Please join Leadership Greater Washington, A Wider Circle, and Hooks Book Events, on Tuesday, July 24, for an eye-opening conversation with Annie Lowrey, author of Give People Money: How a Universal Basic Income Would End Poverty, Revolutionize Work and Remake the World.

Mark Bergel (’16) will sit down with Annie to discuss her global investigation of universal basic income (UBI), which many economists believe could end decades of income inequality and restore social stability and mobility. Lowrey will share her idea of giving every citizen an annual stipend, no questions asked—and why, in an age of rapid automation, it might just be our best hope. Guests are invited to participate in an audience Q&A following the interview.

We look forward to sharing in this compelling and timely discussion, that will draw attention to the issue of income inequality and create a dialogue for how we as a region can practice income equity.

Annie Lowrey is a contributing editor for The Atlantic. A former writer for the New York Times, the New York Times Magazine, and Slate, among other publications, she is a frequent guest on CNN, MSNBC, and NPR. Lowrey lives in Washington, DC.

About Give People Money: How a Universal Basic Income Would End Poverty, Revolutionize Work, and Remake the World

magine if every month the government deposited $1,000 into your bank account, with nothing expected in return. It sounds crazy. But it has become one of the most influential and hotly debated policy ideas of our time. Futurists, radicals, libertarians, socialists, union representatives, feminists, conservatives, Bernie supporters, development economists, child-care workers, welfare recipients, and politicians from India to Finland to Canada to Mexico—all are talking about UBI.

In this sparkling and provocative book, economics writer Annie Lowrey examines the UBI movement from many angles. She travels to Kenya to see how a UBI is lifting the poorest people on earth out of destitution, India to see how inefficient government programs are failing the poor, South Korea to interrogate UBI’s intellectual pedigree, and Silicon Valley to meet the tech titans financing UBI pilots in expectation of a world with advanced artificial intelligence and little need for human labor.

Lowrey explores the potential of such a sweeping policy and the challenges the movement faces, among them contradictory aims, uncomfortable costs, and, most powerfully, the entrenched belief that no one should get something for nothing. In the end, she shows how this arcane policy has the potential to solve some of our most intractable economic problems, while offering a new vision of citizenship and a firmer foundation for our society in this age of turbulence and marvels.