Mass unemployment will probably create a drugged up, demoralized underclass. How about instead a resurgence of labour intensive, meaningful human care, ecological stewardship and craft work?
The other comment I will make is that what you describe as "beauty" and "worthwhile" are subjective. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and you have a right to want and promote what you like. Personally, I like cityscapes, spreadsheets, and working in front of a computer (which is why I'm here in the first place) and the idea of an "idyllic" country life one in which "Householding, homeschooling, cooking, husbanding resources, repairing, self-provisioning, rearing backyard chickens, growing vegetables...could come back into vogue" fills me with a sense of horror.
I'm also an introvert so putting aside what "rightly-ordered" means, not all of use relish the thought of "collaborative work" being the center of our lives.
There doesn't seem to be a lot of room for other viewpoints in your dream world.
Fair comments, but I think all commentators on both sides see massive structural job losses in middle class occupations. Most of the examples you give involved burgeoning service sector employment even as manufacturing and farming became automated. But we are also agreed. Im not saying ‘end of the world’ - just consolidation of all the worst as[ects of the current world. Where I am in Canada it’s not unusual to find a settlement with no pub or grocery store, but a cannabis shop and vaping store. The future I’m afraid of is already here. I’m glad you like sitting in front of a computer. I’m not convinced your kids will have the same opportunities
When I graduated from university the country was headed into a recession and the future looked bleak. A few years later the internet took off and transformed the economy. We don't know what we don't know. That doesn't mean everything will be fine and you can just ignore your problems but it does mean we've been in similar circumstances before.
I have, for lack of a better word, faith that things will get better.
In paragraph 2 you state that people will be able to increase their net income by doing extra work, but in paragraph 1 you refer to a “tsunami of job loses” and in paragraph 5 (6?) you state “The A.I shitstorm will make redundant a gargantuan amount of human labour. For the first time since WW1 — when Europe lost that whole generation of young men — there WILL be people to do all that stuff in society that simply can’t or shouldn’t be done by machines.” Can you provide some examples of the jobs that AI and machines won’t be doing that will enable people to increase their net income?
One of the ways to reduce ecological impact is to remove the requirement and use of transporting products across the world or across the nation when it can and should be created locally.
We divide our nations into 4 parts and within each of those regions the goal is to manufacture as much of the needs for each 1/4 within that 1/4. This concept can be continued by dividing each 1/4 in to 4 regions with the goal that what can be manufactured or harvested locally in each 1/4 to support each regions needs and perhaps a repeat.
Shoe-maker in your town or over in the next, get the best quilts made in 1000 miles at your neighbor's that converted their barn and hire one or two of your family and others that each work there, etc., for example.
Local dances on each Saturday evening after the pot-luck in town and most would never miss it.
Sound Good? It's possible also. Living simply with less time-wasting mind-numbing distractions.
".. Modernity is inhuman partly because it degrades, devalues and often eliminates this kind of work. Most obviously this pertains to all the caring, nurturing roles — motherhood, fathering, looking after the growing number of old people, disabled, hospitalized, lonely etc. .."
We need to return back to where families too care of their own. Extended families living in same home or clustered near each other to care for the elderly or others in family that need care,
My mother's side of the family cared for my Great Grandmother that lived to be 108 and died at home around loving family. My grandfather died at home being cared for by his wive and his daughter. My grandmother died with my mother and great aunt caring and being close (I help as much as I could, usually stay part of weekend to free my mother to get away and do shopping and such other things.) My great Aunt a year of two later was nearing her end at 101 but had a fall and became too much for my mother to manage - my weekend visits were not enough, and the State had her on a waiting list for a once-a-week person to come and give her a chance to do needed trips .. they never was able to send someone before my GreatAunt's fall and hospital and nursing home, where she died sadly. The State could not afford to hire more visiting helpers and so ended footing the nursing home costs and she passing without family there and in a strange place.
My other comment is about something I called Universal Dividend Income, and if that or similar would be implemented (and pigs could fly) families would not needed to move away from each other chasing sub living-wages and instead start of business or work locally in someone else business they invested in.
We need some sanity and to restructure this increasingly disposing of people's society.
AI and redefining education, how K-12 can and should be reduced to K-8th by using Men teachers that aren't mind-raping Witch minions. Trades or university and employed by 18 years old and married with start of family by 20, not castrated mind-raped infantile breast-feeding [adult] child at 30, like we have today.
