universal basic income. Please

welcome up the CEO of HandUp,

Rose Broome.

Hi everyone. Buy now, most of

you have probably heard about

the universal basic income. It's

a social safety net that gives

everyone a payment that covers

their basic cost of living. The

basic income has had support on

the left and the right. Martin

Luther King believed that it

would help end poverty.

Conservative economist Milton

Friedman like it because he

thought it would cut down on

government bureaucracy and

promote freedom. That was 50

years ago. Now everyone's

talking about because the robots

are coming. I'm guilty of this,

too. While it's true that the

nature of work is changing,

historically, technology and

automation have actually created

more jobs. That gets us to the

big question, could the basic

income actually happen in the US?

I think so. I'm going to outline

the three main steps that I

think we need to take to get

there. The first is that we need

to accept that poverty is here

now. We need to start now. We

don't need to wait for self-

driving cars. 50 million

Americans live below the poverty

line. It's already affecting our

political stability. I see this

up close in my own work. I'm the

CEO of a tech startup called

HandUp that lets you donate

money directly to people who are

experiencing homelessness and

poverty. We work with people

like Julianne who became

homeless for the first time when

she was seven months pregnant.

She used HandUp at first to help

pay for her food, for her baby

and supplies. Now she uses it to

help pay for school. She's

studying accounting. With the

basic income, Julianne would

have these basic needs met. Of

course, she can turn to our

existing social safety nets, but

it's a mess. We have over 80

programs that cost a trillion

dollars a year. Which of these

programs should we cut? Which

should we keep? How would we pay

for our basic income? I think

these are really interesting

questions. Unless you're a

policy wonk, I think spending

too much time on these questions

can be a big distraction.

Instead, I think we need to

start small, step two. Great

examples of these are Y

Combinator that's launching a

pilot of the basic income in

Oakland and the universal income

project that host meet ups and

hackathons that help get the

word out. We need to support

efforts like these and create

more. Another example is

starting small is looking at

existing programs, like in

Alaska where everyone gets $1,

000 a year from oil revenues.

Social Security is another

example. These existing programs

could be grown into something

like a basic income. We don't

have to start from scratch.

Starting small is how Finland is

doing it. They just launched a

pilot of the basic income with 2,

000 citizens who are unemployed

and each will get €560 a month

for two years. They think this

will create, excuse me, security

while also helping promote work

because it doesn't dis-

incentivize people from getting

a job. The third and most

important step is that we need

to build a movement with a broad

coalition of people in

organizations who will rally

behind the basic income, who

will get the word out, give

ignite talks about it and fight

for experiments and policy. A

movement that's inspired by a

new American dream where

everyone has the basics economic

security, where poverty is seen

not as a character flaw, but as

the systemic issue that we know

it is, a dream where everyone

can pursue the work that they

care about like teaching our

children and where that work is

valued and imbued with meaning

even if it doesn't pay. Where

everyone, regardless of their

background, can be an

entrepreneur or start a business.

It is so much more than an

answer to automation. The basic

income represents a paradigm

shift about the way we live our

lives. Imagine if everyone

around you actually was free to

do what they love. That's the

dream of the basic income that

will inspire a movement to make

it a reality. Only a crisis

produces real change. When that

crisis occurs, the actions that

are taken depend on the ideas

that are lying around. Just a

few months ago, Obama said that

over the next 10 to 20 years as

a nation, we will need to debate

the basic income. Let us start

now, start small and build a

movement so when that time comes,

the basic income is one of the

most researched and loved ideas

that is lying around. This is

some of my work. I hope you'll

check it out and join us.

Thank you.