Social Security Basic Income: A Safety Net for All Americans

by Steven O. Richardson

I wrote this book to stimulate conversation about simultaneous solutions to two serious problems facing the U.S. For decades, we have ignored the looming bankruptcy of Social Security and Medicare trust funds. Meanwhile, as income inequality grew, our President and Congress doubled down on policies that produced the imbalance - namely, negative real interest rates and income tax cuts. This is dangerous because it worsens two conflicts that transcend partisan competition - those between the ruling and working classes and between generations. My proposed solution is twofold. First, a radical tax reform proposal that I call Free to Work (FTW) would grant tax relief to workers by eliminating the payroll tax. We would pay for existing entitlement obligations by eliminating tax expenditures and making the income tax more progressive. The safety net - Social Security Basic Income, or SSBI - is a negative income tax type basic income guarantee that could be funded by additional progressive income taxes. It would provide a universal, unconditional benefit of $1250/month for adult citizens. With FTW, taxpayers gain control over our own retirement and health care. With SSBI, those in need obtain some assistance without being subjected to a judgmental bureaucratic maze.

167 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 8, 2020

About the author

Steve has written two books. His first, The Political Economy of Bureaucracy, was also his economics dissertation (George Mason University 2009). An article published in 2013 (Entitlement Reform: From Tangled Web to Safety Net) introduced the ideas more fully developed in his second book, Social Security Basic Income: A Safety Net for All Americans (2020). He also published several articles in connection to his professional work on federal performance management.

In 1993, Steve became a founding member of Ross Perot’s United We Stand America chapter in Wyoming. He briefly led the Wyoming Libertarian Party and ran for the U.S. House on their ticket in 1998. Since 2005, he has been an advocate for nonpartisan election reforms such as open primaries to grant Independent voters equal rights at the ballot box.

Steve graduated from M.I.T. in 1979 with a B.S. in Chemical Engineering and worked as a petroleum engineer for Shell Oil in New Orleans, LA. In 1982, he joined an independent oil company in Wyoming and in 1987, left the oil business to pursue a career in sales (financial planning and then supply/manufacturing). In 1999, he and his wife Mari moved to Virginia, where he went to work for a non-profit organization on government performance accountability. From 2002 until he retired in 2022, he led production of strategic plans and annual performance plans and reports at the U.S. Department of Labor.

When he is not reading, writing or otherwise occupied, Steve enjoys cycling.