, the recent interest in a basic income is generated by specific concerns about growing economic inequality and the changing nature of work. As evidence of this inequality, Oxfam has noted the increasing concentration of wealth in the hands of a small group of billionaires. In 2018, 26 people owned the same amount of wealth as the 3.8 billion people who comprise the poorest half of the world’s population – in 2017, this figure was 43 people.45 Few countries seem willing or able to tax the global companies that generate this wealth. While inequality is growing the rate of reduction of extreme poverty had slowed by half since 2013 according to the World Bank.46 The Bank is now projecting that the economic impacts of COVID-19 will result in ‘the first increase in global extreme poverty since 1998, effectively wiping out progress made since 2017’.47 Inequality has severe consequences for political and economic stability, health and the environment.48 This inequality manifests in many parts of the world in under-employment and salary stagnation. Precarious labour conditions are a reality for millions within the increasingly global labour market. There are fears about the loss of jobs in what has been labelled the ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’ which entails changes in scale and scope that cannot yet be predicted, including via robotics, artificial intelligence, biotechnology, the ‘internet of things’ and quantum computing.49 These technologies are likely to reduce employment in many areas with some uncertainty about whether new forms of income generating work will arise to replace the old jobs or whether many people will become unemployed or underemployed leading to even greater inequality and insecurity. It is these concerns about both a crisis in work and the related challenges of inequality that have led to calls for a basic income from a range of quarters. A basic income is being seen variously as ‘venture capital for the poor’, a response to poverty and austerity, and as a means of freeing people to work as they choose rather than remain in meaningless, unsatisfying ‘bullshit jobs’.50

B. Advocates recommend that programs focus on achieving individual agency and personal choice Advocates expressed that Guaranteed Income programs are more beneficial than other forms of assistance as they allow choice and freedom. Not restricting what recipients spend the cash on it allows them choice and control in their life and to do what’s best for them. Neighly stated: “Guaranteed income allows for trust and choice and freedom, and individuals know best how to support themselves and their families, and that’s what guaranteed income allows, rather than having hoops to jump through bureaucratic inefficiencies and other challenges. This is trusting individuals and giving them the foundation on which they can build their lives.” (Neighly) Grant continues this thought by saying the goal of GBI should be to create individual agencies and allow people to take charge of their own futures, a concept that other assistance programs do not achieve. “If we can shift people away from other social safety net programs, like housing vouchers and other benefits, and give them an opportunity to be more independent and have more individual agency, we can start to break the cycle of generational poverty.” (Grant) Finally, advocates explained that individual agency looks different for everyone. Some use the money to not work extra jobs, or be more involved in their child’s life, or save it for housing, or use it for transportation. No matter what their choice it’s important that this choice is theirs to make. Grant explains this stating: “We want to know, did UBI provide you an opportunity to enhance your quality of life?… to some people, it could be, I didn’t have to work a third job to provide for my family because of UBI. For another person, it might be that I was able to go to night school to work towards my associate’s or to finish high school. For other people, it might be I was able to buy a car or I was able to move. I mean, it’s different for everyone. But ultimately, individual agencies are going to be our gauge for how successful this program was.” (Grant) The success of GBI can be measured by noting the increase in individual agency and free choice that programs provide to participants.

There are two main reasons why basic income undercuts social stigma. First, it is automatic: instead of the often degrading and invasive caseworker discretion that characterizes social assistance, a basic income is not unlike the unstigmatizing benefits that come at tax time. To participate you need not stand up and self-identify as poor.∂ Second, basic income treats typically separated people in a similar manner. It blurs the lines of demarcation between low-wage workers, the disabled, unemployed workers, and social assistance recipients. It blurs the lines between those who cannot find paid employment and those who choose to commit to other activities, education, care-work, or even leisure. As more people are folded into a program, quality improves and austerity becomes harder to pull off. Medicare, a program that is both well liked and near-impossible to dismantle, illustrates the case. Social assistance is the opposite: without a powerful political constituency, unfriendly politicians have been able to make eligibility increasingly difficult. This is the logic behind the maxim, “programs for the poor become poor programs.”∂ Swedish sociologist Walter Korpi called this the paradox of redistribution. Targeting appears to leave more room for generous redistribution, but it in fact makes for frail, and ultimately less redistributive programs. Conversely, the more universal a program, the more resilient it becomes. This is one of the difficulties with a pilot, as is being proposed in Canada. It won’t benefit from the popularity effect. If we managed to implement a generous basic income its popularity could lock it in place. All the pilot will have on its side is mere scientific evidence. Had we experimented with Medicare before implementing it, it might have never developed the base of political support that made it robust. A social policy that destigmatizes, one that erases the bright lines between the “deserving” and “undeserving” poor is an end in its own right. The added benefit is that erasing those lines makes for popular and robust programs.

