The War on Normal People: The Truth about America’s Disappearing Jobs and Why Universal Basic Income Is Our Future

by Andrew Yang

  Membership in organizations… has declined by between 25 to 50 percent since the 1960s: Robert D. Putnam, “The Strange Disappearance of Civic America,” American Prospect, winter 1995.

  … approximately 2,500 leftist bombings in America between 1971 and 1972…: Bryan Burrough, “The Bombings of America That We Forgot,” Time, September 20, 2016.

  … approximately 270 to 310 million firearms in the United States…: “A Minority of Americans Own Guns, but Just How Many Is Unclear,” Pew Research Center, June 4, 2013.

  … Peter Turchin proposes a structural-demographic theory of political instability…: Peter Turchin, Ages of Discord: A Structural-Demographic Analysis of American History (Chaplin, CT: Beresta Books, 2016), pp. 200–202.

  Alec Ross… described the Freddie Gray riots in 2015 as partially a product of economic despair: Alec Ross, The Industries of the Future (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2015), p. 38.

  … about one-third of Californians supported secession in a recent poll…: Sharon Bernstein, “More Californians Dreaming of a Country without Trump: Poll,” Reuters, January 23, 2017.

  CHAPTER 16: THE FREEDOM DIVIDEND

  Peter Frase… points out that work encompasses three things…: Derek Thompson, “A World without Work,” The Atlantic, July–August 2015.

  Thomas Paine, 1796: Simon Birnbaum and Karl Widerquist, “History of Basic Income,” Basic Income Earth Network, 1986.

  Martin Luther King Jr., 1967: Martin Luther King Jr., “Final Words of Advice,” Address made to the Tenth Anniversary Convention of the SCLC, Atlanta, on August 16, 1967.

  Richard Nixon, August 1969: Richard Nixon, “324—Address to the Nation on Domestic Programs,” American President Project, August 8, 1969.

  Milton Friedman, 1980: “Brief History of Basic Income Ideas,” Basic Income Earth Network, 1986.

  Bernie Sanders, May 2014: Scott Santens, “On the Record: Bernie Sanders on Basic Income,” Medium, January 29, 2016.

  Stephen Hawking, July 2015: “Answers to Stephen Hawking’s AMA Are Here,” Wired, July 2015.

  Barack Obama, June 2016: Chris Weller, “President Obama Hints at Supporting Unconditional Free Money Because of a Looming Robot Takeover,” Business Insider, June 24, 2016.

  Barack Obama, October 2016: Scott Dadich, “Barack Obama, Neural Nets, Self-Driving Cars, and the Future of the World,” Wired, November 2016.

  Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, January 2017: Charlie Rose, interview with Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, Columbia University, January 2017.

  Elon Musk, February, 2017: Chris Weller, “Elon Musk Doubles Down on Universal Basic Income: ‘It’s Going to Be Necessary,’” Business Insider, February 13, 2017.

  Mark Zuckerberg, May 2017: Mark Zuckerberg, commencement speech, Harvard University, May 2017.

  … adopting it would permanently grow the economy by 12.56 to 13.10 percent…: Michalis Nikiforos, Marshall Steinbaum, and Gennaro Zezza, “Modeling the Macroeconomic Effects of a Universal Basic Income,” Roosevelt Institute, August 29, 2017.

  … technology companies are excellent at avoiding taxes: “Fortune 500 Companies Hold a Record $2.6 Trillion Offshore,” Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, March 2017.

  “UBI… is not shaming…”: https://www.facebook.com/basicincomequotes/videos/1365257523593155.

  CHAPTER 17: UNIVERSAL BASIC INCOME IN THE REAL WORLD

  In 1969, President Nixon proposed the Family Assistance Plan…: Lila MacLellan, “That Time When Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld Ran a Universal Basic Income Experiment for Nixon,” Quartz, March 13, 2017.

  The New Jersey Graduated Work Incentive Experiment gave cash payments: Mike Albert and Kevin C. Brown, “Guaranteed Income’s Moment in the Sun,” Remapping Debate, April 24, 2013.

  … the most rigorous and generous study in Denver and Seattle…: Gary Christophersen, Final Report of the Seattle-Denver Income Maintenance Experiment (Washington, DC.: U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services, 1983).

  “Politically, there was a concern…”: Rutger Bregman, Utopia for Realists: The Case for a Universal Basic Income, Open Borders, and a 15-hour Workweek (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 2016), p. 37.

  Each Alaskan now receives a petroleum dividend…: Brian Merchant, “The Only State Where Everyone Gets Free Money,” Motherboard Vice, September 4, 2015.

