Fair Shot: Rethinking Inequality and How We Earn

by Chris Hughes

Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes argues that the best way to fight income inequality is with a radically simple idea: a guaranteed income for working people, paid for by the one percent.

The first half of Chris Hughes’s life played like a movie reel right out of the “American Dream.” He grew up in a small town in North Carolina. His parents were people of modest means, but he was accepted into an elite boarding school and then Harvard, both on scholarship. There, he met Mark Zuckerberg and Dustin Moskovitz and became one of the co-founders of Facebook.

In telling his story, Hughes demonstrates the powerful role fortune and luck play in today’s economy. Through the rocket ship rise of Facebook, Hughes came to understand how a select few can become ultra-wealthy nearly overnight. He believes the same forces that made Facebook possible have made it harder for everyone else in America to make ends meet.

To help people who are struggling, Hughes proposes a simple, bold solution: a guaranteed income for working people, including unpaid caregivers and students, paid for by the one percent. The way Hughes sees it, a guaranteed income is the most powerful tool we have to combat poverty and stabilize America’s middle class. Money—cold hard cash with no strings attached—gives people freedom, dignity, and the ability to climb the economic ladder. A guaranteed income for working people is the big idea that's missing in the national conversation.

This book, grounded in Hughes’s personal experience, will start a frank conversation about how we earn in modern America, how we can combat income inequality, and ultimately, how we can give everyone a fair shot.

Genres: Economics, Nonfiction, Politics, Business, Social Justice, Poverty, Technology

224 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2018

Reviews

[Tom LA · Rating 5 out of 5]

Chris Hughes, by his own admission, won the lottery. That’s a good analogy for someone who found himself sharing a college room at Harvard with Mark Zuckerberg, and a few years later cashed in on his 2% ownership of Facebook stock, pocketing half a billion dollars.

As the non-techie of the Facebook founders group, he was in charge of marketing and communication, that’s why his share was so “tiny” compared to the other ones’.

Any human being with a soul who gets half a billion dollars for three years of work will have to pause and reflect for at least two seconds.

Hughes’ reflections, unsurprisingly, included a lot of thoughts about wealth and how much people deserve the wealth they have or don’t have.

He also worked directly on the Obama campaign in 2007/2008, and politically he is very clearly aligned with Obama’s ideologies (I lean towards the right, but I like to think that I’m open minded enough to understand that “In medio stat virtus”, that the truth is neither on the left or on the right, but rather in the tension between the two. In fact - usually - blind and hyper-partisan thinking is not a symptom of great intelligence).

His Facebook jackpot and the Obama campaign experience led him to years of research into the topic of poverty alleviation and wealth redistribution, and culminated in the thoughts presented in this book, where he succinctly describes his solution to alleviate poverty and to fight the wealth inequality chasm in the United States.

Let me make a quick note here: the mainstream narrative that “wealth inequality is at unprecedented levels in today’s US” is FALSE. In the 1910s and 1920s , until the Great Depression, the share of wealth in the hands of the rich vs. the poor was a little higher than today (income inequality is a different story). Still, a very strong case can be made that is not an ideal level of inequality for a balanced free market society. But don’t get misled. The question should be “what level of inequality is the right level to have a balanced society?”, just to clear the air from anyone seeking equality of outcome, which is a theoretical abomination (check for references: all of history and all of reality).

Without going too much into the details, Hughes’ proposal is NOT a typical UBI proposal (universal basic income, an idea that’s gaining ground in the West as many billionaires and economists are seriously considering it). His proposal is a guaranteed income for the lower class. Everyone who does “work” and earns anything between zero and $50k a year, would receive $500 in cash from the government every month, paid for by the 1% (or 5 to 7 ish %) by an increase in top marginal income taxes to 50% (from 39,6 where it is today).

Hughes’ definition of “work” is quite a broad one, as he includes mothers who have to raise young kids at home and all college students.

The most important point of the book, in my opinion, is the recognition of the fundamental importance of giving pure and simple CASH to poor people in order to help them. In his proposal, Social Services like Medicare etc. are important and would still exist, but they would be supplemented by this cash handout. Yes it’s true that someone might use the money to buy drugs, but as a general policy I see the point of focusing on cash handouts, because, due to a broken bureaucratic system (perfect example: healthcare), a lot of the money that’s spent “to help the poor” in America ends up in the pockets of doctors, insurers, lawyers, who are not poor.

Total cost : $280 billion.

Yes, huge. But still much less than the cost of any UBI project in the US.

And still less far-fetched than what’s being proposed by “I swear, you guys, I’m not a Marxist!” Thomas Piketty, who wants to increase the top marginal rate to 80% (see my review of “Why redistribution fails” by J. Pierse).

The fact that I gave this book 5 stars means I very much enjoyed reading it. It doesn’t mean that I believe Hughes’ solution is necessarily the best one I’ve heard in the debate about poverty alleviation, or even that I believe it will ever be implemented.

Many have rushed to criticize the idea and find faults with it (a bitter NYT review asks why Hughes decided to exclude the jobless from his proposal ..... that is entirely missing the point).

But if there is one really good objection that some economists bring against the concept of wealth redistribution in the US, it is precisely that with the current fiscal system the money stays in the hands of the rich, that, in other words, the poor receive some welfare and services, but almost no cash. So, a wealth redistribution program that brings cash to the forefront of the agenda seems to me like a good step forward.

From a review on the web: “Giving people cash, in Mr. Hughes’s view, is not only the most effective way to tackle inequality today, it is also the most humane: “It’s truly a belief that people can be trusted and deserve the opportunity to design their lives, to chase their own dreams.”
(As explained above, I really dislike the concept of “tackling inequality”, economic inequality being a fundamental and imprescindibile trait of any human society based on free markets. They should have said “the most effective way to fight poverty”, because POVERTY is the problem.)

One interesting and specific objection came from the NYT review I mentioned above : by creating a hard ceiling at $50,000 a year, Hughes also risks creating a “marriage penalty”: he’s effectively telling couples where each partner earns less than $50,000 that they shouldn’t get married and form a household.

That’s because, if they do so, thereby bringing their joint earnings above $50,000, they’ll lose a combined $12,000 a year in guaranteed income.
I haven’t found this potential issue mentioned in the book, although 1) would the couples in this situation be really that many? I don’t know. and 2) I’m pretty sure the author thought about it. I’d have to look further into it.

Overall I really, really enjoyed this book. Of course there is a big dose of Obamism and idealism in Hughes’ thinking, but I loved the optimism in it, I loved the sincerity of the author, his spirit, his candor, and I’m sure this will be a significant contribution to the global dialogue about the most effective and practical ways to fight - maybe even defeat - poverty.

