Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
Fear of robots taking jobs spurs a bold idea: guaranteed pay
HONOLULU » Driverless trucks. Factory robots. Delivery drones. Virtual personal assistants.
As technological innovations increasingly edge into the workplace, many people fear that robots and machines are destined to take jobs that human beings have held for decades. For many affected workers, retraining might be out of reach —unavailable, unaffordable or inadequate. What then? Enter the idea of a universal basic income, the notion that everyone should be able to receive a stream of income to live on, regardless of their employment or economic status.
It isn’t an idea that seems likely to gain traction nationally in the current political environment. But in some politically liberal corners of the country, including Hawaii and the San Francisco Bay area, the idea of distributing a guaranteed income has begun to gain support. Over the past two decades, automation has reduced the need for workers, especially in such blue-collar sectors as manufacturing, warehousing and mining. Many of the jobs that remain demand higher education or advanced technological skills. It helps explain why just 55 percent of Americans with no more than a high school diploma are employed, down from 60 percent just before the Great Recession.
Hawaii state lawmakers have voted to explore the idea of a universal basic income in light of research suggesting that a majority of waiter, cook and building cleaning jobs — vital to Hawaii’s tourism-dependent economy — will eventually be replaced by machines. A crucial question — who exactly would pay for the program? — has yet to be determined. But support for the idea has taken root.
“Our economy is changing far more rapidly than anybody’s expected,” said state Rep. Chris Lee, who introduced legislation