The demand for a UBI, however, is subject to competing hegemonic forces. It is just as open to being mobilised for a libertarian dystopia as for a post-work society – an ambiguity that has led many to mistakenly conflate the two poles. In demanding a UBI, therefore, three key factors must be articulated in order to make it meaningful: it must provide a sufficient amount of income to live on; it must be universal, provided to everyone unconditionally; and it must be a supplement to the welfare state rather than a replacement of it. The first point is obvious enough: a UBI must provide a materially adequate income. The exact amount will vary between countries and regions, but it can be relatively easily arrived at with existing data. The risk is that, if set too low, UBI becomes just a government subsidy to businesses. In addition, UBI must be universal and given to everyone unconditionally. As there would be no means-testing or other measures required to receive the UBI, it would break free of the disciplinary nature of welfare capitalism. 103 Moreover, a universal grant avoids the stigmatisation of welfare, since everyone receives it. As we argued in Chapter 4, the invocation of ‘universalism’ also obliges the continual subversion of any restricted application of a basic income (in terms of individuals’ status as citizens, immigrants or prisoners). The demand for universality provides the basis for a continued struggle to expand the scope and scale of the basic income. Lastly, the UBI must be a supplement to the welfare state. The conservative argument for a basic income – which must be avoided at all costs – is that it should simply replace the welfare state by providing a lump sum of money to every individual. In this scenario, the UBI would just become a vector of increased marketisation, transforming social services into private markets. Rather than being some aberration of neoliberalism, it would simply extend its essential gesture by creating new markets. By contrast, the demand made here is for UBI as a supplement to a revived welfare state. 104

The world is in danger of a global crisis that will cause the decline of wealth, and lead to a significant decrease of well-being and happiness. The solution features a new “monarchy” or government. This system includes: a system of multiple governing levels, the goal of emancipating the individual, the use of technology to create a world without work. The world economy is one example that has experienced the negative effects of globalization and income inequality. The current model for economic wealth distribution does not seem sustainable as it does not provide for the needs of all people. The solution for this is to create a system with an equal distribution of power and resources, and in which individuals are emancipated from work such that they can be provided through technology. With the advancement of AI and automation, the economy is changing. We need to make sure that people have a way to support themselves, which is why we should give them a Universal Basic Income. So far, it's been shown to reduce poverty, improve human happiness, and increase entrepreneurship. With an increase in poverty comes an increase in crime. Imagine a world where every person has their needs met, regardless of the work they do. Imagine no more poverty. Imagine no more hunger. Imagine no more homelessness. The Universal Basic Income is a proposal for the economic security of every person in society, which would meet the material needs of all citizens, regardless of wealth or employment status. A Universal Basic Income is one where every person in society is guaranteed a set amount of money to maintain their basic needs. The UBI does not take the place of other social welfare programs, but rather supplements them. This proposal is most often discussed as a solution for economic security, where people would no longer have to work for money to access their basic needs or steal…by raising the criminal rates high. The UBI could be implemented through various systems: a tax on capital, an increase in minimum wage or even an increase in the general price level. One of the most promising implementations would be an increase in the minimum wage, which increases as productivity increases (and therefore decreases unemployment). And is adjusted to keep the same percentage of income over time. One criticism of UBI is that it would do little to deter people from working, and therefore this would only decrease the number of hours available for a job. Professor David Graeber argues that "with a guaranteed wage, when people can't find work they'll leave their jobs and start doing other things." Universal Basic Income is an economic policy in which all citizens or residents of a country receive a regular, unconditional sum of money. This form of income will be given to all people regardless of their employment status. The idea behind this is that if everyone has a basic income, then it would be easier for people to find work and contribute to society. The main argument for Universal Basic Income is that it will reduce the amount of human labor needed in the workforce. With AI taking over many jobs, there will be a need for new types of jobs that are not currently being created or are not being created fast enough. Some examples of jobs that will be created because of AI are: 1) Psychologist/psychiatrist 2) Data scientist 3) Health care therapist 4) Tech support specialist 5) Financial advisor 6) Lawyer etc The time it takes to create new jobs is due to the following a. Technology b. Government c. Economy. The idea of a Universal Basic Income is to provide everyone with a certain amount of money, each month, unconditionally. UBI would be set at a level that would allow people to live comfortably. UBI will lead to more innovation and creativity in the workforce because people will be free from the pressure of having to work for money.

