I agree that we are in need of a paradigm shift. I have nothing against a UBI or Medicare for All or a tax on wealth.

Actually, using average income instead of median income overstates the material well-being of the middle class. The average is the total personal income — including the incomes of people like Bill Gates and Warren Buffet — divided by the number of people.

The median income says that there are as many people with an income less than that as there are people with an income that is more than that. The median income for an individual in this country is currently about $28,000/yr. So as many people have less than that to live on as have more than that.

Even so, while that is not living large, it is not poverty. The real problem is people trying to live on less — some way less — than that amount. People working full time, 52 weeks a year, for the Federal minimum wage make only $15,080 for the year — before taxes. In urban areas the sales tax typically takes around 10% of that.

I have an idea that I do think is better than a UBI. A UBI does not eliminate unemployment. Realistic estimates of a UBI — a few hundred a month — would not even end poverty. A DDI (“democratically distributed income”) would absolutely, positively eliminate unemployment and poverty.

The DDI would not be paid to everyone, but it would be available for an unlimited number of people (citizens — it is the economic equivalent of the right to vote, so it would also be limited to citizens). It would be as easy as not to pay the DDI to one parent (or legal guardian) in a household with at least one dependent child — the same amount, regardless of the number of children — to work in the home.

The DDI would become the guaranteed minimum income (while actually saving employers money). Based on the median income, I would set it at $15/hr.; $600/wk., but it might be set at more than that.

The money for the DDI would be created as needed, so it would not cost anyone anything. The total of the DDI would be the supply of money (as currency) for the economy.

The same process could be used to fund government — at all levels. Government would be funded forever at the current per capita level of total government spending. That would eliminate the need for taxes/public debt. $30,000 with no taxes of any kind would be like at least $40,00 at present.

To prevent inflation money would have to be returned to its point of origin (which could be the existing central bank or a newly created Monetary Agency), but people and businesses could retain plenty of money (proportional to income) and no money would be collected from any person or business before it could be used for purchases or investment. So basically no person — to include the richest among us — would have any money collected. (Businesses could also make purchases to avoid the collection of money, but the only place that money could go would be into the account of some other business — and again, businesses would retain money, too.)

A brief (“5 min read”) summary of the nuts and bolts of this monetary paradigm is here in Medium. (There I refer to it, more neutrally, as the “allotted income.”)