[Casi Graddy-Gamel · Rating 4 out of 5]

If this is your first introduction to the concept of guaranteed basic income, Hughes makes a compelling case and creates a good primer. His policy proposal is far more moderate than a number of other proposals floating around and Hughes doesn't take the time to dig into larger questions around inflation capturing the benefit or cost of living adjustments based on region. He also doesn't take the time to look into how past federal social programs meant to alleviate poverty were explicitly designed in a racist and exclusionary manner. That said, it is a short, compelling presentation from someone whose heart and priorities are clearly in the right place. If you're pushing guaranteed basic income and your older family members are skeptical, maybe float them this book to get them started on the idea.

[Mehrsa · Rating 5 out of 5]

I recently met Chris at a conference we were both speaking at and did not realize he was the FB Chris Hughes until way afterwards when we were talking on the phone. When I put it together, I picked up his book and I really liked it. I loved the personal aspects of it--I am not sure I agree with his wholehearted endorsement of UBI, but I loved the way he framed his successes at FB as luck and his failures at the New Republic as Hubris. He's a smart and humble guy and is doing excellent work.

[John Mihelic · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m skeptical about Hughes writing for a guaranteed income.


Mainly it was because he’s been so lucky. Though he fought up from class position, he did end up as a white kid at Harvard. Then he became even luckier by having Mark Zuckerberg as a roommate. That’s given him millions of dollars to play with. First, he bought a magazine then he’s been doing this advocacy work.


The book is short and functions as a bit of biography and a bit of a policy proposal. The meat is the proposal, and as meat, it’s kind of gristly. His proposal is for a $500 monthly disbursement for everyone making less than $50K a year. It’s small, but even then, he wants a slow roll out. Significantly, it is tied to work – very broadly drawn.


For me, if we as a society are going to move towards a UBI, this kind of thing is the last sort of proposal we need. I complained to my friends as I was reading it that Hughes had reinvented the EITC. I was a little shocked when I was reading later that this is the model he has in mind. The only real difference is that he wants payouts monthly instead of yearly.


I’m personally on the edge about what a UBI might mean socially. However, the way Hughes draws it creates all the problems of administering another social program. It is not basic, nor universal. My concern when reading was that the 50K level is a huge drop-off. You make 49.5 and you get the payment, but one dollar over gets nothing (this is addressed many pages after the basic proposal is laid out, in one line). He also wants to have an adjustment based on cost of living.

So, his proposal is for a new program of a smaller sum (not to downplay how much an extra 500 bucks a month would play in my life) targeted towards the poor with a huge bureaucratic element thrown in. I’m really not sure how Hughes sees this being implemented, but in a political environment where even broader-based government programs are under attack, I can’t see this having a chance of being implemented.


The size and work requirements are what really get me. Dude hit the lottery and understands the power of receiving cash grants (he looks at similar income schemes in developing countries) but he’s still fetishizing work. The grant he proposes isn’t enough to live on and you to have worked the year before to qualify, so we’re still using an 18th century model of relief for the 21st century, with loads of uncertainty of what work will look like for the next generation.


The very point of a UBI is that within a capitalist framework it can be emancipatory since it is enough for basic subsistence and that is universal. If you do well enough, we can tax it away on the back end. There’s still bureaucracy in place, but if everyone gets a check, there’s less chance for those fun racially coded republican arguments against it. (And what’s really galling is that Hughes uses handwaving about his failure at the New Republic as a justification against a larger grant – UBI is literally a safety net for everyone, just like he had with his Facebook Money. Oh, and also that in a couple places he says he wants the book to “start a conversation” when the conversation has been going on for decades. Sigh.


So, it’s good that the Facebook bro writes a book for a basic income and gets blurbbed on the back by Bill Gates and Arianna Huffington. But the problem is that he’s doing that weird liberal thing where you pre-concede your position and ask for less than what’s really needed. (So we don’t see a whole program here of state-provided health care or schooling through the bachelor’s level to address other structural inequities.) I guess it’s a start.

[Otto Lehto · Rating 3 out of 5]

The idea of a guaranteed income is a realistic and much-needed proposal for the 21st Century.

Fair Shot is the latest book to contribute to the growing debate. And while it offers a decent overview of the idea, it fails to impress as a standalone book. There are better primers on UBI out there - especially because the author seems confused about whether his own model is a UBI or not!

Chris Hughes is one of the entrepreneurs and philanthropists at the heart of the effort to raise awareness of the positive benefits of unconditional cash transfer programs.

He pragmatically distances himself from the concept of a full UBI given to all citizens. This is mostly a marketing tool to repackage the idea, but it also has unfortunate consequences. The commonsensical insistence on limiting the income support for people participating in the labour market (loosely defined) and making less than $50,000 a year adds a layer of bureaucratic complexity that worsens the model by loosening the "guarantee" part of the guaranteed income.

He also insists on raising taxes exclusively on the 1% (a controversial value judgment) and on keeping intact minimum wage laws (a bad idea) and a bunch of supplementary welfare services (another economically dubious solution). These, again, seem like unnecessary complications that distract from the simplicity of the idea.

The book is also rhetorically a bit boring and lacking in fire power. MLK the author is not.

Nor does the book offer great revelations about Chris Hughes the co-founder of Facebook. The book feels a bit too restrained and controlled in its delivery - as if ghost-written by a lawyer.

Despite these reservations, if you are new to the idea, I think the book is worth reading in an afternoon, since the basic idea is so powerful - even if the book is mediocre.

If we cannot build bipartisan support for the idea of guaranteed minimum income (whether in the precise form as proposed by Mr. Hughes or hopefully not), we do not deserve to call ourselves civilized.

[Zack Timmons · Rating 4 out of 5]

While I tend to be very cautious regarding the expansion of entitlement programs, I felt this book was fairly eye-opening regarding its ideas.

It's clear Hughes put a great deal of research into this project and the idea of providing a guaranteed income to the lower income populations in America makes sense. It helps get people in poverty out of poverty without affecting the middle class and places the incentive on working, by making it a condition of receiving the aid.

I greatly question the ability for this idea to ever become a reality given the current state of American politics, but I went into the book as a doubter and emerged as someone greatly interested in seeing this idea at least have a chance to thrive. I believe it makes sense for the concerns of both sides and could potentially change the face of America for better in perpetuity.

[Josh Clausen · Rating 1 out of 5]

Nothing more than a part-biography/part-UBI push built on Keynesian assumptions & poor economic thought. The book can be summed up as: The 1% should pay so that those making under $50,000/year can receive $500/month.

