Instead, it's a policy designed to make sure each American has a certain concrete sum of money to spend each year. One modern version of the policy would give every adult a tax credit that would essentially become a cash payment for families that don't pay much tax. To be crystal clear, a guaranteed income-or a universal basic income, as it's sometimes called today-is not the same as a higher minimum wage.
So what, exactly, was King's economic dream? In short, he wanted the government to eradicate poverty by providing every American a guaranteed, middle-class income-an idea that, while light-years beyond the realm of mainstream political conversation today, had actually come into vogue by the late 1960s. In the weeks leading to his assassination, the civil rights leader had been hard at work organizing a new march on Washington known as the 'Poor People's Campaign.' The goal was to erect a tent city on the National Mall, that, as Mark Engler described it for The Nation in 2010, would 'dramatize the reality of joblessness and deprivation by bringing those excluded from the economy to the doorstep of the nation's leaders.' He was killed before he could see the effort through. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s legacy is that by the end of his career, he had fashioned himself into a crusader against poverty, not just among blacks, but all Americans.
One of the more under-appreciated aspects of Dr.
