Dylan Matthews
is a senior correspondent and head writer for Vox's Future Perfect section and has worked at Vox since 2014. He is particularly interested in global health and pandemic prevention, anti-poverty efforts, economic policy and theory, and conflicts about the right way to do philanthropy.
In theory, ending poverty is simple: the government could just give everyone enough money such that no one's poor anymore. That may sound too clever by half, but the idea — known as a "basic income" — has a long intellectual pedigree, and the case for it is better than you might expect. A limited version of it even passed the House of Representatives in 1970:
The video above details the the history behind basic income proposals, why policymakers moved away from the idea, and why it might be worth taking another look.
