This is Tyler Prochazka with the UBI
podcast i'm here with Annie Lowrey the
author of "Give People Money". I'm really
excited to talk to Annie because
actually we have two degrees of
separation. Annie wrote in The New York
Times several years ago about Enno
Schmidt and his campaign in Switzerland
and you know Enno is friend of ours
at UBI Taiwan where I work so I want to
welcome Annie to to the show today
thanks so much for having me great so I
want to get right into it
I'm curious first how did you first get
into UBI and why did it click for you
yeah so I started writing about it when
I was I was a reporter at The New York
Times and I was also writing for the New
York Times Magazine so I think I had
heard of it before just like you know
what comes up occasionally in policy
discussions but I first wrote about it
when the Swiss run referendum happened
um and then I'd been writing a lot about
effective altruism effective
philanthropy and just efficacy and
policy programs and so then you know had
multiple occasions to kind of come back
to either writing about ubi specifically
or just writing about you know more
Universal cash programs or cash
transfers and what was it that compelled
you to write this book specifically you
know I kind of see ubi as you know a key
that unlocks a lot of doors right so
it's a really simple idea but it lets
you talk about universality it lets you
talk about feminism it lets you talk
about the problems with GDP about how we
measure welfare about government
paternalism
and so I think it's kind of unusual and
that people and you know the future of
work robots people get really excited to
talk about it and it kind of lets you
look at all of these other really
pressing issues that you know are kind
of hard to to knit together and that's
one of the fun things about it is you
know it's kind of an optimistic sort of
futuristic saying to talk about like
heavily intellectual but
let's you pretty quickly descend sort of
into the policy and historical weeds of
why we have what we have so that's what
I liked about it is it's kind of like a
complicated multifaceted idea and you
know one thing that I don't think that's
made it into the book but I almost I
thought it was like a jungle gym right
it lets you like do all sorts of sort of
crazy interesting things and go crazy
interesting places one of the criticisms
that I was reading was that like a lot
of books on UBI there's not a lot of
specifics on financing so how do you
address the financing issue and what are
some of the Europe lanes getting around
the feasibility question yeah so I've
kind of two thoughts about that so one
is that it feels like a pretty high
barrier to clear at least in US policy
to argue from the very outset how to pay
for kind of a full-fat thousand
dollar-a-month everybody gets at ubi
nobody's really talking about that and
almost all of our big social programs
have started small and gotten bigger so
Social Security for instance it starts
off in 1935 is a fairly limited program
and then proceeds to expand or Medicaid
and Medicare right they start off small
and then they slowly get bigger and
bigger Earned Income Tax Credit right so
it just feels like you know the question
is what are you actually proposing and
what's the bar that you need to clear to
get it I think it's much more likely
that the US would do something like
expand the Earned Income Tax Credit or
create a negative income tax or have a
universal child grant all of those
things are a lot easier to quote unquote
pay for I also just think that there's
this way in which we ask for social
programs to be paid for whereas you know
things like military spending and tax
cuts you know you don't even have to you
don't have to pay for a dime of it and
that feels pretty unfair and I think
that that really skews our sense of
what's possible so when it comes to the
politics then you mentioned a lot of
alternatives I'm wondering what is your
view of negative income tax and
universality of basic income in exchange
for maybe more politically feasible
system like
yeah absolutely um so I think that
universality is a beautiful and
wonderful thing and there are really
compelling arguments for it but it seems
to me that you don't want to let more
marginal and stop more marginal
improvements from happening that are a
lot more politically feasible just
because you believe it should be
universal right so like we have a really
bad child poverty program like I think
almost that's like a problem excuse me
that's almost like a like a thing that
we should be solving first and you can
solve that without without necessarily
going to a ubi
again I think that our history suggests
that if you want universality the way is
to kind of start small and expand as
opposed to you know immediately
radically implementing so take something
like Social Security again it starts
small it gets bigger and bigger and
bigger and it's pretty you near
Universal and I think that you could
nudge it to being actually universal
because it's so close to it so that's
sort of how I think about it do you
think that there's a risk that when you
have something like basic income it
becomes you know we think that for
conservatives who might find random
stories about somebody that's lazy or
something like that how do you avoid
those types of scenarios or is it
inevitable yeah
so you know we tend to get those kinds
of stories and arguments about social
welfare programs but not social
insurance programs welfare programs that
are identified heavily with poverty with
poor people programs that give cash or
in-kind benefits as opposed to going
giving support through the tax code what
that implies to me is that something
like a negative income tax or expanded
EITC would come under a lot less
scrutiny than something like the cash
welfare program and again if you make
something a middle-class entitlement
then I think that people stop asking
those questions nobody really thinks
about oh you know is that really a good
house to be buying with your you know
home mortgage interest deduction money
so you know who's receiving and how the
program is framed matters a lot for how
we judge the program participants and
sort of decide whether it's it's our
right to say that the money is
well-spent or poorly spent there's been
a lot of
that seems lately about experiments for
basic income people from basic income
supporters when I was at the BN
conference that was what a lot of people
were saying was that experiments sort of
put the onus on for people to prove that
they're responsible with money and so it
creates this strange expectation for
policymakers that the poor have to prove
that they're intelligent enough to take
