Some interesting answers in Quora including this one:
Why yes, it would work. In fact, it will grow the US economy by over two trillion dollars.
But just in case you are not as enamored of my opinion as I am (right people?), here are a few other places that the idea was proposed as a more workable way forward:
Andrew Yang (2019): Proposed the unconditional delivery of $1,000 a month (the Freedom Dividend) to each adult Citizen of the United States of America.
An ambitious “demogrant” plan (an upscale of FAP, still UBI) was included in democrat George McGovern’s platform for the 1972 presidential election.
The Family Assistance Plan (FAP, a form of UBI) was publicly presented by President Nixon in August 1969, adopted in April 1970 by a large majority in the US House of Representatives.
In 1969 the Family Assistance Plan (FAP) was prepared by the democrat senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (1927-2003) on behalf of Republican President Richard Nixon’s administration.
Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Richard Nixon (1968): As director of the Office of Economic Opportunity under US president Richard Nixon,
Donald Rumsfeld ran the New Jersey Graduated Income Work Experiment from 1968 to 1971 with the help of the assistant he hired, Dick Cheney.
In 1968 James Tobin, Paul Samuelson, John Kenneth Galbraith, Robert Lampman, Harold Watts and over one thousand more economists signed a petition calling for the US Congress “to adopt this year a system of income guarantees and supplements.”
Hear Marin Luther King (1967) speak : search martin luther king guaranteed minimum income
Theobald Miezkowski (1967): Analyzed the negative income tax and determined that it had to be unconditional to work.
Joseph Pechman (1967): Called it a demogrant.
John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-2006)
James Tobin (1967)
Milton Friedman (1912-2006): Proposed a radical simplification of the American Welfare State through the introduction of what he called a “negative income tax”.
Robert Theobald (1964)
William Beveridge (1942)
James Meade (1937): Made clear the expression “social dividend”, which he used to refer to the return on collectively owned capital, had to be understood as contribution-independent.
George D.H. Cole (1935): First to use the phrase “Basic Income”.
“Current productive power is, in effect, a joint result of current effort and of the social heritage of inventiveness and skill incorporated in the stage of advancement and education reached in the arts of production; and it has always appeared to me only right that all the citizens should share in the yield of this common heritage, and that only the balance of the product after this allocation should be distributed in the form of rewards for, and incentives to, current service in production.”
Clifford H Douglas (1924)
Dennis Milner (1918): Suggested the introduction of an income paid unconditionally on a weekly basis to all citizens of the United Kingdom. Pitched at 20% of GDP per capita, the “State bonus” should make it possible to solve the problem of poverty…
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970): “[…] Stated in more familiar terms, the plan we are advocating amounts essentially to this: that a certain small income, sufficient for necessaries, should be secured to all, whether they work or not, and that a larger income – as much larger as might be warranted by the total amount of commodities produced – should be given to those who are willing to engage in some work which the community recognizes as useful…When education is finished, no one should be compelled to work, and those who choose not to work should receive a bare livelihood and be left completely free.”
John Stuart Mill (1806 – 1873): “The most skilfully combined, and with the greatest foresight of objections, of all the forms of Socialism, is that commonly known as Fourierism. This System does not contemplate the abolition of private property, nor even of inheritance; on the contrary, it avowedly takes into consideration, as elements in the distribution of the produce, capital as well as labour.”
Joseph Charlier (1848): Proposed giving every citizen with an unconditional right to a quarterly (later, monthly) payment of an amount fixed annually.
Charles Fourier (1836): “Each person’s fundamental natural right to hunt, fish, pick fruit and let her/his cattle graze on the commons implies that ‘civilization’ owes subsistence to everyone unable to meet her/his needs, in the form of a sixth class hotel room and three modest meals a day.”
Poulet Scrope (1833)
Samuel Read (1829)
William Cobbett (1827)
Thomas Paine (1737-1809): “Equal ownership of the earth justifies an unconditional endowment for all, not a guaranteed income.”
Johannes Ludovicus Vives (1492-1540)
Antoine Caritat, Marquis de Condorcet (1743-1794).
Raphael Nonsenso, a character Thomas More’s Utopia, published in 1516 had this to say:
“I once happened to be dining with the Cardinal when a certain English lawyer was there. I forgot how the subject came up, but he was speaking with great enthusiasm about the stern measures that were then being taken against thieves. ‘We’re hanging them all over the place’, he said. ‘I’ve seen as many as twenty on a single gallows. And that’s what I find so odd. Considering how few of them get away with it, how come we are still plagued with so many robbers?’ ‘What’s odd about it?’, I asked – for I never hesitated to speak freely in front of the Cardinal. ‘This method of dealing with thieves is both unjust and undesirable. As a punishment, it’s too severe, and as a deterrent, it’s quite ineffective. Petty larceny isn’t bad enough to deserve the death penalty. And no penalty on earth will stop people from stealing, if it’s their only way of getting food. In this respect, you English, like most other nations, remind me of these incompetent schoolmasters, who prefer caning their pupils to teaching them. Instead of inflicting these horrible punishments, it would be far more to the point to provide everyone with some means of livelihood, so that nobody’s under the frightful necessity of becoming, first a thief, and then a corpse.”
And many, many, many, more:
List of advocates of basic income
See Also: History of basic income
to answer the hidden question:
“Why UBI?”
1 Government is incredibly wasteful when charged with delivering assistance of any kind.
2 It’s a technology dividend, not a handout.
3 UBI has no stigma.
4 UBI stimulates the economic growth from the bottom up.
5 UBI softens class boundaries and reduces inequality.
6 UBI expands choice for all. But disproportionately, it expands choice for the poor and the disabled.
7 We can ELIMINATE poverty NOW.
8 UBI gives everyone a voice. Our media is composed almost solely of the elite talking straight past the concerns of the left behind members of our society.
9 UBI makes it possible for everyone to care about what happens to the planet. If I am having issues feeding my kids or getting life-saving medicine, rising sea levels is not a concern that I have time for.
10 UBI is not a poverty trap. Means tested welfare is.
11 UBI increases politeness.
12 UBI improves conscientiousness.
13 Alcohol use goes down.
14 Drug use goes down.
15 Mothers spend more time with their new-born babies.
16 Young people spend more time in school.
With the exception of number 15 and 16, people continue to work at the same rates.
Math models predict a two trillion dollar boost to the economy.
UBI increases optimism and trust.
Full UBI causes Unicorns to appear (this last one is just an untested theory, the rest are scientific results of studies).
Forward together. Inclusive. Practical. Just.