When the child tax credit, first established in 1997, was expanded for a year in 2021, it was a major political and social win for the country. At a time when the pandemic had worsened many families’ financial distress, the Biden administration’s decision not only added to the amount of the tax credit and converted the payment from a year-end lump sum to monthly payments; it also abandoned the work requirement for parents. This immediately affected one third of all children in the U.S., including 52 percent of Black children and 41 percent of Hispanic children, whose families were formerly excluded because the parents earned too little to qualify for the tax credit. The tax credit expansion lifted 3.7 million children out of poverty by December 2021 without significantly reducing parents’ work participation. Then in January 2022, the expanded tax credit expired, which plunged 3.7 million back into poverty, with higher percentage increases in poverty among Hispanic and Black children. The credit showed us that cash assistance could help families stay afloat and, contrary to some political beliefs, parents would not leave the labor system because of it. Even so, the failure to renew the expansion should not negate this important political milestone: Congress came within one vote of abandoning parental work requirements as a condition to get cash assistance for their families. The child tax credit expansion is one step toward a universal basic income that could eliminate poverty without increasing unemployment. There are 37.9 million people in poverty in the U.S., according to 2021 Census Bureau figures. Providing a government-funded monthly payment to every individual would broadly lift them out of poverty, while providing millions of children a better chance at a good education, improved health and higher future earnings. With 11.6 percent of people in the U.S. living at or under the poverty line, this payment would benefit millions and save hundreds of billions of dollars by reducing the social costs of poverty. The question becomes: Can we convince our elected officials that poverty is not a moral failing, but a social condition that can be addressed by establishing an income floor below which no one falls? A universal basic income, or UBI, is defined as “a periodic cash payment unconditionally delivered to all on an individual basis, without means-test or work requirement,” according to the Basic Income Earth Network. The child tax credit isn’t quite the same, because it is only for families with children; it also phases out at higher income levels and essentially still forces people to prove they are “poor enough” to need help—a means test. A more ambitious bill approaching the idea of UBI introduced by Representatives Rashida Tlaib and Mondaire Jones, would eliminate the means test, thereby creating a universal child allowance. Universal benefits have several advantages over means-tested benefits. They avoid divisions between “us” and “them,” removing the stigma associated with targeted benefits. Uptake by the needy, a persistent problem with targeted benefits, is improved when stigma and bureaucratic hurdles are removed. Universal benefits tend to be more popular and hence are more politically secure and better funded. And universal benefits, dispensing with means testing, are easier to administer. The universal child allowance would enroll all children at birth so no child would be excluded. No country has yet introduced a universal basic income sufficient for essential needs. But in the U.S., Alaska has enacted its Permanent Fund Dividend, which is an annual cash payment, averaging around $1,600, that goes to every resident without means test or work requirement. It contributes to poverty reduction and has no negative effect on people’s willingness to work.