[MargaretDH · Rating 4 out of 5]

Through my brother-in-law, I've attended a lot Calgary Business Hall of Fame inductions. People (usually old white dudes) at the end of their careers get up in front of their peers (and me, I guess) and talk about what led them to their success. Almost all of them mention some degree of luck, or of being in the right place at the right time. And that's a lot Chris Hughes's message in this book. Speaking as a member of the ultra-rich, the 1%, he says that many of America's wealthy have worked hard and had good ideas, but have also been lucky, both in the sense of being in the right place at the right time, and in the sense of being at the apex of decades of social and tax policy.

Hughes argues that all working Americans over 18 (he defines this broadly, and includes caregiving and attending school as work) in a household making under $50,000 a year should each receive $500 a month, no strings attached, and that it should be paid for solely by a tax on those making over $250,000 a year.

I was reasonably impressed here - this is a fairly well thought out policy proposal. Hughes rejects a universal basic income on the grounds that it's too idealistic. He says that people who should receive this money can be easily identified by the tax returns they're already submitting. He manages to thread the needle of discussing the inherent dignity and sense of purpose that comes with paid work, while acknowledging that there are a lot of crappy jobs in America that are not dignified or purposeful. He also trusts that people will do the right thing with extra cash, and shows lots of statistics to show how this is true. What he doesn't do is say how he'll convince the 1% to agree to doing away with capital gain exemptions and raising taxes back to the level of 50%, but that's not surprising.

If you're interested in reforming social supports, this is an interesting read. You might find more of Hughes's biography here than you wanted, but as someone who got in on the Facebook ground floor born to solidly middle class to lower middle class parents, he uses his story to underscore his own luck.

[Arun Pandiyan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Guy Standing's work is still a gold-standard one on the topic for whoever wants to learn about the idea of Universal Basic Income (UIB) . The idea of guaranteed income is widely accepted across the political spectrum; from Capitalist thinkers to left intellectuals, from libertarians to feminists, from right-wing politicians to liberals. However, the political consensus and the endorsement from the general public is a mixed one. For instance, political parties that promised basic income for women in the Northern region of India have lost elections.

Contrary to popular belief, a review of literature from forty-four studies conducted across the world shows that people do not spend the additional paycheck on leisure, smoking, or alcohol—women in Tamil Nadu who receive a paycheck of Rs. 1000 declared that they spent it on transport, children's education, cooking gas and groceries. Guaranteed income increases child nutrition, and attendance rates, and decreases homelessness, drop-out rates, and poverty.

The "new middle class" frowns upon the idea of basic income stating that "only the work should be paid" without realizing that even unpaid labor such as cooking, dishwashing, laundry, childcare, elderly care, and home care should be compensated. The author urges that we redefine the definition of work to include the above. For instance, women in lower-income countries such as India spend half of their weekday time on unpaid labor. Another question often thrown around by the "new middle class" is "Who will pay for the basic income?". The author reiterates the "Buffet's rule" that the top 1% should be taxed progressively to pay for the basic income of the bottom 50%. Another key area that needs to be reformed is how the top 1% is untaxed on the capital gains and dividends.

About 60% of the Americans cannot arrange an emergency fund of $400. A guaranteed monthly income of $500 for every individual who earns less than $50,000 annually can be a starting point towards Universal Basic Income which can bring down the poverty rates and ensure economic dignity.

[Rahul · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think this book is a very honest attempt to explain why guaranteed income is needed specially now. Some of the reasons why it is in the news is because of the looming threat of Artificial Intelligence which is going to change the nature of economy but keeping that aside there are still strong enough reasons to consider it.
The author Chris Hughes’ Facebook co-founder has been humble enough to admit that “he got lucky”. His working class parents did just enough to provide him with opportunities (education) and he ended up at Harvard where he happened to choose Mark Zuckerberg as his roommate - what if he hadn’t?
He makes a very passionate case for Guaranteed Income.
He calls for every working age adult making less than $50,000 a year to be given a $500 month which would be paid for by the top 1% - total budget for it would be $290 billion i.e less than half of the US defense budget or the Social Security system. This gives a very reasonable estimate for the programme and also answers a popular criticism of who’s going to fund it.

To summarize I agree with him that "The natural drift of capitalism toward inequality requires a constant vigilance to make the market for everyone, not just for the rich." and such a system or some flavor of it is needed. For more checkout my review here - https://musingsmith.blogspot.com/2018...

[Ailith Twinning · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked listening to the author - and totally weird an inappropriate comment really, but about halfway into the book my mind flipped and thought of his voice as female. It was a strange experience I've never had happen so suddenly before, and I'm not sure I've ever had it happen without some intent before.

Back on topic - Hughes himself is quite likeable and well-intentioned and comes off as more or less the mirror image of that dude from Hillbilly Elegy, J.D. Vance. So this has that going for it, and I respect that he actually thought thru his comparative position of GBI versus UBI. I don't think I necessarily agree -- but that could very well just be a quibble of values (as in dollars and cents) rather than the actual concept.

The trouble with UBI is that you could easily build a kind of slum society around it, especially if the tech that it is meant to counter actually comes thru. The trouble with GBI is that it subsidizes low wages and undermines unionization, political activism, any sort of global worker solidarity or efforts to end slavery, and democracy itself. So -- a different version of the same thing really.

But the core method of fighting against the drawback to GBI is to just raise the minimum wage. Which was the idea that stayed in my head thru much of the book, until he did touch on it and say, basically "We should do 15 USD AND GBI AND keep SS, Medicare et al."

Well -- I there's much to be discussed on implementation, but I can get on board with him in principle here. Easier than I can the more dramatic and overt "Give everyone 25k a year!". I mean, if automation does what it could do in the future, then there'll be no real alternative to UBI, but I don't see that being an issue in our lifetimes. Let's focus on the here and now, because we can always switch the conversation if it becomes necessary.

But Hughes points out the need for housing, food, healthcare, education and clothing, as well as explicitly clarifying that when he talk about the necessity of work to be a complete person, he doesn't count bullshit work. Raise the minimum wage to kill the unjust subsidy to the ultra rich, put in a direct subsidy in the form of GBI for anyone left under 50k in his argument (tied to living cost, but let's tie it explicitly to inflation as well, unless I'm missing why that would be silly), find a way to lower the cost of education, or make it sliding scale in cost, or provide some outright free form of it (I vote for free for obvious ROI reasons: it doesn't matter how much it costs, it matters how much it makes), lower defense spending is implied by Hughes but it's a massive fucking deal to me because it isn't just a waste of money, but it is morally reprehensible what we do around the world. . . . .

