Executive Summary

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America’s social safety net doesn’t work very well.

If it worked well, there wouldn’t be so many Americans who were homeless or whose housing costs placed them in financial jeopardy. There wouldn’t be such long lines at food banks. There wouldn’t be so many of us who couldn’t afford the health care they need. And there wouldn’t be so many of us who had to focus on scraping by today at the expense of planning for a brighter tomorrow.

America’s social safety net is lacking in efficiency, lacking in fairness, and lacking in ambition. And it’s not even a system. It’s a hodge-podge of programs, each in its own silo with its own eligibility rules and bureaucracy. And it’s not getting the job done.

A Basic Deal (ABD) offers a different approach, offering all Americans a decent shot at a good life, now and in the future.

This is a proposal to ensure people are able to meet their basic needs, shape their own futures, and manage life’s downturns with some degree of resilience. It is an ambitious plan, but also supportive of such traditional values as personal responsibility and deferred gratification.

Specifically, it calls for overhauling America’s fragmented social safety net and replacing it with one that is integrated, coherent, and universal.

ABD is guided by a set of underlying principles ensuring people have a fair opportunity to meet their basic needs. It has been crafted to conform to these principles in a nuanced, evenhanded, and efficient way. And it would replace a myriad of existing programs in the process.

Specifically, A Basic Deal rests on a basic income component, providing monthly allocations to all adults and children via three Basic Need Accounts. These accounts would help people meet their short-term needs, long-term personal development needs, and health care needs. They would be complemented by a Public Jobs Program; an alternative form of subsidized housing called Community Housing; and universal basic health insurance guided by philosophically compatible standards.

Critically, these components would be linked to a household budget, so the basic needs of individuals and families could be met even under the most challenging circumstances. And as a by-product, ABD would eliminate the need for, and perpetual debate about, a legislated minimum wage.

While for some households A Basic Deal would alleviate poverty, its reach is broader. It is designed to help everyone move forward, wherever their starting point may be.

As a caveat, ABD principally addresses the demand side of the equation. Its ability to fully meet its objectives is constrained by supply shortfalls in everything from housing to health care to child care.