The latest podcast from writer and activist Mia Birdsong and The Nation explores how a Guaranteed Income might actually transform people's lives. Mia Birdsong first heard about the concept of Guaranteed Income in the mid-90s through the 1967 writings of Martin Luther King Jr. King. He asserted that “the time has come for us to civilize ourselves by the total, direct and immediate abolition of poverty” by providing a basic level of material well-being to allow all Americans to truly flourish. Birdsong thought it sounded "absurd.” As Birdsong notes, "Free money went against everything I'd learned about being a respectable citizen. But people change and our ideas evolve. I no longer think guaranteed income is absurd.” After years of political education and activism, Birdsong came to reject some ideas that most of us believe: that having a job makes you a whole person, and that you have to earn the things we all deserve to live a good life. From The Nation, More Than Enough is a four-episode podcast that explores the concept of guaranteed income, or "universal basic income," through conversations with the experts, people who experience poverty in America. We invite you to listen to these under-explored conversations with Americans about Universal Basic Income: what it is, what it means, and what it says about a culture that so closely correlates deservedness with work. Join Birdsong as she explores the idea of the meaning of work, of inequality, and most importantly, of what America is and what it can be. More Than Enough launches January 15. Sign up for updates at thenation.com/morethanenough (https://www.thenation.com/content/more-than-enough/).
If guaranteed income is an attempt to provide people with more resources—resources that come with very few restrictions—it demands a conversation with...
When I travelled across the country to report out this podcast, I found myself doing a lot of thinking about “the good life.” As I talked with folks w...
If you’ve never been poor, you don’t know how soul-crushingly hard it is to always be struggling to make ends meet. The grinding challenge of not know...
This is the first episode in a new podcast mini-series from me, Mia Birdsong, and The Nation. More Than Enough is about guaranteed income, deservednes...
Launching January 15. Mia Birdsong first heard about the concept of Guaranteed Income in the mid-90s through the 1967 writings of Martin Luther King J...