Yeah -- like I said, if you accept the idea of just taking whatever you can get while continuing to push for what you want in the whole project, sure, even 100 USD/month GBI is a good move. It's not enough, but it's a start, and it will help people.

There is the idea that just making the minimum wage 20-25 USD/hr would do exactly the same thing, funded directly by the sources of wealth rather than those that aggregate it however. And this is where I think I have to break away from Hughes, unless he wants to move with me -- Attacking the hyper-profit model of modern corporations directly is a better move than taking it back from the rich, for one thing the latter move accepts that those people deserve that wealth, and merely have a charitable duty to the poor. . .except they CREATED the poor by not giving us our rightful share of what our labour produces. If I produce 500 USD of profit for a company per hour, and they pay me 8 bucks, that's just plain fucked.

Moreover, individuals having disproportionate wealth leads to disproportionate power and the destruction of democracy. Nobody deserves that kind of power. Nobody can be trusted with that kind of power.

So -- I like Hughes, but even if you write off UBI as utopian/dystopian for any of the several reasons you can, that doesn't make GBI the proper road -- there is a giant difference between the US and Kenya mate, and that's that we have all the infrastructural things which are lacking and doom things like microfinance to ineffectualality after very modest absolute improvements even in the very best of circumstances. What I mean it, you do not necessarily need to just hand people money here, you can give them ways to earn it because those ways exist, they just don't pay for shit. And the best of it is that the absolute worst jobs are the least profitable for the company, so raising the minimum wage high enough may kill those jobs outright, but the expanded consumer based will create new, more desireable work.

Just, don't get me started on the absolutely insidious and fecking evil idea of the negative income tax. The GBI has some of the same faults, and UBI definitely does -- but I think a truly living minimum wage might be the way around it.

Actually, I want to thank Hughes for this book because it gave me a framework to play around with the differences of GBI, UBI, NIT and minimum wage some more. . . and I am more firmly in the camp of "We need to raise the minimum wage as high as we can possibly bear." now.

*Considers editing this to streamline and edit out the digressions. . . .* Meh, too lazy.

Damn, I wish this were another book by some professor with less than a thousand reviews, I've been able to make appointments for an hour or two with professors before. Hell, I got to attend the classes of one historian I liked, that was awesome. Tho I wish I'd done it now instead of then; I know more now, but that class is a bit part of that so, catch 22 . . . But yeah, strongly suspect I'll never get to have a conversation with Hughes on this topic (which is kinda a big part of what's wrong with individuals having such massive audiences actually, and amusingly, FB has contributed to that problem)

[Zach Morrell · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting thoughts about making a floor for the poor in the world by giving them a cash draw from the government. Its hard for me to really know exactly how this would work and where the money would come from. Taxes are actually super interesting to me as well as finances and how they play a role in poverty and wealth.

I don't believe in taking from one person in order to give to another, but I do believe that those who have excess should freely give. He believes that we should give the poverty stricken people in this country $500 a month to help subsidize their income.

This guy was one of the Co-Founders of google and is a millionaire. It was good food for thought and I think I would have to do a little more studying to know if it is a good plan or not.

[Hannah Rios · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was very intrigued by the synopsis when I first found this book, as I had never heard of universal basic income (UBI), and it at first seemed preposterous to me. This was an interesting read, as Chris Hughes explains more of his background, how he came to success, and what led him to be such a proponent of the UBI movement. I'm not sure if I can get behind it, as I believe there is much more to these economic principles than just the facts that were provided in the book. But it was definitely a good book to make you think and question the best way to help those who can't make ends meet. I especially enjoyed the tax lingo/analysis.

[Chip Huyen]

Even though I don't find the author's arguments convincing, I respect the author for taking a stand.

[Juliana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book on how a basic income for workers can help push the boundaries of the poor communities.

[Emily✨ · Rating 4 out of 5]

I greatly enjoyed reading Fair Shot, and I learned a great deal. Granted, I've never taken a single economics class in all my years of schooling, but Hughes explains his concepts in a very understandable way and backs up all of his ideas and claims with empirical evidence. There is a comprehensive bibliography included at the end of the book.

A Princeton study found that of all the jobs created between 2005 and 2015, 94 percent of them were contract or temporary, meaning virtually every job we created in the last decade was piecemeal and the income was unreliable. (46)

Fair Shot is an argument for the development of a monthly $500 guaranteed income for working Americans who make less than $50,000 per year. It is not, as other reviewers have stated, an argument for a universal basic income; in fact, it argues against a UBI in America. The author, Chris Hughes, is one of the co-founders of Facebook. Born into a working-class family, he had the experience of becoming super wealthy almost overnight and, by his own admission, largely through circumstances beyond his control.

Saying people get lucky is not a denial that they work hard and deserve positive outcomes. It is a way of acknowledging that in a winner-take-all economy, small chance encounters—like who you sit next to at a dinner party or who your college roommate is—have a more significant impact than they have ever had before. In some cases, the collections of these small differences can add up to create immense fortunes. […] But luck doesn’t just happen. We have created an economy dominated by forces that reward luck in an outsized way. Some of these changes might be desirable and some not, but they are all the result of political decisions that we purposefully make as a society. There is no invisible hand creating a winner-take-all economy in which luck takes on this disproportionate role. We are its authors and enablers. (39-40)

Though some of this book falls more into the territory of memoir rather than policy, I enjoyed all of it. Like I said, I don't have any background knowledge in economics, and I've still never seen The Social Network, so much of the information Hughes presented was new and highly interesting to me. The book is written well and was not a slog to get through like some nonfiction writing.

We don’t need to go back in time and “make America great again” by re-creating a world that provided economic mobility to a select group—we need to build a new economic order that empowers all Americans to get ahead. (88)

I only recently learned about the concept of a universal basic income and was floored by the very idea. Nothing like it had ever occurred to me as being possible, much less desirable. Yet it also immediately intrigued me. I think the idea of a guaranteed income that Hughes presents here addresses some of the problems with a UBI, including being cheaper and targeting those who need it most, and without making things worse for certain people (who might already be receiving some other form of government benefit).

