Income Inequality, AI, and the Case for Universal Basic Income

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Iron Giant taking your job  

Since 1976 income inequality has exploded both in the United States and globally, with the top 1% of earners increasing their income by 288% in that time while the bottom 50% of earners have seen their income increase by only 18.8%. If we look at the top 0.01% we see their incomes rose 671.8% from 1976 to 2023 (source: https://realtimeinequality.org/). 

Income Inequality has increased dramatically since the 1980s

Productivity of workers in that time has increased 87.3% while hourly pay has only increased 32.7%, meaning productivity has increased 2.7 times as much as hourly pay since 1979 (source:Productivity-Pay Gap) 

 


So we see productivity rising but the benefits of that increased productivity seem to siphon up to the very highest income wealthiest individuals and corporations while the vast majority of workers see few of the rewards. 

This was all occurring prior to the recent AI revolution, the hype of which seems to intensify from week to week. 

Just yesterday Amazon, the United States' third largest employer with over 1.5 million employees, laid off 14,000 employees and in doing so Amazon specifically cited AI as a reason for this downsizing (source: Amazon Memo). This comes at a time when Amazon stock is just a dollar shy of its all time record high. 

Amazon is not alone in pointing to AI to explain job losses, with companies including Target and UPS announcing thousands of layoffs that are attributable to AI (source: https://www.wsj.com/economy/jobs/white-collar-jobs-ai-324b749c).

With white collar jobs becoming superfluous and obsolete the case for a universal basic income could not be greater. The wealth and income are being generated by a highly productive society, it's just that that wealth and income are being concentrated in the hands of too few at the expense of too many. This is not an argument for communism or socialism, it's an argument in favor of a tax on the wealthiest that can be used to redistribute income and wealth throughout the population.

Stanford's Basic Income Lab have catalogued basic income experiments and trials across the globe and are continuing to investigate the most effective ways to address income inequality and the myriad of effects of low income on individuals and communities.


I encourage you to investigate trials near you to see what's being done to address income inequality, especially with the recent news of AI taking thousands of white collars jobs.

https://basicincome.stanford.edu/experiments-map/

 

 

Sources:

Ellis, Lindsay, Owen Tucker-Smith, and Allison Pohle. 2025. “Tens of Thousands of White-Collar Jobs Are Disappearing as AI Starts to Bite.” Business. Wall Street Journal, October 29. https://www.wsj.com/economy/jobs/white-collar-jobs-ai-324b749c.
 
News, A. B. C. n.d. “Amazon Layoffs Highlight Impact of AI, Some Experts Say: 'Wake-up Call’.” ABC News. Accessed October 29, 2025. https://abcnews.go.com/Business/amazon-layoffs-highlight-impact-ai-experts-wake-call/story?id=126942988.
 
Hasdell, Rebecca, Juliana Bidadanure, and Sarah Berger Gonzalez. n.d. A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK AND EVIDENCE REVIEW.
 
“Realtime Inequality.” n.d. Accessed October 29, 2025. https://realtimeinequality.org/.
 
 https://wid.world/data/
 
 



Location: 1825 SW Broadway, Portland, OR 97201, USA

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