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Why give free money to everyone? Clearly a rich person doesn’t need a monthly check from government... Milton Friedman long ago proposed a negative income tax

Why give free money to everyone? Clearly a rich person doesn’t need a monthly check from government... Milton Friedman long ago proposed a negative income tax to replace means-tested welfare programs. Essentially, people below a certain income threshold would receive money which scales to a maximum the closer their income approaches zero. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_income_tax https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_income_tax I do think people radically underestimate the unforeseen consequences of a free guaranteed income, even if it was low. I’d be willing to live as a poor person if that meant not having to work. Actually, where I live now I live comfortably on $1200 a month. I definitely would choose not to work or work less if that money came free from government. If I got free money I wouldn’t increase spending, I would reduce work.

thoughtstheseus 6y ago
That means I'll get paid more when I do work. Thanks!
thephyber 6y ago
The most likely implementation in the existing US federal government is a negative income tax. > I definitely would choose not to work or work less if that money came free from government. You aren't alone, so your $1200 would not go as far in that future as it does now. There would be some inflation (perhaps only localized increased costs to some industries), but I'd suspect that people working less would be a feature, not a bug. UBI doesn't make people not want to work at all. Work provides income, meaning, and dignity. Some people would move from industries which have lots of crappy manual jobs (like janitorial services) to industries which are currently only hobbies, but with UBI subsidies could be sustainable as a career. I imagine lots more Etsy shops.
- jameslevy 6y ago
  As us engineers like to say, the goal is to automate ourselves out of a job.
  - thephyber 6y ago
    As the SouthPark villagers say: They took 'er jerbs!
- alexmingoia 6y ago
  “There would be some inflation” Which serves as a reason to regularly increase the amount. “UBI doesn't make people not want to work at all“ Speak for yourself. Work is a means to an end. I have no desire to work if basic income takes care of my basic necessities. I have no intrinsic desire to get up every day at the same time and do what my employer tells me to do. And to be clear, when I say work I mean the necessity of doing things in exchange for money. Cultivating my garden, writing software nobody uses, or music nobody pays for, isn’t what I mean by work.
  - thephyber 6y ago
    I definitely don't want to feel like I'm in a rat race while on the job, but I enjoy lots of parts of work. After taking ~18 months off work, I realized I enjoyed the first 3-4 months of unstructured self-directed activities, but I think I'd prefer more daily structure (whether job or otherwise). If I get the place where I can retire, I'm probably volunteer for part of my time. Most of the proposals I've heard of UBI / negative income tax are good supplements but don't completely replace work-based income. $1000/month per adult is among the largest benefit I've heard.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > I have no desire to work if basic income takes care of my basic necessities. It is widely observed that many people work far more than is necessary to supply their basic necessities, because people's desires don't tend to end with those needs. You may have quite limited desires, but there is no evidence that that is true of humans generally.
  - goatlover 6y ago
    > Cultivating my garden, writing software nobody uses, or music nobody pays for, isn’t what I mean by work. That's great, but if a significant number of people feel that way, then there is a noticeable loss of productivity in the economy as say 35% of people are not producing anything of economic value. That impacts tax revenue. It probably also means there is work not getting done, like the stuff nobody wants to do.
    - 6y ago
- AnthonyMouse 6y ago
  You also have to remember that supply and demand still works. If the UBI causes several of your janitors to quit because they now have better options, you can still get them back by paying them more. All it does is give more negotiating leverage to labor because they no longer starve if they walk away.
  - chrisco255 6y ago
    That money has to come from some where. If you're paying janitors more and they're no more productive than before, someone else is making less.
    - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
      Yes, that is an apt description of a reduction in income inequality, i.e. the intended effect.
      - goatlover 6y ago
        But also inflation.
        AnthonyMouse 6y ago
        Inflation refers to the value of the currency, which would not be directly affected. If different people had money than currently do then they might buy different things with it, and then the demand for the things they want would go up and demand for some other things would go down. That isn't inflation, it's a demand shift. And for most types of products it would only cause increased production of those things rather than significant price changes. Meanwhile for other things (e.g. things which are artificially scarce), the price changes themselves would shift demand elsewhere -- who is going to pay $10,000 rent in San Francisco if it's <$1000 in Pennsylvania and the difference in local wages doesn't close the gap?
      - chrisco255 6y ago
        No telling if that would be the only effect. You could reduce income inequality while also increasing poverty, so I don't see the reduction of inequality as an end in and of itself.
- Aerroon 6y ago
  >Some people would move from industries which have lots of crappy manual jobs (like janitorial services) That work still has to get done though. Somebody has to be the janitor. If you then increase the pay of a janitor then lots of people that would otherwise increase their skills to do with that requires more skills would end up as a janitor instead. This triggers a pay increase in those jobs too. I don't see how you don't end up with just a lot of inflation. The money a job pays doesn't matter on a societal level. What matters is the products/service doing the job provides. No amount of money shuffling is going to make 2 apples turn into 3.
  - ATsch 6y ago
    Yes, that work has to be done. I'd just rather we find a way to do it that does not involve a system of glorified slavery where we force people to do it for survival.