  … the dividend has increased average infant birthweight…: Wankyo Chung, Hyungserk Ha, and Beomsoo Kim, “Money Transfer and Birth Weight: Evidence from the Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend,” Economic Inquiry 54 (2013).

  … helped keep rural Alaskans solvent: Scott Goldsmith, “The Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend: A Case Study in the Direct Distribution of Resource Rent,” Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend Program, January 2011.

  … one reason that Alaska has the second-lowest income inequality in the country: Rachel Waldholz, “Alaska’s Annual Dividend Adds Up for Residents,” Marketplace, March 16, 2016.

  In 1995, a group of researchers began tracking the personalities of 1,420 low-income children…: Roberto A. Ferdman, “The Remarkable Thing That Happens to Poor Kids When You Give Their Parents a Little Money,” Washington Post, October 8, 2015.

  … GiveDirectly has raised more than $120 million…: Annie Lowrey, “The Future of Not Working,” New York Times, February 26, 2017.

  “GiveDirectly… has sent shockwaves through the charity sector…”: Claire Provost, “Charity Begins on Your Phone: East Africans Buoyed by Novel Way of Giving,” The Guardian, December 31, 2013.

  Canada is giving 4,000 participants in Ontario grants of up to $12,570…: Ashifa Kassam, “Ontario Plans to Launch Universal Basic Income Trial Run This Summer,” The Guardian, April 24, 2017.

  Iran implemented a full-blown equivalent of UBI in 2011…: Jeff Ihaza, “Here’s What Happened When Iran Introduced a Basic Income,” Outline, May 31, 2017.

  CHAPTER 18: TIME AS THE NEW MONEY

  “A man… with no means of filling up time, is as miserable out of work as a dog on the chain”: George Orwell, Down and Out in Paris and London (New York: Mariner Books, 1972), p. 129.

  Teach for America spends approximately $51,000 per corps member…: Rachel M. Cohen, “The True Cost of Teach for America’s Impact on Urban Schools,” American Prospect, January 5, 2015.

  The U.S. Military spends approximately $170,000 per soldier per year…: “Growth in DoD’s Budget from 2000 to 2014,” Congressional Budget Office, November 2014.

  The Peace Corps has over 1,000 full-time employees supporting 7,200 volunteers…: “Performance and Accountability Report,” Peace Corps, November 15, 2015.

  During the Great Depression in the 1930s, the U.S. government hired 40,000 recreation officers and artists…: Susan Currell, The March of Spare Time: The Problem and Promise of Leisure in the Great Depression (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005), pp. 51–53.

  … 315 members of the local time bank members have exchanged 64,000 hours of mutual work…: Time Banks Brattleboro Time Trade, Time Banks, accessed on September 8, 2017.

  Amanda Witman, a 40-year-old single mother, wrote about her experience…: “Real Women’s Stories: ‘We Make Ends Meet without Money,’” AllYou.com.

  Americans face at least three interlocking sets of problems…: Edgar Cahn and Jonathan Rowe, Time Dollars: The New Currency That Enables Americans to Turn Their Hidden Resource—Time—into Personal Security and Community Renewal (Emmaus, PA: Rodale Press, 1992).

  CHAPTER 19: HUMAN CAPITALISM

  The concept of GDP and economic progress didn’t even exist until the Great Depression: The Federal Reserve of St. Louis, Discover Economic History, National Income, 1929–32. Letter from the Acting Secretary of Commerce Transmitting in Response to Senate Resolution No. 220 (72D CONG.) A Report on National Income, 1929–32 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1934).

  Steve Ballmer set up a series of measurements and facts at www.USAFacts.org that is a treasure trove of social metrics and pulls from many public and private
sources.

  CHAPTER 20: THE STRONG STATE AND THE NEW CITIZENSHIP

  When Harry Truman left the office of the presidency in 1953…: Jeff Jacoby, “Harry Truman’s Obsolete Integrity,” New York Times, March 2, 2007.

  This practice started changing with Gerald Ford joining the boards…: Scott Wilson, “In Demand: Washington’s Highest (and Lowest) Speaking Fees,” ABC News, July 14, 2014.

  Sheila Bair…, the former head of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, lived through this conflict herself…: Ben Protess, “Slowing the Revolving Door between Public and Private Jobs,” New York Times, November 11, 2013.

  The family that owns Purdue Pharma… is now the 16th richest family in the country…: Alex Morrell, “The OxyContin Clan: The $14 Billion Newcomer to Forbes 2015 List of Richest U.S. Families,” Forbes, July 1, 2015.

