A Progressive Vision of Universal Basic Income
Session Type(s): Panel
Starts: Thursday, Aug. 10 2:30 PM (Eastern)
Ends: Thursday, Aug. 10 3:45 PM (Eastern)
Interest in universal basic income has surged in recent years, as it’s become more apparent that the way our economy operates is leaving many people behind. While basic income has the potential to radically transform our society, certain implementations of the policy might actually leave many worse off than they are today. Join us for a discussion on a progressive vision of basic income and how that might lift up those who are struggling, both today and going forward into the future.
Moderator
Sandhya Anantharaman
Sandhya Anantharaman is a Co-Director of the Universal Income Project, where she works to build progressive California strategy for universal basic income. Sandhya leads the Universal Income Project grassroots organizing work, working with hundreds of artists, writers, technologists, and activists to build support for the policy.
Sandhya got her start in politics as a grassroots organizer on the Obama campaign, proceeding to work on Democratic campaigns for Senate, Governor, and Georgia state legislative races. She’s worked with major digital advocacy organizations on analytics and experiments, most recently at Color of Change, and trains on analytics with Wellstone.
Other sessions: Beyond A/B Testing: Upping Your Digital Analytics Game
Panelists
Reetu Mody
Reetu is a dancer, writer, lawyer, and organizer. She currently works as a Campaign Manager for presente.org, the largest Latinx digital organizing platform in the country. She is a current Voqal fellow that has focused on how to create deeper relationships and organizing skills through digital organizing, focusing on economic equity and racial justice. She was a former public defender in Nashville, Tennessee, as a Gideon’s Promise Fellow. She received a Master of Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, where she was the Program in Criminal Justice and Policy Management Summer Fellow, Carr Center for Human Rights Summer Fellow, and the Keta Taylor Colby Fellow for Death Penalty Law. Her thesis research was used to support the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights publication: “Who Pays? The True Cost of Incarceration on Our Communities.” She also received a Juris Doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law (Boalt Hall), where she was awarded the Francine Diaz Award for Social Justice. Prior to graduate school Reetu was a community educator and organizer for a domestic violence agency, developing a prototype statewide curriculum on violence, gender identity, sexism, patriarchy, and racism for California youth.
Tom Perriello
Tom Perriello is the President of the Center for American Progress Action Fund and former U.S. representative for Virginia’s fifth congressional district. While representing rural, urban, and suburban communities across central and southern Virginia, Perriello served on the Veterans Affairs and Transportation and Infrastructure Committees. After leaving office, he conducted research and wrote commentary on the Arab Spring through a variety of nongovernment organizations. Prior to his service in Congress, Perriello managed teams working on conflict resolution and democratic transitions in Africa, Afghanistan, and other regions. Perriello has helped launch numerous non-profits including Faith in Public Life, FaithfulAmerica.org, Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, and Catholics United. He is a native of Ivy, Virginia and a graduate of Yale University and the Yale Law School.
Other sessions: Let's Talk About Drugs: The Opioid Epidemic and Why It Should Be A Core Political Issue for Democrats
Saket Soni
Saket Soni is the Executive Director of the New Orleans Workersʹ Center for Racial Justice. The Center is dedicated to organizing African American and immigrant workers for a just reconstruction of post‐Katrina New Orleans. Saket has worked as an organizer in Chicago at the Coalition of African, Asian, European, and Latino Immigrants of Illinois, a city‐wide immigrant rights coalition, and at the Organization of the North East. Saket joined the New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice to take the first staff position in 2006. Saket co-authored “And Injustice For All: Workers’ Lives In the Reconstruction,” the most comprehensive report on race in the Reconstruction of post-Katrina Gulf Coast, and “Never Again: Lessons of the Gustav Evacuation,” an account of the treatment of African Americans in the sheltering process. He has crafted strategic campaigns with direct organizing, litigation, communications, and research components to advance the human rights of guestworkers.