Every poor person will have some income, guaranteed, to meet their basic needs. That income will be provided with minimal government, because the same amount will go to everyone, the homeless, the unemployed, minimum wage workers, single parents, the middle class, and the wealthy. No means-testing, no government intrusiveness, minimal bureaucracy. Plus, we won’t have continuing political disputes about who’s in and who’s out, where and how to draw the lines.

Good reasons for conservatives to endorse this proposal.

Liberals, too, because this is sure to be the most reliable and effective way to help the poor. Current efforts and programs, typically, are too stingy and too vulnerable to changing political and economic conditions. As activists and scholars have noted, “programs for the poor are poor programs.”

These comments are prompted by “States Slashing Social Programs for the Vulnerable” — the headline of a front page story in the New York Times. Here it is.

A similar point was made in a USA Today story a few days ago: “Many of the jobless get no unemployment benefits.” It’s here.

Advocates for the poor, the unemployed, the vulnerable, ought to stop fighting to strengthen or recreate the categorical and conditional programs. Those days and programs are past. Citizen Dividends is the future.

Steven Shafarman