  The big banks eventually settled with the Department of Justice for billions of dollars…: Kate Cox, “How Corporations Got the Same Rights as People (but Don’t Ever Go to Jail),” Consumerist.com, September 12, 2014.

  Elon Musk in 2017 called for proactive regulation of AI…: Samuel Gibbs, “Elon Musk: Regulate AI to Combat ‘Existential Threat’ before It’s Too Late,” The Guardian, July 17, 2017.

  Tristan Harris… has written compellingly about how apps are designed to function like slot machines…: Tristan Harris, “How Technology Is Hijacking Your Mind—from a Magician and Google Design Ethicist,” Thrive Global, May 18, 2016.

  …“the best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads”: Drake Baer, “Why Data God Jeffrey Hammerbacher Left Facebook to Found Cloudera,” Fast Company, April 18, 2013.

  CHAPTER 21: HEALTH CARE IN A WORLD WITHOUT JOBS

  Health care bills were the number one cause of personal bankruptcy in 2013…: Dan Mangan, “Medical Bills Are the Biggest Cause of US Bankruptcies: Study,” CNBC.com, June 24, 2013.

  … we are last among major industrialized nations in efficiency, equity, and health outcomes attributable to medical care…: Courtney Baird, “Top Healthcare Stories for 2016: Pay-for-Performance,” Committee for Economic Development, March 8, 2016.

  “Unless you are protected by Medicare, the health care market is not a market at all”: Steven Brill, “Bitter Pill: Why Medical Bills Are Killing Us: How Outrageous Pricing and Egregious Profits Are Destroying Our Health Care,” Time, March 4, 2013.

  “We do waste money on insurance, but we also pay basically twice as much for everything”: Joshua Holland, “Medicare-for-All Isn’t the Solution for Universal Health Care,” The Nation, August 2, 2017.

  … doctors today see themselves not as “pillars of any community” but as “technicians on an assembly line”…: Meghan O’Rourke, “Doctors Tell All—and It’s Bad,” The Atlantic, November 2014.

  A 2016 survey of American doctors by the Physicians Foundation…: “Survey: Many Doctors Looking to Leave Profession amid Burnout, Low Morale,” Advisory Board, September 26, 2016.

  The average educational debt load for a medical school graduate is $180,000…: Aaron E. Carroll, “A Doctor Shortage? Let’s Take a Closer Look,” New York Times, November 7, 2016.

  About 65 million Americans live in what one expert called basically “a primary care desert”: Emma Court, “America’s Facing a Shortage of Primary-Care Doctors,” MarketWatch, April 4, 2016.

  The Association of American Medical Colleges estimated that the number of additional doctors necessary…: “The Complexities of Physician Supply and Demand: Projections from 2014 to 2025,” Association of American Medical Colleges, April 5, 2016.

  In one study, IBM’s Watson made the same recommendation as human doctors did in 99 percent of 1,000 medical cases…: Dom Galeon, “IBM’s Watson AI Recommends Same Treatment as Doctors in 99 percent of Cancer Cases,” Futurism.com, October 28, 2016.

  The best approach is what they do at the Cleveland Clinic…: Megan McArdle, “Can the Cleveland Clinic Save American Health Care?” Daily Beast, February 26, 2013.

  The Southcentral Foundation… treats health problems and behavioral problems as tied together…: Joanne Silberner, “The Doctor Will Analyze You Now,” Politico, August 9, 2017.

  CHAPTER 22: BUILDING PEOPLE

  “Character is the main object of education”: David Brooks, “Becoming a Real Person,” New York Times, September 8, 2014.

  … William James wrote around the same time that character and moral significance are built…: David Brooks, “Becoming a Real Person,” New York Times, September 8, 2014.

  SAT scores have declined significantly in the last 10 years: Nick Anderson, “SAT Scores at Lowest Level in 10 Years, Fueling Worries about High Schools,” Washington Post, September 3, 2015.

  … smartphone use has caused a spike in depression and anxiety…: Jean M. Twenge, iGen: Why Today’s Super-Connected Kids Are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy—and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood—and What That Means for the Rest of Us (New York: Atria Books, 2017).

  …“the worst use of software in [education] is in replacement of humans…”: John Battelle, “Max Ventilla of AltSchool: The Full Shift Dialogs Transcript,” NewCo Shift, July 13, 2016.

