Jared Dillian, Columnist

Bring Back Make-Work Programs

Mark Zuckerberg can wax poetic all he wants about a universal basic income. He's wrong.

August 16, 2017 at 2:42 PM UTC

Jared Dillian is the editor and publisher of the Daily Dirtnap. An investment strategist at Mauldin Economics, he is author of "All the Evil of This World." He may have a stake in the areas he writes about.

Glamorous? No. Meaningful? Ask them.
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Many assume that universal basic income will be one of Mark Zuckerberg’s policy platforms when he runs for president. The volume has been turned up to 11 on such speculation since his Harvard commencement speech back in May. In summary, he said people think our labor force has been structurally altered by automation, that some people will be permanently left out of it, and that we should explore ideas like paying everyone a subsistence-level basic income. If people want to earn more, they can.

Libertarians like universal basic income as an alternative to other welfare benefits, such as food stamps, because it doesn’t phase out at higher levels of income: When a person earns too much money to receive food stamps, they effectively face a very high marginal rate of tax, which destroys the incentive. This is part of the reason many conservatives like the earned income tax credit.