care of their own of their own finances
so I'm wondering what is your view of
experiments do you think that they're
helpful for the movement do they delay
things what is the direction that we
should be taking with basic income
experiments I think they're really
important I mean we do have a lot of
experimental evidence and suggestive
evidence from other programs like the
Syme time studies um but I think that
there's a really important demonstration
effect I really do think it matters when
you can point and say you know here's
this family and here's what they did
with their money and you know I think
that that is helpful in useful I also
think that you could get a kind of
laboratory of democracy type effect so
if the government sponsored a state to
use its TANF money for a cash program
the next time that there's a recession
that could be pretty powerful in
generating evidence to say hey like
here's the reason that this might be a
better way for everybody to do it
so I think it's really I think it's
actually pretty important and I
understand the argument that you're kind
of putting the onus on the poor and you
might be inviting more judgment but
ultimately I think that the benefits
might outweigh the negatives there do
you think that what do you think is the
most compelling evidence that you've
seen for basic income specifically
because there's a lot of experiments as
criticisms it's not exactly yeah so what
do you see that's the most compelling
for you yeah I mean I think a lot of the
anti-poverty evidence is just
unbelievably straightforward right even
more so than the kind of like work
support type evidence we know that
giving people cash is an unusually good
way to get them out of poverty we know
that it doesn't stop them from working
we know that they don't waste the money
we know that they don't increase their
consumption of vice goods this is really
settled it's settled and poor income
low-income countries with a lot of poor
folks it's settled in high-income
countries so I really look at the
multiplicity of studies that we have on
that and you know it's just I think it's
it's almost so obvious that we forget
that like you can just get people out of
poverty by giving them money and you
have all of those kind of down the road
effects of getting people out of poverty
right like they're healthier they're
happier their kids are healthier their
kids work more and so it's an investment
I want to ask you about the job
guarantee there's been a lot of
discussion even from presidential
candidates potential presidential
candidates like Cory Booker and others
about the job guarantee and I see it as
sort of a reaction TVI that's my
assumption is it's kind of ubi light and
in a way they think it's solving for
some of the same problems that maybe
they're seeing with automation so why is
job guaranteed picking up so much steam
and what how do you view it in relation
to basic income um you know I think that
there is an argument that in some ways
it's more politically palatable because
you have all of these conservatives who
argue that you know low-income people
should be pulling themselves up by their
bootstraps that they need to be working
that a job is the true way out of
poverty which in some sense is true and
you know that makes having the
government be an employer of last resort
a reasonable and almost conservative
pro-family policy even if it is kind of
costly and so and there is really good
evidence on some job subsidy programs
and direct employment programs excuse me
whether from the 1930s or more recently
with like you know um
formerly incarcerated folks type thing I
think the problem is that it's gonna be
very expensive and difficult to run
anything that there's been a lot of hand
waving from advocates about how you
would do it that's not an impossible
policy barrier to overcome but you know
you'd spend a lot of money and resources
where is the beauty of cashes you just
give it out right like we have a tax
system we know how to do it and so I do
worry that job guarantee folks are sort
of
over-promising and you know because to
really guarantee everybody wins and
provide them with subsidized work what
we really do know how to do that whereas
you know providing jobs in every ZIP
code in every part of the country is is
tough again perhaps worthwhile perhaps
not impossible but but probably a good
thing to do and you know I do think that
it's jobs guarantee does fit in with as
opposed to supplanting other really
important policy goals such as
increasing the minimum wage bolstering
the strength of the EITC and making sure
that it goes to more people and
providing an income floor regardless of
whether you can work or not because some
folks just can't work and that's okay
too
right they have disabilities you know
they might need to or choose to stay
home with their kids all of the reasons
that an individual might not be right
for the workforce so my last question is
about politics I'm curious what do you
think about basic income as a factor in
2020 you have Andrew Young who has
declared and he's pretty much running
just only to be I do you think that it's
gonna be a factor and who do you see as
they be coming around on basic income
yeah absolutely I think that you have
seen Democrats who've gotten
significantly pulled to the left by the
experience of the recovery from the
financial crisis and the recession by
Bernie Sanders is success and by feeling
that this is a party that needs to be
more responsive to the liberal and
progressive desires of its base which is
younger than the Republican base more
diverse and more financially fragile
despite all of the rhetoric about Trump
voters being economically motivated um
you know it's it's it's just not true
right like they're motivated by other
things and they're actually more
financially secure and so um I think
that you know ubi is certainly
an idea that's gonna come up a lot and I
would certainly hope that the end of
poverty and child poverty and much
stronger supports for working families
including the working poor are going to
be part of the conversation even if UPI
isn't the policy that they ultimately
alight on I think it's clear that this
first thing they're gonna be pushing for
is Medicare for all or universal health
insurance guarantee which is also
another really important policy priority
okay well I'm gonna wrap it up here
Thank You Annie Valerie I hope that all
people come through this book we just
got it in Chinese here in Taiwan so I'm
really glad as it's picking up steam
we're getting more more books even even
in Asia now so I hope that you can join
again awesome thank you so much for
having me
