A primary justification for a basic income is social justice.
The struggle of ordinary people for a decent living, for security, is as old as the republic, but it's taken on a new and urgent edge. Instead of shared prosperity our political system has now produced a winner-take-all economy.
Increasing the minimum wagewill put billions annually into the Social Security trust fund.
I don't want to get people nervous falling off their chairs, but Social Security is a socialist program. It's a program by which the United States government has said that when you get old you should have a steady source of income.
If prices drop, we have to protect farmers from distress; if prices rise, we should be ready to pay market rates.
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.
Organisation of social insurance should be treated as one part only of a comprehensive policy of social progress. Social insurance fully developed may provide income security; it is an attack upon Want. But Want is one only of five giants on the road of reconstruction and in some ways the easiest to attack. The others are Disease, Ignorance, Squalor and Idleness.
There are times when the welfare system may appear as an impediment to growth. Yet the drive for growth should always bear in mind the fact that people also need security
When the average Social Security benefit is $1328 a month, and more than one-third of our senior citizens rely on Social Security for Virtually all of their income, our job is to expand benefits, not cut them.
Social Security is a problem solving program, not a problem creating one .... Social Security is our best anti-poverty program.
I don't come from a wealthy family, so for me to have to struggle as long as I have in New York and Los Angeles and finally know that I have an income coming in for the next 10 episodes was a major, major life-altering moment.
If people do not have jobs, they do not have a secure income, and they do not have a sense of security.
There's been a myth perpetuated where people think, 'I need to go into consulting, banking, finance, law, or medicine to make a consistently reasonable amount of money.' People are now realizing that's not the case.
It would be great if firefighters across the country had the guarantee that they would be making enough money to support their family right from the get-go, but that's not the case.
It would be naive to imagine we have solved all our income security problems simply because the roles of the federal and provincial governments in the area of skills training have been clarified.
You need to have a state pension that doesn't drag more and more people into means-testing each year and make it very difficult for people on low to medium term incomes to save and not see their savings clawed away.
A multi-tier social protection system must be based on a modest basic income so as to enable the precariat to build lives involving a balance of different types of work, not just labour in jobs.
President Obama is the most successful food stamp president in American history. I would like to be the most successful paycheck president in American history.
Well, today people have to be self-reliant if they want a secure retirement income.
America is the only high income nation without a paid family leave program. This means that if you or a family member gets sick, there is no guarantee that you can take the time you need to take care of yourself or your loved one, leaving already vulnerable families in the position of making hard decisions in cases of illness.
In terms of emerging economies, we absolutely believe that the prescription is social protection and a minimum wage on which people can live.
I don't see basic income as a panacea, but we must have a new income distribution system. The old one has broken down irretrievably.
There's so much of this thing now, where you're supposed to do all the work before you get the commission. I think it's really good to try to resist that. If you just have a week to come up with a pitch for something, your ideas aren't going to be very good. Get your income from somewhere else, and keep your writing not tied into these contracts.
Publishing is a business, and I completely understand it. But when you don't have to depend on writing for your identity or your income, you can do whatever you want.
Don't depend on acting as your sole source of income. Work nights, so you can have your days off to attend auditions. Have something to fall back on. That's what my mother taught me, and it's critical in Hollywood.