  - thephyber 6y ago
    I agree there would be inflation, but how much and where it would present aren't clear. The highest paid jobs (eg. CEO) inflate very little and the lowest page jobs inflate quite a lot. There is currently an anti-inflation effect in the lowest paid jobs when inflation would help these workers have a better living. Jobs thought of as "minimum wage jobs" in the USA (eg. hourly workers at McDonalds) pay a decent living in Denmark. They don't have runaway inflation. We should examine why there is a such stark difference in expectation between the USA and these other countries. That said, I don't think UBI is the only way to solve the issues I care about. I might be satisfied simply by easier and fairer access to existing welfare programs (which are already subsidizing those low-wage employers).
    - luckylion 6y ago
      > The highest paid jobs (eg. CEO) inflate very little and the lowest page jobs inflate quite a lot. The issue is that you have few of the highest paid jobs and many of the lowest paid jobs. The labor cost of a giant factory isn't so much the director, it's the thousands of workers. If you double their wages, you double the cost. If you double the director's salary, you'll hardly notice in the balance sheet.
yarrel 6y ago
Income tax requires income. UBI doesn't. Policing benefits hurts the poor, not the rich. Where people would otherwise have no income UBI will increase spending. Where they don't it has other benefits. But if you want to save that cash then that's also good.
staycoolboy 6y ago
> I do think people radically underestimate the unforeseen consequences of a free guaranteed income My irony alarm just exploded.
aahhahahaaa 6y ago
Why give free school to everyone, libraries? Clearly a rich person doesn't need those either? Public services should be public. There's extreme social value in equal access and you reduce an extreme amount of bureaucracy and debate in the process. >If I got free money I wouldn’t increase spending, I would reduce work. WE SHOULD ALL REDUCE WORK. Sorry for the caps but we need to collectively get into this mindset. We're more productive than ever with very little to show for it. We've been having labor outright stolen from us for decades.
- yelloweyes 6y ago
  Yeah like, wtf is the point of technological innovation if we're still working like crazy?
  - boogies 6y ago
    To double life expectancy so we can retire?
    - aahhahahaaa 6y ago
      Ouch, that's kind of like the lottery. Sorry you worked your ass off waiting for retirement, here's some cancer.
      - luckylion 6y ago
        From that perspective, everything is a lottery. Sorry, you worked your ass off doing good things for your fellow humans, here's a tree branch falling on your head. The standard of living has improved massively. I agree wholeheartedly that there are issues (e.g. people are giving more free time, but they don't know what to do with it and engage in unhealthy habits to kill the free time they've been given), but generally, it's not even close.
    - prawn 6y ago
      Amazes me that American Presidential candidates are in their 70s and people and parties just go with it. I was shocked reading the news that Wilbur Ross was hospitalised - he has a major work role and is 82 years old. Age of retirement in Australia for that age group is 65. I understand some people just don't know how to stop or what else to do with their time, but I feel like pinning too much hope on retirement is misguided. Far better surely to be doing more living while in your prime. More likely to be physically able to enjoy it, for one thing.
AnthonyMouse 6y ago
> Why give free money to everyone? Clearly a rich person doesn’t need a monthly check from government... The answer is that it's much simpler to send everyone a check. The rich person will pay more in taxes than the amount of their check, so it doesn't matter. Indeed, the arguments that we should do otherwise are to the benefit of the rich, because the proposed cutoff invariably comes somewhere in the middle income range, resulting in higher marginal rates on middle income people rather than higher income people. In other words, a cutoff allows the rich to pay lower taxes in the amount of the money that had been going to people in the middle.
- dahfizz 6y ago
  > The answer is that it's much simpler to send everyone a check. Seems even easier to increase the standard tax deduction we already have and are familiar with. Then you can increase tax rates to make sure those evil rich people don't see any benefit.
  - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
    The standard deduction doesn't allow for negative rates, which means it can't be used to replace means-tested assistance programs in the same way as a UBI. The EITC does, but it has a cutoff with the aforementioned problems, and if it didn't (and the amount was high enough to replace the other programs) it would be hard to distinguish from a UBI, outside of the easily-gamed income requirement which does little more in practice than discriminate against honest homemakers who don't get to claim it.
    - dahfizz 6y ago
      You're right, I meant tax credit and not deduction. My point is that a negative tax rate would be straightforward to implement and would be the path of least resistance to a UBI.
      - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
        Yes, having a large unconditional "standard tax credit" with no phase out would just be another name for a UBI. Realistically what you have to do at that point is to use a flatter rate structure instead of a phase-out so that the credit is paid back by the time you get to higher income levels, but that's much better than the existing nonsense where the marginal rate structure goes all over the place from sometimes >90% at low income levels (from phase outs) to ~20% in the middle and then back up to 30+%. You get a strongly progressive effective rate just from the credit, so at that point you can use something like a 35% fixed marginal rate and simplify everything else too. Interestingly this also means it doesn't even have to be an individual income tax. You could use VAT or charge payroll tax to employers and get the same result without individuals even having to file tax returns anymore.
jMyles 6y ago
What is so bad about reduced "work"? Maybe people who are currently working at stupid, unnecessary jobs will make art and poetry and music. Or maybe invent cool things. Or maybe just relax and learn about themselves. I have never understood this obsession with 100% employment.
- naveen99 6y ago
  Also women are less likely to prefer employed men and will be more free to be with artists, poets and musicians.
