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And? It keeps people who want to work from working. People who would be willing to work at less than the minimum wage. Subsiding on government relief can lead t

And? It keeps people who want to work from working. People who would be willing to work at less than the minimum wage. Subsiding on government relief can lead to depression, loss of social status, load term mental illness. Not having a job is a very unhealthy thing for most people.

jack9 11y ago
> It keeps people who want to work from working. That doesn't mean the work (the individual is capable of) is valuable enough to justify the position, in the locality.
- occamrazor 11y ago
  But what are the alternatives, for the people whose productivity is lower than minimum wage?
justizin 11y ago
There are people willing to do valuable work for less than the minimum wage - they're called volunteers. A lot of work done by volunteers is more important than work done by minimum wage workers, but involves no commerce. A basic income provides the opportunity for people to find healthy, fulfilling things that do not pay money. I'm absolutely OK with some types of paid work going away entirely. Our society leans too heavily on the ability to pay someone else to do something at a rate that is usually more than we would like to pay and less than we would like to make. It is essentially a way of saying that we are more important than other people and that's lame. Food delivery, for instance, is convenient, I take advantage of it, but I tip far more heavily than most people, and I could live without it. Some people who deliver for a pay service today may end up, with basic income, volunteering for meals on wheels. That's a better allocation of society's potential energy than to bring me a burrito when I don't feel like leaving the house.
a3n 11y ago
And the mortgage deduction makes a house a better investment, and so increases the price of buying and renting houses. These are all tradeoffs that we decide to make.
dinkumthinkum 11y ago
I don't really follow. They must not want to work that bad if they would choose not to work ...

jack9 11y ago

> It keeps people who want to work from working. That doesn't mean the work (the individual is capable of) is valuable enough to justify the position, in the locality.

occamrazor 11y ago
But what are the alternatives, for the people whose productivity is lower than minimum wage?

justizin 11y ago

There are people willing to do valuable work for less than the minimum wage - they're called volunteers. A lot of work done by volunteers is more important than work done by minimum wage workers, but involves no commerce. A basic income provides the opportunity for people to find healthy, fulfilling things that do not pay money. I'm absolutely OK with some types of paid work going away entirely. Our society leans too heavily on the ability to pay someone else to do something at a rate that is usually more than we would like to pay and less than we would like to make. It is essentially a way of saying that we are more important than other people and that's lame. Food delivery, for instance, is convenient, I take advantage of it, but I tip far more heavily than most people, and I could live without it. Some people who deliver for a pay service today may end up, with basic income, volunteering for meals on wheels. That's a better allocation of society's potential energy than to bring me a burrito when I don't feel like leaving the house.

a3n 11y ago

And the mortgage deduction makes a house a better investment, and so increases the price of buying and renting houses. These are all tradeoffs that we decide to make.

dinkumthinkum 11y ago

I don't really follow. They must not want to work that bad if they would choose not to work ...