You understand what 'Devouring Mother' is?
We have Feminized this level of hell, and so now we suffer 'Devouring Society'.
When I'm Pope-King of world, God willing, we all will Exorcise the devouring fatherhood childhood Satanic mind-soul crippling mothers and devouring retarding mind-raping societies demon-possessions.
"Multiverse Journal - Index Number 2211:, 16th May 2025, Proposal and Apologetic; I should be Accepted as world Pope-King, How and Why..."
Men and Fathers will educate and protect the students from the Demonic-Witches and delusional psycho mothers from K-8th grade, and those children unable to keep pace will go to a non-academic education track to be the best critical thinker and problem solver that mechanics or plumbers ever saw.
Entire HS basic subjects and critical-thinking fit in k-8th grade because men teachers will not be psychologically abusing and crippling them, the students will have the best opportunity to have a successful adult life and healthy family or best service to God and Man, to truth, to Justice, to Right-Order, to Prudence, to honor, to ...
Latin and perhaps Greek learned world-wide by every educated person so they have access to older original records, and international Univeral communications.
End of 8th grade will have tests and the top 15% will enter University if desired, and rest to trades so the men may be fully employed by 20 years-old and start a family with 15 yo old woman or older. No more Sick mind-raping putrid endless forced childhood by our F-ing baby-murdering insane psychopathic womanhood and their Witches.
Men and fathers will return to right-ordered duties, and women will F-ing stop destroying Love, Life, Joy, Hope, .. and be more valuable than the 2-week old putrid poison most have become. You are not children, and you will suffer or celebrate from your choices.
School and trades all sex-segregated. Dress-code and women will be expected to work and learn as hard as men, no tits-out disOrdering use and abuse of sexuality. Shut-the-F-up and get to work or leave.
Want more Proposals? ..
1. "Multiverse Journal - Index Number 2212:, 18th May 2025, .. Proposals to Heal the Nation .."
After a chunk of time researching the coordinated wage-suppression from 1979 till today by Corporation and Government, and under reporting interest rates, gutting middle-class employment sending overseas with NAFTA, ..
Description of the Universal Dividend Income (UDI)
I write today to propose a long-overdue reform—a Universal Dividend Income (UDI)—not as an act of charity, but as a restitution for decades of suppressed wages, misallocated public resources, and the systematic redirection of labor’s rightful share of national productivity into the coffers of capital. The Universal Dividend Income is not a handout; it is the return of a withheld inheritance, one that was earned by generations of working Americans whose tax dollars, labor, and intellectual capital were exploited to subsidize corporate expansion, technological innovation, and national prosperity.
We are often told that there is no alternative to our present economic model, but history tells us otherwise. From the close of World War II through the late 1970s, American workers shared equitably in the gains of their labor. Productivity rose, and so did wages. A single income could support a family, buy a home, save for retirement, and fund the next generation’s education. This balance was not accidental; it was a reflection of an implicit social contract—one that has been shattered since 1979.
The year 1979 marked the beginning of a deliberate policy shift. Deregulation, tax favoritism toward capital, the destruction of unions, and the financialization of the economy all converged to produce a widening gulf between productivity and compensation. Since then, worker productivity has risen by over 80 percent, yet wages have stagnated. The average American laborer today produces nearly double what he did in 1979 but receives only a fraction more in real wages. If wages had kept pace with productivity, today’s median wage would be nearly $40 an hour rather than the current $19.33. This is not merely an academic statistic—it is the embodiment of systemic theft.
Where did that missing value go? Into executive bonuses, stock buybacks, and the speculative games of capital. At the same time, government-funded research and infrastructure—paid for by taxpayers—has been handed over to corporations at no cost. From the internet and GPS to pharmaceutical research and energy subsidies, public innovation has consistently enriched private shareholders while leaving the public with no residual claim. The Universal Dividend Income would change that. It would acknowledge that every citizen has already paid into the system—not unlike Social Security—and is entitled to a share of the returns.
