A few weeks ago, I helped Chicago business owner and philanthropist Willie Wilson organize a mass gas giveaway, his latest effort to help people in need across Chicagoland. Shortly after Wilson’s event, Mayor Lori Lightfoot announced plans for a $12.5 million, taxpayer-funded transportation giveaway of her own.
The mayor’s plan still has a few hurdles to clear in the City Council. But gas inflation is a symptom of a larger problem – one that neither good-hearted generosity nor short-term government responses can fully address. Our economy is globalized, technologically advanced and corporatized. The one thing it is not is humane. To revitalize our families and community, we have to rehumanize our economy.
Families are struggling. Many households can’t buy gas, afford groceries or pay their rent. A 2019 survey by Bankrate showed that 43% of full-time workers have a “side hustle.” If almost half of working Americans resort to second jobs, imagine the stress that the underemployed and unemployed are going through to make ends meet.
Things only get more complicated as household size grows, and families have to factor in the cost of child care, quality health care and living standards for elderly family members and increased housing demands. These struggles are why I support a basic income guarantee.
The idea of universal basic income gained popularity during Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang’s 2020 campaign, in which he promised that Americans age 18 and older would receive a $1,000 “freedom dividend” every month.