The MIT living wage lab says that, in Franklin County, where I live, a single-parent, two-child household, like mine, requires $131,408 before taxes to make ends meet at the current cost of living. I’m $100,000 short. I am certain I am not alone.

Bill S. 2032, An act related to universal basic income (UBI) pilot, seeks to establish a commission to design and implement a pilot program to give Massachusetts residents the difference between their current income and their living wage calculation. Sen. Jason Lewis has introduced it every year since 2019 and it has finally advanced to the Senate Ways and Means Committee.

Through an amendment to Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 14, Department of Revenue, 1,500 Massachusetts residents, selected at random and regardless of income, would be provided these gap-filling funds for three to five years. A collaboration between the Executive Office of Health and Human Services (EOHHS), Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development (EOLWD), the Department of Transitional Assistance (DTA), and various academic and philanthropic organizations would design, research, and implement the pilot. Funding would come from a combination of public and private philanthropic dollars. 

Projected costs to the state are counter-intuitive. Calculations show that one dollar ($1) of UBI can return as much as $1.82 back to the state. In addition, the pilot will provide a basis for calculating costs to offset social safety net programs, a net positive budgetary impact. Eventually, all social safety-net programs — like SNAP, Section 8, unemployment insurance to name a few — would be unnecessary with UBI. The funding for those programs could be returned to the state budget.

The idea of guaranteed income is not new. Leaders on both sides of the “political divide” have championed it over the decades, from Johnnie Tilmon and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to President Richard Nixon and Milton Friedman. 

Here in Massachusetts during the COVID-19 pandemic, multiple successful guaranteed income pilot programs resulted from the federal CARES Act money and American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds combined with private philanthropic dollars.

Many studies, most notably the Boston Foundation’s Dignity Dividend report, reveal consistent positive outcomes for poverty alleviation showing that funds were managed wisely by recipients (the overwhelming majority used the funds to pay their bills), work force participation on average counter-intuitively increased, and health and childhood development indicators all showed notable positive progress, including a 30-plus percent increase in participants reading to their children (“mom happy, baby happy”). A key finding was that stable, reliable income, while on average around only $600 per month for a family of 4.4, reduced stress in households, causing key wellness, optimism, and productivity indicators to increase. The report continues to track 24 ongoing pilots statewide.

The U.S. productivity-pay gap shows worker productivity increased 2.7 times more than pay since 1979. Today, seventy-five percent of Massachusetts residents struggle to make ends meet even though we are the wealthiest state per capita in the country. People are feeling this now more than ever and asking, “Why?” We deserve an answer, and our fair share.

Timing is such that AI is making this topic increasingly relevant owing to projected job displacement. In response, big tech, and most prominently Elon Musk, is proposing a universal high income to compensate some workers displaced by AI but not to eradicate poverty or income inequality. 

Massachusetts is in a leading position to implement universal basic income because we have the money, infrastructure, and state-based data to do it.

AI is doubling its capacity every three and half months. We have to act now to take the lead in thought, implementation, and the narrative. Preventing entrenched income inequality in the new AI era is in our hands. 

Tell your state legislator to vote to pass S. 2032 – An act related to universal basic income pilot. 

Let’s find out what is possible and lead the way to a near-future without income inequality.

Lucia Colombaro lives in Northfield.