The Social Meaning of Basic Income: How Exchange-Frames Legitimate an Anti-Poverty Program

• In Event: Markets with Meaning: Emotion, Morality, and Justification in Economic Life

Abstract

Universal guaranteed income is attracting a great deal attention in the United States as a potential tool for getting cash to poor families while avoiding the stigma of “welfare.” Would a program that distributes money directly to everyone with “no strings attached” be able to achieve popular legitimacy? How would citizens make sense of such a program generally? This paper addresses these questions by studying the state of Alaska’s Permanent Fund Dividend program, which pays residents around $2000 annually and has been labelled the world’s “longest running basic income experiment.” Polls show widespread public approval for the program. Drawing on interviews with 40 Alaskan residents and deploying Zelizer’s “social meaning of money” framework, I show that there are three distinct pathways to legitimacy for the state’s guaranteed income program. All respondents engaged in “defensive framing.” In line with Skocpol’s classic thesis connecting policy universality and legitimacy, they articulated a clear defensive frame: the dividend is not “welfare” because everyone, and not just the poor, receives it. In addition to defending against stigmatization, however, respondents constructed three distinct frames corresponding to Karl Polanyi’s classic threefold typology of exchange. The dividend program was legitimated as a traditional entitlement, an appreciated gift, and a fair market exchange. I conclude by considering how the adoption of these frames vary by social class, and with what implications for anti-poverty programs generally.

Author

• Jeffrey J. Sallaz, University of Arizona