Hawaii considers guaranteed income

Mother Jones - Hawaii has become the first state in the country to officially start exploring a means to provide its residents with a guaranteed basic income. The bill, passed recently by both houses of the state legislature in a unanimous vote, declares that all Hawaiians “deserve basic financial security” and directs state agencies to analyze “universal basic income” and similar policy options. 

“As innovation and automation and inequality disrupt our economy, we want to make sure that everybody benefits and nobody is left behind,” the author of the bill, state Rep. Chris Lee of Kaliua, told Mother Jones. “It’s past time that we had a serious talk about not just tweaking our economic policies but having a new discussion from the ground up about what our values and priorities are.”