So a UBI [Universal Basic Income, or the government giving people free money as opposed to the opposite, where you pay taxes (money) to the government] could come about through a bill being passed in Congress as opposed to voting in a presidential candidate that advertises supporting a UBI.
September 27, 2023: Today, Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (NJ-12), announced the reintroduction of the Guaranteed Income Pilot Program Act, legislation that would establish a nationwide pilot program to test the viability of a federally funded income support program that keeps more American families from experiencing permanent financial fallout and lasting poverty from a single unexpected crisis. While millionaires and billionaires thrive on the labor of hard-working Americans, those working families see just a fraction of profits and continue to live paycheck-to-paycheck. The Coronavirus pandemic, while devastating for everyday families, resulted in the wealthiest Americans doubling their fortunes and widening the gap between the super-rich and the rest of us.
The COVID crisis exposed the fragility of our economy in its interactions with working people. At the same time, it demonstrated the real and meaningful ability of federal and state programs to keep Americans out of poverty.
“Many policymakers have seen this pandemic as a once-in-a-lifetime crisis, and while that may be true for businesses or markets, for millions of Americans, this is just one more emergency threatening to wipe out what little savings they have, to finally push them to homelessness, to reinforce the fact that in the wealthiest nation in the world, too many families are just a single mishap away from financial devastation,” said Watson Coleman. “What we learned when Congress made the decision to send economic impact payments through the CARES Act and American Rescue Plan was that our government can prevent people from falling into poverty, it can build a floor beneath which we say no one in this country should fall. This bill is all about looking at ways to make that floor permanent, giving more families a sense of economic security.”
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