Morse Reviews Fleischer & Hemel's The Architecture Of A Basic Income

Susan Morse (Texas), The Policy Maker’s Guide to a Universal Basic Income (JOTWELL) (reviewing Miranda Perry Fleischer (San Diego) & Daniel J. Hemel (Chicago), The Architecture of a Basic Income, 86 U. Chi. L. Rev. __  (2019) (reviewed by David Elkins (Netanya) here)):

Miranda Fleischer and Daniel Hemel have written a terrific article, The Architecture of a Basic Income, about a universal basic income, or UBI. They offer concrete policy advice grounded in philosophical priors. They successfully separate questions about fundamental policy design from questions about political packaging. Their paper should become a go-to resource for the increasing swell of interest in UBI policy. ...

Fleischer and Hemel show that a universal UBI paid for through the income tax system could be politically framed as a poverty relief policy. Underneath the hood, the UBI and the income tax system would join together to pursue the goals of the policy without extreme phase-out distortions. At the same time, the program could be honestly presented and justified as a redistributive project that squares with a range of philosophical viewpoints.