Why the Niskanen Center is Joining the Economic Security Project

We believe in crafting policies tailored for the future, that enhance human freedom and unleash the progressive power of markets.

Policy debates in Washington tend to be backward looking. Issues of economic security are no exception. Instead of asking whether our safety-nets are well suited for the economy of the future, we re-litigate the past, from Clinton’s welfare reform to the War on Poverty. And as a result, we always seem to be caught off-guard when trade shocks or recessions reveal the size and scope of our policy blind spots.

Photo by Ted Eytan licensed under CC BY-SA

The Niskanen Center is drawn to the growing basic income movement in large part because it is oriented around solving the problems of the future. Wages are polarizing, work is increasingly short term, and a looming acceleration in automation has the potential to dislocate millions of workers. When people lack a buffer against creative destruction, we run the risk that they will turn to leaders who make big promises but whose economic policies in fact threaten economic freedom, innovation, growth, and well-being. A basic income can help address these concerns by decoupling economic security from a particular employer or local jurisdiction, encouraging mobility, and helping to share the fruits of growth in an efficient, equitable way.

But while basic income is attractive to many because of its front-end simplicity, on the back-end, as the need for a basic income more and more obvious, we need to be prepared to answer the nitty-gritty questions about its structure and implementation. Are there social programs a UBI cannot adequately substitute for? What should be the payment system look like? Does it need to be adjusted for factors like cost of living? If you ask ten UBI supporters these questions you will get ten different answers. The Niskanen Center’s work is about assessing the state of the evidence on these and other questions in order to provide basic income the concrete policy foundation it will need to reach a political consensus.

The Niskanen Center is a libertarian think tank based in Washington, D.C.

Our work is also about building the right-leaning case for UBI. Basic income-style proposals have a strong pedigree on the political right, including support from great libertarian economists like Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek, and Republican politicians like Richard Nixon. Conservative supporters of basic income see it as a means to eliminate bureaucracy and potential welfare-traps, while reducing government’s influence over our personal choices. Our proposal for a Universal Child Benefit, a kind of UBI for kids, also appeals to conservatives as a way of supporting families without discriminating between methods of childcare.

Ultimately, however, we think the most compelling case for a UBI is that it promotes freedom. As Hayek argued, we’re not truly free if we’re subject to the arbitrary will of others. A basic income empowers individuals to make crucial life decisions from a dignified position of independence and autonomy, rather than from an anxious and humiliated position of desperation and dire need. Any idea that has the potential to simultaneously promote freedom, simplify government, and preserve a political climate friendly to markets and economic growth deserves to be taken seriously by libertarians and conservatives alike.

The Economic Security Project is simply the next step in resetting the debate, and demonstrating that innovative thinking about the future of our economic security is not a partisan issue.

Samuel Hammond is the Welfare and Poverty Policy Analyst at the Niskanen Center.