> Surely you can't expect the effect of UBI to be the same between, say, cardiologists and minimum-wage workers Hm. I'd be far more likely to spend my basic in

> Surely you can't expect the effect of UBI to be the same between, say, cardiologists and minimum-wage workers Hm. I'd be far more likely to spend my basic income on booze if I were a cardiologist or highly-paid tech worker than if I were a parent barely scraping by. Top-notch scotch and expensive wines instead of middling whiskeys and passable table wines. Of course, some amount might also be donated/saved/invested. But I'd probably spend a far larger percentage of that base UBI payout on luxuries/vices than your typical out-of-work joe. > The parent's point was that it might subsidize behavior of certain groups more than others Not quite. Parent asserts that those behaviors will happen anyways. And that therefore we are more than justified in pulling the carpet out from under those folks (because the money's not going to help anyway). Playing out this same argument in the context of a cardiologist lets us cut to the heart of the ethical differences between typical pro-UBI and anti-UBI arguments. Consider the cardiologist is an absent father who squirrels away his money to avoid supporting his family and then spends that money on various vices (luxuries wine collections, absurdly expensive cigars, etc). Is his employer justified in paying a lower salary? Are his customers/debters justified in not paying up? After all, we discontinued social services for the poor booze hound in the earlier scenario! Most visceral UBI opponents would find that question absurd on face! The money was earned through hard work and education; the employer has no business prying into the employee's personal choices about how to spend his wages, and a customer or debtor refusing to pay is straight-up theft. Conversely, many visceral UBI supporters point out that the work ethic on display in that reasoning becomes outmoded as work itself becomes outmoded. If we don't choose some other metric for decision making, and stick to these ethical imperatives, the conversation more-or-less grounds out here.