Basic Income Guarantee : Your Right To Economic Security Paperback

India

Allan Sheahen

A Basic Income Guarantee (BIG) is the unconditional government-ensured guarantee that all citizens will have enough income to meet their basic needs without a work requirement. Significant questions include: Why should we adopt a BIG? Can the U.S. afford it? Why don't the current welfare programs work? Why not guarantee everyone a job? Would anyone work if his or her income were guaranteed? Has a BIG ever been tested? This book answers these questions and many more in simple, easy-to-understand language.

1137347880

9781137347886

English

Palgrave MacMillan

20 Jan 2015

204

Allan Sheahen is the author of Guaranteed Income: The Right to Economic Security. In 2005, Sheahen co-authored, with Karl Widerquist, The Tax Cut for the Rest of Us Act, the first true guaranteed income bill ever introduced in the U.S. Congress. The bill would have provided a 'refundable tax credit' of $2,000 to every adult American. For the next three years, he lobbied legislators, non-profit groups, and others to encourage the bill's passage. But this was the era of the conservative Bush Administration and the bill failed to gain enough support to pass. Sheahen is a committee member of the US Basic Income Guarantee Network (USBIG) and he has spoken at each of its annual conferences since 2002. He is also a member of the international Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN), and has presented papers at several of its biennial conferences. He has volunteered in the USA's VITA (Volunteer Income Tax Assistance) program in Los Angeles. He is the domestic group leader in the San Fernando Valley of RESULTS, a national non-profit organization working to end hunger and poverty at home and abroad.

Madalene Pereira

Monica Davis

This book is a great idea - brilliantly stated. Some may think it's ultra-liberal, as they did when I proposed a similar idea in 1972. I see it as true conservatism - the right of income for all Americans sufficient for food, shelter, and basic necessities. Or, what Jefferson referred to as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. - U.S. Senator George McGovern, 1972 Democratic Party Presidential Candidate "Sheahen and I are as far apart on political philosophy and the causes of the nation's current mess as two people can be, but we both think that a basic income guarantee has to be part of the solution. That says something about the potential of this important idea whose time, as we both hope, is coming. Basic Income Guarantee will help make that happen." - Charles Murray, author of In Our Hands: A Plan to Replace the Welfare State "Basic Income Guarantee is a fascinating, lucid presentation of a complex subject. Sheahen asks and answers the questions of what a just society should and could do to overcome income insecurity. Given our prolonged economic malaise, everyone in America should be thinking about it." - Theresa Funiciello, author of Tyranny of Kindness and head of Social Agenda