Why California’s Once-Dismissed Idea to Give Everyone a Paycheck Is Gaining Ground
Silicon Valley, Martin Luther King Jr., and Milton Friedman Make Strange Bedfellows, but Each Has Championed a Guaranteed Minimum Income for All
Do you want your ham and eggs, California?
It is one of the oldest and most enduring ideas in our state: Government should provide everyone with a minimum amount of money on a regular basis. It goes back to the 1930s, when Californians narrowly rejected the so-called “Ham and Eggs” proposals to give Californians a $30 check every Thursday.
Now, this notion is back, a subject of books and op-eds and speeches, especially in the Bay Area, and with some bipartisan political momentum. Thinkers on the left have embraced it as …
