Author: automata

Ulster County Executive Pat Ryan Presents 2021 State of the County Address

Ulster County will become one of the first counties in the country to undertake a large-scale universal basic income pilot program

Funded through the generosity of community donations, Ulster County will be providing 100 qualifying households with direct relief payments of $500 a month for an entire year

County Executive Ryan outlined his first of three major initiatives that will simultaneously protect our environment, boost our economy, and help realize a Green New Deal in Ulster County On Earth Day, County Executive Ryan will outline a comprehensive, multi-pronged plan to further build on Green New Deal […]

Ball State Economist: COVID Put US Economy Back To 2017 Levels

Ball State Economist: COVID Put US Economy Back To 2017 Levels

Graphic: Ball State University Center for Business and Economic Research Ball State University’s economist says the coronavirus pandemic has dropped U.S. economic growth back to where it was in 2017. The annual economic outlook says it will take a decade to get back to where we should be in 2021.

Ball State’s Michael Hicks says the U.S. economic growth of -4.6 percent in 2020 is the worst since 1946, when the country lost wartime manufacturing contracts.

“The Indiana economy is about 6.7 percent beneath where we thought it would be right now. That is a stunning decline from expected levels," […]

The Pandemic is Giving Americans a Chance to Fix Its Welfare State

The Pandemic is Giving Americans a Chance to Fix Its Welfare State

Photo by Nico Smit Maybe such fat checks wouldn’t have been as necessary if the country had a more robust support system for its people.

Americans are strongly in favor of a very large Covid-19 relief bill. It seems likely that this enthusiasm reflects more than just anxiety over the pandemic; many Americans are fed up with decades of a stingy welfare state, and in this crisis they finally see an opportunity to make back some lost ground.

A recent report by McKinsey & Co. found that countries that generally spend less on social welfare ended up increasing their government […]

Yang Runs for NY Mayor

Yang Runs for NY Mayor

By Jennie L. Ilustre

Successful technology entrepreneur Andrew Yang is running for mayor of New York City. He launched his candidacy on January 14, with the grandson of America’s civil rights icon Martin Luther King, Jr. as co-chair of his mayoral campaign. Processed with VSCO with l10 preset At the launch, US Congressman (NY-15) and campaign Co-Chair Ritchie Torres called Yang “a problem solver who’s going to make our city work, not for political insiders, but for all New Yorkers…He’s exactly the transformational leader that we need in our moment of greatest crisis.”An initial poll showed Yang, […]

Basic Income and the Freedom to Refuse

Basic Income and the Freedom to Refuse

Criminal legal debt provides a revealing lens through which to examine universal basic income (UBI). It highlights a path to potential failure: fetishizing labor markets as the engine of economic inequality ignores how today’s criminal legal system carries forward racial capitalism’s techniques of targeted extraction. Yet recognizing this also opens a door to more robust visions of UBI that join together the powers of work refusal and debt refusal .

UBI’s radical appeal has been staked to its potential to enable in practice and convey in principle a refusal of the labor market. As Kathi Weeks explains in theorizing a […]

Kim Se-yeon, Lee Jae-myeong “40,000 won per month? Cosmetic sample level” in basic income

Kim Se-yeon, Lee Jae-myeong “40,000 won per month? Cosmetic sample level” in basic income

The Power of the People Kim Se-yeon, former member of the Gyeonggi Province Governor Lee Jae-myeong, pointed out that “what is difficult to call basic income is unreasonably called basic income”.

Rep. Kim said on his Facebook page on the 15th, “Governor Lee Jae-myeong’s perception of the technological revolution and its ripple effect is more advanced than others. However, with a payment of about 41600 won per month, Calling this’basic income’ is not appropriate because the difference between the name and the essence is so great.”

In the short term, the Governor insisted on implementing a basic income policy of 500,000 […]

For a guarantee of employment and not a guaranteed income – Liberation

For a guarantee of employment and not a guaranteed income – Liberation

Universal income is back. The idea defended during the last presidential election by Benoît Hamon resurfaces while the health crisis reveals the blind spots of our collective protection and that public opinion is seized by the destitution of a part of the youth. Personalities, from left to right on the political spectrum, appropriate the measure, which could become a solution to the social crisis due to Covid and be debated during the presidential campaign.

Emergency monetary support measures, in particular for the benefit of young students, are undeniably necessary in the face of the crisis. However, “the aftermath” requires that […]

David Rosenberg: Of the near 10 million U.S. workers still out of a job in the pandemic, half will be replaced by machines

David Rosenberg: Of the near 10 million U.S. workers still out of a job in the pandemic, half will be replaced by machines

Unemployed people protest the lack of financial relief from the state in Denver, Colorado. David Rosenberg says the so-called “jobless recovery” we saw after the Great Financial Crisis might end up proving to have been an absolute bonanza in retrospect. Article content

The pandemic’s impact in all aspects, from the government-mandated shutdowns, the infections themselves and the impact on economic behavior, as well as the seemingly permanent loss of employment, have led to a massive reorganization of the labour force. Companies have learned to adapt and in so doing have shifted their production inputs from labour to capital. We […]

Feb. 16: ‘This trial hurt Donald Trump in the court of public opinion. That’s where he will be convicted.’ Impeachment falls short, plus other letters to the editor

Keep your Opinions sharp and informed. Get the Opinion newsletter. Sign up today . Step by step – by step

Re Nursing Jobs In Demand As Pandemic Hits Hard At Health Care (Feb. 8): My partner, who holds a bachelor of science, dreams of retraining as a nurse, but the educational and regulatory barriers are daunting.

In addition to high tuition costs, unpaid work placements and years-long waitlists, many programs require applicants to complete various competency assessments, or even obtain postsecondary credits at their own expense, with no guarantee of admission.No sooner is our aspiring nurse graduated that they must […]

Guaranteed Minimum Income: What Is It and How Is It Different From Universal Basic Income?

Guaranteed Minimum Income: What Is It and How Is It Different From Universal Basic Income?

Yulia Reznikov This story was published as part of Teen Vogue’ s 2021 Economic Security Project fellowship .

You’ve probably heard of universal basic income (UBI). It was a cornerstone of the 2020 presidential campaign of Andrew Yang , who offered a $1,000 monthly “Freedom Dividend” to American adults. During the COVID-19 pandemic, some lawmakers have pushed for the government to provide monthly direct payments to all households so people could pay rent or other expenses. As Rebekka Ayres wrote for Teen Vogue , UBI basically proposes “that the government provides every citizen with a lump sum of income […]