3 ms·

UBI will give people who are industrious, but have fallen on hard times, a baseline to enable them to focus on improving their circumstances. If you've lost eve

UBI will give people who are industrious, but have fallen on hard times, a baseline to enable them to focus on improving their circumstances. If you've lost everything and you don't know where you're going to eat or how you're not going to freeze to death, those needs consume all of your time and thoughts. With UBI, you'd have those needs covered and could instead focus and look for work, get retrained, relocate for better prospects, go back to school, etc. There was a study in London that hinted at this outcome for homeless persons. HN discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7016436 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7016436

cmdkeen 11y ago
The UK has a welfare state that tries to ensure that people don't have to worry about freezing to death, starving or not being able to afford basic shelter. The reasons for homelessness are complicated and often heavily influenced by drug/alcohol dependency and/or mental illness. Things like the Big Issue are an example of projects that tap into the industriousness of people that the GP mentioned. There may be some people for whom the existing welfare state is too difficult to interact with but UBI is easy enough, but we should not believe that UBI will help everyone. Indeed the sheer cost of UBI is likely to require removing the funding available for the most needy.