- lovehashbrowns 6y ago
  People have been brainwashed all their lives to think that getting a check every two/four weeks is the only way to contribute to society.
- rumanator 6y ago
  > I have never understood this obsession with 100% employment. Employment means income and tax revenue and social security funding. 100% employment means more people have personal income, the nation's social security system is not exhausted, and the state has more revenue to invest in public policies.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
squidproquo 6y ago
Reducing the number of hours/jobs that people currently work would reduce the labor supply and wages would rise (Econ 101). I don't see how these "consequences" are a bad thing. Furthermore, "unforeseen consequences" are effects that we don't know will happen because they lie beyond our ability to predict them. There will always be unforeseen consequences of any major policy decision.
- pylua 6y ago
  For instance, rising wages potentially implies services will cost more. At what point does the income received stagnate relative to cost of living ?
klyrs 6y ago
I'm not entirely decided on this matter myself, but I'll take the position. One reason to include the rich in UBI is that it reduces administrative overheads. If it's means-tested, that means monitoring, investigating and ultimately punishing the poor. Why bother?
skybrian 6y ago
Giving everyone the same amount is symbolically useful, because it's a way in which all citizens are equal. Everyone gets the same amount and what can be fairer than that? But, practically, anything a UBI plan gives you can be undone with an equal and opposite tax. The net effect after taxes is what matters and it's going to redistribute money or there's no point in doing it. Some people pay more taxes than others and raising the top income tax rate is enough to ensure that the wealthy don't benefit. It can be made exactly equivalent to a negative income tax.
- sroussey 6y ago
  As a landlord, knowing everyone can afford higher rent means rent increases for everyone!
  - skybrian 6y ago
    That depends on the competition. If the market rate doesn't go up, you might have trouble filling vacancies. It seems that rents are going down a bit in San Francisco because some people who can suddenly work remotely are moving out (among other reasons). UBI is an income that you can take with you wherever you go, much like social security, so it's likely to make living in cheaper places more attractive.
  - ATsch 6y ago
    This is why I strongly prefer "Universal Basic Housing" over (or in addition to) UBI. Landlords must be forced to provide a useful service for a good price instead of just freeloading off of the risk of homelessness.
    - aeternum 6y ago
      Please no. How many times do cities have to try and fail at public housing for us to realize that the government cannot provide nor maintain it efficiently. There are much more effective ways that government can provide housing: 1) Allow actual competition. Adopt Japan-like zoning to make it easier to build. Landlords cannot freeload if they have competition. Make it harder for small special interest groups to veto new development. 2) Set property taxes appropriately or implement a land-value tax so that landlords have to pay for part of the surrounding improvements.
JamesBarney 6y ago
So I don't think a UBI should be anywhere near $1,200 a month. But one of the features of a UBI is it causes people to drop out of the labor market. Especially for shitty low end unskilled labor jobs. And this is great because the reduction in supply will drive up labor rates and help inequality in a far more natural way than a minimum wage.
tw04 6y ago
>I do think people radically underestimate the unforeseen consequences of a free guaranteed income, even if it was low. But for every you, there's a me. I get satisfaction out of working. I had a job in college where I completed all of my work in the first week and did absolutely nothing for the next 6 months and I was MISERABLE. I needed a task to complete, a job to finish, to feel productive. Furthermore I like having things - whether that be a boat, or a nice car or insert whatever. And that's not some "you've just succumbed to the capitalist monsters" - I buy things that I get enjoyment out of, I don't get enjoyment out of buying things. Quite frankly I feel disgusting anytime I buy something, so if it isn't something I enjoy I have borderline permanent remorse. The car I bought at 16 still hits a nerve because it was a pile of garbage I paid too much for. I completely understand and respect and quite frankly envy people that don't want things, don't need to work to feel "complete" and can get by doing nothing all day. And with all of that said, the fact there's a you, and a me, tells me there's a very good chance UBI can work. People that don't care about having nice things can do fuck-all and get enough to survive, and people who want more can work until they have it.
- swimfar 6y ago
  "But for every you, there's a me" Everyone agrees that there will be people who will want to work, and people who won't. The question is what is the ratio, and is it enough. No one can predict this with a high level of certainty. We all just have "a feeling", which coincidentally happens to align perfectly with whether or not we believe in UBI.
  - tw04 6y ago
    Sorry, I have a REALLY tough time believing automation can't replace a minimum of 50% of the current human workforce - we just haven't done it because there are large swaths of population willing to work for slave wages. Whether you agree with UBI or not you better have a solution for how those people are going to survive when they are eventually replaced by a machine. The alternative will be endless war and famine or genocide.
Someone1234 6y ago
- The cost of deciding who qualifies (and enforcement) is relevant. Particularly as you're spending money on every citizen, but only making savings from a small minority. - You can "claw back" the money other, cheaper, ways (e.g. income tax increases). - Negative income tax don't work for children, disabled, or the elderly like UBI does. If they don't work, it doesn't work. Therefore, you wind up with two schemes. People keep on tacking on complexity, which breeds costs, which makes the whole scheme disproportionately expensive. It is universal because universal is cheap to run.
- _-david-_ 6y ago