The mechanics of the UDI are simple, transparent, and just. Based on current data, the monthly wage suppression per full-time worker, if corrected for productivity, is roughly $3,543. If this gap were rectified through redistribution across the adult population, every legal adult citizen in the United States could receive approximately $2,659 per month as a dividend—not a wage, not welfare, but a dividend on decades of undercompensated labor and public investment. Adding existing welfare outlays (including Social Security, housing, and food assistance), which average roughly $750 per citizen per month, the total monthly dividend would rise to approximately $3,409. For families with dependent children, a third of the adult dividend—around $1,136—would be provided per child.
UDI is not the same as the oft-cited Universal Basic Income (UBI), which can too easily be portrayed as charity or a pacifier. This is a dividend—a share of profits already earned by our collective labor and national capital. We have paid into it through generations of toil, taxation, and compliance with laws that have disproportionately benefited corporate interests. The returns on that investment are long overdue.
Under a Universal Dividend Income regime, ordinary Americans would finally regain the purchasing power and security stolen from them since the 1980s. The policy would foster not dependency, but independence. With a stable dividend, families could invest in education, launch small businesses, purchase homes, or save for the future. The so-called "investor class" would cease to be a closed elite; it would expand to include millions of ordinary people with the means to participate in the markets they helped build. Economic mobility would no longer be the exception but the rule.
Skeptics may ask whether the nation can afford such a program. The real question is how we can continue to afford the status quo—an economy that transfers wealth upward while eroding the middle class, hollowing out communities, and inciting social unrest. By returning corporate profits to levels more consistent with those of 1979—still robust, but not obscene—we can fund a stable dividend system without damaging innovation or productivity. On the contrary, history suggests that broad-based prosperity drives economic growth far more reliably than hoarded capital or speculative finance.
It is time for a trickle-up policy. It is time to recognize that the American people are not merely consumers or labor inputs, but stakeholders in a national enterprise whose rewards have been hoarded by too few for too long. The Universal Dividend Income is not a radical idea; it is the restoration of balance, justice, and dignity to the working majority.
I urge you to study this proposal with the seriousness it deserves. The data is clear, the moral argument is compelling, and the social consequences of inaction are already upon us.
Here is Google’s NotebookLM AI created and generated Audio overview;
— my addition —
I suggest a trickle-up policy, for once. Cost, corporate profits would return to the sane profits they were earning back in 1979.
Universal Dividend Income (UDI)
A reason to present the UDI is to display why and how badly Gov & Capital has treated us while depending on our tax and public resources. Had wages followed productivity each of our wages and salaries would be double while corporations would still be profiting as they were in late 1970's and earlier.
The Dividend aspect direct us all to consider it like SS pensions, all our working lives we paid into it, FICA, and so it is earned and not some freebe charity whim of Washington, our grandfathers, fathers, mothers, brothers, .., and we have been supporting corporate businesses with free R&D results, public resources, and tax-paid resources. The profits of the Trillions we spent and still spend are given-away and have been for generations of our labor.
You and family under UDI may still work and perhaps invest the extra. Consider the small business created and-or expanded, as well as new capital in stock purchases. The 'investment' Class would expand - perhaps including nearly everyone.
Instead of UBI, we get Dividends for all the tax & public resources spent over generations in R&D and given to for profit corporations. Take a look and decide if a good idea.
Monthly 'Universal Dividend Income' calculation.
—
Detailed Description of the Universal Dividend Income Formula and Results
This formulation explores how the total income generated by wage suppression since 1979, along with government policies, could be redistributed to create a Universal Dividend Income for all legal adult citizens in the United States. We will examine the wage-productivity gap, capital policies, government programs, and how redistribution could result in monthly payouts for citizens.
1. Background: Wage Suppression and the Wage-Productivity Gap Since 1979
The period since 1979 has seen a separation between wage growth and productivity. Prior to this, wages and productivity had moved in tandem, meaning as productivity (the amount of goods or services a worker can produce in an hour) increased, so too did wages. However, since 1979, wages have failed to keep up with the rising productivity of workers.
1979 to 2024:
Productivity has increased by approximately 80.9% since 1979, meaning that the average worker today produces nearly 81% more than they did in 1979.
Wages, on the other hand, have only increased by around 29.4% during this time. This discrepancy between the growth in productivity and the stagnation of wages is a direct result of capital policies such as:
Deregulation and tax cuts for corporations and high-income earners.
The decline of unions, reducing workers' bargaining power.
The rise of financialization (e.g., stock buybacks, executive compensation) that focuses more on shareholder returns rather than reinvesting in labor or increasing wages.
