It was the summer of ’68, the end of the decade that brought us flower power and Woodstock, rock and roll and Vietnam, Martin Luther King and a feminist revolution. It was a time when everything seemed possible, even a conservative president strengthening the welfare state.

While young demonstrators the world over were taking to the streets, five famous economists — John Kenneth Galbraith, Harold Watts, James Tobin, Paul Samuelson, and Robert Lampman — wrote that “[t]he country will not have met its responsibility until everyone in the nation is assured an income no less than the officially recognized definition of poverty.” The New York Times published their letter, signed by 1,200 fellow economists, on the front page.

The next year, Richard Nixon was on the verge of making these economists’ dream a reality by enacting an unconditional income for all poor families. It would have been a massive step forward in the War on Poverty, guaranteeing a family of four $1,600 a year, equivalent to roughly $10,000 in 2016.