The Power of Guaranteed Income and Baby Bonds

Abstract

A well-functioning economy should promote human flourishing and self-determination for all. Self-determination demands sufficient resources to fuel real choice and enable our productive capacities. Our current political economy fails to ensure that all of us have what we need to engage meaningfully, instead leaving far too many with far too little. We assert that Baby Bonds—publicly funded trust accounts for young people—and Guaranteed Income, deployed together, can build racially inclusive wealth. Reframing our economic response to need from one that punishes, stigmatizes, and excludes to one that invests, supports, and includes will not only strengthen individuals but will have compounding beneficial effects on our economy as a whole and, we believe, on our democracy.