The Only State Where Everyone Gets Free Money

Motherboard ^ | September 4, 2015 // 08:20 AM EST 09/05/2015 | Written by Brian Merchant

[SeekAndFind]

Every year, the state of Alaska hands each of its citizens hundreds to thousands of dollars, no strings attached. The only requirement for receiving the cash is that a person has a) held residence in Alaska for more than one year and is b) alive.

To citizens in the state, the Permanent Fund Dividend is a deeply beloved if sometimes controversial policy. To those outside it, it’s often regarded as a curiosity. The annual payout makes headlines when it happens—Alaska’s giving people free money!—and has, typically, been forgotten just as quickly.

Recent years, however, have seen a groundswell of attention to the underlying concept. Interest in basic income ideas continue to percolate worldwide. As grim studies portend incoming job shortages, as inequality festers, and as automation threatens to throw economies into turmoil, the notion that a state could give a regular, guaranteed income—a minimum salary distributed to every citizen, regardless of age, employment, or social standing—has been sounding better and better. And Alaska’s been doing it for years. A miniature version of it, anyway.

“The Alaska dividend is pretty much the closest thing the world has to a universal basic income anywhere,” Scott Santens, who is perhaps the web’s most active basic income advocate, told me. Not only that, he says, but a basic income could help citizens fight the impacts of climate change.

[FlingWingFlyer]

Not every state could do this because not every state is bringing in that kind of revenue from the oil companies. That’s why Alaskans love Obama for taking that white guy’s name off of Denali but aren’t very wild about his environmental BS.

[P.O.E.]

“The State” gets the money from businesses.

[Paradox]

Wasn’t it none other than Charles Murray who advocated the same thing for the US? In his opinion, getting rid of all wealth tranfer payments, welfare, etc, and replacing it with a basic low end income, would be far preferable.

[hosepipe]

Businesses PAY Alaskan’s to harvest THEIR OIL, GAS and minerals..

It belongs to ALaskan’s.. Businesses do not get it FOR FREE..

LIKE: in other places.

[PastorBooks]

What money the Alaskans get is eaten up by the cost of living up there. I’ve heard that everything is more expensive.

[Jet Jaguar]

Everything is much more expensive.

[Chauncey Gardiner]

No state income tax, and some areas have no sales tax. Some areas have no property tax if you’re a veteran. Add that up with the permanent fund, we lived pretty good up there for a few years.

[umgud]

If AK has this kind of extra income, the feds should step in and take it. I’m there are folks in Ferguson or Baltimore that could really use the money./s

[Rembrandt]

Lots and lots of folks get free money in the Welfare State!

[Graybeard58]

Lots and lots of folks get free money in the Welfare State!

********************************************************************

I used to want a free pony, then I found out that I’m the provider of free ponies to others.

[SweetWilliamsMom]

What the article “sort of says” but not explicitly is that in general (with a very few exceptions) the natural resources of Alaska are not privately owned; they are literally owned by all the people of the State. That’s most of why the dividend is possible. Oil companies bid for the right to develop a property. Then if they “hit it” one of every eight barrels is royalty oil, i.e., oil that goes back to the state. Then depending on several things, including the field, etc., up to 100% of the money from that royalty oil goes into the Permanent Fund.

Dividends are then paid from the Permanent Fund. It should also be noted that on several occasions the Alaska legislature has made appropriations to the Permanent Fund beyond what was required to go into the Fund.

So we’re pretty lucky, I suppose. My own recollection is that Hammond proposed the Permanent Fund for that “Rainy Day” when the oil money ran out and the Permanent Fund would be needed to run State Government. That scenario is pretty much politically impossible now. Unfortunately, many Alaskans are so tied to the dividend that they believe the dividend should continue no matter what and a highly progressive tax should be put into effect to run a state government, including all the transfer payments.

I think we have some real belt tightening to do as a State. Having the dividend has not been good for our individual character development, in my opinion. It really has led to a sense of entitlement — I want my dividend and I want everything else to continue just the way it is and I want you to be taxed to be sure I get everything the government is currently giving me and if you don’t do that well, clearly, you are “balancing the budget on the backs of the poor and the children.”

[cynwoody]

“The State” gets the money from businesses.

"The State" gets the money from business owners!

[FlingWingFlyer]

Thank you. I agree with everything you said. The problem I have with the article is that, it appears to me, that the author seems to think that everyone on the planet should be given "free money" by the government. To me, that's Socialism. Where do these people think that money comes from?

I lived up in Fairbanks for four years. I sure do miss that place. Everything except for the skeeters. They loved me.

[Redak]

$3.19 for unleadeed currently. don’t even talk about fuel oil, airplane fuel right!. Also real estate is high in the urban areas, and cabin areas are just a little lower. Even rural areas are up there now; if I had had known that the prices would have been this high in some rural areas I would have dedicated my early years to bldg places and finishing them in the winters, no matter how many.

[dp0622]

sorry, my bags are packed already.

Will buy a heavy coat later..