By: Jackson Liu

Many people are jobless and poor in the world. They have no means of getting money and some are forced to commit crimes. Social welfare programs in the U.S aren’t enough. In some states, you need to be a citizen, need to have children, need to get food stamps and other resources. If Social welfare worked as well as it should, we wouldn’t be seeing so many homeless people on the streets.

In fact, the welfare system is so bureaucratic and with so many restrictions that many people don’t get it and are still in the streets. They get sick and infect more people, thus clogging the medical system. They also scare people and cause bad business for shops. Therefore, I offer the following plan: the US should substantially increase its fiscal redistribution by establishing a united basic income program funded through a progressive tax system, which is when the tax rate you pay increases as your income rises.

A universal basic income would give money daily to people currently jobless, in poverty, and without enough money to live. It probably won’t be enough to lift people out of poverty, but it would stop more people from entering it. Harvey Evans, a Canadian public policy analyst, says that having a universal basic income would make the rate of poverty lessen by 96% for single parents, and the inequality between the rich and poor falls by 15.6%. Because a universal basic income is universal, every person without a job can get money without as much restrictions as social welfare programs.

Crime and poverty are related. Being in poverty makes people desperately need money, they do desperate things like robbing stores. With a poverty rate of 39.7 million, the police get stretched pretty thin. This is bad, because then there wouldn’t be enough police to stop all the crimes happening. With universal basic income, poor people can buy their food instead of just stealing it.

Rich people lounge around in expensive sitting rooms drinking thousand – dollar champagne, while poor people are worrying about their next meal. A universal basic income would greatly benefit people without jobs and in poverty. It would also even out the gap between the rich and poor and is more effective than a welfare system because of less bureaucracy.

Image Credit by Karolina Kaboompics