  I think it could mostly be automated. Your tax filing from the previous year is put in a system and can figure out if you get money. They could even do an equation based on cost of living and other factors like number of dependents. They could either send out a check or direct deposit it. If something changes (like a job loss) you submit a form and they send you the money. They can figure out if you owe them the money back on your next tax filing. This does work for children since they would be counted as a dependent. This would probably change your tax filing which could change the calculation. This would also work for elderly since they would still be filing taxes. It would be easier to do it universally but it would likely cause other issues like more inflation.
  - dodobirdlord 6y ago
    "a system", "an equation", "They could either...", "a form", "they can figure out" This posits the capability of the government to put together a really remarkably competent administration, that knows everyone's tax filings, everyone's citizenship status, where everyone lives, the cost of living in every part of the country (or the world?), and can speedily process paperwork continuously throughout the year. Certainly no such administration currently exists. It would probably be very expensive, and the individual-filing-based workflow would be burdensome both to all people and to the administration. Lose your job? File a form. Get a raise? File a form. Get an inheritance? File a form. Move? File a form. Get married or have a kid? File several forms! There's a reason individuals only have to file taxes once a year. Bureaucracy is waste. Aspects of this hypothetical administration would need to exist for any UBI scheme, but in a UBI scheme with equal payments the burden on the individual would not be more than ensuring the bank account or address they use to receive their tax refund is current throughout the year, and continuing to file taxes once yearly.
campers 6y ago
One reason is simplicity in managing it, reducing government costs. For a middle to upper income earner their overall tax rate would be the same, the income tax rates could be adjusted so someone on $100k still pays the same overall amount of tax. Second it is gets rid of the high effective tax rates that low income earners deal with. While low income earners pay low or no income tax, they lose their benefits the more they earn, so a dollar earned could mean up to a dollar less in benefits, which is a disincentive to work. Something that is often missed by the people who say having a UBI would be a disincentive to work.
ATsch 6y ago
Means testing access to resources always, without exception: - ends up being more expensive than just giving to everyone - prevents some people who need it but are somehow obstructed by the bureaucracy from receiving it - gets it's conditions increasingly narrowed to reduce the costs until it stops helping anyone
drewwwwww 6y ago
> I do think people radically underestimate the unforeseen consequences of a free guaranteed income, even if it was low. I’d be willing to live as a poor person if that meant not having to work. Actually, where I live now I live comfortably on $1200 a month. I definitely would choose not to work or work less if that money came free from government. If I got free money I wouldn’t increase spending, I would reduce work. this is not an unforeseen circumstance, but a desired outcome
no_wizard 6y ago
What UBI enables, I believe (and same with universal healthcare and other social safety nets) is lowest barriers to entry. I have no doubt that some will not do anything productive with the moneys it’s pretty much beside the point. The point is to have a guaranteed floor for all in society, much like the idea of bankruptcy (before the conservative demonization of the idea particularly in the 1990s and Bush era, in the USA) it’s a way to ensure people can start over or continue to build momentum without fear of being homeless, starving and/or being unable to provide the basics for their family or themselves This lowers the barrier of entry for people to free themselves of being shackled to giant corporations or dead end jobs just for “security”
ww520 6y ago
Because of equality. Giving everyone a cut makes sure everyone is participated in the program.
- JumpCrisscross 6y ago
  > Giving everyone a cut makes sure everyone is participated in the program This also applies to the negative income tax.
postingawayonhn 6y ago
> Why give free money to everyone? For administrative simplicity.
dragonwriter 6y ago
> Why give free money to everyone? Because it's simpler and avoids duplicating effort, since the means testing is rolled into the tax system, and avoids perverse consequences, since with a single payment system you don't end up with a combination that has greater than 1:1 reductions in benefits without outside income for some recipients at some income levels. > Milton Friedman long ago proposed a negative income tax to replace means-tested welfare programs. A negative income tax is, in terms of who gets what payment, exactly equivalent to a UBI funded by a progressive income tax. A monthly UBI with the usual annual income tax filing and reconciliation payment/refund is a better mechanism than simply rolling the UBI into the income tax calculation and annual reconciliation, though. > I do think people radically underestimate the unforeseen consequences of a free guaranteed income, even if it was low. I’d be willing to live as a poor person if that meant not having to work. I think people like you overestimate it, because they ignore the well-established effects of general deprivation and voracious human wants. They may also overestimate their own tolerance for non-work, as do many people leading up to retirement. > I’d be willing to live as a poor person if that meant not having to work. Some people would. But many more people would also be willing to work a little bit more for a little bit more, which UBI makes easier than existing means-tested programs. And many people who initially would reduce work for the novelty of leisure would turn around later and work to have the things they couldn't afford on the basic stipend. > I definitely would choose not to work or work less if that money came free from government. If I got free money I wouldn’t increase spending, I would reduce work. Unless you are the poorest of the poor, that outcome isn't actually contrary to the design or problematic.
tomc1985 6y ago
> Why give free money to everyone? Clearly a rich person doesn’t need a monthly check from government... The problem is that a small loophole or exception paves the way for larger exceptions, and so on, which continues until the original concept is gutted and bleeds out to the status quo
_jal 6y ago
