Source: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images
When Chris Hughes helped Mark Zuckerberg launch Facebook back when he was in Harvard, he never imagined how successful there project would be or just how much money it would make him. Since amassing his fortune, however, Hughes has become much more attuned to a problem that is growing across America, massive inequality.
“… (there) are tens of millions of American workers who are temps, part-time contractors, people who don’t have the kind of financial stability we used to think of as a job,”
According to Hughes, up to 90 million Americans are living precariously, due to an unstable income and a Universal Basic Income could help them live more securely. He claims the scheme could be paid for by only taxing people earning over $250,000 a year and with minor adjustments to the tax code. A Universal Basic Income would then be paid to everybody, rich and poor, meaning there could be no claims that it is unfairly benefitting the poorest people in society.
Hughes even cites the state of Alaska, where since 1976 residents have been receiving annual endowments, paid for by oil revenues. Last year nearly 740,000 people received $1,100 each.
