In Our Hands

Imagine that the United States were to scrap all its income transfer programsincluding Social Security, Medicare, and all forms of welfareand 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 stateelimination of poverty, comfortable retirement for everyone, universal access to healthcarewould be better served under the Plan than under the current system. Murrays 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.