This wage suppression—where profits have been funneled primarily to capital (business owners, executives, shareholders) instead of being shared with labor—has contributed to the wage-productivity gap, leaving millions of workers without the benefits of their own increased productivity.
2. Calculating the Wage Gap and Redistributing Capital Profits
To estimate the potential Universal Dividend Income, we need to look at the wage gap created by the productivity-wage divergence.
Median Wage vs. Hypothetical Wage (if wages had kept pace with productivity):
Median Hourly Wage in 1979 (in nominal dollars): $7.36
Adjusted for inflation to 2024 dollars: This equals approximately $22.00 to $23.00 per hour (based on the CPI).
Productivity Increase (1979 to 2024): Productivity has increased by 80.9%.
Hypothetical Median Wage (had wages kept pace with productivity): Hypothetical Median Wage = 22.00 × (1 + 0.809) = 22.00 × 1.809 = 39.80 per hour.
Actual Median Wage in 2024: Around $19.33 per hour.
Wage Difference: The difference between the hypothetical wage (if wages had kept pace with productivity) and the actual wage is: 39.80 - 19.33 = 20.47 per hour. For a full-time worker (approximately 173.2 hours per month): Monthly Wage Gap = 20.47 × 173.2 ≈ 3,543 per month.
Thus, each worker would theoretically have been earning an additional 3,543 per month had wages kept pace with productivity growth.
Redistribution of Capital Profits: The wage gap indicates that capital profits (from increased productivity) have not been fairly shared with labor. In this redistribution model, this increase would be shared among all 250 million legal adult citizens.
The wage increase per citizen per month can be calculated by: Monthly Redistribution per Adult = (250,000,000 × 3,543) / 333,000,000 ≈ 2,659 per adult per month.
Thus, 2,659 per month could be redistributed to each legal adult citizen, based on the wages they should have been earning had they been properly compensated for productivity growth.
3. Social Security, Welfare, and Other Government Payments
In addition to wage increases, the U.S. government provides various welfare programs, such as Social Security, food stamps, housing assistance, and Medicaid. These payments represent a significant source of income redistribution.
Total Annual Welfare Spending: The U.S. government spends approximately 3 trillion dollars per year on welfare programs.
Welfare Spending per Citizen: Annual Welfare Spending per Citizen = 3,000,000,000,000 / 333,000,000 ≈ 9,000 per citizen annually. Monthly Welfare Spending per Citizen = 9,000 / 12 ≈ 750 per citizen per month.
Thus, each citizen currently receives about 750 per month on average from welfare programs.
4. Combining the Two: The Universal Dividend Income
Now, let’s combine both the redistributed wage increase and the welfare payments:
Redistributed Wage Increase: 2,659 per adult per month.
Welfare and Social Security Payments: 750 per citizen per month.
Total monthly amount for each legal adult citizen would be: 2,659 + 750 = 3,409 per adult per month.
For Families with Children: Parents of dependent children would receive 1/3 of the adult amount for each child: 3,409 / 3 ≈ 1,136 per child per month.
5. Summary of Results: Universal Dividend Income
In this Universal Dividend Income model:
Adults (18+ years): Each legal adult citizen would receive around 3,409 per month.
Each Child: For each dependent child, parents would receive an additional 1,136 per month.
This model seeks to redistribute the income generated by increased productivity and the capital profits that have been hoarded since 1979, while also including welfare benefits into the equation. The result is a significant monthly payout that ensures more equitable distribution of wealth across all citizens, which could help combat rising inequality, provide a stronger safety net for families, and increase overall economic stability.
Conclusion:
The wage suppression since 1979—driven by capital policies and the decline of labor protections—has led to an economy where productivity has increased dramatically without a corresponding rise in worker wages. By redistributing the wage-productivity gap along with current welfare payments, the Universal Dividend Income model proposes a more equitable income distribution, offering 3,409 per month for each legal adult and a proportional amount for children. This would provide a substantial economic boost, particularly to low- and middle-income households, and could help restore economic stability and fairness.
The other comment I will make is that what you describe as "beauty" and "worthwhile" are subjective. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and you have a right to want and promote what you like. Personally, I like cityscapes, spreadsheets, and working in front of a computer (which is why I'm here in the first place) and the idea of an "idyllic" country life one in which "Householding, homeschooling, cooking, husbanding resources, repairing, self-provisioning, rearing backyard chickens, growing vegetables...could come back into vogue" fills me with a sense of horror.
