Steven Pearlstein Quotes

How will we deal with a world where leisure is abundant and there aren't enough good-paying jobs to go around? To meet this political and economic meta-challenge, the hot new idea is the universal basic income — using some of the wealth generated by all this new technology to guarantee everyone a baseline income, whether they are working or not.

A universal cash transfer in the form of a minimum guaranteed income would mean that automatically everyone has something to fall back on without having to deal with the vagaries of their local panchayat.

I don't believe in welfare.

We need to make sure middle-class people are able to pay the bills. We need to make sure that poor people don't starve. Those are values, too.

Our child benefit goes directly to the families who need it the most.

We believe that the federal government is responsible to give every man employment or a guaranteed income.

In order to advance the public weal efforts should be made to afford work to every able-bodied citizen on terms that will secure his existence… Any person unable to support himself or his dependants shall, where no other person is responsible for his or their maintenance, be entitled to receive public assistance …

We don’t want to turn this [social] safety net into a hammock that ends up lulling people in their lives into dependency and complacency.

I believe in a safety net. I believe one of the responsibilities of the Federal Government is a safety net.

Destroy poverty, that source of crime, by assuring to each the satisfaction of all needs! And how difficult is this to achieve?

Abolish Poverty

Political Economy regards the proletarian ... like a horse, he must receive enough to enable him to work. It does not consider him, during the time when he is not working, as a human being.

I want to give people a basic income, so that if you're working hard, doing the best you can, that you can not just survive, but you can have a decent life.

I understand welfare because I lived it. I understand the difference between a want and a need. The Republican Party promised to bring welfare change. We must deliver on this promise.

I think most Americans believe in a basic social safety net.

I know that there are many excellent arguments for a universal form of basic income. Since everyone would get it, it would remove the stigma that dogs recipients of assistance and 'entitlements'.

From Scotland to India, and from Silicon Valley to Kenya, policymakers all over the world have become interested in basic income as an answer to poverty, unemployment and the bureaucratic behemoth of the modern welfare state.

While it won't solve all the world's ills - and ideas such as a rent cap and more social housing are necessary in places where housing is scarce - a basic income would work like venture capital for the people.

The concept of UBI (universal basic income) is a good concept and when Arvind Subramanian had started it, I told him that Indian politicians will say continue the existing subsidies and give this over and above.

The claim that if people had a basic income they would become lazy is prejudiced and has been refuted many times in many places.

I do think that people deserve a basic economic floor so the bottom doesn't fall out under them.

I think the right-wingers have to buddy up to the fact that either the minimum wage has to go up, and people get enough money to live, or you're always going to have people needing government assistance. You can't have it both ways.

The matter of social security and these grants is to help to address the levels of poverty in the country.

The United States has more people living in poverty than at almost any time in the modern history of our country. I believe that in a democratic, civilized society none of our people should be hungry or living in desperation. We need to expand Social Security, not cut it. We need to increase funding for nutrition programs, not cut them.

I don't know if I can live on my income or not - the government won't let me try it.