This book explores the incentives and effects of modern welfare policy, contrasted with outcomes of global basic income pilots in the past seventy years. The author contends that paternalistic and counterproductive eligibility rules in the modern American welfare state violate the human dignity of the poor and make it nearly impossible to escape the "poverty trap." Furthermore, these types of restrictions are absent from expenditures aimed at middle and upper-income households such as mortgage interest deductions and tax-sheltered retirement accounts. Case examples from the author's years as a front-line social worker and interviews with basic income pilot recipients in Ontario, Canada, are woven throughout the book to better illustrate the effects of the current system and the hidden potential of more radical alternatives such as a universal basic income.

Autorentext

Leah Hamilton is Associate Professor of Social Work at Appalachian State University, USA. She is an Executive Committee member for the Basic Income Earth Network and President of the American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina.

Inhalt

1. A Tale of Two Ideas2. From Welfare to Work (In Theory)3. Perverse Incentives4. Assets and Household Stability5. The Lives of Low-Income Women6. A Two-Tiered Welfare State7. The Most Vulnerable8. The Alternative