The irony is that Herbert seems to have forgotten King’s emphasis on guaranteed income in addition to jobs. Here are the last few paragraphs.

Speaking about one of his many antipoverty initiatives, Dr. King told Look magazine in 1968: “We called our demonstration a campaign for jobs and income because we felt that the economic question was the most crucial that black people, and poor people generally, were confronting.”

That was then. The loudest voices against poverty and economic injustice of all kinds have long since faded. The government, reclining comfortably on a vast cushion of campaign contributions, has allied itself with big business and the big banks against the interests of ordinary Americans. Millions upon millions of families are suffering, but mostly in silence.

We honor Dr. King with a national holiday, but his long campaign for economic justice has been all but forgotten.

Here’s Herbert’s complete piece.

Guaranteed income is necessary. That’s the only way to ensure dignity for all. There will never be enough jobs for everyone because in most situations employers profit by cutting jobs, not creating them. I present that logic in more detail in Peaceful, Positive Revolution: Economic Security for Every American.

Steven Shafarman

Official unemployment is now 9.5 percent, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. As reported in the New York Times:

The American economy lost 467,000 jobs in June and the unemployment rate edged up to 9.5 percent in a sobering indication that the most painful downturn since the Great Depression has yet to release its hold.

(Note the passive phrasing: “the economy lost 467,000 jobs … the unemployment rate edged up.” That’s so common. Much more honest and meaningful, in my opinion, is to focus on real people, not abstractions. “Another 467,000 people lost their jobs last month.”)

The complete Times story is here.

It’s important to remember that 9.5 percent is just the official number. It excludes people who have given up looking for jobs, those who are only working part-time but would like full-time jobs, and those who have only contingent work. Including all of those, using what some analysts call “Effective Unemployment” the rate is 18.70 percent and the Effective Number of Unemployed is now 30,172,000.

Effective Unemployment is the subject of blog posting from Steve Clemons in the Washington Note:

Each month, I receive from Leo Hindery an update on “America’s effective unemployment rate” which includes not only the official unemployment figures but other data points showing off-the-books unemployed or underemployed people.

…

Hindery writes:

Here is a June 2009 version of the summary that calculates the Effective Unemployment Rate, which is now 18.70%, and the Effective Number of Unemployed, which is now 30,172,000.

There are currently 14,729,000 officially unemployed workers, as just announced. However, this figure does not include the combined 15,443,000 workers either (1) in the “labor force reserve” because they have abandoned their job searches (i.e., 4,278,000) or (2) underemployed because they are “part-time of necessity” (i.e., 8,989,000) or “otherwise marginally attached” (i.e., 2,176,000).

…

It’s important to see the entire picture of America’s jobs profile — no matter how unpleasant.

What are those 30 million people, the effectively unemployed, going to do? How are they going to manage? There aren’t enough jobs, and there won’t be. That would be obvious if we were not so numbed, distracted, and confused by the passive language.

Let’s give every one of the 30 million a guaranteed basic income of, say, $1,000 a month. Every adult citizen ought to get the same amount. Guaranteed. Unconditional. We can and must ensure that every citizen has an income independent of any job. Income security for all.

Millions of Americans demanded guaranteed income in the 1930s, and that’s how we won Social Security. In the 1960s, Martin Luther King Jr. and many moderate politicians and many leading economists also endorsed guaranteed income. It’s time to update the idea and enact it.

The complete plan, the idea, the benefits, and how we can make it happen, is in Peaceful, Positive Revolution,.

Additional information is on the home page and elsewhere on this web site.

I hope you’ll also comment on this blog. And please help spread the word.

Steven Shafarman

Welfare rolls are increasing, according to the Wall Street Journal, and food stamp use is increasing even faster. The facts are only part of the story.

A few key sentences from the Journal article:

Twenty-three of the 30 largest states, which account for more than 88% of the nation’s total population, see welfare caseloads above year-ago levels.

The number of food-stamp recipients has risen in every state and was 19% higher in March than a year ago, a much bigger increase than the number of welfare cases.

In general, a family of four must have a monthly income of less than $2,297 to qualify for food stamps. Welfare, on the other hand, is designed as a last resort.

The average monthly welfare benefit in 2006, which reflects the most current data collected by the government, was $372.

The complete article is here.

Can anyone live on $372?

Suppose every adult citizen is getting $1,000 a month, Citizen Dividends. That’s unconditional. It would go to the homeless and unemployed, members of the middle class, Bill Gates and Oprah Winfrey. And its independent of earnings, unlike welfare and food stamps. The unemployed will have strong incentives to work and earn.