I'm also an introvert so putting aside what "rightly-ordered" means, not all of use relish the thought of "collaborative work" being the center of our lives.
There doesn't seem to be a lot of room for other viewpoints in your dream world.
Fair comments, but I think all commentators on both sides see massive structural job losses in middle class occupations. Most of the examples you give involved burgeoning service sector employment even as manufacturing and farming became automated. But we are also agreed. Im not saying ‘end of the world’ - just consolidation of all the worst as[ects of the current world. Where I am in Canada it’s not unusual to find a settlement with no pub or grocery store, but a cannabis shop and vaping store. The future I’m afraid of is already here. I’m glad you like sitting in front of a computer. I’m not convinced your kids will have the same opportunities
"The only constant is change."
When I graduated from university the country was headed into a recession and the future looked bleak. A few years later the internet took off and transformed the economy. We don't know what we don't know. That doesn't mean everything will be fine and you can just ignore your problems but it does mean we've been in similar circumstances before.
I have, for lack of a better word, faith that things will get better.
In paragraph 2 you state that people will be able to increase their net income by doing extra work, but in paragraph 1 you refer to a “tsunami of job loses” and in paragraph 5 (6?) you state “The A.I shitstorm will make redundant a gargantuan amount of human labour. For the first time since WW1 — when Europe lost that whole generation of young men — there WILL be people to do all that stuff in society that simply can’t or shouldn’t be done by machines.” Can you provide some examples of the jobs that AI and machines won’t be doing that will enable people to increase their net income?
One of the ways to reduce ecological impact is to remove the requirement and use of transporting products across the world or across the nation when it can and should be created locally.
We divide our nations into 4 parts and within each of those regions the goal is to manufacture as much of the needs for each 1/4 within that 1/4. This concept can be continued by dividing each 1/4 in to 4 regions with the goal that what can be manufactured or harvested locally in each 1/4 to support each regions needs and perhaps a repeat.
Shoe-maker in your town or over in the next, get the best quilts made in 1000 miles at your neighbor's that converted their barn and hire one or two of your family and others that each work there, etc., for example.
Local dances on each Saturday evening after the pot-luck in town and most would never miss it.
Sound Good? It's possible also. Living simply with less time-wasting mind-numbing distractions.
God Bless., Steve
".. Modernity is inhuman partly because it degrades, devalues and often eliminates this kind of work. Most obviously this pertains to all the caring, nurturing roles — motherhood, fathering, looking after the growing number of old people, disabled, hospitalized, lonely etc. .."
We need to return back to where families too care of their own. Extended families living in same home or clustered near each other to care for the elderly or others in family that need care,
My mother's side of the family cared for my Great Grandmother that lived to be 108 and died at home around loving family. My grandfather died at home being cared for by his wive and his daughter. My grandmother died with my mother and great aunt caring and being close (I help as much as I could, usually stay part of weekend to free my mother to get away and do shopping and such other things.) My great Aunt a year of two later was nearing her end at 101 but had a fall and became too much for my mother to manage - my weekend visits were not enough, and the State had her on a waiting list for a once-a-week person to come and give her a chance to do needed trips .. they never was able to send someone before my GreatAunt's fall and hospital and nursing home, where she died sadly. The State could not afford to hire more visiting helpers and so ended footing the nursing home costs and she passing without family there and in a strange place.
My other comment is about something I called Universal Dividend Income, and if that or similar would be implemented (and pigs could fly) families would not needed to move away from each other chasing sub living-wages and instead start of business or work locally in someone else business they invested in.
We need some sanity and to restructure this increasingly disposing of people's society.
AI and redefining education, how K-12 can and should be reduced to K-8th by using Men teachers that aren't mind-raping Witch minions. Trades or university and employed by 18 years old and married with start of family by 20, not castrated mind-raped infantile breast-feeding [adult] child at 30, like we have today.
You understand what 'Devouring Mother' is?
We have Feminized this level of hell, and so now we suffer 'Devouring Society'.
When I'm Pope-King of world, God willing, we all will Exorcise the devouring fatherhood childhood Satanic mind-soul crippling mothers and devouring retarding mind-raping societies demon-possessions.
