I don't think this article has much truth to it, but I'm not informed enough to specify why. The article doesn't seen very good at conveying the message that poverty is a solvable problem. But it’s not true. High rates of poverty can, as a policy matter, be solved with trivial ease. How? By simply giving the poor money. Claiming that poverty is just an issue of money doesn't seem right to me. I happen to live in a welfare state, where people who can't work or lost their job can apply for financial support. We already have heavy taxes on the riches (52% on income above €54k / $73k). If it was truly only a money problem, we wouldn't have 11% of the population still living in poverty. Besides that, the Demos article linked in the Atlantic article writes this, with the last line seemingly contradictory to the Atlantic: To be sure, you probably don’t want to run a program that hunts out every family below the poverty line and brings them right up to it. Such a program would effectively involve imposing a 100% marginal tax rate for all income made below the poverty line. Maybe someone with a better knowledge of systems can correct me but I'm not convinced yet.In the United States, we are generally told that poverty is a deeply complicated problem whose solution requires dozens of reforms on issues as diverse as public schooling, job training, and marriage.
In 2012, the number was $175.3 billion. That is how many dollars it would take to bring every person in the United States up to the poverty line. In 2012, that number was just 1.08% of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which is to say the overall size of the economy.
To be fair, the author claims that his proposal would cut the poverty rate in half. In the States the poverty/hunger rate is about 20% (though I suspect it's significantly higher because many people, like isolated rural families and the homeless, simply don't get counted.) So, it sounds like your welfare state is doing what the author says his proposal would do. Poverty is just not having enough resources to acquire the basic needs for living in a society. Since our society requires people to purchase most of their basic needs, then not having enough resources usually means not having enough money. So, poverty is usually a result of not having enough money. Really, I think providing everyone with a basic income is a very good idea. It could replace most other "safety net" programs. It would help to prevent the desperate from falling prey to predatory business or racketeering practices. It would ensure an extensive, and stable, market for commodities and housing. And the progressive tax rates would help mitigate the problems associated with an extreme concentration of wealth.I happen to live in a welfare state [...] If it was truly only a money problem, we wouldn't have 11% of the population still living in poverty.