The guaranteed income would create a floor below which people could not fall, a reliable foundation for people to build on. It wouldn’t be enough money on its own for anyone to live on. It would supplement income from other sources like formal labor, a job in the gig economy, informal work, or other government benefits. Everyone who contributes to their community would earn the income, even if they’re not making money in the formal economy. That would include mothers and fathers of young kids, adults caring for aging parents, and college students. (92)

Because the idea of guaranteed income is new to me, I had no idea that it is not by any means a new idea in general. In fact, it's even been historically bipartisan. For example, President Nixon (yes, Nixon) passed a guaranteed income measure through the House which then stalled in the Senate, and eventually became the more watered-down EITC (earned income tax credit). I'm probably just clueless, but I was shocked at the history this idea has had in American politics and philosophy.

[Martin Luther King Jr.] put the emphasis on dignity. Other activists and thinkers on the left and right have made the case that without financial security, no one can be truly free. Belgian philosopher Philippe Van Parijs has been one of the most visible and ardent advocates for the idea that we cannot imagine a society with true freedom unless all its members have the ability to invest in themselves and make their own decisions. Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman made a similar case. Many of the these twentieth-century thinkers followed in the tradition of writers like Thomas Paine and Thomas More. For centuries, philosophers have argued that only a guaranteed income can grant every individual the freedom that civilization is meant to provide. (132-133)

Hughes addresses many of the dissenting worries regarding a guaranteed income, including whether it will cause people to stop working altogether. In short, the answer is no, it won't. First of all, people want to work, and secondly, the guaranteed income would not be enough to subsist on alone. It would be enough to bridge the gap between struggling and actually homeless, though. It would help make ends meet for those who are teetering on the brink. It would enable people to leave a job that isn't working out for them without fear of loss of income. It would help students and new mothers through a time when formal employment is difficult. There's also no evidence that the income would be "misspent" on things like drugs and alcohol. In fact, studies show that people are more likely to purchase drugs and alcohol when their lives are desperate and unstable. A guaranteed income provides people with stability and a hope for future opportunity that encourages them to be more involved in society and the economy than they would otherwise.

[E]vidence from existing American programs shows that a little bit of cash doesn’t cause people to drop out of the workforce, but instead helps them find work. If people have financial stability from a guaranteed income, they can choose work that’s fulfilling, purpose-driven, and a match for their skills. (109)

Fair Shot also has answers for the skeptics who argue that funding better and continuing education programs are a better way of addressing the issues which lead to poverty. In a nutshell, that is what we've been doing for decades, yet the results don't show much progress. It's not working. We need something bolder and simpler, and which is also conveniently cheaper in the long run.

The problem is that many people still do not have the money to be able to take advantage of the education opportunities that would help them. You can teach a man to fish all day, but if he can’t afford to buy a rod, reel, and bait, what good will it do? (174)

Hughes acknowledges the historical financial oppression that people of color have experienced in America, which still disproportionately keeps many POC under or close to the poverty line today. Though he admits that many past and current financial benefits programs have excluded and disenfranchised these communities, he does not outright address the way that POC have been exploited in history for the gain of rich white men. Many of the US's first wealthy elite made their money literally off the back of slaves and immigrants. In today's economy, much wealth is still being made off of the exploitation of POC, whether domestically or through outsourced and underpaid labor. Hughes does, however, point out that 96% of the wealthiest 1% are white.

The people who would benefit most from a guaranteed income are those who have historically been overlooked or excluded from economic development programs. Families in the lower tier of income distribution in our country are disproportionately made up of people of color. These families were also often systematically excluded from educational and financial support structures in the past. Many people of color have organized for the idea historically. As Anne Price, the president of the Insight Center, writes, “It’s abundantly clear that a basic income program has much greater potential than is captured in the mainstream conversations about UBI—it holds the promise of addressing, head on, some of our most deeply entrenched racial and economic inequalities.” A guaranteed income targeted to households making less than $50,000 would boost the incomes of African American and Latino people in particular. (170)

One point that Hughes seems to have overlooked is that extreme wealth does not only come about from luck, but through direct greed and exploitation of the working class. With POC, certainly, as I've already pointed out, but also just in general. Jeff Bezos, the owner and CEO of Amazon, the richest man in America, still pays most of his employees minimum wage for part-time work without benefits. The ultra-wealthy do not "work hard" for their wealth, or at least they do not worker harder than the average American who does not make nearly as much money. If company profits were to benefit all of its employees rather than merely its executives, that alone would go a long way to alleviating poverty in this country.

In the absence of that, these ultra-wealthy companies and families should be taxed in order to provide an income floor for our poorest citizens. The 1% made their fortunes off the back of the American people-- it's only fair that they give some of it back. The 1% made their fortunes by utilizing the American economy-- it's only fair that they put some of it back into the economy.

The natural drift of capitalism toward inequality requires a constant vigilance to make the market work for everyone, not just for the rich. That’s important because most of us want a world with basic fairness, and it’s also important because capitalism will break down if wealth continues to concentrate at the rate that it has in recent years. (182)

Cash transfers, as is shown in Fair Shot, do more to alleviate poverty and stimulate the American economy, more quickly and cheaply, than other kinds of charities and programs which only focus on symptoms of the larger issue. Rather than applaud the wealthy for donating fractious amounts of their fortunes to ineffective or narrowly focused non-profits (for a deduction on their taxes), tax them and give it back to the people who made that wealth possible, in the form of a guaranteed income.

“There is nothing new about poverty,” [Martin Luther King Jr.] declared. “What is new is that we now have the techniques and the resources to get rid of poverty. The real question is whether we have the will.” (144)

[Rafay · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to read something different and had this book laying around. I thought it was about Technology and Economics, but it was much more than that in a good way that I end up reading the whole book in 2 days.

The main topic of this book is about inequality in the world and in US specifically. The idea to raise people in large numbers out of poverty. To provide a fair shot to all poor, struggling and middle-class families.

Chris (Author) was the co-founder of Facebook in early years and exited with half a billion dollars. Who soon after also joined Obama's team for election campaign in 2008 as a digital guy. I learned that he didn't came from very affluent family. But got lucky to get into great school and then later on in Harvard sharing the same room with Mark Zuckerberg.

The story told by him of the early years of Facebook was really interesting from a business point of view. He bared the technical detail of running Facebook in this book. Later on after his Facebook venture, he bought *The New Republic* newspaper, with a vision to overhaul it, to make it more attuned and popular with its digital audience. But this business decision proved very costly for him.

Now up until this story I was expecting the author to keep on with his business venture stories and give praise to some of his philanthropic cause but I was surprised to hear him have such humbling and realist view of himself as a rich person. The admission of the role of luck and technologically supporting country policies that played in his life.

He mentions;

"Saying people get lucky is not a denial that they work hard and deserve positive outcomes. It is a way of acknowledging that in a winner-take all economy, small, chance encounters (like who you sit next to at a dinner party or who your college roommate is) have more significant impact than they have ever had before. In some cases, the collections of these small differences can add up to create immense fortunes."