"Multiverse Journal - Index Number 2211:, 16th May 2025, Proposal and Apologetic; I should be Accepted as world Pope-King, How and Why..."
https://stevenwork.substack.com/p/multiverse-journal-index-number-2211
Men and Fathers will educate and protect the students from the Demonic-Witches and delusional psycho mothers from K-8th grade, and those children unable to keep pace will go to a non-academic education track to be the best critical thinker and problem solver that mechanics or plumbers ever saw.
Entire HS basic subjects and critical-thinking fit in k-8th grade because men teachers will not be psychologically abusing and crippling them, the students will have the best opportunity to have a successful adult life and healthy family or best service to God and Man, to truth, to Justice, to Right-Order, to Prudence, to honor, to ...
Latin and perhaps Greek learned world-wide by every educated person so they have access to older original records, and international Univeral communications.
End of 8th grade will have tests and the top 15% will enter University if desired, and rest to trades so the men may be fully employed by 20 years-old and start a family with 15 yo old woman or older. No more Sick mind-raping putrid endless forced childhood by our F-ing baby-murdering insane psychopathic womanhood and their Witches.
Men and fathers will return to right-ordered duties, and women will F-ing stop destroying Love, Life, Joy, Hope, .. and be more valuable than the 2-week old putrid poison most have become. You are not children, and you will suffer or celebrate from your choices.
School and trades all sex-segregated. Dress-code and women will be expected to work and learn as hard as men, no tits-out disOrdering use and abuse of sexuality. Shut-the-F-up and get to work or leave.
Want more Proposals? ..
1. "Multiverse Journal - Index Number 2212:, 18th May 2025, .. Proposals to Heal the Nation .."
https://stevenwork.substack.com/p/multiverse-journal-index-number-2212
AI generated audio overview, last two proposals:
https://notebooklm.google.com/notebook/c3f4711e-fcef-414d-9e93-bc301155745e/audio
2. "Multiverse Journal - Index Number 2216:, 2nd June 2025, AI Dialog, Best argument against acceptance of Abortion or any evil insanity."
https://stevenwork.substack.com/p/multiverse-journal-index-number-2216
AI generated audio overview:
https://notebooklm.google.com/notebook/b1015d63-8c29-44b1-8080-8a6a5efce59f/audio
Useful feedback very welcome!
God Bless., Steve
After a chunk of time researching the coordinated wage-suppression from 1979 till today by Corporation and Government, and under reporting interest rates, gutting middle-class employment sending overseas with NAFTA, ..
Description of the Universal Dividend Income (UDI)
I write today to propose a long-overdue reform—a Universal Dividend Income (UDI)—not as an act of charity, but as a restitution for decades of suppressed wages, misallocated public resources, and the systematic redirection of labor’s rightful share of national productivity into the coffers of capital. The Universal Dividend Income is not a handout; it is the return of a withheld inheritance, one that was earned by generations of working Americans whose tax dollars, labor, and intellectual capital were exploited to subsidize corporate expansion, technological innovation, and national prosperity.
We are often told that there is no alternative to our present economic model, but history tells us otherwise. From the close of World War II through the late 1970s, American workers shared equitably in the gains of their labor. Productivity rose, and so did wages. A single income could support a family, buy a home, save for retirement, and fund the next generation’s education. This balance was not accidental; it was a reflection of an implicit social contract—one that has been shattered since 1979.
The year 1979 marked the beginning of a deliberate policy shift. Deregulation, tax favoritism toward capital, the destruction of unions, and the financialization of the economy all converged to produce a widening gulf between productivity and compensation. Since then, worker productivity has risen by over 80 percent, yet wages have stagnated. The average American laborer today produces nearly double what he did in 1979 but receives only a fraction more in real wages. If wages had kept pace with productivity, today’s median wage would be nearly $40 an hour rather than the current $19.33. This is not merely an academic statistic—it is the embodiment of systemic theft.
Where did that missing value go? Into executive bonuses, stock buybacks, and the speculative games of capital. At the same time, government-funded research and infrastructure—paid for by taxpayers—has been handed over to corporations at no cost. From the internet and GPS to pharmaceutical research and energy subsidies, public innovation has consistently enriched private shareholders while leaving the public with no residual claim. The Universal Dividend Income would change that. It would acknowledge that every citizen has already paid into the system—not unlike Social Security—and is entitled to a share of the returns.