Unity is the important concept in all scapegoating activity; the scapegoat represents the group's push toward its own wholeness by excluding its disparate elements. Thus scapegoating can be detected anywhere there is a transfer of negative attribution from one part of the system to another, or from one part of the system to an object outside the system, in order to fulfill what is perceived to be a unifying survival function for the system as a whole. The creation of a scapegoat requires a process akin to the psychological mechanisms of projection and projective identification in that it uses an other to contain aspects of oneself. The scapegoat is created by "projecting" the darker side of group life, the darker side being the reality of evil and sin in society. For the individual, the shadow contains those elements of the psyche that are not accepted as his or her own. As individuals we attempt to project that shadow onto others. Likewise, the group finds common negative ground in the scapegoat. But the scapegoat is not identical to the shadow; the scapegoat is a collective creation, a symbolic compromise for many individuals' negative projections. One can say that the scapegoat is humanity's societal vessel for the shadow - a vessel which is, by definition, innocent of the burden it assumes. The scapegoat is a very ancient archetype and scapegoating an ancient activity, so ancient that there are few societies where evidence of the practice has not been found. We have records of animals used as scapegoats that go back to ancient Hittite and Sanskrit texts. The works of modern authors who have used the scapegoat as a major theme (Dostoyevsky, Jackson, Lessing, for example) all hearken back to ancient days and a collective symbol that incorporates the worst of our projections in a strange, inanimate object. It is an image that taps our most primitive parts even today. An early biblical story, the basis of Yom Kippur and one that underlies the crucifixion of Jesus captures the fundamental Western image of the scapegoat. The story begins with the Israelites fleeing Egypt. Aaron and God soon find that the law and monotheism are not sufficient to colltain the Israelites who, after years ofenf<)rced slavery, have no experience taking responsibility for their own behavior. The priests arc overwhelmed with the sin offerings of a guilty people and begin a return to primitive practices rather than staying within the new laws. After several priests have been killed for violating the law, God takes a new look at what is really possible with his chosen people. First the priests create a Day of Atonement, the current Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur, during which individual and collective sins of omission and commission are acknowledged and forgiven. But even this symbolic process is not sufficient, and the scapegoat is added. Hilt the goat, Oil which the lot fell to be the scapegoat, shall he presented alive be/()re the Lord, to make an atonement with him, and to let him go for a scapegoat into the wilderness. (Lev. 16:10) The power of this biblical scapegoating process is seen in the phenomena of contagion. Referring to the man who takes the scapegoat into the wilderness, the narrative reads: And he that let go the goat, for the scapegoat shall wash his clothes, and bathe his flesh in water, and afterward come into the camp. (Lev. 16:26) The process of contagion underlines a frequent functional difference between group projection and the creation of the scapegoat and individual projection and the creation of the external bad object. In scapegoating, the projection is so generalized that there is little possibility of retrieval. A boundary is erected between group members and scapegoat – the wilderness or death itself – which insures what Hitler called "the final solution." Contagion requires this boundary. It is usually not enough for the scapegoat to be exiled. It must be destroyed. Even so, the symbolic vessel of the chosen animal cannot, because of its compromise quality, entirely contain the projected evil. The person who touches the scapegoat runs the risk of becoming the next scapegoat. Most horribly, the inadequacy of this process of containment gradually requires more and more potent symbols: objects or animals become increasingly inadequate and the flesh-and-blood scapegoating of humans and human subgroups becomes an acceptable practice. This has required sophisticated rationalizations based on what Eric Erickson (1972) has called pseudospeciation to describe how a ruling or dominant group can justify locating the scapegoat function in its slaves or any other group cast as different and lower than itself. We have many examples from modern times – Armenians, Amerindians, South African Blacks, European Jews, Palestinians – all used as scapegoats in order to serve the hoped-for but specious unity of nationhood, much as individuals use shadow projections to serve the hoped-for but conscious individuation of the person. And here we see a critical connection between the growth processes in individuals and in groups, for scapegoats not only deter group development but also hamper integration of shadow projections, a necessary step in the individuation process. As long as there are scapegoats – unintegrated shadow figures for the group – integration of the shadow within the individual is an illusion. One might even say that, for the individual, the process of individuation will always be held hostage to the presence of the scapegoat in the larger community. Perhaps this feels like too heavy a burden for the individual to accept-to take on the responsibility for the scapegoats of the world as part and parcel of one's own attempts to integrate the personal shadow. Religious traditions have encountered this dilemma in the personage of Torquemada and the Spanish Inquisition, for example, and in the modern-day "neutrality" of the Pope and other religious leaders during the Holocaust. As we have seen, Jung's definition of individuation does not emphasize this connection between individual shadow and group scapegoat. His model, including the way it has been interpreted, tends to deemphasize the need to burden ourselves with the suffering of others as part of our own growth processes. To imagine the individuation process this way, however, is to accept that man is an island, that the suffering in the world is someone else's responsibility and does not grow from us or affect us. I for one reject this possibility. Individuation is an awesome burden precisely because it requires a connected, integrated outlook. Individuation demands that our bonds with other humans be included in the equation of our own development. We are all part of the scapegoating process. We are all a part of others' suffering. By our silence, we give it passive support and supply our shadows with more energy, defeating each of our attempts at integrating the archetype. We must not only accept our responsibility for the scapegoat, we must do something about it. Individuation under any other terms can be just narcissistic play.

