I've been researching the idea of Unconditional Basic Income since 2013. Here's a list of findings I've compiled from various UBI experiments, unconditional cash transfer studies, and cash dividend research.
The data speaks for itself.
Data:
#basicincome
This isn't only about
#NetNeutrality
. This is about democracy. When 80% of Americans don't want something, and the government does it anyway, that is a direct violation of the will of the people. It erodes faith in government as an institution worth engaging in or even defending.
It's official:
No global warming for 8 years and 5 months, per NASA satellite data.
That's no warming despite ~475 billion tons of CO2 emissions.
CO2 warming is the biggest scientific hoax of all time.
UBI critics: If we give people money without conditions, people will stop working.
UBI pilot: Turns out the UBI group worked more than the control group.
UBI critics: Well of course giving people more money works. But it costs too much.
UBI pilot: Turns out the money spent on…
Consider also that a Universal Basic Income of $1300/mo would be equivalent to a $7.50/hr increase in the min wage for those working 40-hr weeks and $15/hr increase for those working 20-hr weeks. Unlike min wage, UBI would also increase strike power and reach unpaid care workers.
Iceland recently completed a 4-yr trial of a 4-day week with no reduction of pay with 1% of its population taking part. The result? Productivity increased. Well-being increased. It was such a success their unions are already negotiating for it nationwide.
In case you missed it, ALL moms in Flint, Michigan can now get $1,500 while pregnant, plus $500 a month for the first year of their child's life.
There are around 1,200 babies born in Flint every year, and with this, they can all start off their lives better and healthier.
OMG... look where we are now. Look at this proposal that
@RepMaxineWaters
just got through the House Finance Committee:
✅ $2k per adult + $1k per kid
✅ Full universality
✅ Every month until this is over
✅ Financed by the Fed
This is incredible.
#EmergencyUBI
@AndrewYang
This
#COVID19
proposal out of the house financial committee is really good:
- 2k/month per person every month of the crisis
- suspension of all mortgages, student loans, credit card and loan payments
- prohibit debt collection and repossession
- $5b in homeless assistance
Amazing how the
#YangMediaBlackout
ends the moment Yang drops out of the race. Suddenly every media outlet is falling over themselves to cover the candidate they worked to hide. Congrats. You got the outcome you wanted. But this fight is far from over. The
#YangGang
has awakened.
In response to the nationwide school closures resulting from
#COVID19
, Japan is going to start paying parents $80/day to not go to work and instead stay home with their kids until the end of March.
#BasicIncome
#CoronaOutbreak
#YangGang
Holy shit. They did it. The crazy bastards did it.
@MSNBC
created a graphic with photos of the 20 candidates to appear in the first debates, and they actually went so far as to remove
@AndrewYang
and include someone who didn't even qualify. This is shameless in how brazen it is.
We worry about providing Universal Basic Income because people might stop working, but here's a thought: maybe, just maybe, with a little financial security, people might actually pursue work they truly choose rather than work to just not die. Imagine that world for a moment.
We just watched
@AndrewYang
respond directly to the idea of
@ewarren
's wealth tax proposal by explaining how wealth taxes where implemented in the EU have been repealed, whereas a value-added tax works extremely well.
Learn more here:
#DemocraticDebate
This is one of the worst examples so far. It checks all the boxes:
✅Excludes Yang
✅Includes those who polled less than Yang
✅Includes a candidate who isn't even officially running yet
✅Has an empty slot for a name
Angry at
@MSNBC
? Donate to
@AndrewYang
again.
#30Mil4Yang
MSNBC: "We're getting a lot of complaints that we shouldn't exclude any of the candidates, so let's show everyone who polled above 0% in Iowa, except
@AndrewYang
at 3% of course. We just don't have room for that guy in this graphic."
#YangMediaBlackout
#YangGang
CNN: "We have decided that if
@AndrewYang
didn't exist, these would be the top 6 from the Quinnipiac poll, so despite Yang polling 3% in this poll, there is no point in displaying him in the top 6."
#YangGang
#Yang2020
#WhoIsAndrewYang
?
