Exploring the Basic Income Guarantee: The Promises of Basic Income for a Failed American Safety Net

Hamilton, Leah

This book explores the incentives and effects of modern welfare policy, contrasted with outcomes of global basic income pilots in the past seventy years. The author contends that paternalistic and counterproductive eligibility rules in the modern American welfare state violate the human dignity of the poor and make it nearly impossible to escape the “poverty trap.” Furthermore, these types of restrictions are absent from expenditures aimed at middle and upper-income households such as mortgage interest deductions and tax-sheltered retirement accounts. Case examples from the author's years as a front-line social worker and interviews with basic income pilot recipients in Ontario, Canada, are woven throughout the book to better illustrate the effects of the current system and the hidden potential of more radical alternatives such as a universal basic income.

Details

Published by: Palgrave Pivot

Publication Date: 2020-02-07

Format: Hardcover

ISBN-13: 9783030371203

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-37121-0

Dimensions: 210cm x148cm

Pages: 144