For a poor couple, even one adult working part time would put them above the limit for food stamps. Thus, we could eliminate welfare and nearly eliminate food stamps, using that money to help pay for Citizen Dividends.

Giving it to everyone will end the stigma, coercion, and degradation, including the moral and spiritual degradation, that comes with welfare and extreme poverty. That will also make it simple to administer, with no means-testing or welfare bureaucracy. We won’t have to endure continuing political conflicts about who’s included, how much they get, where and how to draw the lines. Plus, there will be a baseline of economic justice and economic equality, constant reminders that each of us is a member of We the People, that we’re all in this together with mutual interests in making your government more just, efficient, accountable, and responsive.

Here’s the final paragraph from the Wall Street Journal article:

A further explanation is that income limits for welfare eligibility are set so low, and haven’t been adjusted for so long, that having a low-wage part-time job can disqualify an applicant. In New Jersey, a family of three earning more than $636 a month is ineligible. “These are the people who really will fall through the cracks because they’re not eligible for any help,” says Donna Gapas, who oversees the welfare program in Hunterdon County, N.J.

Can anyone live on $636?

It’ll be hard for people to live on $1,000 a month, of course, though for a couple that’s $24,000 a year, which is more than the current federally-defined poverty level for a family of four. People will have strong incentives to work and earn more, because unlike with welfare and food stamps they won’t be penalized for working and earning.

Cutting welfare is just one way to pay for Citizen Dividends. We can also cut, and perhaps eliminate, corporate welfare. No more bailouts or subsidies. No more need for government spending with the specified purpose of “creating jobs.” Everyone who’s unemployed or underemployed will have a basic income for food and shelter while they find or create their own jobs.

Cutting individual welfare and corporate welfare won’t be at the federal government level only. We’ll also be able to cut a lot of state and local programs. That’s how we pay for Citizen Dividends, by cutting or eliminating the programs that become superfluous.

Guaranteed income was a mainstream, moderate idea in the 1960s. Martin Luther King called for it in his last book, and a plan to provide it passed the House of Representatives by two-to-one, but was blocked in the Senate. Proponents including leading economists from the left and the right.

In the 1930s, mass movements for guaranteed income security generated the political will for Social Security, and that history is document on the official web site of the Social Security administration.

Early ideas about income security helped power the progressive and populist movements of the 1890s and go back to the Founders, Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine. A summary history is elsewhere on this web site, here.

The complete plan, the idea, the benefits, and how we can make it happen, is in Peaceful, Positive Revolution,.

Additional information is on the home page and elsewhere on this web site.

Please comment on this blog and help spread the word.

Steven Shafarman

Sooner or later, our elected officials and other “leaders” will have to acknowledge that conventional political and economic approaches are not working. Conventional policies cannot work.

A panel of prominent economists and scholars recently discussed the economic crises and some of the problems with the policies our government is employing. No one talked about basic income, not surprisingly, though neither did they propose any other specific policy.  Their comments clearly indicated, at least to me, the need to provide income security for all.

The participants were former senator Bill Bradley, Niall Ferguson, Paul Krugman, Nouriel Roubini, George Soros, and Robin Wells, with Jeff Madrick as moderator.

The link is here.

Do you know any of them? If not directly, than perhaps through a few degrees of separation? It would be great to hear them respond to the idea of Citizen Dividends, income security for all. Please do what you can to facilitate those connections. Please send out links to this post.

(Some personal contact, or multiple contacts, seem to be necessary before any of us consider new products, services, or ideas. You can make a real contribution. Please help.)

Here’s an important quote from Krugman, from late in the discussion:

The other thing not to miss is the importance of a strong social safety net. By most accounts, most projections say that the European Union is going to have a somewhat deeper recession this year than the United States. … But the human suffering is going to be much greater on this side of the Atlantic because Europeans don’t lose their health care when they lose their jobs. They don’t find themselves with essentially no support once their trivial unemployment check has fallen off. … When Americans lose their jobs, they fall into the abyss. That does not happen in other advanced countries, it does not happen, I want to say, in civilized countries.

And there are people who say we should not be worrying about things like universal health care in the crisis, we need to solve the crisis. But this is exactly the time when the importance of having a decent social safety net is driven home to everybody, which makes it a very good time to actually move ahead on these other things.