> Why give free money to everyone? Two major reasons. The principled reason is that it is, well, universal. If you're a citizen, you get certain rights and responsibilities, end of story. A more realist perspective notes that historically, if you make a program for the poor, it becomes a poor program (underfunded). A scheme it is more likely to succeed the more people who buy in to it. (Notice how the ACA is becoming more popular over time? Or look at Social Security vs. SNAP.) > I definitely would choose not to work I think people both pro- and con- are not really thinking through how this would play out in reality. Income, wealth, type of work and social status are intimately linked, especially so in the US. There will immediately be some slur for people who choose not to work that will probably replace the "your momma's on welfare"-type crap. Lots of people's shallow, status driven dating rules will expand to exclude the voluntarily-unemployed. It will become obvious that there's a very low glass-ceiling over their heads that limits them in all sorts of ways. It will also become harder to crawl out of over time, both for individuals who don't maintain useful skills, and as a social class, because that's how humans act. Some people will of course choose that life. But I think it will be a lot less appealing than you think.
didibus 6y ago
Its a good point you bring up. And I think people don't talk enough about other options that assume you're working or trying to find work, such as increasing minimum wage and unemployment benefits dramatically, instead of UBI. Or like that proposal you brought up. I think UBI is easier to swallow for some people, cause they'd get it as well, they might be more willing to open up to the idea. That said, I think the amount you'd get on UBI would balance itself out to what can be given. If everyone becomes lazy bums that rather not work, we'd all see our UBI payments decline year over year until we can't live off it and would need to go back to work. A bit of a simplification, but it's possible that the system thus finds a stable level on its own that works.
prostoalex 6y ago
> Why give free money to everyone? Clearly a rich person doesn’t need a monthly check from government... Because then you need to test for means, and that means you have to hire new bureaucracy to conduct those tests, and then pay their benefits and pensions and travel expenses, and then you need to hire additional bureaucracy to address occasional loopholes in your checks, and then 10-20-50-100 years later you're back to square one with massively bloated self-serving bureaucracies conveniently appropriating dollars to save pennies. That's what drives UBI advocates bonkers about the current benefit programs. For example, food stamps benefits. I say anyone with an SSN should be able to apply for one and get it electronically. It helps farmers, helps food availability, and is generally spent locally. Instead we have layers and layers of bureaucracy ensuring Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates are prevented from receiving SNAP benefits.
- ajzinsbwbs 6y ago
  I hear this argument a lot but it makes no sense to me. Suppose UBI is $12k/year. Then as long as it costs less than $12k to identify a rich person, it’s cheaper to not pay the rich people than to pay everyone. In fact, we already have any agency that does this for most Americans called the IRS. The budget of the IRS is $12 billion, which comes out to about $100 per taxpayer. The cost of the IRS administering the tax system is less than 1% of the value of the money it raises. The IRS does things like check if people are eligible for credits and deductions they claim, and if they are due a refund. Clearly it’s much cheaper to employ an agency like the IRS to check the numbers than it is to just pay everyone. Increases to the budget of the IRS raise tax revenues, yielding a positive return. And since we already have the IRS, we don’t even need to fund a new agency to do this work for UBI. Compared to the overall cost of the UBI program (trillions of dollars) it would be trivial to fund the IRS to do means-testing. This would make UBI a much cheaper program, so it would be easier to fit into the budget. I don’t doubt that local welfare agencies are a shitty bureaucracy, and I wouldn’t advocate putting them in charge of UBI.
  - viklove 6y ago
    You're forgetting that the citizens of the US are people, not robots. When everyone gets the same treatment, you get a feeling of unity and you don't divide society into "leeches" and "providers" based on who gets UBI and who doesn't. The UBI becomes part of what it means to be American. Furthermore, you can solve the same problem just by increasing taxes on the rich. If you send every rich person $12k, but also tax them $12k more per year, the money spent/saved is exactly the same as not sending it to them in the first place. So this statement you made is false: > This would make UBI a much cheaper program, so it would be easier to fit into the budget.
Gustomaximus 6y ago
Theres 2 points here; > I definitely would choose not to work or work less if that money came free from government. Is that a bad thing? Say We went from participation rate from ~65% to 40%. That could be good, we stop trying to force people into jobs unnecessarily as we automate + it might encourage dirty jobs like cleaners to be better paid and balance the wage market as people have a way to walk away. Point 2: Generally I agree that UBI is a bit of a pipe dream for now. I think we'd be better off doing some 'guaranteed job' system where we focus on societal roles that add value but dont compete with free market. Give people a guaranteed 3 day a week job for basic living wage type deal and earlier retirement ages. Use this as a transition point to hopefully automating much of the world and some system of UBI as we slim workforce needs.
irjustin 6y ago
It's literally cheaper to simply give everyone a $1,200 check than it is to try and create rules that exclude people based upon some criteria. That is how the welfare program operates today. It's expensive to manage and at its current position not inclusive enough which then leaves a number of people worse off when you are just above the cut-off.
spyckie2 6y ago
I think you'd be surprised and how meaningful work can be if it is actually meaningful. The definition of work has been taken over by the current economy as maintaining some rich corporation's systems of printing money. Work instead should be defined as adding value to society.
x87678r 6y ago
Look for the U in UBI.
avierax 6y ago
Oh, you sound too sure... Have you considered that maybe once not obliged to work anymore you could instead adopt a more entrepreneurial attitude? Perhaps exploring your genuine interests?