  The United States is one of only four out of 196 countries in the world… that does not have federally mandated time off from work for new mothers: Matt Phillips, “Countries without Paid Maternity Leave: Swaziland, Lesotho, Papua New Guinea, and the United States of America,” Quartz, January 15, 2014.

  … Denmark gives parents 52 weeks of paid leave they can split between them…: Chris Weller, “These 10 Countries Have the Best Parental Leave Policies in the World,” Business Insider, August 22, 2016.

  Studies have shown that robust family leave policies improve children’s health and heighten women’s employment rates…: Barbara Gault et al., “Paid Parental Leave in the United States: What the Data Tell Us about Access, Usage, and Economic and Health Benefits,” U.S. Department of Labor Women’s Bureau, Institute for Women’s Policy Research, January 23, 2014.

  … 11.4 million single mothers raising 17.2 million children in the United States…: “Table C2, Household Relationship and Living Arrangements of Children Under 18 Years, by Age and Sex: 2016,” U.S. Census Bureau, 2017.

  Communal living arrangements have been shown to increase social cohesion…: Saskia De Melker, “Cohousing Communities Help Prevent Social Isolation,” PBS News Hour, February 12, 2017.

  Only 6 percent of American high school students were enrolled in a vocational course of study in 2013…: Dana Goldstein, “Seeing Hope for Flagging Economy, West Virginia Revamps Vocational Track,” New York Times, August 10, 2017.

  A Georgetown center estimated that there are 30 million good-paying jobs that don’t require a college degree…: Anthony P. Carnevale et al., “Good Jobs That Pay without a BA,” Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce, 2017.

  The most recent graduation rate for first-time, full-time undergraduate students…: “Undergraduate Retention and Graduation Rates,” Condition of Education 2017. National Center for Education Statistics, April 2017.

  The main reasons cited for dropping out are being unprepared for the rigors of academic work…: Lou Carlozo, “Why College Students Stop Short of a Degree,” Reuters, March 27, 2012.

  We are up to a record $1.4 trillion in educational debt that serves as an anchor…: Kerry Rivera, “The State of Student Loan Debt in 2017,” Experian.com, August 23, 2017.

  … college tuition has risen at several times the rate of inflation the past 20 years…: Steve Odland, “College Costs out of Control,” Forbes, March 24, 2012.

  Average college tuition has risen as much as 440 percent in the last 25 years: Lynn O’Shaughnessy, “Higher Education Bubble Will Burst,” U.S. News and World Report, May 3, 2011.

  … administrative positions at colleges and universities grew by 60 percent between 1993 and 2009…: John Hechinger, “The Troubling Dean-to-Professor Ratio,” Bloomberg Businessweek, November 21
, 2012.

  … Yale spent more the previous year on private equity managers managing its endowment…: Victor Fleischer, “Stop Universities from Hoarding Money,” New York Times, August 19, 2015.

  … cost of taxpayer subsidies for a community college student as between $2,000 and $4,000 per student per year…: Jorge Klor de Alva and Mark Schneider, Rich Schools, Poor Students: Tapping Large University Endowments to Improve Student Outcomes, Nexus Research, April 2015.

  In 1975, colleges employed one professional staffer… for every 50 students: Benjamin Ginsberg, “Administrators Ate My Tuition,” Washington Monthly, September–October 2011.

  The 90 coding boot camps across the country produced about 23,000 graduates in total…: Steve Lohr, “As Coding Boot Camps Close, the Field Faces a Reality Check,” New York Times, August 24, 2017.

  At Minerva, students take classes online, but they do so while living together in dorm-style housing: Claire Cain Miller, “Extreme Study Abroad: The World Is Their Campus,” New York Times, October 30, 2015.

  Teacher quality dramatically impacts student learning. One school in Manhattan, the Equity Project, pays teachers $125,000 a year on the same budget as a normal school by having fewer administrators and having teachers take on more responsibility instead. This approach is showing remarkable results: Frederick M. Hess, “Teacher Quality, Not Quantity,” National Review, October 28, 2014.

  Recent research from Stanford University found that one-on-one tutoring does not only better prepare children, but it also calms the fear circuitry in the brain: Patti Neighmond, “1 Tutor + 1 Student = Better Math Scores, Less Fear,” National Public Radio, September 8, 2015.

  Blue Engine recruits and places college graduates as full-time teaching assistants in high schools, leading to a student to teacher ratio of approximately 6 to 1 instead of the usual 26 to 1. Students receive rapid-fire feedback and weekly ‘social cognition’ coaching sessions: David Bornstein, “A Team Approach to Get Students College Ready,” New York Times, May 13, 2017.