The notion of ‘the poor’ as Other is used here to signify the many ways in which ‘the poor’ are treated as different from the rest of society. The capital ‘O’ denotes its symbolic weight. The notion of ‘Othering’ conveys how this is not an inherent state but an ongoing process animated by the ‘non-poor’. It is a dualistic process of differentiation and demarcation, by which the line is drawn between ‘us’ and ‘them’ – between the more and the less powerful – and through which social distance is established and maintained (Beresford and Croft, 1995; Riggins, 1997). It is not a neutral line, for it is imbued with negative value judgements that construct ‘the poor’ variously as a source of moral contamination, a threat, an ‘undeserving’ economic burden, an object of pity or even as an exotic species. It is a process that takes place at different levels and in different fora: from everyday social relations through interaction with welfare officials and professionals to research, the media the legal system and policy-making (Schram, 1997). Valerie Polakow, for example, describes how, in the US, schools, teacher training institutions and research institutes are all ‘implicated in the framing of poor children as other, and in institutionalizing the legitimacy of their otherness status’ (1993: 150, emphasis in original). Othering is closely associated with, and reinforced by, a number of related social processes such as stereotyping, stigmatization and the more neutral categorization. Stereotyping is a discriminatory form of labeling, which attains a taken-for-granted quality and serves to portray particular social groups as homogenous. It is a discursive strategy that magnifies and distorts difference (Riggins, 1997). Michael Pickering writes that ‘stereotypes operate as socially exorcistic rituals in maintaining the boundaries of normality and legitimacy’ (2001: 45). He suggests that normally ‘stereotyping attempts to translate cultural difference into Otherness, in the interests of order, power and control’ (2001: 204). In contrast, in the case of ‘the poor’. Stereotyping functions to create cultural difference and thereby the Other. At the same time, as we saw in chapter 3, those groups who are more likely to be poor – women, racialized minorities and disabled people – are themselves groups that are frequently Othered. Processes of classification and categorization effected by governmental and legal institutions, the media and social scientists, although analytically distinct from stereotyping, can draw on stereotypes and thereby reinforce them. These processes can have implications for how ‘the poor’ are treated by fellow citizens as well as by powerful classificatory institutions (Edelman, 1977). As we shall see, the bifurcation of ‘the poor’ into ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving’, each with their associated stereotypes, has had a profound impact on their treatment by the welfare state and its antecedents. The label of ‘undeserving’ poor has been negatively charged by the process of stigmatization, which, historically and today, has had implications for how society sees ‘the poor’, how they see themselves and how they are treated by welfare institutions. Erving Goffman’s classic text referred to stigma as ‘an attribute that is deeply discrediting’ and to the belief that ‘the person with stigma is not quite human’ (1968: 13, 15). In this way, stigma contributes to the dehumanization involved in Othering (Oliver, 2001). Othering and associated processes such as stigmatization have various effects on ‘us’ and ‘them’ and the relations between the two. With regard to ‘us’, Othering helps to define the self and to affirm identity (Sibley, 1995). In contrast, it divests ‘them’ of ‘their social and cultural identities by diminishing them to their stereotyped characteristics’ and by casting them as silent objects (Pickering, 2001: 73; Oliver, 2001). In doing so, it denies them their complex humanity and subjectivity. Othering operates as ‘a strategy of symbolic exclusion’, which makes it easier for people to blame the Other for their own and society’s problems (Pickering, 2001: 48). The Othering of ‘the poor’ also acts as a warning to others; poverty thereby represents a ‘spectre – a socially constituted object of wholesome horror’ (Dean with Melrose, 1999: 48). As regards the relationship between ‘us’ and ‘them’, Othering legitimates ‘our’ privilege – rooted in superiority – and ‘their’ exploitation and oppression – rooted in inferiority – together with the socio-economic inequalities that underlie poverty (Riggins, 1997; Young, 1999). This underlines the ways in which power relationships are inscribed in the process of Othering. It suggests that Othering may be most marked where inequality is sharpest. An additional effect of Othering is that it denies the Other the 'right to name and define themselves' (Pickering, 2001: 73). The power 'to name one's Self' has been described as 'a fundamental human right' (Riggins, 1997: 8) and as a key 'political resource' (Silver, 1996: 135). Naming 'the poor' is an exercise in power, for 'we' invariably name 'them', even when sympathetically (Polakow, 1993). Naming or labelling of the Other has symbolic, cultural, psychological and material effects. 