Basic Income For All

This is what the US needs. It’s the single easiest way to solve poverty issues. That should honestly be common sense. I mean, just look at the definitions for poverty and poor.

Poverty (noun): The state of being extremely poor.

Poor (noun): Lacking sufficient money to live at a standard considered comfortable or normal in a society.

If poor means not having money and poverty means being really poor, how exactly do we solve this problem? Hmm… I don’t know. Maybe we give poor people money so they no longer live in poverty? The answer to the problem is literally right there within the definition of the word.

The same goes for homelessness. To be homeless means to not have a place to live, correct? So why not give the homeless a home? With all the unoccupied homes and apartments in this country, I’m more than sure we have enough room to house the homeless rather than leaving them on the street or stuffing them in overpopulated shelters.

We have the ability to solve poverty. We have the ability to solve homelessness. We simply won’t do it because we’re too married to the bootstrap mentality and capitalism.

We base people’s worth off of what they can produce and how much of it they can produce. If society doesn’t view it as “valuable” (i.e., the arts, childcare, etc.), they receive little to no pay.This mentality is especially rooted in misogyny because those jobs coded as feminine receive significantly less pay, if they get paid at all.

For an example, let’s look at my situation. I am technically unemployed right now, but I’m working harder than I ever have in my life. I’m taking classes, caring for a 5-year-old and 6 month old, helping my mom, going to therapy appointments, working on my blog, and so much more. The list is endless. I’m up at 7 every morning and if I’m lucky I get to sleep before midnight.

If I were pulling these hours in a traditional job setting, I’d be getting paid buckets of money. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. Everything I’m doing falls under “stuff women & moms are supposed to do”, so I’m expected to do all of this with a smile and no pay. None of this is easy though. It’s all work. Unpaid labor. That’s not ok. This is why I feel there should be some type of basic income system in place. The stuff you have to do to survive day-to-day is work and you should get paid to do it.