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Given the frankly despair-inducing statistics of what happens to poor people when they acquire a sudden cash windfall (and if you're flat broke and living on th

Given the frankly despair-inducing statistics of what happens to poor people when they acquire a sudden cash windfall (and if you're flat broke and living on the streets, a few hundred every couple weeks is HUGE), I intend to agree. Most UBI implementations I've seen require gutting existing welfare systems - okay, fine, but what happens to the person who inevitably squanders their money?

quietwhisper 11y ago
Sorry, what statistics? http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/09/welfare-reform-direct-cash-poor/407236/ http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/09/wel... http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2013/10/25/240590433/what-happens-when-you-just-give-money-to-poor-people http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2013/10/25/240590433/what-...
- spinlock 11y ago
  I do think that's a different issue but I'm with you that the assumption that poor people will spend money on drugs or alcohol is pretty far off base. After all, aren't most people in the US forced into debt because of healthcare? Getting sick shouldn't be viewed as a vice.
  - Karunamon 11y ago
    Who said anything about drugs or alcohol?
    - ThomPete 11y ago
      Read the first answer to my post to see an example.
empath75 11y ago
I think probably the only thing that would have to go along with UBI is extreme restrictions on credit and borrowing for people that are relying on it. It's not really a huge problem for someone to blow all their UBI money for a month or two because they'll have more coming in. If they compound that with high-interest debt, they can dig themselves into a whole they can't get out of of.
- fucking_tragedy 11y ago
  Are you implying that receivers of government aid can't decide for themselves how to use their money? The point of UBI is to do away with those restrictions, because people usually know how to allocate their available funds towards their needs.
- Rylinks 11y ago
  Just make UBI payments unrecoverable by lenders and let the market sort it out.
- knodi123 11y ago
  > extreme restrictions on credit and borrowing for people that are relying on it Everyone relies on it. It's an equal amount of cash in pocket for every person. If you want to talk about restrictions on borrowing- well, what idiot is lending this money to a person with minimum income without checking into their background ? I think we can leave that one up to the banks.
OntheFlipside33 11y ago
We bail them out the same way we do the rich? I'm curious how this is of any real value or concern outside the usual "Well because it's MY tax dollars so I should have a say." Why focus on poor people spending their social welfare when the result will be far less harmful to humanity as a whole than how the rich spend their social welfare? The superfluous resource consumption by the wealthy, and I include not just the uber wealthy, but also those that can afford to fly around fairly regularly, buy new iPhones every 12-24 months, lease new vehicles ad naseum, is a much more dangerous situation. If anyone is about to say well they earned their money and the right to spend it how they see fit, come on. It's social welfare that allows their wealth in the first place. It's government subsidized hand me downs from generation to generation. It's not at all acquired by the creation of novel goods and services. But hey, let's focus on the cost of giving away money to people that will spend it on liquor. Not on how giving away money to support our wholesale destruction of the environment is going to wreck the species as a whole. There are more immediate impacts to my own pocket book to consider, vis-à-vis the negligible increase to my tax bill!
- Karunamon 11y ago
  That's some fine whataboutism, but a poor answer to my relatively straightforward question. Again, every UBI implementation I've ever seen includes basically destroying the existing welfare structure. If someone blows their UBI due to, not just drugs/alcohol, but just plain old poor finanical management skills, what happens to them? They've got nowhere to turn for two weeks or more because we tore all that shit up.
  - ThomPete 11y ago
    How is that different than today? The very point is that less people will be in this situation because getting your basic needs met is shown to make your more responsible. Se further up in thread for some of the studies.
    - Karunamon 11y ago
      If you have no cash, and you've used up the meager funds TANF gives you, there are other programs still available to cover the necessities of life.. SNAP comes to mind, as do overnight shelters. It's not much of a life, but at least you're not out in the cold. A safety net for the safety net if you will. Okay, now that stuff goes away, and you just get the one (significantly increased, but still, just the one) payout every so often. There is no safety net under the safety net anymore. Those two stories I see linked reference other countries with radically different cultures. How many studies have been done with families that live in the USA and are subject to its cultural norms? Culture drives spending and expectations. I say this as someone that thinks UBI is a Great Idea, but this is a question that from what I can tell remains unanswered.
tankenmate 11y ago
UBI is supposed to fix the issue of moderate or worse levels of poverty. It's not going to fix mental health issues, addiction issues, and/or family breakdown. However over time it will sort out issues of grinding poverty, which then means that fixes for other social ills will have a better chance of succeeding.