Citizen Dividends, a guaranteed basic income for all, is the solution for many reasons. That includes the fact that this is an idea that can appeal to Republicans and Democrats, and especially to ordinary Americans who are simply angry at or about our government. I’ve discussed that appeal in several recent blog posts and on the home page of this web site, IncomeSecurityForAll.org.

The complete proposal, the benefits, and the plan to make it happen is in my book, Peaceful, Positive Revolution,.

Following is something from a blog post of a week or ten days ago:

Think about it: We can give every adult citizen a basic income of, say, $1,000 a month.

The amount should be enough so the poor and unemployed can afford food and shelter, at least. But we give it everyone, even Bill Gates and Oprah Winfrey, to create a baseline of economic justice and economic equality.

We pay for it by ending the bailouts and subsidies, and cutting government programs that become superfluous. With this basic income, which I call Citizen Dividends, there will no longer be any rationale for individual welfare or corporate welfare. We’ll be able to cut or eliminate hundreds of federal, state, and local government programs. Every citizen will have an income independent of those programs and independent of any job.

This is a platform that can appeal to Democrats and Republicans who sincerely want to take their parties back from the special interests. It can also appeal to Greens, Libertarians, and independent candidates who seek to overthrow the Democrats and Republicans.

This is actually not such a radical idea. Earlier versions of guaranteed income were mainstream ideas in the 1960s, supported by moderate Democrats and moderate Republicans, Martin Luther King Jr., and more than 1,200 economists from across the political spectrum. Earlier proposals for income security go back to Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine.

Please explore the web site, read the book, and help spread the word.

This will happen when enough of us demand it, when We the People demand it.

Steven Shafarman

The story is about community banks, and merits front-page coverage because it’s an aspect of the situation that’s been generally ignored. Community banks are mostly fine. They’re earning profits, not failing. They haven’t gotten bailout money from our federal government. Here’s the story.

The logic of income security for all is that government is supposed to promote the general welfare, the general interests, not special interests. The recent bank bailouts directly aided only a select group of very special interests, the biggest Wall Street finance companies, notably AIG, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, and Citibank.

Those bailouts were pushed through Congress and sold to the American people as necessary to “save the economy.”  That phrase, as the whole sorry bailout episode demonstrated, is often a code for “subsidize big corporations.” A main reason big corporations get bailouts and subsidies is their ability to produce campaign contributions and lobby both Democrats and Republicans.

What if AIG and the rest had been allowed to fail?

The Times story suggests something many of us were saying at the time: Government could have stimulated economic activity and recovery by supporting individual citizens and community banks. With financial support from the government, community banks could have expanded their lending and promoted local economic activity. We would be enjoying real, perhaps rapid economic recovery from the bottom up, instead of the current top-down, tenuous, tepid drift.

This is the logic of income security for all. Stop thinking in abstract terms about “the economy,” “the banks,” and even “jobs.” Start, instead, focusing directly and concretely on the concrete and local, especially on individual people.

I’m reminded of some lines by the poet William Blake: “One who would do good must do it in minute particulars. General good is the plea of scoundrels, hypocrites, and flatterers.”

To learn more about these ideas, please visit the home page and other material on this web site, www.IncomeSecurityForAll.org.

You can read the complete plan for income security, the idea and how we can implement it, in Peaceful, Positive Revolution, which is available from Tendril Press.

I hope you’ll also comment on this blog. And please help spread the word.

Steven Shafarman

Recall those dreams or goals, please, for a moment at least. What did you want to do or be?

Did you dream of getting a job and working eight or ten hours a day at, say, Wal-Mart or some other big company? Were you eager to have a boss who told you what to do and when to do it? Probably not.

That’s how most of us live. With current economic conditions, moreover, many of us are pleased to have any job – even if the job provides barely enough money or not even enough to pay our bills.

Our whole society is organized around jobs. Our government and political system are focused on creating jobs and saving jobs. Jobs are good, jobs are necessary, jobs are the goal of public policy. With the stated rationale of creating or saving jobs, our government has given billions or tens of billions to Wall Street, GM, Chrysler, AIG, and other big corporations.

Whatever happened to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?

Suppose you had an income of, say, $1,000 a month, guaranteed – an unconditional income in addition to whatever you earn or get from other sources. Call it Citizen Dividends.

We can have that. And we should. Bailout the people, all the people, not Wall Street or GM. Our government can and should give every American citizen an income sufficient for food and shelter. The same amount for everyone, to create a baseline of economic justice and economic equality. Everyone will have some income, some economic security, which will allow us to participate as citizens and in the market. Each of us will be more free to pursue our dreams.

