During last week’s Vice Presidential debate, one key topic – Senator Kamala Harris’s May 2020 pandemic universal basic income (UBI) proposal – went curiously unmentioned. That’s surprising since her legislation could be the most expensive bill ever introduced in Congress, offering ample fodder for Republicans looking to define Senator Harris’s liberal record.
Harris’s bill (S. 3784, the “Monthly Economic Crisis Support Act”) proposes monthly payments of $2,000 for most Americans through the pandemic and beyond. UBI plans typically call for government payments to everyone (the “universal” part), sufficient to cover basic needs (the “basic income” part). To be fair, Harris’s legislation falls short of universal, since payments would phase out for some higher income households. Nonetheless, the vast majority of Americans would qualify for monthly checks, and for them Harris’s bill amounts to the most generous UBI proposal ever introduced in Congress.
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