'The multibank is a food bank, furnishings bank, a hygiene bank and baby bank all rolled into one to meet the holistic needs of families', says Gordon Brown as he explains the scheme looking to help those impacted by the cost of living crisis.
📺 Sky 501
I realize pretty much everyone in the
#YangGang
already knows this, but still, just let it sink in more.
@AndrewYang
WON the Iowa Youth Straw Poll yesterday. He didn't come in 4th, or 3rd, or 2nd. He came in 1st. He is THE FAVORITE here in Iowa among those inheriting the future.
@PressSec
@realDonaldTrump
I don't want a liberal or a conservative Supreme Court. I want a Supreme Court that thinks beyond tribalistic partisan bullshitery and judges each case before it in a way that reflects the constitution as its bipartisan voice, not whether team blue or red agrees or disagrees.
"Why was my son's rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness not as important as your right to bear arms?"- a mother whose son did not survive the Parkland shooting posing a question to the NRA's representative
Powerful question.
#StudentsStandUp
Here's a video
@sam_vallely
put together of what seems likely to become known as the most memorable moment created by the 1st
#NationalYangGangDay
. It's a great example of how different the
#YangGang
is than any other.
#HumanityFirst
isn't just a slogan.
MSNBC: "We're getting a lot of complaints that we shouldn't exclude any of the candidates, so let's show everyone who polled above 0% in Iowa, except
@AndrewYang
at 3% of course. We just don't have room for that guy in this graphic."
#YangMediaBlackout
#YangGang
Ilhan Omar is out here trying to get us a $2,000/mo tax cut as one of only 4 members of Congress to cosponsor all 3 monthly recurring stimulus bills in the House, and the GOP is out here defending Captain Space Lasers and her "set the stage for the hangings" theory of government.
🚨BREAKING: South Africa may become the first country in the world to implement a permanent universal basic income floor. Those under 18 and over 59 are already covered, and this new unconditional cash grant would cover those 18-59, filling the gap, and achieving UBI.
@AndrewYang
Just so everyone knows, my primary vote is still going to
@AndrewYang
. There's no way in hell that I'm going to look at my Louisiana ballot, see his name there as an option, and choose any name but his. He's the best candidate for the job and that's how I vote.
#ImStillVotingYang
Retired police chief says that if given $5 billion, he'd spend $1 billion on law enforcement and the rest on reducing poverty and inequality.
"The best crime prevention is increased opportunity and reduced poverty. That’s the best way to reduce crime."
M S N B C, hands off our democracy.
M S N B C, hands off our democracy.
M S N B C, hands off our democracy.
M S N B C, hands off our democracy.
M S N B C, hands off our democracy.
#LetYangSpeak
#YangMediaBlackout
#YangGang
#DemDebate
BREAKING: Mayors in Los Angeles, Oakland, Atlanta, Tacoma, Newark, Saint Paul, Jackson, Compton, and Shreveport announced today that they will all join
@MichaelDTubbs
in launching universal basic income pilot programs in their cities.
Losing unemployment income as a result of accepting employment is a disincentive to work. If instead of giving up $600 a week to accept a $2,000/mo job ($400 worse off), people instead went from $2,400 a month to to $4,400 a month, that would be an incentive to work.
That's UBI.
Truly historic closing from Andrew Yang: HE BROKE THE 4TH WALL!!! This whole thing is pure entertainment. It's a reality show with people in makeup throwing their rehearsed attack lines at each other. It's a reality show and that's why we have a reality show President.
#DemDebate
Elon Musk is literally talking about a permanent stimulus in the form of a check for everyone that starts coming every month and never stops, aka, permanent UBI, and he's trending because of all the people who think he's an asshole for not wanting only another one-time stimulus?
Just a reminder that
@IlhanMN
wanted to do emergency universal basic income back in March. We needed to do this 8 MONTHS AGO. After Ilhan's, 3 more bills were introduced in Congress to provide some amount of monthly cash relief. They had a total of 50 cosponsors. All were Dems.