This is a serious policy proposal. Guaranteed income was a mainstream idea in the 1960s, and a plan to provide it passed the House of Representatives by two-to-one, but was blocked in the Senate. Proponents including leading economists from the left and the right, and Martin Luther King called for it in his last book. Millions of Americans joined mass movements for income security in the 1930s, and similar ideas inspired significant political reforms in the 1890s and early 1900s. Previous proponents of some form of income security included Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, and Abraham Lincoln.

Why don’t we have that? Because we’re not demanding it. Because we’ve settled for jobs instead.

To learn more about these ideas, visit the home page and other material on this web site, www.IncomeSecurityForAll.org.

You can read the complete plan, the idea and how we can implement it, in Peaceful, Positive Revolution, which is available from Tendril Press.

I hope you’ll also comment on this blog. And please help spread the word.

Steven Shafarman

That’s more evidence for why we need Citizen Dividends, a guaranteed basic income.

Economist Paul Krugman discusses falling wages in his New York Times column today. He notes the paradox in this and other areas of economics. Workers in one company or industry can save their jobs by accepting lower wages, but when many companies do so that creates downward pressure on all wages and all workers, and thus more unemployment.

Wages fall. Workers have less money to spend. Workers also have more incentive to save, preparing for harder times ahead. Less spending means less economic activity generally. Economic conditions worsen. Employment falls. It’s a “vicious circle” according to Krugman, and he concludes the column by warning of the prospects for long term economic stagnation.

We can break the circle by implementing Citizen Dividends. Conservatives ought to support this idea because it will stimulate economic activity. Markets will be more free, more active, more productive, because more people will have more money to spend. The guru of free market economists, Milton Friedman, endorsed the negative income tax for that reason. Liberals, including Krugman, ought to support this idea because it will help workers directly, protecting everyone from economic hardships.

Most conservatives, however, are reflexively anti-government, and opposed to any new programs, especially programs that would help ordinary people. Most liberals are merely timid, afraid to endorse anything so bold as Citizen Dividends. Their idea of an aggressive program to end hunger and homelessness is to increase the Earned Income Tax Credit.

If we ordinary citizens want real reform, we have to demand it. We have to get angry and start talking about these ideas with our family members, friends, and neighbors. This is a key part of the solution to many of our problems, including health care reform and reversing climate change.

It’s up to us. If we really want to save GM and Chrysler, and help their workers, and possibly save our own jobs, we can do all that and more by demanding and winning Citizen Dividends.

To learn more about these ideas, visit the home page and other material on this web site, www.IncomeSecurityForAll.org.

You can read the complete plan, the idea and how we can implement it, in Peaceful, Positive Revolution, which is available from Tendril Press.

I hope you’ll also comment on this blog. And please help spread the word.

Steven Shafarman

When people hear about Citizen Dividends, they often agree with the concept – stop the bailouts, give money directly to people, promote the general welfare only – while asking some obvious questions: How are we going to pay for it? How can we afford to give every adult citizen $1,000 a month (or $800 or $1200, to be determined)?

Good questions, especially with massive federal budget deficits. The short answer: We pay for it by cutting government programs that become superfluous. Start with individual welfare programs and corporate welfare. There’s a lot of both in $3.4 trillion.

Every adult citizen will have an income, guaranteed, for food and shelter at least. So it will make sense to cut or eliminate programs that provide for the poor and homeless. That includes food stamps, temporary aid to needy families, housing programs, and much more. We’ll be able to cut those programs at the local, state, and federal level. Current programs are conditional, and therefore highly bureaucratic and costly to administer. The basic income is unconditional, so administrative costs will be extremely low.

Corporate welfare includes all of the bailouts to Wall Street – several trillion dollars in the past year, counting the money released by the Federal Reserve Board. (Though such bailouts will, we hope, not be needed in the future.)

More common and recurring corporate welfare is government spending to create jobs. Politicians and pundits talk about “creating jobs” all the time. Right? Most elected officials seem to believe their primary task in office is to create jobs. Just about everything they do, every time they spend our money, especially these days during the recession, “creating jobs” is what they talk about. We hear that from Democrats and Republicans, from Obama, members of Congress, governors, state legislators, and local officials

Stop for a moment. Think about it. With Citizen Dividends, everyone will have an income for food and shelter. Everyone who’s unemployed or underemployed will be able to provide for themselves while they find or create jobs for themselves. People won’t expect or depend on government to find or create jobs for them.