The mechanics of the UDI are simple, transparent, and just. Based on current data, the monthly wage suppression per full-time worker, if corrected for productivity, is roughly $3,543. If this gap were rectified through redistribution across the adult population, every legal adult citizen in the United States could receive approximately $2,659 per month as a dividend—not a wage, not welfare, but a dividend on decades of undercompensated labor and public investment. Adding existing welfare outlays (including Social Security, housing, and food assistance), which average roughly $750 per citizen per month, the total monthly dividend would rise to approximately $3,409. For families with dependent children, a third of the adult dividend—around $1,136—would be provided per child.
UDI is not the same as the oft-cited Universal Basic Income (UBI), which can too easily be portrayed as charity or a pacifier. This is a dividend—a share of profits already earned by our collective labor and national capital. We have paid into it through generations of toil, taxation, and compliance with laws that have disproportionately benefited corporate interests. The returns on that investment are long overdue.
Under a Universal Dividend Income regime, ordinary Americans would finally regain the purchasing power and security stolen from them since the 1980s. The policy would foster not dependency, but independence. With a stable dividend, families could invest in education, launch small businesses, purchase homes, or save for the future. The so-called "investor class" would cease to be a closed elite; it would expand to include millions of ordinary people with the means to participate in the markets they helped build. Economic mobility would no longer be the exception but the rule.
Skeptics may ask whether the nation can afford such a program. The real question is how we can continue to afford the status quo—an economy that transfers wealth upward while eroding the middle class, hollowing out communities, and inciting social unrest. By returning corporate profits to levels more consistent with those of 1979—still robust, but not obscene—we can fund a stable dividend system without damaging innovation or productivity. On the contrary, history suggests that broad-based prosperity drives economic growth far more reliably than hoarded capital or speculative finance.
It is time for a trickle-up policy. It is time to recognize that the American people are not merely consumers or labor inputs, but stakeholders in a national enterprise whose rewards have been hoarded by too few for too long. The Universal Dividend Income is not a radical idea; it is the restoration of balance, justice, and dignity to the working majority.
I urge you to study this proposal with the seriousness it deserves. The data is clear, the moral argument is compelling, and the social consequences of inaction are already upon us.
Here is Google’s NotebookLM AI created and generated Audio overview;
— my addition —
I suggest a trickle-up policy, for once. Cost, corporate profits would return to the sane profits they were earning back in 1979.
Universal Dividend Income (UDI)
A reason to present the UDI is to display why and how badly Gov & Capital has treated us while depending on our tax and public resources. Had wages followed productivity each of our wages and salaries would be double while corporations would still be profiting as they were in late 1970's and earlier.
The Dividend aspect direct us all to consider it like SS pensions, all our working lives we paid into it, FICA, and so it is earned and not some freebe charity whim of Washington, our grandfathers, fathers, mothers, brothers, .., and we have been supporting corporate businesses with free R&D results, public resources, and tax-paid resources. The profits of the Trillions we spent and still spend are given-away and have been for generations of our labor.
You and family under UDI may still work and perhaps invest the extra. Consider the small business created and-or expanded, as well as new capital in stock purchases. The 'investment' Class would expand - perhaps including nearly everyone.
Instead of UBI, we get Dividends for all the tax & public resources spent over generations in R&D and given to for profit corporations. Take a look and decide if a good idea.
Monthly 'Universal Dividend Income' calculation.
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Detailed Description of the Universal Dividend Income Formula and Results
This formulation explores how the total income generated by wage suppression since 1979, along with government policies, could be redistributed to create a Universal Dividend Income for all legal adult citizens in the United States. We will examine the wage-productivity gap, capital policies, government programs, and how redistribution could result in monthly payouts for citizens.
1. Background: Wage Suppression and the Wage-Productivity Gap Since 1979
The period since 1979 has seen a separation between wage growth and productivity. Prior to this, wages and productivity had moved in tandem, meaning as productivity (the amount of goods or services a worker can produce in an hour) increased, so too did wages. However, since 1979, wages have failed to keep up with the rising productivity of workers.
1979 to 2024:
Productivity has increased by approximately 80.9% since 1979, meaning that the average worker today produces nearly 81% more than they did in 1979.
