draft an argumentative essay either in support of or in opposition to Murray’s proposal. Please be sure to include in your essay a discussion of potential impacts, if any, on single-parent families, work productivity (and

Learning Goal: I’m working on a humanities writing question and need a sample draft to help me learn.

1. In Charles Murray’s book In Our Hands: A Plan to Replace the Welfare State, Murray

proposes a “basic plan” that would provide every adult over age 21 who possesses a passport and
a bank account $10,000 per year (indexed for inflation) if their earnings are below $25,000.
There would be a clawback of 20% of earnings up to $50,000, at which point the grant would be
$5,000. There would be no further clawback (on earnings beyond $50,000), implying that the
minimum grant, regardless of earnings, would be $5,000 per adult. However, $3,000 would be
taken out each year for the adult to purchase health insurance. The plan would eliminate all
Federal and State cash-transfer and noncash-transfer programs, whether social insurance or
public assistance, as well as all student aid and social service programs. (This would effectively
eliminate Medicare, Medicaid, Veterans Benefits, CHIP, SSI, TANF, Food Stamps, refundable
portions of the EITC and the Child Tax Credit, child care assistance, school lunch programs,
public housing, Section 8, WIC, Head Start, Pell grants, Work-Study, Job Corps, LIHEAP, etc.)
As an aside, if 6 adults wanted to live together in a rented beach house and do nothing but sip
martinis all day, each adult would still receive $10,000 per year (assuming each earned less than
$25,000). Given the basic contours of his plan, please draft an argumentative essay either in
support of or in opposition to Murray’s proposal. Please be sure to include in your essay a
discussion of potential impacts, if any, on single-parent families, work productivity (and leisure),
postsecondary education, geographic mobility, or any other impacts that you deem to be relevant
to your argument(s). (The essay should be approximately ½ to 1 page in length, single-spaced)