Bershidsky really drops the ball when he makes the following point: "One problem with a universal basic income, of course, is that it will make a country attra

Bershidsky really drops the ball when he makes the following point: "One problem with a universal basic income, of course, is that it will make a country attractive to even more immigrants from poor countries where 550 euros a month looks like a princely amount. Keeping borders open will hardly be an option." What he's missing here is that the UBI is only payed to citizens. If you get rid of the minimum wage (because everyone gets paid the UBI no matter what), then citizens become much more willing to work for low wages, because their basic cost of living is already paid-for. By contrast, UBI would not be paid to immigrants. Non-citizens would still be working in the US to some extent, but the incentive for people to sneak across the border would be severely reduced if prevailing low-skill wages fell from $10 to, say, $5. It's also worth mentioning that to the extent that deterring undocumented immigration is the policy of the United States, doing it with economic incentives is (IMO) a much more ethically sound solution than doing it with walls, violence, and incarceration.