thoughtstheseus 6y ago

That means I'll get paid more when I do work. Thanks!

thephyber 6y ago

The most likely implementation in the existing US federal government is a negative income tax. > I definitely would choose not to work or work less if that money came free from government. You aren't alone, so your $1200 would not go as far in that future as it does now. There would be some inflation (perhaps only localized increased costs to some industries), but I'd suspect that people working less would be a feature, not a bug. UBI doesn't make people not want to work at all. Work provides income, meaning, and dignity. Some people would move from industries which have lots of crappy manual jobs (like janitorial services) to industries which are currently only hobbies, but with UBI subsidies could be sustainable as a career. I imagine lots more Etsy shops.

jameslevy 6y ago
As us engineers like to say, the goal is to automate ourselves out of a job.
- thephyber 6y ago
  As the SouthPark villagers say: They took 'er jerbs!
alexmingoia 6y ago
“There would be some inflation” Which serves as a reason to regularly increase the amount. “UBI doesn't make people not want to work at all“ Speak for yourself. Work is a means to an end. I have no desire to work if basic income takes care of my basic necessities. I have no intrinsic desire to get up every day at the same time and do what my employer tells me to do. And to be clear, when I say work I mean the necessity of doing things in exchange for money. Cultivating my garden, writing software nobody uses, or music nobody pays for, isn’t what I mean by work.
- thephyber 6y ago
  I definitely don't want to feel like I'm in a rat race while on the job, but I enjoy lots of parts of work. After taking ~18 months off work, I realized I enjoyed the first 3-4 months of unstructured self-directed activities, but I think I'd prefer more daily structure (whether job or otherwise). If I get the place where I can retire, I'm probably volunteer for part of my time. Most of the proposals I've heard of UBI / negative income tax are good supplements but don't completely replace work-based income. $1000/month per adult is among the largest benefit I've heard.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > I have no desire to work if basic income takes care of my basic necessities. It is widely observed that many people work far more than is necessary to supply their basic necessities, because people's desires don't tend to end with those needs. You may have quite limited desires, but there is no evidence that that is true of humans generally.
- goatlover 6y ago
  > Cultivating my garden, writing software nobody uses, or music nobody pays for, isn’t what I mean by work. That's great, but if a significant number of people feel that way, then there is a noticeable loss of productivity in the economy as say 35% of people are not producing anything of economic value. That impacts tax revenue. It probably also means there is work not getting done, like the stuff nobody wants to do.
  - 6y ago
AnthonyMouse 6y ago
You also have to remember that supply and demand still works. If the UBI causes several of your janitors to quit because they now have better options, you can still get them back by paying them more. All it does is give more negotiating leverage to labor because they no longer starve if they walk away.
- chrisco255 6y ago
  That money has to come from some where. If you're paying janitors more and they're no more productive than before, someone else is making less.
  - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
    Yes, that is an apt description of a reduction in income inequality, i.e. the intended effect.
    - goatlover 6y ago
      But also inflation.
      - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
        Inflation refers to the value of the currency, which would not be directly affected. If different people had money than currently do then they might buy different things with it, and then the demand for the things they want would go up and demand for some other things would go down. That isn't inflation, it's a demand shift. And for most types of products it would only cause increased production of those things rather than significant price changes. Meanwhile for other things (e.g. things which are artificially scarce), the price changes themselves would shift demand elsewhere -- who is going to pay $10,000 rent in San Francisco if it's <$1000 in Pennsylvania and the difference in local wages doesn't close the gap?
    - chrisco255 6y ago
      No telling if that would be the only effect. You could reduce income inequality while also increasing poverty, so I don't see the reduction of inequality as an end in and of itself.
Aerroon 6y ago
>Some people would move from industries which have lots of crappy manual jobs (like janitorial services) That work still has to get done though. Somebody has to be the janitor. If you then increase the pay of a janitor then lots of people that would otherwise increase their skills to do with that requires more skills would end up as a janitor instead. This triggers a pay increase in those jobs too. I don't see how you don't end up with just a lot of inflation. The money a job pays doesn't matter on a societal level. What matters is the products/service doing the job provides. No amount of money shuffling is going to make 2 apples turn into 3.
- ATsch 6y ago
  Yes, that work has to be done. I'd just rather we find a way to do it that does not involve a system of glorified slavery where we force people to do it for survival.
- thephyber 6y ago
  I agree there would be inflation, but how much and where it would present aren't clear. The highest paid jobs (eg. CEO) inflate very little and the lowest page jobs inflate quite a lot. There is currently an anti-inflation effect in the lowest paid jobs when inflation would help these workers have a better living. Jobs thought of as "minimum wage jobs" in the USA (eg. hourly workers at McDonalds) pay a decent living in Denmark. They don't have runaway inflation. We should examine why there is a such stark difference in expectation between the USA and these other countries. That said, I don't think UBI is the only way to solve the issues I care about. I might be satisfied simply by easier and fairer access to existing welfare programs (which are already subsidizing those low-wage employers).
  - luckylion 6y ago
    > The highest paid jobs (eg. CEO) inflate very little and the lowest page jobs inflate quite a lot. The issue is that you have few of the highest paid jobs and many of the lowest paid jobs. The labor cost of a giant factory isn't so much the director, it's the thousands of workers. If you double their wages, you double the cost. If you double the director's salary, you'll hardly notice in the balance sheet.

yarrel 6y ago

Income tax requires income. UBI doesn't. Policing benefits hurts the poor, not the rich. Where people would otherwise have no income UBI will increase spending. Where they don't it has other benefits. But if you want to save that cash then that's also good.

staycoolboy 6y ago

> I do think people radically underestimate the unforeseen consequences of a free guaranteed income My irony alarm just exploded.

aahhahahaaa 6y ago

Why give free school to everyone, libraries? Clearly a rich person doesn't need those either? Public services should be public. There's extreme social value in equal access and you reduce an extreme amount of bureaucracy and debate in the process. >If I got free money I wouldn’t increase spending, I would reduce work. WE SHOULD ALL REDUCE WORK. Sorry for the caps but we need to collectively get into this mindset. We're more productive than ever with very little to show for it. We've been having labor outright stolen from us for decades.

yelloweyes 6y ago
Yeah like, wtf is the point of technological innovation if we're still working like crazy?
- boogies 6y ago
  To double life expectancy so we can retire?
  - aahhahahaaa 6y ago
    Ouch, that's kind of like the lottery. Sorry you worked your ass off waiting for retirement, here's some cancer.
    - luckylion 6y ago
      From that perspective, everything is a lottery. Sorry, you worked your ass off doing good things for your fellow humans, here's a tree branch falling on your head. The standard of living has improved massively. I agree wholeheartedly that there are issues (e.g. people are giving more free time, but they don't know what to do with it and engage in unhealthy habits to kill the free time they've been given), but generally, it's not even close.
  - prawn 6y ago
    Amazes me that American Presidential candidates are in their 70s and people and parties just go with it. I was shocked reading the news that Wilbur Ross was hospitalised - he has a major work role and is 82 years old. Age of retirement in Australia for that age group is 65. I understand some people just don't know how to stop or what else to do with their time, but I feel like pinning too much hope on retirement is misguided. Far better surely to be doing more living while in your prime. More likely to be physically able to enjoy it, for one thing.