The federal budget is $3.4 trillion. How much of that spending is individual welfare? How much is corporate welfare and other job programs? A lot of that spending is hidden, most notably corporate welfare in the military budget. Politicians routinely vote for spending, weapons for example, that military experts don’t even want, always with some statements about “jobs.”

Let’s not forget state and local spending, individual welfare and corporate welfare.

We can afford Citizen Dividends. The total cost may be $2 trillion or more, but it could all be paid for through cutting or eliminating other programs. As we debate those cuts, Democrats are likely to insist on protecting the poor and homeless, ensuring that none are harmed. Conservative Republicans and Libertarians might call for cutting and eliminating programs immediately. Lots of compromises will be necessary, but at least we’ll be moving forward.

Real change, not just cosmetics, a Peaceful, Positive Revolution.

Steven Shafarman

Regarding swine flu: Is the Obama administration prepared? Are they doing the right things? What about the fact that Congress has not yet confirmed people to fill critical jobs, particularly Kathleen Sibelius for head of the Department of Health and Human Services? Her nomination is reportedly being blocked by Republicans who are concerned about her position on abortion. Links are here and here and here and here.

Regarding GM: Will it file for bankruptcy? Will it need more government bailout money? How many jobs will be lost, where, and how soon? Links are here and here and here.

These and similar news stories typically start with some big issue – swine flu, GM, jobs, government, the economy – and add details about individuals and families to supply human interest. That’s common for most issues and problems. Individuals and families, in other words, are only secondary, relatively passive, sometimes victims. Most of us seem to think of ourselves in that way, as relatively passive and sometimes victims.

The true power of Citizen Dividends is in transforming the political discourse. Providing everyone with a guaranteed basic income is a way to put individual citizens first – real people, unique individuals and our families, not “people.”

This is especially important with regard to jobs. Everyone will have an income for food and shelter, guaranteed, independent of any job.

Regarding GM: Everyone who works for GM, directly or indirectly, will have an absolute financial safety net regardless of what happens with GM, its suppliers, dealers, and so on.

Regarding swine flu: Everyone will have an income as they cope with the uncertainties. Consider, for example, people who work in a shopping mall or commute through a train station that might be closed to prevent the spread of the disease. Or the challenges for parents who have to adapt if their kids go to a school that’s suddenly closed.

Citizen Dividends will give each of us and all of us more resources and much greater freedom to cope.

Both sets of issues, in addition, illustrate the massive size and complexity of government. Our federal government, according to the Constitution, is supposed to “promote the general welfare.” The most direct and effective way to do that would be Citizen Dividends – providing for each citizen equally, generally, unconditionally.

There’s nothing in the Constitution about ensuring the welfare of GM or any other corporation. And, though it clearly serves the general welfare for our government to be responding to the swine flu outbreak, that response is potentially being thwarted by an unrelated concern.

Citizen Dividends will restore political power to ordinary individuals, because each of us and all of us will have more freedom to participate as citizens. We’ll be better able to organize and demand the government we want and deserve.

Citizen Dividends will bring a Peaceful, Positive Revolution, and that’s the title of my recent book, which is available from Tendril Press.

Steven Shafarman

Could this tragedy have been prevented if we had a guaranteed income? Very possibly, especially if it was a true basic income, income security for all, with the baseline of economic justice and economic equality that will come with this approach.

Similar circumstances are part of the story in just about every instance of someone suddenly shooting up a workplace. Poverty is also a factor, typically, when people kill spouses, children, and other relatives, though in such cases the family drama may be more compelling.

Such events incur massive costs, incalculable costs because so many costs are delayed and diffuse. Costs to the individuals involved, extended families, police, hospitals, other businesses in the area when people miss work to attend funerals, and so on. Costs to victim’s family members and friends who live elsewhere. Costs to our nation as a whole, including the well documented fact that such incidents often provoke copycat events.

Unemployment insurance cannot accomplish what we’ll have with income security for all. UI stigmatizes and comes with coercion to find a job. ISFA will end the stigma, coercion, and other social and psychological complications that come with any conditional benefits. UI also requires some large bureaucracy to monitor recipients. ISFA is universal and therefore can be implemented with minimal bureaucracy and government intrusiveness.

There will surely be more such shootings. When they occur, we should note the economic circumstances of the shooter and the costs to the communities and our nation.

Steven Shafarman