'How we name things affects how we behave towards them. The name, or label, carries with it expectations' (Clarke and Cochrane, 1998: 26). Likewise 'we' create images of 'them - the poor', which have a similarly powerful effect on attitudes and actions. 'The politics of representation' is therefore a crucial element in the politics of poverty (hooks, 1994: 169). As we shall see, it has taken on greater salience today as some groups of people in poverty, following the disabled people's movement, are resisting the ways they are represented by the wider society, in recognition of the power of language and images. It is through language and images that the discourses that frame how we perceive and act in the social world are articulated. Othering can thus be understood as a discursive practice, which shapes how the 'non-poor' think and talk about and act towards 'the poor' at both an interpersonal and an institutional level. Although it does not represent the only available poverty discourse, its impact on policy and the practice of officials and professionals has been profound in some countries, notably the UK and US. Moreover, welfare policy and administration can themselves be understood as a discursive and symbolic practice, which constructs 'the poor' and the nature of the problem of poverty in various ways (Schram, 1995; Saraceno, 2002). A focus on discourse thus helps to illuminate the relationship between the material and relational/symbolic dimensions of poverty and the ways in which the fibres of power are interwoven through them.

The Paternalistic Argument for Work Requirements The paternalistic view of welfare and entitlements for the poor dominates the debates about welfare in the US and is embodied in current American welfare policy. It is characterized by its belief in the power of paid work to address what it views as the "pathology" of poverty. Its different strains vary as to whether they locate that "pathology" in the character of the poor, their environment, or in the system of benefits, incentives, and disincentives of the pre-PRWORA welfare system, but they share the emphasis on paid work as the way to address it. In the US, Lawrence Mead is the strongest advocate for conditioning welfare benefits on work, and one of those who advances an explicitly work centered notion of citizenship. Mead argues that the entitlement theory of citizenship?the one he claims was embedded in the pre-PRWORA welfare system?is harmful to the poor, and to the greater society. Without the discipline imposed by social obligations, he says, the poor cannot exercise the self-government that is the foundation of freedom (1986: 88-89). The social obligation that concerns Mead most is the obligation to work, at least in return for monetary benefits like welfare payments. Mead focuses his attention on work for three reasons. First, he believes steady work to be the best reliable means of escaping dependence on the government for subsistence, if not for escaping poverty itself (1992: 60). Second, he argues that sufficient work is available for the unskilled unemployed, who are able to reject undesirable low-wage jobs when benefits are not contingent on their acceptance (1986: 70-76, 1992: 12). Third, he believes that there is a national interest in enforcing low-wage work (1986: 153-154). Mead refers to work as a means to "integration" of the poor, and he means it in both a racial and a social sense. Mead suggests that the poor, especially poor blacks, have different values from the mainstream of American society. Enforced work requirements achieve physical integration by bringing poor blacks into contact with the working (white) majority, and cultural integration by enforcing dominant values (1986: 254-256). Mead's views on work requirements are filtered by his understanding of the ends of democratic government. While we privilege freedom in our political culture, he says, true freedom requires an underlying order and the government's willingness to be authoritative rather than permissive, where necessary; social