AnthonyMouse 6y ago

> Why give free money to everyone? Clearly a rich person doesn’t need a monthly check from government... The answer is that it's much simpler to send everyone a check. The rich person will pay more in taxes than the amount of their check, so it doesn't matter. Indeed, the arguments that we should do otherwise are to the benefit of the rich, because the proposed cutoff invariably comes somewhere in the middle income range, resulting in higher marginal rates on middle income people rather than higher income people. In other words, a cutoff allows the rich to pay lower taxes in the amount of the money that had been going to people in the middle.

dahfizz 6y ago
> The answer is that it's much simpler to send everyone a check. Seems even easier to increase the standard tax deduction we already have and are familiar with. Then you can increase tax rates to make sure those evil rich people don't see any benefit.
- AnthonyMouse 6y ago
  The standard deduction doesn't allow for negative rates, which means it can't be used to replace means-tested assistance programs in the same way as a UBI. The EITC does, but it has a cutoff with the aforementioned problems, and if it didn't (and the amount was high enough to replace the other programs) it would be hard to distinguish from a UBI, outside of the easily-gamed income requirement which does little more in practice than discriminate against honest homemakers who don't get to claim it.
  - dahfizz 6y ago
    You're right, I meant tax credit and not deduction. My point is that a negative tax rate would be straightforward to implement and would be the path of least resistance to a UBI.
    - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
      Yes, having a large unconditional "standard tax credit" with no phase out would just be another name for a UBI. Realistically what you have to do at that point is to use a flatter rate structure instead of a phase-out so that the credit is paid back by the time you get to higher income levels, but that's much better than the existing nonsense where the marginal rate structure goes all over the place from sometimes >90% at low income levels (from phase outs) to ~20% in the middle and then back up to 30+%. You get a strongly progressive effective rate just from the credit, so at that point you can use something like a 35% fixed marginal rate and simplify everything else too. Interestingly this also means it doesn't even have to be an individual income tax. You could use VAT or charge payroll tax to employers and get the same result without individuals even having to file tax returns anymore.

jMyles 6y ago

What is so bad about reduced "work"? Maybe people who are currently working at stupid, unnecessary jobs will make art and poetry and music. Or maybe invent cool things. Or maybe just relax and learn about themselves. I have never understood this obsession with 100% employment.

naveen99 6y ago
Also women are less likely to prefer employed men and will be more free to be with artists, poets and musicians.
lovehashbrowns 6y ago
People have been brainwashed all their lives to think that getting a check every two/four weeks is the only way to contribute to society.
rumanator 6y ago
> I have never understood this obsession with 100% employment. Employment means income and tax revenue and social security funding. 100% employment means more people have personal income, the nation's social security system is not exhausted, and the state has more revenue to invest in public policies.

deleted 6y ago

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squidproquo 6y ago

Reducing the number of hours/jobs that people currently work would reduce the labor supply and wages would rise (Econ 101). I don't see how these "consequences" are a bad thing. Furthermore, "unforeseen consequences" are effects that we don't know will happen because they lie beyond our ability to predict them. There will always be unforeseen consequences of any major policy decision.

pylua 6y ago
For instance, rising wages potentially implies services will cost more. At what point does the income received stagnate relative to cost of living ?

klyrs 6y ago

I'm not entirely decided on this matter myself, but I'll take the position. One reason to include the rich in UBI is that it reduces administrative overheads. If it's means-tested, that means monitoring, investigating and ultimately punishing the poor. Why bother?

skybrian 6y ago

Giving everyone the same amount is symbolically useful, because it's a way in which all citizens are equal. Everyone gets the same amount and what can be fairer than that? But, practically, anything a UBI plan gives you can be undone with an equal and opposite tax. The net effect after taxes is what matters and it's going to redistribute money or there's no point in doing it. Some people pay more taxes than others and raising the top income tax rate is enough to ensure that the wealthy don't benefit. It can be made exactly equivalent to a negative income tax.

sroussey 6y ago
As a landlord, knowing everyone can afford higher rent means rent increases for everyone!
- skybrian 6y ago
  That depends on the competition. If the market rate doesn't go up, you might have trouble filling vacancies. It seems that rents are going down a bit in San Francisco because some people who can suddenly work remotely are moving out (among other reasons). UBI is an income that you can take with you wherever you go, much like social security, so it's likely to make living in cheaper places more attractive.
- ATsch 6y ago
  This is why I strongly prefer "Universal Basic Housing" over (or in addition to) UBI. Landlords must be forced to provide a useful service for a good price instead of just freeloading off of the risk of homelessness.
  - aeternum 6y ago
    Please no. How many times do cities have to try and fail at public housing for us to realize that the government cannot provide nor maintain it efficiently. There are much more effective ways that government can provide housing: 1) Allow actual competition. Adopt Japan-like zoning to make it easier to build. Landlords cannot freeload if they have competition. Make it harder for small special interest groups to veto new development. 2) Set property taxes appropriately or implement a land-value tax so that landlords have to pay for part of the surrounding improvements.

