With a second rate cut in nearly as many weeks, the Federal Reserve has depleted its traditional monetary tools to grant the public fiscal stimulus during the coronavirus crisis.
And despite the Fed and Congress’s best efforts, markets simply haven’t responded. Within seconds of opening today, the Dow plunged 10% and the S&P fell 8%. Such a crash would be expected during any new pandemic of coronavirus’s magnitude, but even more so when the solutions fail to solve the underlying problems. A fatal and infectious pandemic with no vaccine creates both a supply and a demand shock, but the immediate issue at hand is simple: the majority of workers who cannot do their jobs from home.
The only solution to the supply shock of this factor is a vaccine. But both the demand shock and immediate crisis of bills to pay would be far better served by a direct universal basic income — a need-blind cash payment directly to workers, rather than a targeted fiscal stimulus, tax relief that only benefits some workers, or rate cuts made in the blind hope that it trickles down.
For higher-income families, a UBI would justify increased spending, even while we quarantine ourselves temporarily. A family that would otherwise think twice about ordering delivery or paying extra membership fees would have the financial security to spend more, keeping restaurants from going too deep into the red and laying off workers. For lower-income workers, who are disproportionately in industries that do not allow remote work, a UBI would serve as an immediate lifeline for rent and other unrelenting bills.
Not only does a UBI most directly ameliorate coronavirus pressures, but it also would do so efficiently. Without means-testing, the overhead costs of distributing a UBI would be minimal. Unlike unemployment insurance, a UBI offers no perverse incentives to remain outside the workplace.
A UBI might be difficult to pass in practice, but Andrew Yang has done the nation a favor by bringing the idea into the public consciousness. Unlike other Democratic spending plans, a UBI offers a cash infusion to workers without the stench of socialism or redistribution.
Yang sold his UBI as a solution to automation. But the coronavirus may have just created a concrete reason to turn the idea into public policy.