policy is one means of achieving this order (1986: 6-7). Mead argues that a consensus around a "new paternalism" has emerged, and the American government no longer shies away from imposing paternalistic programs on welfare recipients, teenage mothers, drug abusers, the homeless, and other social "outsiders," nor from the need to inculcate among its citizens the values that used to be fostered by the family (1997, 1998, 1992: 181-184). While Mead's policy recommendations target poor and disadvantaged members of society, his political theory has a broader focus and purpose. His vision of democratic society as a unified, homogeneous, and disciplined citizenry working toward a common set of goals chosen, or at least ratified by the majority, puts him firmly in the conservative tradition of paternalism. His commitment to the integration of the mostly minority poor into mainstream society is bounded by his unwillingness to address the structural explanations for contemporary poverty in America, including racism, gender inequality, or the organization of the economy, or indeed to contemplate a genuinely pluralist vision of American society. What he advocates is a paternalistic integration, rather than an egalitarian one, with equal respect earned only by those who prove themselves through hard work and obedience to dominant norms. The paternalistic argument depends in large part on the idea of economic "independence." Mead endorses continued economic "dependence" on government benefits for those who work but are still poor, calling into question the value of the independence ostensibly conferred by paid employment (1992: 60). Furthermore, economic independence can be achieved through one's own efforts, the efforts of a spouse or partner, or the efforts of a forebear or other benefactor. Because this independence can derive from gifts or inheritance it bears no necessary relation to the character of the individual. In the case of marriage, this "independence" relies on the dependence of one spouse or partner on the other, shifting the locus of independence from the individual to the household, and the object of dependence from the community to an individual partner. Nancy Fraser and Linda Gordon, in their article "A Genealogy of 'Dependency'" (1997), trace the shifting connotations of the term from its description of the normal state of most of the pre-industrial population, through the revolutionary valorization of independence and its adoption by wage earners to distinguish themselves from dependent slaves, paupers, and women despite their own economic dependence on employers, to the rise of its current pejorative sense as an individual pathology rather than a structural social condition. Fraser and Gordon argue that "unreflective uses of this keyword serve to enshrine certain interpretations of social life as authoritative and to delegitimate or obscure others, generally to the advantage of dominant groups in society and to the disadvantage of subordinate ones" (1997: 123). This is clearly the case in the arguments of paternalists like Mead who, forced to acknowledge that even full-time work cannot guarantee a level of economic independence sufficient to obviate supplementation from the state, claims that some residual dependency on welfare benefits is allowed for those who play by society's rules by working for below subsistence wages. But how can we endorse economic indepen? dence as an essential quality of citizenship if it remains out of reach not only of those who choose not to work or who are unable to work but of some who work full-time? Work requirements for the poor do not lead to a genuine independence, but only to a form of ideologized independence that obscures their structural subordination in the contemporary economy. Furthermore paternalism, by valorizing the ideologized independence of the wage earner, gives insufficient consideration not only to alternative lifestyles that fall outside of society's dominant norms, but to important ways of life that fall within them. It is not only the poor single parent, deemed deviant from the norm by the lack of a partner, who suffers in comparison to the "independent" wage earner, but also the married parent who withdraws from paid employment to care for children and depends economically on her or his spouse. The caregiving spouse's "independence" is even more tenuous than the wage earner's, dependent both on the wage earner's employer and the wage earner's affections (see Moller Okin 1989: 134-169). The paternalist model fails adequately to address either of these important dependencies or to reconcile them to the ideal of independence it seeks to advance.