Now before this book I was aware of the terms and very basic ideas of Universal Basic Income (UBI) and Welfare Policies. But I didn't first hand read any of those ideas in detail before.

He also mentions the struggles he had to face to find effective and fulfilling means to giveaway some of the millions of dollars of money that he had received as a 22 year old with Facebook. Like how suddenly the idea of giving away a million dollars became more important than lets say a $100.

Briefly in this limbo he visits Kenya and other African villages which gave him a first hand experience and account of how poor people really live and what benefits them the most.

Mentions the role that many NGOs play with their programs of poverty elevation. Like building towers for internet, giving school materials or digging wells. But all of that isn't quite sustainable and doesn't help people in financial trouble than simple cash. Cash helps them the most. Which is in a somewhat hilarious way shared below in an interaction of his with a poor local.

"One recipient said to us, through the translator, that another charity had given him a cow. 'What am I going to do with a cow?' 'Now I have to feed it and take care of it!' He didn't need or want livestock, but a charity had decided that he should have it."

The book drops a revelation moment on you that perhaps the best solution to a poor man's problem lies with the poor man himself. He knows best what to do with money. So why don't we just give people cash?

Fast-forwarding nitty details. He backs all of his claims with many referenced studies and if someone has been through some sort of financial struggle in life would agree with almost all of his ideas shared about inequality in this book.

He comes to the conclusion that "(in America) A guaranteed income of $500 a month, paid by the one percent, would lift 20 million people out of poverty and give them a fair shot at economic independence" and he backs this claim with action through his NGO, Economic Security Project (ESP) himself being part of the one percent willing to the idea of taxation to give back to the poor.

He mentions early in the book that during his University days he was tagged an "empath" and I think a lot of what drives him, the thinking and the work that he does and aspires to do kind of makes sense. Cause only a person with a significant amount of empathy could think like that. It takes a keen eye to not just see the very poor struggling but also the struggling middle class. Someone on a thin ice dreading an awful summer.

"People aren't poor because they make bad decisions, but that they make bad decisions because they are poor." - Rutger Bergman (Historian)

Now this book I believe was published in 2018 so a lot has changed since then. Covid has come. But I believe poverty is still there and we still have as many people in world struggling financially, if not more. So people like him and their ideas are the need of the hour.

I wasn't expecting the book to turn out so welfare focused. It wasn't very technical or anything like that but just different. The organization of the story was also kind of like this review, a bit all over the place. But his ideas were insightful.

3/5 - I recommend this book if you're interested in economics and making this world a better place. Particularly if you're an American, I think his ideas would resonate very close to you and your home.

[Yoo-Yoo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Chris, a now wealthy co-founder of Facebook who grew up lower middle class, clearly has good intentions in re-equalizing the playing field in the US, but
(1) doesn't provide a wide enough set of information to convince me that Universal Basic Income is to solution to all of our inequality issues. Several of the studies he cites issued one-time payouts, not regular payouts.
(2) Also, he offers that three forces created today's unequal conditions: globalization, rapid technological development, and the growth of finance. Yes, I agree these forces definitely have changed society greatly, but so also did Reaganomics and the Great Recession. Overall he does make a number of good points, though, and provides historic context. If he could read "White Working Class" by Joan Williams, it could round out and better inform a number of his arguments.
(3) He believes that ultimately everyone wants a job that is purpose-driven and fulfilling. This kind of wishful dreaming has not been available to most people over human history. There are bigger battles to fight before this one.

Useful quotes:
"A collection of economic and political decisions over the past four decades has given rise to unprecedented wealth for a small number of fortunate people, collectively called the one percent."
"An income floor of $500 per month for every working adult whose family makes less than $40,000 would improve the lives of 90 million Americans and lift 20 million people out of poverty overnight. ... It should be paid for by the one percent." Fast solutions are the purview of the tech class - worth an experiment, but might not be as simple as you think to scale.
"We can be the generation that ends poverty in America and provides financial stability and economic opportunity to the middle class." Nice idea, but Roosevelt's New Deal did that, when it pulled America out of the Great Depression. We've just lost that since, and yes we need a new generation to pull us out.
"I gradually made it into the social class my parents wanted me to be a part of, but in spirit, I knew I never really belonged there. As I became more aware of the world as a teenager, I felt a percolating anger and a desire to defend my parents from the men who snubbed their noses at my dad and the women who never invited my mom to bridge or dinner parties." Have I become the snob? Trying to grow wings and have roots is a juggling act. Always remember your roots.
"Saying people get lucky is not a denial that they work hard ... It is a way of acknowledging that in a winner-take-all economy, small, chance encounters - like who you sit next to at a dinner party or who your college roommate is - have a more significant impact than they have ever had before. In some cases, the collections of these small differences can add up to create immense fortunes."
"Just the top 0.1 percent of the population - the 160,000 or so families who have $20 million or more - control the same amount as the entire bottom 90 percent of Americans combined. The chasm between the rich and the poor has not been so wide since 1929, the year of the biggest collapse in Wall Street's history." Good statistic to know, wow.
"... of all the jobs created between 2005 and 2015, 94 percent of them were contract or temporary, meaning virtually every job we created in the last decade was piecemeal and the income was unreliable."
"We live in an age of overnight billionaires, where anything seems possible, but economic opportunity is fading in many of our communities. ... Our actions now can perpetuate it, or we can embrace more powerful instruments to combat the inequality we have produced."
"... labor force participation rates are higher for single black mothers (76 percent) than for white men (72 percent)." Reset your stereotypes.
"[A] parent who stays at home today, takes care of young children, cooks, cleans, and runs errands is no less productive than a factory worker or an entrepreneur. An adult who takes care of an aging loved one ... students who spend hours and hours a week .. studying... As long as you're doing something for your community, we should recognize you as a worker."
"The further you get from subsistence, the easier it is to ask fundamental questions like: What do I want, and how do I get it? What are my values, and what will I use this money to invest in?"
"The poor ... they're not making dumb decisions because they are dumb, but because they're living in a context in which anyone would make dumb decisions."
"Today the top one percent of Americans controls nearly 40 percent of the wealth in our country - one and a half times more wealth than the entire bottom 90 percent own."
"The debunked 'trickle-down economics" of the 1980s created the most unequal economy in over a century. We now know that prosperity in America does not flow from low taxes on the ultra-wealthy, but mostly from growth in consumer spending. ... Studies show that when a cash-strapped person gets an extra $100, they're likely to spend it on rent, utilities, or groceries. By contrast, a wealthy person who gets the same $100 might spend a few dollars of it, but would inevitably put most of it in the bank."
"[P]eople like me who have benefited massively from the new economic forces [should] pay a small part of our fortune forward. A surtax on the one percent isn't pitchforks coming for the rich or punishment for prosperity. We all benefit from a society that is more just and fair." No point in being rich if your society is falling apart.
"We have invested hundreds of billions of dollars in schools, but we have overlooked the fact that if people can't afford them, then even the best instruction won't help improve economic outcomes."
"The natural drift of capitalism toward inequality requires a constant vigilance to make the market work for everyone, not just for the rich. ...capitalism will break down if wealth continues to concentrate at the rate that it has in recent years."
"I will have failed as a parent if our son does not realize what he owes to other people and to the world around him."

