Former labor union leader says every American aged 18 to 64 should get $1,000 a month from the government

• e-mail

A former leader for one of the most influential labor unions in the country is speaking out to drum up support for a controversial idea that is beginning to gain ground once again - universal basic income (UBI).

Andy Stern, the former head of the Service Employees International Union and author of 'Lifting the Floor,' gave a speech on Thursday in Denver in which he advocated giving every American citizen ages 18-64 a $1,000 a month supplemental income.

He argues this would be cheaper for the government overall and would give people more discretion with how they spend their money while simultaneously lifting them above the poverty line.

Universal basic income proponent Andy Stern (above) advocates giving every citizen 18-64 a supplemental income of $1,000

Stern says the plan, a version of which was originally touted by Republican president Richard Nixon in 1969, is in dire need, as over the next two decades nearly half of U.S. jobs are at risk of being automated, reported The Denver Post.

Stern says jobs that have typically been immune to disruptions - everything from truck drivers to surgeons - will soon be taken over by technical innovations, which will leave a catastrophically high amount of people without jobs.

One Oxford study puts the amount of jobs that will be phased out at 10 to 40 per cent of occupations, according to the outlet. 

A supplemental income would pull everyone out of the poverty line while simultaneously costing less than the trillion spent in government programs every year, argue UBI advocates such as Andy Stern (above) and Richard Murray

'It would be a supplement, but not a substitute for work,' said Stern of the extra income - basically, just enough to keep people from becoming homeless.

Nixon came up with a similar idea with his Family Assistance Plan. The plan was implemented with 4,800 families in Denver and Seattle from 1971 to 1982.

Of those in the early programs, 17 per cent of women ended up leaving the workforce, and seven per cent of men, though one review concluded the numbers were too high.

People in Silicon Valley are being pushed out with rising housing costs due to tech companies (above, protest) and Stern and UBI advocates hope that supplemental income will help

Families were more mobile, the supplemental income allowing them to leave areas for better opportunities elsewhere.

The UBI households also were more likely to pay for childcare than have family members in that role and were more likely to buy homes.

One unexpected repercussion was that UBI families had a large jump in the divorce rate. 

This caused concern among backers of the plan, though it seemed some of that could be attributed to women in abusive relationships then having the cash to leave them.

Another advocate of a similar program, Richard Murray, a scholar at the CATO Institute, a Libertarian think tank, backs a version of the program that would give each citizen $10,000 annually to people from age 21 until their death, but it would phase out when a person’s income rose above $30,000 a year.

Silicon Valley, the land of the entrepreneur, is a big backer of UBI programs as it believes it will give people enough money to stop worrying about basics and to concentrate on innovation and entrepreneurship

This, he says, would be less than the $1 trillion the government spends in welfare programs.

UBI programs are currently underway in Finland, Canada, the Netherlands and even in Silicon Valley.

A program named Y Combinator announced in May that it plans to give 100 families in Oakland, California between $1,000 and $2,000 a month for six months to a year, according to The Guardian. 

The money is sort of a consolation prize for those who now make subpar wages in the 'share economy' working for places like Uber and  TaskRabbit, and whose housing and expenses have skyrocketed thanks to the very tech companies that have pushed wages down.

Silicon Valley wants to study the recipients in the belief that supplemental income will spark entrepreneurship.