Invest in people, not programs
Give Directly is conducting an important experiment on the positive effects of a guaranteed basic income for 6,000 Kenyans. Basic Income is catching on as an idea here in America, especially in parts of the Silicon Valley. I think the “next Bernie Sanders” tightens up the narrative and runs on it as a major policy idea -- and could probably win. Why? Because Basic Income combats most sides of the student debt crisis, while it could be paid for partially by rethinking the tax code. As one who grew up on welfare, still has family on it, and understands the psychology associated with it, I’ve given the ideas around a Guaranteed Basic Income rigorous thought, specifically this past year while working on Data4America. I generally believe in the benefits of direct payments over a centralized government-distributed safety net, where recipients often end up feeling disconnected from regular society -- then living like it. For the United States, I favor a market- and networks-based three-pronged approach to the problem that Basic Income is designed to solve. This could create more access to Opportunity for all, while giving the American economy some flexibility in how it catches up to the rise of technology. Here it is: 1. Expand the EITC (earned income tax credit) for those paying state and federal taxes 2. Increase direct payments (a minimum basic income) to the safety net, which would replace some of more than 42 government-delivered services along the way. This gives people on the safety net more individual autonomy, freedom, and capital to work with 3. Create a new type of investment class that allows investment capital to be deployed directly into high-performing cohorts of people, starting in the ninth grade, or at age 15. This gives young people of all demographics the option to pursue their own adventures and endeavors, including paying for college should they choose. And here’s how it works: Private investors, in a single transaction, should be able to put, say, $5,000 (or the amount of their choice) into any student with a 3.5 GPA (or criteria of their choice) at high school or college XYZ, and capture a small percentage of the students’ upside of jobs, creations and companies over a lifetime. In exchange, individuals should have the option to buy out the investor at any time, and at the original cost of the investment. For their investment, investors receive a small percentage of after-tax income generated by the people they invested in. Benefits: This investment model could allow high-performing, hardworking, and/or intelligent people to bypass college altogether to pursue adventures such as travel, art, entrepreneurship, even helping family for a time. This gives young people, whether you want to call them Millennials or Generation X or Y, the optionality they want. Investors get earlier access to the world’s most precious resource: people! It’s micro-capitalism as capitalism was originally intended. https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.vox.com%2F2016%2F4%2F14%2F11410904%2Fgivedirectly-basic-income
