Can Universal Basic Income Eradicate Poverty?

As new technologies change—and potentially disrupt—the labor economy, how can lower and middle income families stay afloat? In 2010, Andy Stern stepped down as president of the Service Employees International Union, one of the fastest-growing unions in recent history, to embark on a multiyear journey to better understand the workplace as emerging technologies push us toward a future with fewer overall jobs.

Stern wrote about it in the recently published Raising the Floor: How a Universal Basic Income Can Renew Our Economy and Rebuild the American Dream. In the book, he investigates the current and projected state of the labor economy and notes that the United States is on the verge of a “major economic disruption” in which current policies and programs will not be sufficient to solve workers’ problems. We therefore “need to guarantee that there’s a floor” for U.S. workers.

Please join Open Society for a conversation with Stern, who will discuss what he learned as he spoke to economists, futurists, labor leaders, CEOs, investment bankers, entrepreneurs, and political leaders—and his idea that a universal basic income is essential to the future of the American Dream.