[Joe J · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a small book in length but about a big idea that Chris Hughes is supporting. I had never heard of universal basic income (UBI) before reading the book although the more I read as Chris explained how and why it would work intrigued me more and more.

Chris gives some basic background of how he worked hard throughout his life as a student, but was lucky to have gotten to Harvard and even more lucky to have been one of Mark Zuckerberg’s roommates in college and the benefit both culturally and especially financially that he benefited by being in the right place at the right time. It is because of the benefits he saw and his previous experience growing up in a middle-class family in North Carolina that Chris is able to have foresight into how lucky he has been in life and how many in today’s society aren’t and won’t be as lucky.

His idea is centered on a few basic questions and that is what if people had the ability to make their own choice and then how do we get to this point as a society? His main focus is on the current state of the US with the haves having more than their share and the benefit that can come if they were able to share some of their wealth equally with those that haven’t been as lucky or fortunate. Chris’s answer in this book is to give people a cushion so that choice becomes a true reality. That cushion is monetary payments of $500 for those families that are not earning $50,000 or more annually paid on a monthly basis, to allow people the freedom to decide what is best for their own lives. Chris also takes into account in his plan those that work raising families at home as their “jobs” and those in school for any adult that are above the age of 18 and trying to better their current life situation. The plan is solid and Chris explains his thoughts and the reason behind them in fairly easy to understand terms even if you don’t have a strong previous economic background. He proposes taxing the truly rich (think top 10 percent and higher) at a higher rate and then distributed in a similar manner in which the current earned income tax credit is used, but instead of it being a lump sum at the end of the year he wants money given out monthly to those truly in need.

UBI is an interesting concept. A major worry in this country is that many people will be shut out of the labor market and unable to make a living in the not so distant future for a variety of reason as individual companies become larger and larger and have more and more control over how much of their workforce is actually needed in anything but an at-will, part-time or temporary role. The argument is that everyone deserves a floor or a similar standard to start off each month and then work becomes a way to raise yourself above that predetermined floor. Many studies show that people like to work and enjoy work, even more, when they know or feel they are on an equal financial footing with the rest of their peers in society.

This book is a good introduction to the idea and why it might work

[Glenn Roberts · Rating 5 out of 5]

Five stars not for the quality of writing (though it is well phrased and edited) but for the concept presented and the honesty of his approach. Chris Hughes worked his way by good grades to a scholarship admittance into Andover Prep School and on to Harvard. Then he got lucky as one of Mark Zuckerberg's roommates and became the co-founder of Facebook.

His current effort is to help establish a guaranteed wage for working Americans. This book is a concise history of such plans and a detailed explanation of how and why we should adopt such thinking to the social and political system of our country. You've heard plenty of griping about the economic divide. Hughes, like many others in the 1% acquired their wealth not by long years of nose to the grindstone work, but by being in the right place and the right time. I've had the homeless and the working poor on my mind for a number of years now and thought that something like this was a good idea. The current administration's tax debacle is the just the opposite. Throw the poor a bone for today (and some votes) but further line the pockets of the rich for forever.

This has been in politics before and will be again in 2018 and especially 2020. Watch for it.

[Paige · Rating 2 out of 5]

Promising start talking about the sheer randomness of who wins big and who loses under late-stage capitalism in America, illustrated through the founding of Facebook, then it takes a hard turn into milquetoast liberal policy mechanics.

It seems like he tried to solve an unsolvable problem with no expertise to recommend him one time (he bought a niche political newspaper and tried to make it profitable at precisely the moment that newspapers became impossible to make a profit on) and now he's convinced that the most realistic and impactful thing we can do as a country is employment-based tax credits.

Also infuriatingly, he spends a large chunk of the book allaying concerns that a $6000 per year tax credit for the poor won't make them quit working en masse. (Don't worry, those nasty unemployed poors wouldn't get the credit at all because it's tied to employment! And even if they did, we made sure it's not enough for anyone to live on!) It's giving "woke" rich white guy in the worst way.

I really can't recommend this book, there are definitely better books about the topic that literally use the same statistics like Utopia for Realists by Rutger Bregman or Poverty, By America by Matthew Desmond.

[Jessada Karnjana · Rating 5 out of 5]

ในหนังสือเล่มนี้ Chris Hughes อดีต roommate ของ Mark Zuckerberg ที่ Harvard และผู้ร่วมก่อตั้ง facebook ชวนคิดเรื่องความไม่เท่าเทียมทางการเงิน (ซึ่งนำไปสู่ความเหลื่อมล้ำด้านอื่น ๆ) และบทบาทของ luck ต่อความสำเร็จและมั่งคั่ง (ทำนองเดียวกับข้อโต้แย้งหลักของ Robert H. Frank ในหนังสือ Success and Luck) ประกอบกับระบบเศรษฐกิจที่จ่ายผลตอบแทนก้อนโตเกินจริงแก่ luck ( ... อันที่จริง Chris พยายามเลี่ยง ไม่ใช้คำว่า luck โดยรวม luck กับปัจจัยอื่นซึ่งมีนัยไปในทาง shoulders of giants ที่นิวตันเคยเขียนในจดหมายถึง Robert Hooke เข้าไปด้วย แต่นั่นก็แค่ทำให้ luck บวกปัจจัยอื่น ๆ ของ Chris เท่ากับ luck ของ Frank) ดังนั้นปัญหาที่เขาพยายามเสนอวิธีแก้ในเล่ม จึงเป็นปัญหาที่ยิ่งใหญ่มาก ... inequality ... Chris พยายามเต็มที่ อธิบายว่า guaranteed income สำหรับคนทำงาน (ฉะนั้นจึงแตกต่างจาก universal basic income) จะช่วยแก้ปัญหานี้ได้อย่างไร สำหรับใครที่สนใจข้อโต้แย้งเพื่อโน้มน้าวให้เห็นข้อดีของการแจกเงิน หนังสือเล่มนี้ดีงาม หนังสือไม่ได้พูดถึง UBI โดยตรง แต่ให้ภาพรวมอันเป็นจุดเริ่มต้นที่ดี รวมถึงโมเดลอื่น ๆ ที่น่าสนใจ เช่น negative income tax หรือ earned income tax credit (EITC) รวมถึงข้อโต้แย้งว่า วิธีเหล่านี้ไม่ได้ลดการทำงานลง และไม่ได้ลดการเติบโตทางเศรษฐกิจ

