Name: Milton Friedman on Guaranteed Income / Negative Income Tax / Basic Income
Uploaded: 2019-04-04T17:33:38.000Z
Duration: 6 min 34 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

The Nobel Prize winning libertarian economist...

Adverbs of manner

It's becoming our master instead of our servant.

We've got to redact against it and cut it down to size.

...to guarantee everyone a minimum income.

I propose something called a negative income tax...

How could a free market capitalist like Milton Friedman...

"A guaranteed minimum income for all people..."

"...and for all families of our country."

...and they would get it in weekly or monthly payments.

I agree that as a moral principle those of
us who are paying taxes to provide subsidies

for others have every moral right to say what
it shall be used for.

If we want to say we'll give you money only if you use it to buy toothpaste and not for anything else.

But I think we are very unwise to exercise it.

...and do both them and ourselves more good...

...to tell them to use it to buy what
they will.

...and whims of their welfare supervisor...

...who tell them whether they can live here or there...

...by requiring them to come before e government official...

and be told that you may spend X dollars on rent...

They would be far better off if we just gave them the money and let them spend it.

...we not only give them more help immediately...

...we will strengthen their responsibility.

Milton Friedman understand individuals
know best how to spend money...

The fundamental idea is that people should be free to choose.

We have too many separate individual programs.

...of 126 separate anti-poverty programs.

The result: monumental government spending.

Now what it seems to me you aught to do...

...instead of a whole lot of separate little baffles...

...and get rid of the bureaucracy that is involved in all these programs.

You could have a program that would be far
superior to the present structure in that

it would help people who are poor because they are poor.

It would help them in a way which would retain an incentive for them to work.

Many of the current welfare programs punish people for working.

If you take a job and increase your income...

Maybe a job comes up that looks better than welfare.

Because if they lose it after a few months...

...it may be six month or nine months before they can get back onto welfare.

A guaranteed income removes that disincentive to work...

...and allows everyone to earn more without being penalized.

They can earn an extra $100 or $200 and be better off.

With a guaranteed income it always pays to work.

It would mean we could each of us take advantage

of opportunities that opened up without fearing
that by some chance if we lost our jobs...

...it would be a long time before we could get back on assistance.

...and there's none of this unfortunate discrimination among people.

In other words, a program
that is guaranteed to all citizens, is preferable

to the current programs that divide us up
into subcategories.

It's a system which would have the effect
of eliminating the separation of a society

into those who receive and those who pay.

A separation that tends to destroy the whole social fabric.

There was no freedom to work and spend as
you choose in the Soviet Union.

With a guaranteed income the profit motive remains intact and everyone is still free

to earn as much more as they're willing to
work for.

So what do you think of a guaranteed income?

If it's had so much support all through American history...

Subtitles ListPlay Video

Milton Friedman on Guaranteed Income / Negative Income Tax / Basic Income

essentially

individual

eliminate

guarantee