I am introducing a bill this week to give:
$1,000 to every American adult.
$500 for every child.
No exceptions.
We need to support the American people NOW—and this is just a start.
Remember when
@SpeakerPelosi
teamed up with George Bush to stimulate the economy in 2008 with $600 per adult + $300 per kid? For those who don't remember, the stimulus checks were labeled as a tax rebate, and they worked. They also had bipartisan support.
New evidence in support of unconditional cash: 50 homeless people were each provided $7,500. After one year they were better off than the control group to the point that the shelter system was saved $8,100 per person, for a total savings of $405,000.
#UBI
Post-sixth-debate I think the
#YangGang
is expanding in a way we haven't seen since
@AndrewYang
's appearance on Joe Rogan. Something is different this time though. It's not people hearing about Yang for the first time. It's people deciding he can actually win.
And they're right.
@brikeilarcnn
@EvanMcS
You spoke to a family with 9 kids? Because that's representative of a typical family? Did you discuss the $2250/mo (or more depending on ages) in CTC they are getting as parents now (and those of us without kids aren't) to help with basic child needs costs?
This is the exact opposite of the
#YangMediaBlackout
. Somehow, Fox News inserted footage of
@AndrewYang
crowd surfing in a segment about Spotify playlists for pets that had nothing whatsoever to do with Yang.
#YangGang
In a mock caucus right now. First round, Biden, Tulsi, and Amy were not viable. Yang was viable, and we just grew in size by 26% after a number of them moved to us. Bernie, Warren, and Pete are the only ones left besides us and each remaining group is similar in size.
#YangGang
As an atheist I take no issue whatsoever with people of faith practicing their faith in a way that doesn't impact me. We're all free to believe in whatever number of gods we want. But when you insist it's your right to hurt and kill others, your faith impacts me.
#AmyCovidBarrett
@AOC
If the GOP really cared about preventing abortions, they'd make all forms of birth control free to prevent unwanted pregnancies and also make choosing to raise a child easier by passing laws for universal child care and child allowances. What they want is a religious wedge issue.
New reporting from the huge ongoing 12-year universal basic income experiment in Kenya. The BBC returns to the same village it visited 5 years ago:
"My life before, I had worries, but now, I feel so excited. I'm very happy. There is a change in the village."
"The money does…
Thousands of Kenyan villagers are being given free cash as part of a huge trial being run by an American non-profit, GiveDirectly.
"A kind of universal basic income".
Five years on, the BBC’s Mary Harper returns to see what’s changed.
Ran into a Bernie supporter at 2am out in the cold looking for a ride. He was here from Ireland and couldn't use Uber.
#YangGang
welcomed him to join our group and we'd call a ride for him from a warm place. A car full of Berners then drove by all of us and shouted "Fuck Yang!"
If you liked what you saw tonight from
@AndrewYang
and have decided he's your candidate, first follow him of course, then add the blue hat emoji 🧢 after your name. That's the signal you are
#YangGang
. Then we will find you, and we will friend you.
#DemDebate
#DemocraticDebate
Dear
@TomPerez
,
About 400k Americans have put our 💵 into
@AndrewYang
's campaign and want to see him on the January debate stage. If you're going to use polls as a qualifier, you need a sufficient number of January polls to measure support.
#PollThePeople
to survey that support.
We petition Congress to immediately fund an emergency
#BasicIncome
for every adult and child in the US, starting with a stimulus of $1,000 per American adult and $500 per child and a monthly stipend TBD going forward until the
#COVID19
crisis has passed.
"Why not have one universal basic subsidy that covers everything (perhaps except health and education) and let people decide how they will spend it, rather than trying to target subsidies based on our imperfect knowledge of what people need and deserve?”
—Banerjee, Nobel laureate
@NikkiHaley
WhErE iS tHe MoNeY is such a dishonest question that Republicans never ask when it comes to using money on the stuff the GOP wants like a bigger military, bigger tax cuts for the rich, farmer subsidies, etc. What matters is if our economy can keep up with customer demand. It can.
