A basic income will not undermine the political will for workers – it will mobilize social movements

HB: In addition to the important gender dimension of their critique of welfare programs, an interesting aspect of the NWRO support for guaranteed income is that it was very much a grassroots organization, made up of the working and unemployed poor. This is distinct from the notion that UBI is a purely technocratic policy meant to diminish the political will of workers. A UBI could of course be designed to diminish political will or soften the transition to a more precarious work landscape, but this movement is evidence of basic income being incorporated into a grassroots, multidimensional movement. AZ: We often forget the social movements that lead to policies. We think that these policies just came from the top. For example, we tend to associate Social Security with FDR. While he enacted the law, he did so in the context of a national movement called the Townsend Movement, which argued for a more generous pension, and other “share the wealth” schemes at the time. Social Security is actually a much less generous version of the Townsend Movement’s Proposal. Similarly, the EITC emerged in the wake of the welfare rights movement and was enacted against the backdrop of a lot of agitating about welfare and civil rights. HB: Have grassroots movements had an impact on current discourse about basic income?