In Our Hands: A Plan to Replace the Welfare State

Imagine that the United States were to scrap all its income transfer programs—including Social Security, Medicare, and all forms of welfare—and give every American age twenty-one and older $10,000 a year for life.This is the Plan, a radical new approach to social policy that defies any partisan label. First laid out by Charles Murray a decade ago, the updated edition reflects economic developments since that time. Murray, who previous books include Losing Ground and The Bell Curve, demonstrates that the Plan is financially feasible and the uses detailed analysis to argue that many goals of the welfare state—elimination of poverty, comfortable retirement for everyone, universal access to healthcare—would be better served under the Plan than under the current system. Murray’s goal, shared by Left and Right, is a society in which everyone, including the unluckiest among us, has the opportunity and means to construct a satisfying life. In Our Hands offers a rich and startling new way to think about how that goal might be achieved.

• Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010
• Losing Ground: American Social Policy, 1950-1980
• The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life (A Free Press Paperbacks Book)
• Raising the Floor: How a Universal Basic Income Can Renew Our Economy and Rebuild the American Dream
• American Exceptionalism: An Experiment in History (Values and Capitalism)
• The Curmudgeon's Guide to Getting Ahead: Dos and Don'ts of Right Behavior, Tough Thinking, Clear Writing, and Living a Good Life
• By the People: Rebuilding Liberty Without Permission
• Basic Income: A Radical Proposal for a Free Society and a Sane Economy
• Real Education: Four Simple Truths for Bringing America's Schools Back to Reality
• By the People: Rebuilding Liberty Without Permission