Raising the Floor: How a Universal Basic Income Can Renew Our Economy and Rebuild the American Dream

Description

Advances in technology are creating the next economy and enabling us to make things o things/connect with others in smarter, cheaper, faster, more effective ways. But the price of this progress has been a decoupling of the engine of prosperity from jobs that have been the means by which people have ascended to (and stayed in) the middle class.Andy Stern, the former president of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) spent four years traveling the country and asking economists, futurists, labour leaders, CEOs, investment bankers, entrepreneurs, and political leaders to help picture the U.S. economy 25 to 30 years from now. He vividly reports on people who are analyzing and creating this new economy,such as investment banker Steve Berkenfeld David Cote, the CEO of Honeywell International Andy Grove of Intel Carl Camden, the CEO of Kelly Services and Geoffrey Canada of the Harlem Children's Zone. Through these stories, we come to a stark and deeper understanding of the toll technological progress will continue to take on jobs and income and its inevitable effect on tens of millions of people.But there is hope for our economy and future. The foundation of economic prosperity for all Americans, Stern believes, is a universal basic income. The idea of a universal basic income for all Americans is controversial but American attitudes are shifting. Stern has been a game changer throughout his career, and his next goal is to create a movement that will force the political establishment to take action against something that many on both the right and the left believe is inevitable. Stern's plan is bold, idealistic, and challenging,and its time has come.

Andy Stern is a senior fellow at Columbia University's Richard Paul Richman Center for Business, Law, and Public Policy. He was formerly president of the 2.2 million-member Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the union of hospital, health-care, nursing-home, food-service, home-care, janitorial, and public employees. SEIU played a major role in getting Barack Obama elected president of the United States in 2008, and it also is credited with being the driving force behind securing passage of the 2010 Affordable Care Act. Stern was one of five presidential appointees to the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform (Simpson-Bowles), where he authored a minority report on deficit reduction and promoting economic growth. He has served on numerous boards, including those of the Aspen Institute, Broad Foundation, Council on Competitiveness, Economic Policy Institute, Council on Foreign Relations Trade Task Force, Kaiser Coalition, Open Society Foundations, and Leadership Conference on Civil Rights. Lee Kravitz is the author of the widely acclaimed memoirs Pilgrim: Risking the Life I Have to Find the Faith I Seek and Unfinished Business: One Man's Extraordinary Year of Trying to Do the Right Things and the former editor in chief of Parade magazine. Previously, he was the founding editor of React magazine and an editorial director of Scholastic Inc. He is a graduate of Yale University and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

[Stern] does a solid job of making his case without waxing too wild-eyed. . . . This is a book eminently worth talking about. * Kirkus Reviews * America has no choice. Eventually we're going to have to raise the floor and provide a universal basic income. Technology will replace so many good jobs that Americans won't have enough purchasing power to keep the economy going without an economic floor to stand on. I urge you to read Andy Stern's provocative and compelling book. * Robert B. Reich, Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy, University of California at Berkeley, former US secretary of labor, and author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few * Andy Stern has spent his entire life fighting for changes that economically help all Americans, and particularly those often left behind. His latest book offers insight into the emerging challenges of new technology and the urgent need to have a real debate and consider hard choices if we are going to provide economic security for all of our families in the future. * Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood of America *