The Case for Basic Income (For Those Earning Under $50K)

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It wouldn’t cause inflation or stop people from working — and how it could uplift society for everyone — not just the poor.

In an age of skyrocketing corporate profits and stagnant wages, too many people working full-time still live paycheck to paycheck. A basic income targeted to individuals earning under $50,000 a year is not just a moral imperative — it’s a smart, stabilizing, and inflation-conscious policy that would benefit everyone and make society safer and more cohesive.

Why a Basic Income Is Needed

Millions of Americans earning under $50,000 face unaffordable housing, crushing debt, and economic precarity — despite working harder than ever.

This group includes teachers, delivery drivers, gig workers, healthcare aides, entrepreneurs and childcare workers — in other words — the working and lower middle class. These are people who form much of the backbone of our society, but who rarely share in its great wealth and success — which is firmly built, and sustained, on their backs.

A basic income would:

• Provide a financial floor to cover basic essentials for survival
• Help people afford to expand their families and have children
• Reduce chronic stress and health issues linked to and leading to poverty, like mental illness
• Give people freedom to leave exploitative jobs or demand better working conditions, start businesses, or pursue higher education
• Stimulate local economies through increased spending

Why It Wouldn’t Cause Inflation

The number one critique of basic income is that it would drive inflation. But that assumes all money is created equally — and it’s not. Here’s why this version of basic income would avoid inflation:

• Targeted distribution: This isn’t universal helicopter money. It would go to those most likely to spend it on basic necessities for survival—so much of gets reinvested in local communities — immediately.
• Unused capacity: Most industries can handle the moderate increase in demand this would cause — especially local and service-based sectors.
• Recycled funding: If this is funded through taxation or redistribution — not endless money-printing, which is what does cause inflation — basic income would then rebalance existing capital, not add to it.

In short: we’re not overheating the economy — we’re correcting an imbalance caused by endless money printing, the soaring cost of living and higher education, and stagnated wages in a time of record profits.

How It Would Work

This isn’t a free-for-all. A well-designed system would:

• Provide $1k–$1,500/mo to individuals earning under $50k unconditionally — including homeless people
• Would be phased out as income increases for as-needed security
• Responsibly paid for by:
• 1. Taxing personal luxury assets (real estate, jewelry, yachts, etc.), automation-driven corporate savings, or high-net-worth wealth.
• 2. Carbon or Casino tax.
• 3. Consolidating outdated welfare programs with a one-stop-shop basic income program for qualifying individuals

It would be targeted, responsible, and impactful — with public annual reports on statistical quality of life improvements for those in the program.

Benefits for All of Society

This policy doesn’t just help low earners — it benefits everyone:

• Reduced crime and homelessness
• Better mental and physical health outcomes
• Stronger, healthier, happier communities
• Increased worker leverage in low-wage sectors
• Entrepreneurship/ innovation from those no longer in survival mode

Basic income is not a handout — it’s an INVESTMENT — in stability and safety for us all.

This Isn’t a Radical Idea

• Alaska has paid out yearly dividends to all residents since the 1980s, with no mass exodus from the workforce.
• Finland’s basic income pilot showed participants were happier, healthier, and still worked just as much.
• Stockton, California’s pilot led to more full-time employment and better mental health.
• Kenya’s UBI pilot showed long-term gains in education, business formation, and nutrition.

This is a proven idea whose time has come.

Conclusion

Basic income for those earning under $50K isn’t just economically feasible, it’s socially transformative. It’s a policy that strengthens families, stabilizes communities, and makes capitalism more humane. We don’t need more poverty “programs” — we shouldn’t have poverty in the first place. We need to build a new foundation from the bottom up — and this is how we do that.

References

1. Finnish Basic Income Experiment: Kela.fi Report
2. Stockton, CA SEED Pilot:
3. GiveDirectly’s UBI in Kenya: GiveDirectly UBI Study
4. Roosevelt Institute UBI Study: “Modeling the Macroeconomic Effects of a Universal Basic Income” (2017)
5. Alaska Permanent Fund: Economic Review of the Alaska Dividend
6. World Bank UBI Discussion Paper:
7. U.S. Wage Stagnation: Economic Policy Institute (EPI): Wages vs. Productivity

Research for this article was conducted, and the article was written, with the assistance of ChatGPT, an AI language model developed by OpenAI.

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