Part II: Together, We Will Bring Recurring Cash Payments to the People

By Chelsea Wilkinson

Every passing month, the lack of financial relief provided to the people during this pandemic has created an extremely dire and heartbreaking situation to witness in this country. With the end of the year arriving, and as the pandemic rages out of control, the majority of the population has been pushed into a survival mode as they grapple to put food on the table and keep a roof over their heads.

Since March, Income Movement has prioritized the work of our entire organization around pressuring Congress to provide recurring cash payments to people in stimulus and recovery legislation. This work aligns with the core goals of Basic Income: it prioritizes financial security as a means to achieving social and economic justice. …

Income Movement’s grassroots fundraising philosophy.

By Diane Pagen

“Money makes the world go round” wrote Fred Ebb for the famous musical. As activists for a Universal Basic Income, we know money matters very much. That’s why we believe in a basic income, so that people’s focus can be on living, on building community, on healing the planet, on creative solutions to our problems. People are suffering from poverty, homelessness, and malnutrition. There is no doubt that fighting for a consistent basic income is the most important fight of 2021.

For Giving Tuesday, Income Movement is kicking off our week-long Fall Fundraising effort. We are asking for your help to raise the money to do the work that will make Universal Basic Income a reality while advocating in the near-term to have Congress include emergency basic income in the next stimulus package. We want every person to be able to shift their focus from making ends meet to tackling our most critical problems, together. …

Part 1: Looking back with gratitude.

By Chelsea Wilkinson

Income Movement takes a philosophy of abundance to heart with the work we do, and hopes to model this through our actions within the non-profit and activist space. Our women-led team brings to the table a diverse history of experience as volunteers, and we take this experience into intention. We aspire to start conversations, find creative solutions, and bring a positive culture to the basic income movement.

What does an approach of abundance look like?

To overcome our biggest hurdles, we seek out collaboration, planning, and resourcefulness. Competition, possession, and selfishness are antithetical to abundance. We imagine a basic income movement with different organizations and leaders that fight for basic income, coming together to share, collaborate, and seek opportunities to work together and nurture a grassroots community that has unstoppable momentum. …

By Chelsea Wilkinson

The 2020 Election Day is less than a week away and most people in our country are feeling anxiety and dread for both the results and possible reactions to those results. General elections are usually an escalation of energy, an insane media cycle, and a restless impatience to know the results. But this election may be the most important election of our lifetime and will set the path our country will travel down for quite some time.

In “normal times” we would see November 3rd as a finish line where we would find relief from the frenzy, stress and excitement of supporting different political campaigns and voting for local, state and federal leaders and issues. But the truth is, we are not in “normal times” — we are in very unusual and precarious times. In 2020, we have endured significant division, scarcity, destitution, and injustice. These are not going away after Election Day. They may even be exacerbated. …

By Gisele Huff, Founder and President of Fund for Humanity

I despair. Because of the extraordinary, devastating circumstances in which we find ourselves, we have a once in several lifetimes opportunity to remake our world. And most of us are wearing blinders. Much like the Allegory of the Cave in Plato’s Republic, we are chained to its bottom, unable to turn, watching images parading in front of us that are reflections of objects being manipulated behind us by people we cannot see. And we think these images are real, we think they are the lives we live.

This article is a reality check. It’s equivalent to the few who are able to break the chains, walk out of the Cave. At first, they get blinded by the light until their eyes adjust and they understand that this is the real world infinitely more beautiful than the cave. Until all of us can do that, we can try to loosen the chains a bit, wriggle in our discomfort, commiserate with each other about how blurred the images are getting from time to time, start enough of a fuss for the manipulators to make minor adjustments to the objects they are parading. But we’re still in the Cave. …

Starting a conversation about how to navigate a growing UBI candidate landscape

By Stacey Rutland

In the 2020 election cycle we have seen more than 30 candidates run for U.S. Congress on a platform of universal basic income (UBI). We have one candidate in California, David Kim, who has made it through the primary and is now fighting hard in the general election. This is an amazing milestone for Kim, and for the basic income community. If we continue to grow this movement exponentially each year, we may see as many as 100+ candidates run on basic income in 2022. …

by Diane Pagen

Andrew Yang’s campaign for the presidency, built on a platform of Humanity First principles, ignited a political fire in people still burning today. Andrew had the ability to talk about complex ideas and systems in terms that people could understand without feeling like they were being talked down to. People began to think deeply about politics and the economy and to imagine what large-scale, systemic change might look like and what it could do for them. He invited people to envision a world in which our systems finally would put humans at the center instead of markets and corporations. …

In politics, we must always remember that we need to continue to fight the war, even when we lose the battle. And we must recognize that sometimes, a loss can lay the groundwork for future victories. The effects of Bernie Sanders’ campaign losses in both 2016 and 2020 in no way discount the critical path his platform forged: Medicare for All is part of the national dialogue, climate change has been pushed to the forefront, and talks of socioeconomic justice are pivotal to securing Democratic voters’ support.

As proof of Sanders’ long-term political impact, we need to only look as far as the political offspring of his candidacy: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, Ayanna Pressley, and Ilhan Omar represent a new wave of American progressivism that grew from the fertile soil that Bernie’s campaign has unearthed. It could be said that Bernie Sanders’ political loss all but guaranteed their political victories, and the victories of more candidates like them across the country. Despite the fact that AOC, Talib, Pressley, and Omar are regional candidates serving in the House, they have national reach, prominence, and importance. The entire political community — even those who disagree with them — look to these Congresswomen to drive national tone, policy, and progress. …