Universal Basic Income and Work in Catholic Social Thought

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/ajes.12353
• Date: 01 September 2020
• Author: Kate Ward
• Published date: 01 September 2020

Universal Basic Income and Work in

Catholic Social Thought

By Kate Ward*

abstract. Catholic social thought (CST) has obvious resonance with

universal basic income proposals, due to the tradition’s insistence on

basic needs as human rights, comfort with government redistribution,

and preference for programs that promote the agency of individuals

and local communities, among other similarities. However, some

CST scholars believe basic income challenges dearly held values of

the tradition. This essay examines both views, concluding that basic

income can comport with CST’s view of work, correctly understood.

Introduction

Proposals for universal basic income (UBI), which would give each

adult member of society a subsistence grant in cash without means

testing, has been around for centuries, but this idea leapt into com-

mon awareness with Andrew Yang’s presidential campaign and the

economic devastation of the COVID-19 pandemic. Catholic social

thought (CST), a body of formal teaching on economy and society

from the leaders of the Roman Catholic Church, holds that the econ-

omy exists to serve human needs, and it supports government redis-

tribution as a means to address poverty and help all people reach

their full potential. On its face, CST would appear to support UBI, but

commentators take radically different perspectives on whether UBI

is permissible from a CST perspective. This essay will explain why

CST can and should support UBI proposals and why objections to

UBI’s potential may be rooted in a failure to adequately engage CST’s

understanding of work.1

American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Vol. 79, No. 4 (September, 2020).

DOI: 10.1111/ajes.12353

© 2020 American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Inc.

*Assistant professor of theology at Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI, USA.

Corresponding address: Katharine.ward@marquette.edu

1272 The American Journal of Economics and Sociology

What Is Basic Income?

At its simplest, universal basic income (UBI) or guaranteed minimum

income proposes that governments provide a subsistence cash sti-

pend to every adult (and, in some proposals, to every child) regard-

less of income and without means testing (Parijs 1992, 2000, 2013).

Basic income is basic: enough to maintain a floor of subsistence. It

is universal: giving it to everyone reduces stigma and eliminates the

need for means testing. It is also unconditional. Unlike many govern-

ment assistance programs in the United States today, UBI places no

restrictions on other earnings: whatever workers earn on top of basic

income is theirs to keep. Basic income is supported by a stunning

range of public thinkers past and present: Richard Nixon and Martin

Luther King, Jr.; Nobel-Prize-winning free-market economist Milton

Friedman; progressives, moderates, and conservatives, academic phi-

losophers, political candidates, Silicon Valley billionaires, and those

on the Ted Talk circuit (Bregman 2017; Gordon 2014; van Parijs and

Vanderborght 2017: 4).

What would basic income look like? Some advocates, including

Andrew Yang, a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomina-

tion in 2020, propose $1,000 a month in the United States (Santens

2015). Libertarian political scientist Charles Murray (2006) proposed

the same, with the requirement that $3,000 be used to purchase health

insurance.2 Along similar veins, economist Charles Clark created a

basic income proposal for Ireland in 2002 at the request of a Christian

organization there. Clark’s (2002: 74) proposal would have provided

43 euros a week (about $48 USD) to children 0–17, 110 euros a week

($123) to adults 18–64, and slightly more per week to older adults.3

Some, like Murray, envision UBI as replacing all means-tested ben-

efits, while others, such as U.K. theologian and economist Malcolm

Torry, argue some should remain in place (Torry 2016: 1263). For

Murray, U.S. recipients should use their UBI to purchase health in-

surance on the open market, while Torry treats UBI separately from

the universal care provided by the U.K.’s National Health Service.

Similarly, Clark’s (2002) proposal retained Ireland’s public health care,

while replacing some other social safety net programs, including job

retraining and agricultural supports.

1273Universal Basic Income and Work in Catholic Social Thought

While no countries currently guarantee their citizens UBI, the pro-

posal is backed by a wealth of real-world experiments. UBI was pilot

tested in states across the United States, which came close to adopting

it in the early 1970s. The pilot tests found that UBI successfully re-

duced poverty with minimal reduction in paid working hours, which

were generally replaced with other useful activity such as improving

homes or education (Bregman 2017: 38–39). More recently, from 1994

to 1998, the state of Minnesota pilot tested a version of basic income

by combining several poverty aid programs, including food stamps,

into one flexible cash benefit, and trying to lessen the “poverty trap”

effect of having benefits decrease as the recipient earned more from

work (Knox, Miller, and Gennetian 2000: 6). The families enrolled

in the pilot program experienced many positive outcomes, including

higher rates of employment and incomes, increased marriage rates,

decreased rates of abuse, and better behavioral and educational out-

comes for school-aged children (Knox et al. 2000: 10–15).

Native American tribes who distribute casino income among mem-

bers demonstrate similarly impressive results. For example, before

opening a casino and sharing its profits with tribal members, the

Eastern Band of Cherokee had high rates of poverty and the many

health problems that tend to accompany it. Their unconditional cash

payments, now around $12,000 per adult per year, reduced behav-

ioral and emotional problems and addiction among children, with-

out reducing participation in the labor force (Lapowsky 2017). The

nonprofit GiveDirectly is currently conducting a long-range study of

basic income across hundreds of villages in Kenya. Finally, basic in-

come has been tested in cases where it is not universal, and universal

grants have been tested that fall short of providing a basic income, in

communities as small as 15 families and as large as the entire United

States.4

UBI’s basis in real-world practicality should endear it to Catholic

social thought, which proceeds by reading “the signs of the times” and

placing the faith tradition in dialogue with other sources of knowl-

edge, including the social sciences. Still, Catholic social thought does

not approve of measures simply because they may appear popular or

doable. The tradition offers a number of norms that exist in healthy