@GOP
Incorrect. The Freedom Dividend is paid for by a 10% revenue neutral value added tax. It's basically a negative consumption tax. All the revenue goes right back to citizens. Everyone spending less than around $240k per year would effectively get a tax cut.
@BernieSanders
It's a false dichotomy to say we have to choose between exploring space and ending poverty. Please don't play into zero-sum scarcity thinking. We can and should do both. The government doesn't need Musk's wealth. We can just end poverty. It's a matter of will not resource limits.
The wave begins in Iowa! Mock Democratic caucus results round 2:
Bernie (+3): 75=4 delegates
Warren (+11): 70=3 delegates
Yang (+17): 51=2 delegates
@AndrewYang
just got 3rd in this mock caucus, scoring 2 delegates. Between 1st and 2nd round,
#YangGang
grew by 50%!!
It feels kind of sad saying bye to this after keeping it going for so long, but with this final update, I'm done. Here's the definitive history of the
#YangMediaBlackout
as recorded by me. That is at least until someone writes a book about this travesty…
Phenomenal new
@AndrewYang
video released today by
#YangGang
member
@pjmccartney
that took him over a month to make. The
#Yang2020
campaign is truly a campaign for the People by the People.
Full 3m15s video:
Download the posters:
Senate Democrats just blocked Mitch's trash fire bill that gave nothing to the poorest and less to low income folks than middle income folks. The next attempt needs to be ONLY
#EmergencyUBI
. Attach nothing else. Get that done immediately. Cut the shit. Cut the checks. Do it NOW.
Wow, Andrew Yang's answer to the China question was in an entirely different league than the rest. He's the only candidate on stage living in the 21st century and looking forward based on technological fluency. It's imperative that we not let China take the lead on AI.
#DemDebate
After watching this, I think Tupac would be
#YangGang
. Later in the full clip he even says "I think there's a way to pay these people. I think there is a way. It just takes to be revolutionary. And it takes to do something out of the ordinary."
Full clip:
According to a new HarrisX poll, in the past 7 months, support for universal basic income has grown from 43% to 49%. This rise in support is mostly among those under age 34, but support has also grown among those age 35-49 and even among those over 65.
#Yang2020
#BasicIncome
Immediate reaction of a young Bernie supporter who just listened to
@AndrewYang
speak for 30 minutes: "I took off my Bernie pin, and I love Bernie, but this guy, he should be President."
Full video of High School Youth Voice Forum:
#YangGang
#Yang2020
That
#CNNTownHall
was fantastic, most especially the Q&A. It may have been the first time that
@AndrewYang
mentioned the Freedom Dividend, Democracy Dollars, ranked-choice voting, and data as a property right all in the same MSM appearance. Those are my top 4 policies.
#YangGang
THIS IS FUCKED UP.
#YangGang
3x times the signatures required to get primary ballot access, but denied?? This is the kind of thing most voters don't understand. We don't just vote in the primary on who is running. There are gatekeepers to our democracy.
Reflecting on Universal Basic Income, one can't help but ponder: if financial security was a given, how many hidden talents will flourish? How many entrepreneurs, artists, and inventors are we losing to the grind of survival? It's high time we unlock humanity's full potential.
I've been researching the idea of Unconditional Basic Income since 2013. Here's a list of findings I've compiled from various UBI experiments, unconditional cash transfer studies, and cash dividend research.
The data speaks for itself.
Data:
#basicincome
The goddamn house is on fire and these people are writing up bills to debate in the kitchen what color the fire truck should be and how many oil changes it should have had in the past two years based on its recorded mileage. These people are entirely disconnected from reality.
In the Nov debate,
@AndrewYang
did Tom a solid by defending him as a billionaire using his money to focus on climate change. Why hasn't Tom said anything about how Yang should be there tonight? If he never mentions Yang, that says all I need to know about Tom.
#AmericaNeedsYang
66% of the US now supports recurring
#EmergencyUBI
payments of $2000 a month until a year after Trump declares an end to the federal state of emergency. A majority of Republicans (52%) hold this view, as do 77% of Democrats.
