The Indepentarian - Karl Widerquist

OPINION: Six Lesson from the Alaska Model

July 1, 2013 Karl WiderquistOpinion, The Indepentarian

Basic income is a regular unconditional cash grant paid to all citizens without any means test or work requirement. It’s often dismissed as a utopian idea. However, a basic income, or something very close to it, exists today in Alaska. It’s called the Permanent Fund Dividend (PFD) or sometimes “the Alaska Dividend.” The PFD has been paying annual dividends to Alaskans since 1982 with no conditions except citizenship, residency, and the willingness to fill out a form. After following the Alaska Dividend since 1999, and I want to share six lessons that supporters of progressive economic policy should learn from what I call “the Alaska model,” but first some basic background.

OPINION: Big changes come

June 17, 2013 Karl WiderquistOpinion, The Indepentarian

While voters of the United States were loudly debating gun control, the deficit, the debt, taxes, immigrant rights, the filibuster law, health care, and a host of other issues, the Obama administration quietly did something that would have been unthinkable a few decades ago. It ordered the military to allow women to serve routinely in combat units. Other changes that would have been unthinkable a few decades ago also seem to be underway.

Moss, Todd (editor) The Governor’s Solution: How Alaska’s Oil Dividend Could Work in Iraq and Other Oil-Rich Countries

June 6, 2013 Karl WiderquistResearch, The Indepentarian

The Governor’s Solution features his firsthand account (PDF) that describes, with brutal honesty and piercing humor, the birth of the Alaska Permanent Fund dividend, which has been paid each year to every citizen-resident of Alaska since 1982. This book, part […]

Alaska: Legislature Create Jay Hammond Day Honoring the Father of the Alaska Dividend (Alaska’s Basic Income)

June 4, 2013 Karl WiderquistNews, The Indepentarian

According to the Associated Press, the Alaska Legislature approved a measure to designate July 21 as Jay Hammond Day. As governor of Alaska from 1974 to 1982, Jay Hammond was instrumental in the creation of the Alaska Permanent Fund in […]

Widerquist, Karl “Commentary: Let's change the way Alaska Permanent Fund pays dividends”

February 8, 2013 Karl WiderquistResearch, The Indepentarian

This commentary argues that Alaska should change the formula for calculating its yearly Permanent Fund Dividend (Alaska’s basic income) to create more stable dividend payments.

Unconditional Basic Income is not a Wrong Way: Book Review

January 2, 2013 Karl WiderquistOpinion, The Indepentarian

Book review of Irrweg Grundeinkommen: Die große Umverteilung von unten nach oben muss beendet werden [The Basic Income Aberration: The Great Redistribution from Bottom to Top Must be Ended] by Heiner Flassbeck, Friederike Spiecker, Volker Meinhardt and Dieter Vesper (2012), […]

ALASKA: This year’s dividend is the smallest since 2005

December 3, 2012 Karl WiderquistNews, The Indepentarian

Alaska distributed its yearly Permanent Fund Dividend (PFD) on October 4, 2012. The amount was disappointing, only $878—down from last year’s dividend of $1,174 and the smallest dividend since 2005. The 2012 dividend was only the second dividend in the […]

Opinion: Independence, Propertylessness, and Basic Income

November 19, 2012 Karl WiderquistOpinion, The Indepentarian

My new book, Independence, Propertylessness, and Basic Income: A Theory Of Freedom as the Power to Say No, now has a release date of February 28, 2013. Although I have edited or coauthored six other books, this is the first […]

ALASKA: Dividend likely to shrink again this year but hope for a renewed boom is ever present

September 16, 2012 Karl WiderquistNews, The Indepentarian

Alaska’s Permanent Fund Dividend (PFD) is volatile and uncertain reflecting the Alaskan economy, which—typical of resource-exporting regions—is subject to volatile commodity prices, fear that resource exports will soon run out, and hope that a new export boom could be about […]

OPINION: Conservative website finds USBIG behind vast government conspiracy

September 10, 2012 Karl WiderquistOpinion, The Indepentarian

You reach a milestone the first time you or your organization is named the mastermind behind a vast government conspiracy that goes all the way up to the President of the United States. This happened to the U.S. Basic Income […]