[Omayma]

In the book, Chris Hughes mainly reflects on his experience as a lucky person who benefited from the economic forces and opportunities introduced at the beginning of the 21sth century that made it possible to start and grow something like Facebook. Hughes came from a middle class family but could make half a billion for few years of work; something rare for his counterparts. For this, he focuses on the gap between the richest 1% in the US and the rest, which he considers harmful and unfair. He explains why he is an advocate for a guaranteed income, which is sort of different from a universal minimum income. he quotes some researchers and economists, he tries to convince the reader of the arguments for a guaranteed income, and discuss the main concerns as well. Overall, he gives a plausible explanation and presents reasonable points. However, I'd say there was sort of redundancy in the second half of the book. I believe It could be reorganized and reviewed to be more coherent and concise.

[kavya · Rating 2 out of 5]

"People who find work through apps like Lyft and Task-Rabbit get a lot of attention, but they are the tip of the iceberg. The instability that characterizes their work has spread throughout the economy as the class of low-quality jobs has grown. If you include not only independent gigs, but part-time workers, temps, and on-call workers, the number of people working in contingent jobs balloons to over 40 percent of all American workers. The blue collar jobs of yesteryear that paid decent salaries and provided benefits have declined from about half of overall jobs 60 years ago to around 20 percent today. A Princeton study found that of all the jobs created between 2005 and 2015, 94 percent of them were contract or temporary, meaning virtually every job we created in the last decade was piecemeal and the income was unreliable."

Katz and Krueger, "Rise and Nature of Alternative Work Arrangements."

as a the social network obsessed person, very fun that chris hughes initially asked for ten percent and mark only offered two. mentions of edwardo saverin? zero.

as for the actual ideas, i was already mostly convinced, i doubt ex-obama officials need to convert me anymore. i would love to give families more money but we dont live in scandinavia i guess.

[Melissa · Rating 2 out of 5]

An interesting book on poverty and wealth inequality. Hughes calls for a guaranteed income of 500 per working person earning less than 50,000. I actually thought his ideas for identifying those who would be given the $ was clear and smart.
However, he decries the current economy of part time workers and a big part of poverty. What he doesn't identify is the root of that problem - regulation that requires companies to offer benefits to employees working so many hours.
He also wants a higher inheritance tax. That is taxing something twice. Not something I am a fan of. Mostly because I don't trust our government to be wise stewards of the money.
I so support his calls for raising the taxes on dividends and capital gains, but ultimately I support a flat tax. Get rid of Deductions and loopholes. (Maybe Keep the earned income tax credit.)
I'm glad I read this book, and would recommend it to anyone interested in this topic.

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fast read that is a primer on the concept of universal basic income.

It starts with a basic question: what if people had the ability to make their own choices? How do we get to that reality? And the answer, for this book, is to give people a cushion so that choice becomes a reality. That cushion is monetary payments, paid on a monthly basis, to allow people the freedom to decide what is best for their own lives.

UBI is popular right now. With what we know about the effects of globalism and automation, a major worry is that many people will be shut out of the labor market and unable to make a living. A popular solution to that problem is to decouple the idea of work from income. The argument is that everyone deserves a floor; work becomes a way to raise yourself above that floor. Many studies show that people like to work; people need shit to do.

So, with that, this book is a good introduction to the idea and why it might work.

[Alyssa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Chris Hughes was lucky beyond all compare. He was able to go to an excellent boarding school, and an excellent college, and won the (college housing) (and real) lottery to make it out of the typical (but possible most cited) blue-collar life he often cites. Hughes uses his book as 75% memoir, and 25% policy making that I don't truly buy the evidence for. While using the EITC as a framework for how we should implement a universal basic income, Hughes is blind to the actual economic consequences that happen with providing a more rigorous social safety net. If his ideas were to be taken seriously, I would have appreciated more economic thought and references to studies that looked at UBI, rather than just using political hypotheticals and utopianism for why we need to do this as a society.

[Kumar Raghavendra · Rating 3 out of 5]

Chris tells many personal stories that sometimes feel like a digression from the main topic, but puts together a good case for guaranteed income. This is a topic I have given a good deal of thought to, and came out with many of my original questions still unanswered. He makes a superficial and plausible mathematical case for where the money for providing a guaranteed income will come from and how the program will be administered. He does seem very practical in his approach. But I don't fully agree with some higher level core assumptions that he takes for granted and doesn't address. If you have the same assumptions as Chris, then this is a good book to understand how to put together a workable formula for providing guaranteed income to Americans. No talk of the rest of the world, which is something I always find as the author coming from a place of entitlement for being born American.

[Shhhhh Ahhhhh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ended up being a glorified missive to his unborn child (an urge made ironic by the author's distinct lack of interest in direct conception).

I expected/ wanted a book that laid out the best of all possible arguments for changing the way we consider inequality and money, perhaps with a large scale plan laid out and next steps. What I got was a few somewhat disjointed stories from this silicon valley guy and the vague inklings of of a point. I'm not usually this harsh but the closer I got to the end, the more I realized that this was a book written for people already convinced of not only the good, but also the feasibility, of UBI (or whatever nuanced variation on terms the author or any academic chooses to use, the aims are synonymous even if the nomenclature isn't).

Disappointed. I'll probably use quotes from it to make points but I'm not recommending it any time soon.

[MGF · Rating 2 out of 5]

First point: I like the idea of a guaranteed income (I think the details of how to administer and fund need to be thought through a bit more).
Second point: Skip this book and read Andrew Yang's War on Normal People instead.

This book is a little over 200 pages (I listened to the audiobook), and the most useful portions of the book which discuss the need for a guaranteed income and its potential impacts (which I would probably rate 3.5 stars) are only ~50 of those pages.

The rest of the book is the author's bio (great family, Harvard, Facebook, New Republic, etc.) which was completely unnecessary and had practically nothing to do with giving people a "Fair Shot". There are plenty of other books that cover this topic more in-depth that should be read first.