UBI is a key factor in preventing decline from Automation Job loss – NOT GREAT CARD

I. Artificial Intelligence & Automation There is growing acknowledge and discussion that as Artificial intelligence develops and automation improves it will transform the nature of work. A November 2017 report from global management consulting firm McKinsey on the effects of automation on jobs, skills and wages expects 400 million to 800 million people could be displaced by automation in the next 12 years. 4 Automation will not only effect low wage and low skill jobs but middle-income jobs like office workers, junior workers. 5 Lower incomes and potential unemployment looming for middle income workers, governments could face fundamental problems like lost taxes and dissatisfied voting classes. 6 These predictions create a pressing problem that needs to be addressed by our government, businesses, and us as citizens. This disruption of our current economy by automation is a threat whether or not we choose to address it or prevent it. However, some disregard the threat of automation and believe that automation will create new jobs, as the Industrial Revolution did. Yet, having blind optimism that at a minimum 400 million new jobs will be created in response to automation is not a solution that I support. Funding research to potential solutions is a proactive solution that could curb the effects of automation and may be the solution that saves our economy and middle class. II. Universal Basic Income as a Solution Following many discussions of the future of work and automation is the mention of Universal Basic Income as a program that may be needed in the future to uphold our economy and redistribute the immense wealth created by technology. A universal basic income (UBI) is a fixed amount, at a level sufficient for subsistence, given by the state to all its citizens regardless of income or work status.7 UBI is often proposed to be distributed at scheduled intervals, a week, month, or even a year.8 The average amount proposed is around $10,000 annually (about 20% of average earnings), although this amount varies widely from country to country.9 The cost of UBI in the U.S. would be about $3.2 trillion, or $1.5 trillion if excluding payments to households earning more than $100,000, retirees receiving Social Security, and children.10 Proposals vary in how they will fund the program but possible sources of funding include: carbon taxes, income taxes, value added tax, negative interest rates, earnings from investments, decreases in military spending, sovereign wealth funds, and resource-based revenues.11 Universal Basic Income can be a solution for the future of automation and preventing a rapid increase in the amounts of economic inequality in our country. UBI is a way to distribute the fruits of technological advancement fairly, in order to correct for the eventual job loss caused by automation. The most substantial benefit would also be do eliminate households living below the poverty line.12 Some even cite a potential for people to explore creativity, entrepreneurship, and research. Nobel prize-winning economist, Paul Krugman, has argued that a minimum income is a way to cushion the blow from the automation revolution, a way of ensuring the middle class isn’t decimated in the transition to a new economy