🚨WE NOW HAVE FULL MAJORITY🚨
"The $1 trillion package the White House and Senate Republicans plan on presenting would provide every adult American with a $1k check, plus another $500 for each child. A family with two parents and two children for example, would get $3k."
#EmergencyUBI
Interesting how we just divided the labor market into "essential" and "non-essential" jobs, and as a result, it appears many essential jobs are being performed by people living under the poverty line doing them. We should better value the essential, and that includes unpaid work.
@Liz_Cheney
It's disgusting to see the SCOTUS do this. Either they intend to grant full immunity, which is insane, or they intend to say he lacks immunity, in which case the only possible point was to delay this for his benefit, which is a political decision by SCOTUS, which is abominable.
Andrew Yang just raised $6.7 million in one month. That's on track for a $20+ million Q1. In Q4, Warren and Biden raised $21.2 million and $22.7 million respectively. We are surging
#YangGang
, and we will continue growing in size, and we will bring this wave to DC!
#YangLovesIowa
It's a bullshit political answer to ever claim that child poverty can be solved by education and child care and I'm fucking sick of hearing it. Poverty is a lack of money. The answer to a lack of money is money. There is no eliminating child poverty without unconditional income.
Among those who've watched this, I've been told again and again that it changed the way they think about UBI from a good idea to one of extreme importance, but it still only has 8.7k views. Please help get it out there for more people to watch.
#YangGang
Just listened to NPR for a bit when I drove to get lunch. They were asking a NH voter what he thought about Amy and he said he hated her, and they were like "Hate? But why?" He said she was pandering and then said the one he likes is
@AndrewYang
cause he's the smartest candidate.
Andrew Yang's big surprise tonight is that he will be answering questions for 10 straight hours on Friday the 18th to make sure everyone's questions get answered that he didn't get to answer tonight and that no one even asked anyone. That is amazing.
#DemocraticDebate
#YangGang
Andrew Yang just gave a great answer on decriminalizing opioids, and as Beto agreed with him after, he said, "Preach, Beto!" Love it. Yes, just as Yang said, drugs are a health issue not a criminal issue. What people need are resources. What people need is help not jail cells.
@elwasson
So? Inflation is at 1.2%, we're at 73% productive capacity, and we can create as much money as we want as a monetarily sovereign nation. $2,000 is not pushing us above 2% inflation and 100% productive capacity, but it would grow GDP and create and sustain millions of jobs.
Here's Joe Biden talking about what he calls the Fourth Industrial Revolution, self-driving trucks, and how we're going to need policies like job training and Pre-K for low income school districts to get through it...
#YangGang
#Yang2020
Why is it so hard to understand that our economy is us and we are the economy? If you think 1% of the country dying is going to be good for your portfolio, first of all you're a sociopath, but also you're in for a world of hurt when society breaks down.
I'm
#NotDying4WallStreet
.
A republican, a democrat, an independent, a libertarian, a Green Party voter, a capitalist, a socialist, a student, a senior, a billionaire, and an unpaid care giver all walk into a bar together. This is not a setup for a joke. It's just the
#YangGang
and we are
#StillVotingYang
.
The fear of those now beginning to worry that
@AndrewYang
may beat their candidate is increasingly palpable. People are getting uglier and disinformation is being more heavily propagated, even by those who have been victims of the same propaganda. Scarcity thinking hurts us all.
@AndrewYang
Your campaign started a movement and that movement is here to stay. The battle was lost, but the war will be won through a collection of many future victorious battles yet to be fought. You're no asshole, and we all know you're not done fighting, and neither is the
#YangGang
.
Looks like we made enough noise for CNN to hear us and correct their Quinnipiac poll coverage. My thanks to them, but I also don't think the public should have to constantly fight for unbiased non-manipulative coverage of something as simple as polling results.
#YangMediaBlackout
@AndrewYang
@HumanityForward
One of the ways we should consider implementing UBI is to set up every citizen with a personal bank account at the Fed tied to their Social Security numbers. In an event like this, the Fed could easily distribute an extra stimulus bonus to our accounts with the press of a button.