quietwhisper 11y ago

Sorry, what statistics? http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/09/welfare-reform-direct-cash-poor/407236/ http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/09/wel... http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2013/10/25/240590433/what-happens-when-you-just-give-money-to-poor-people http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2013/10/25/240590433/what-...

spinlock 11y ago
I do think that's a different issue but I'm with you that the assumption that poor people will spend money on drugs or alcohol is pretty far off base. After all, aren't most people in the US forced into debt because of healthcare? Getting sick shouldn't be viewed as a vice.
- Karunamon 11y ago
  Who said anything about drugs or alcohol?
  - ThomPete 11y ago
    Read the first answer to my post to see an example.

empath75 11y ago

I think probably the only thing that would have to go along with UBI is extreme restrictions on credit and borrowing for people that are relying on it. It's not really a huge problem for someone to blow all their UBI money for a month or two because they'll have more coming in. If they compound that with high-interest debt, they can dig themselves into a whole they can't get out of of.

fucking_tragedy 11y ago
Are you implying that receivers of government aid can't decide for themselves how to use their money? The point of UBI is to do away with those restrictions, because people usually know how to allocate their available funds towards their needs.
Rylinks 11y ago
Just make UBI payments unrecoverable by lenders and let the market sort it out.
knodi123 11y ago
> extreme restrictions on credit and borrowing for people that are relying on it Everyone relies on it. It's an equal amount of cash in pocket for every person. If you want to talk about restrictions on borrowing- well, what idiot is lending this money to a person with minimum income without checking into their background ? I think we can leave that one up to the banks.

OntheFlipside33 11y ago

We bail them out the same way we do the rich? I'm curious how this is of any real value or concern outside the usual "Well because it's MY tax dollars so I should have a say." Why focus on poor people spending their social welfare when the result will be far less harmful to humanity as a whole than how the rich spend their social welfare? The superfluous resource consumption by the wealthy, and I include not just the uber wealthy, but also those that can afford to fly around fairly regularly, buy new iPhones every 12-24 months, lease new vehicles ad naseum, is a much more dangerous situation. If anyone is about to say well they earned their money and the right to spend it how they see fit, come on. It's social welfare that allows their wealth in the first place. It's government subsidized hand me downs from generation to generation. It's not at all acquired by the creation of novel goods and services. But hey, let's focus on the cost of giving away money to people that will spend it on liquor. Not on how giving away money to support our wholesale destruction of the environment is going to wreck the species as a whole. There are more immediate impacts to my own pocket book to consider, vis-à-vis the negligible increase to my tax bill!

Karunamon 11y ago
That's some fine whataboutism, but a poor answer to my relatively straightforward question. Again, every UBI implementation I've ever seen includes basically destroying the existing welfare structure. If someone blows their UBI due to, not just drugs/alcohol, but just plain old poor finanical management skills, what happens to them? They've got nowhere to turn for two weeks or more because we tore all that shit up.
- ThomPete 11y ago
  How is that different than today? The very point is that less people will be in this situation because getting your basic needs met is shown to make your more responsible. Se further up in thread for some of the studies.
  - Karunamon 11y ago
    If you have no cash, and you've used up the meager funds TANF gives you, there are other programs still available to cover the necessities of life.. SNAP comes to mind, as do overnight shelters. It's not much of a life, but at least you're not out in the cold. A safety net for the safety net if you will. Okay, now that stuff goes away, and you just get the one (significantly increased, but still, just the one) payout every so often. There is no safety net under the safety net anymore. Those two stories I see linked reference other countries with radically different cultures. How many studies have been done with families that live in the USA and are subject to its cultural norms? Culture drives spending and expectations. I say this as someone that thinks UBI is a Great Idea, but this is a question that from what I can tell remains unanswered.

tankenmate 11y ago

UBI is supposed to fix the issue of moderate or worse levels of poverty. It's not going to fix mental health issues, addiction issues, and/or family breakdown. However over time it will sort out issues of grinding poverty, which then means that fixes for other social ills will have a better chance of succeeding.