Imagine that the United States were to scrap all its income transfer programs — including Social Security, Medicare, and all forms of welfare — and give every American age 21 and older $10,000 a year for life. This idea was greeted with skepticism in 2006 when Charles Murray first proposed it in his book “In Our Hands.” Yet, 10 years later, some European countries are doing just that.
INFOGRAPHIC | The Doolittle Effect: Charles Murray’s ‘In Our Hands’
In a revised and updated edition of “In Our Hands: A Plan to Replace the Welfare State” (AEI Press, June 2016), political scientist and bestselling author Charles Murray demonstrates that this is financially feasible and that many goals of the welfare state — elimination of poverty, comfortable retirement for everyone, universal access to health care — would be better served under a UBI than under the current system.
With new material to reflect the policy changes of the past decade, notably the Affordable Care Act, Charles Murray suggests that there is no better moment for citizens to consider an overhaul of the current welfare state. It is time, he proposes, to put the future of all Americans back “in our hands.”
Charles Murray is the W. H. Brady Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.
