For as long as automation has been replacing human labor, writers and thinkers have wondered how society might change if human labor became unnecessary. How would we make a living? Today, artificial intelligence is making these questions real, as robots and algorithms replace workers on all levels, from truck drivers to software coders and even white-collar professionals. Some, including politicians and tech entrepreneurs, say the answer is universal basic income (UBI), a regular cash payment to every adult citizen. Others argue that UBI would cost too much, in both treasure and morality. Who’s right?

Change with the times

Working Americans need a financial safety net, and soon. The McKinsey Global Institute projects that 30 percent of the hours that employees currently spend working nationwide could become automated in the next six years, leaving tens of millions in need of new training and employment. “There is a significant mismatch between the skills that workers bring to the market and the skills that new jobs require,” economist Evelyn Forget told Forbes in July. “UBI can allow some workers the time to go back to school and to acquire new skills, and it can allow older workers to transition to retirement with a bit of dignity.”

UBI could reduce poverty, making Americans healthier and happier. Pilot studies show that recipients are hospitalized for necessary medical treatment 26 percent more often than those without a UBI. In one Canadian study, hospitalization rates for injuries, accidents and mental health issues actually fell. Other trials abroad have found that UBI allows recipients to buy medicine, eat better and reduce anxiety and depression. Experts also say poverty is linked to stress, domestic violence, substance abuse and legal troubles.

Putting more cash into circulation can also stimulate consumer spending, the economy’s biggest contributor. A three-year study funded by OpenResearch, an arm of OpenAI, found that low-income families given $1,000 each month increased their spending by $310. We also know that families help loved ones in need 25 percent more often when they receive a UBI than they do without one. Unlike welfare and other social programs, UBI would not require an expensive bureaucracy to prevent fraud. It would function more like a Covid-19 stimulus check.

Speaking of which, it’s important to remember that the government has a duty to protect the well-being of its citizens. As technological and economic upheaval leave workers in the lurch, we need solutions. Even the founder Thomas Paine made an argument that could apply. In his pamphlet, “Agrarian Justice,” he writes that every adult should be compensated for the shared use and split ownership of the land, which he saw as our common inheritance, in order to fend off poverty, which he insists is unnatural and human-made.

Nothing is free

Simply put, Americans don’t want a UBI. In 2020, presidential candidates Andrew Yang and Bernie Sanders incorporated UBI proposals into their platforms, which brought the question back into national view; both lost in the Democratic primaries. That same year, a Pew Research Center survey found that 54 percent of respondents opposed Yang’s relatively modest proposal of a $1,000 monthly federal UBI for each adult citizen.

One reason: the price tag. Yang’s UBI proposal would have cost about $3 trillion each year, or 75 percent of the federal budget. Expanding the pool of recipients to include children would likely raise that to upwards of $4 trillion. More than simply cutting checks, this would require reinventing the American economy, increasing taxes on individuals and business operations and slashing other social programs. Even the reorganization of federal bureaucracies to accommodate such massive change would involve as-yet-untold expenses for a government that is already running a $1.8 trillion annual deficit.

At the same time, a UBI would disincentivize work. The same OpenResearch study cited previously found that participants didn’t leverage the added financial support to seek out higher paid employment. Rather, they took time off, working an average of 1.3 fewer hours per week, or about eight days less a year. Subjects were 2 percent less likely to be employed at all and experienced an overall decrease in household income. That much lost productivity could pose existential consequences to families and the economy writ large.

Not to mention the moral implications of untethering financial rewards from community, effort and sacrifice. Free money doesn’t just pose practical problems; it devalues the efforts of others and worsens a growing detachment issue among Americans. “Public attitudes aside, for the amount of investment that UBI programs require one might assume they would solve many of society’s ills,” writes Erin Norman, senior messaging strategist at State Policy Network, a hub for state-based conservative think tanks, in Governing Magazine. “But there are a wide variety of problems facing society — including loneliness, a lack of a sense of belonging and a lack of purpose among youth — that are specifically solved by contributing to society in a recognized way. Namely, with work.”

This story appears in the December 2024 issue of Deseret Magazine. Learn more about how to subscribe.