Addressing economic vulnerability among low-income families in America: is the basic income approach a viable policy option?

ABSTRACT

Income instability characterizes the lives of many low-income families in America. Growing income inequality, wage stagnation, unstable jobs, and limited savings are only a few of the factors contributing to the chronic economic insecurity that many low-income families experience today. There has been a renewed interest in recent years in the idea of a basic income as a policy solution to address the problem of income instability. This brief provides an overview of the concept of basic income and discusses its strengths and limitations in promoting financial stability among vulnerable families in both the short- and long-term.

KEYWORDS:

• Basic income
• income instability
• low-income families
• economic inequality

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Anupama Jacob, PhD, is an associate professor in the Department of Social Work at Azusa Pacific University, California. Her research interests center on issues related to poverty and inequality, particularly in the United States.

Reiko Boyd, PhD, is an assistant professor in the Graduate College of Social Work at the University of Houston. Her research focuses on racial disparity and equity in child welfare systems, Black infant health and well-being, and structural inequality in communities of color.

Notes

1 For more on the history of the Townsend Plan, which may have inspired Yang’s Freedom Dividend, see “Andrew Yang’s ‘freedom dividend’ echoes a 1930s basic income proposal that reshaped Social Security,” https://theconversation.com/andrew-yangs-freedom-dividend-echoes-a-1930s-basic-income-proposal-that-reshaped-social-security-125287.

2 For information on subsequent changes to these policies see, “Recent History of UK Child Poverty,” https://cpag.org.uk/recent-history-uk-child-poverty.