Wages, on the other hand, have only increased by around 29.4% during this time. This discrepancy between the growth in productivity and the stagnation of wages is a direct result of capital policies such as:
Deregulation and tax cuts for corporations and high-income earners.
The decline of unions, reducing workers' bargaining power.
The rise of financialization (e.g., stock buybacks, executive compensation) that focuses more on shareholder returns rather than reinvesting in labor or increasing wages.
This wage suppression—where profits have been funneled primarily to capital (business owners, executives, shareholders) instead of being shared with labor—has contributed to the wage-productivity gap, leaving millions of workers without the benefits of their own increased productivity.
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2. Calculating the Wage Gap and Redistributing Capital Profits
To estimate the potential Universal Dividend Income, we need to look at the wage gap created by the productivity-wage divergence.
Median Wage vs. Hypothetical Wage (if wages had kept pace with productivity):
Median Hourly Wage in 1979 (in nominal dollars): $7.36
Adjusted for inflation to 2024 dollars: This equals approximately $22.00 to $23.00 per hour (based on the CPI).
Productivity Increase (1979 to 2024): Productivity has increased by 80.9%.
Hypothetical Median Wage (had wages kept pace with productivity): Hypothetical Median Wage = 22.00 × (1 + 0.809) = 22.00 × 1.809 = 39.80 per hour.
Actual Median Wage in 2024: Around $19.33 per hour.
Wage Difference: The difference between the hypothetical wage (if wages had kept pace with productivity) and the actual wage is: 39.80 - 19.33 = 20.47 per hour. For a full-time worker (approximately 173.2 hours per month): Monthly Wage Gap = 20.47 × 173.2 ≈ 3,543 per month.
Thus, each worker would theoretically have been earning an additional 3,543 per month had wages kept pace with productivity growth.
Redistribution of Capital Profits: The wage gap indicates that capital profits (from increased productivity) have not been fairly shared with labor. In this redistribution model, this increase would be shared among all 250 million legal adult citizens.
The wage increase per citizen per month can be calculated by: Monthly Redistribution per Adult = (250,000,000 × 3,543) / 333,000,000 ≈ 2,659 per adult per month.
Thus, 2,659 per month could be redistributed to each legal adult citizen, based on the wages they should have been earning had they been properly compensated for productivity growth.
3. Social Security, Welfare, and Other Government Payments
In addition to wage increases, the U.S. government provides various welfare programs, such as Social Security, food stamps, housing assistance, and Medicaid. These payments represent a significant source of income redistribution.
Total Annual Welfare Spending: The U.S. government spends approximately 3 trillion dollars per year on welfare programs.
Welfare Spending per Citizen: Annual Welfare Spending per Citizen = 3,000,000,000,000 / 333,000,000 ≈ 9,000 per citizen annually. Monthly Welfare Spending per Citizen = 9,000 / 12 ≈ 750 per citizen per month.
Thus, each citizen currently receives about 750 per month on average from welfare programs.
4. Combining the Two: The Universal Dividend Income
Now, let’s combine both the redistributed wage increase and the welfare payments:
Redistributed Wage Increase: 2,659 per adult per month.
Welfare and Social Security Payments: 750 per citizen per month.
Total monthly amount for each legal adult citizen would be: 2,659 + 750 = 3,409 per adult per month.
For Families with Children: Parents of dependent children would receive 1/3 of the adult amount for each child: 3,409 / 3 ≈ 1,136 per child per month.
5. Summary of Results: Universal Dividend Income
In this Universal Dividend Income model:
Adults (18+ years): Each legal adult citizen would receive around 3,409 per month.
Each Child: For each dependent child, parents would receive an additional 1,136 per month.
This model seeks to redistribute the income generated by increased productivity and the capital profits that have been hoarded since 1979, while also including welfare benefits into the equation. The result is a significant monthly payout that ensures more equitable distribution of wealth across all citizens, which could help combat rising inequality, provide a stronger safety net for families, and increase overall economic stability.
Conclusion:
The wage suppression since 1979—driven by capital policies and the decline of labor protections—has led to an economy where productivity has increased dramatically without a corresponding rise in worker wages. By redistributing the wage-productivity gap along with current welfare payments, the Universal Dividend Income model proposes a more equitable income distribution, offering 3,409 per month for each legal adult and a proportional amount for children. This would provide a substantial economic boost, particularly to low- and middle-income households, and could help restore economic stability and fairness.
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