JamesBarney 6y ago

So I don't think a UBI should be anywhere near $1,200 a month. But one of the features of a UBI is it causes people to drop out of the labor market. Especially for shitty low end unskilled labor jobs. And this is great because the reduction in supply will drive up labor rates and help inequality in a far more natural way than a minimum wage.

tw04 6y ago

>I do think people radically underestimate the unforeseen consequences of a free guaranteed income, even if it was low. But for every you, there's a me. I get satisfaction out of working. I had a job in college where I completed all of my work in the first week and did absolutely nothing for the next 6 months and I was MISERABLE. I needed a task to complete, a job to finish, to feel productive. Furthermore I like having things - whether that be a boat, or a nice car or insert whatever. And that's not some "you've just succumbed to the capitalist monsters" - I buy things that I get enjoyment out of, I don't get enjoyment out of buying things. Quite frankly I feel disgusting anytime I buy something, so if it isn't something I enjoy I have borderline permanent remorse. The car I bought at 16 still hits a nerve because it was a pile of garbage I paid too much for. I completely understand and respect and quite frankly envy people that don't want things, don't need to work to feel "complete" and can get by doing nothing all day. And with all of that said, the fact there's a you, and a me, tells me there's a very good chance UBI can work. People that don't care about having nice things can do fuck-all and get enough to survive, and people who want more can work until they have it.

swimfar 6y ago
"But for every you, there's a me" Everyone agrees that there will be people who will want to work, and people who won't. The question is what is the ratio, and is it enough. No one can predict this with a high level of certainty. We all just have "a feeling", which coincidentally happens to align perfectly with whether or not we believe in UBI.
- tw04 6y ago
  Sorry, I have a REALLY tough time believing automation can't replace a minimum of 50% of the current human workforce - we just haven't done it because there are large swaths of population willing to work for slave wages. Whether you agree with UBI or not you better have a solution for how those people are going to survive when they are eventually replaced by a machine. The alternative will be endless war and famine or genocide.

Someone1234 6y ago

- The cost of deciding who qualifies (and enforcement) is relevant. Particularly as you're spending money on every citizen, but only making savings from a small minority. - You can "claw back" the money other, cheaper, ways (e.g. income tax increases). - Negative income tax don't work for children, disabled, or the elderly like UBI does. If they don't work, it doesn't work. Therefore, you wind up with two schemes. People keep on tacking on complexity, which breeds costs, which makes the whole scheme disproportionately expensive. It is universal because universal is cheap to run.

_-david-_ 6y ago
I think it could mostly be automated. Your tax filing from the previous year is put in a system and can figure out if you get money. They could even do an equation based on cost of living and other factors like number of dependents. They could either send out a check or direct deposit it. If something changes (like a job loss) you submit a form and they send you the money. They can figure out if you owe them the money back on your next tax filing. This does work for children since they would be counted as a dependent. This would probably change your tax filing which could change the calculation. This would also work for elderly since they would still be filing taxes. It would be easier to do it universally but it would likely cause other issues like more inflation.
- dodobirdlord 6y ago
  "a system", "an equation", "They could either...", "a form", "they can figure out" This posits the capability of the government to put together a really remarkably competent administration, that knows everyone's tax filings, everyone's citizenship status, where everyone lives, the cost of living in every part of the country (or the world?), and can speedily process paperwork continuously throughout the year. Certainly no such administration currently exists. It would probably be very expensive, and the individual-filing-based workflow would be burdensome both to all people and to the administration. Lose your job? File a form. Get a raise? File a form. Get an inheritance? File a form. Move? File a form. Get married or have a kid? File several forms! There's a reason individuals only have to file taxes once a year. Bureaucracy is waste. Aspects of this hypothetical administration would need to exist for any UBI scheme, but in a UBI scheme with equal payments the burden on the individual would not be more than ensuring the bank account or address they use to receive their tax refund is current throughout the year, and continuing to file taxes once yearly.

campers 6y ago

One reason is simplicity in managing it, reducing government costs. For a middle to upper income earner their overall tax rate would be the same, the income tax rates could be adjusted so someone on $100k still pays the same overall amount of tax. Second it is gets rid of the high effective tax rates that low income earners deal with. While low income earners pay low or no income tax, they lose their benefits the more they earn, so a dollar earned could mean up to a dollar less in benefits, which is a disincentive to work. Something that is often missed by the people who say having a UBI would be a disincentive to work.

ATsch 6y ago

Means testing access to resources always, without exception: - ends up being more expensive than just giving to everyone - prevents some people who need it but are somehow obstructed by the bureaucracy from receiving it - gets it's conditions increasingly narrowed to reduce the costs until it stops helping anyone

drewwwwww 6y ago

> I do think people radically underestimate the unforeseen consequences of a free guaranteed income, even if it was low. I’d be willing to live as a poor person if that meant not having to work. Actually, where I live now I live comfortably on $1200 a month. I definitely would choose not to work or work less if that money came free from government. If I got free money I wouldn’t increase spending, I would reduce work. this is not an unforeseen circumstance, but a desired outcome

no_wizard 6y ago

What UBI enables, I believe (and same with universal healthcare and other social safety nets) is lowest barriers to entry. I have no doubt that some will not do anything productive with the moneys it’s pretty much beside the point. The point is to have a guaranteed floor for all in society, much like the idea of bankruptcy (before the conservative demonization of the idea particularly in the 1990s and Bush era, in the USA) it’s a way to ensure people can start over or continue to build momentum without fear of being homeless, starving and/or being unable to provide the basics for their family or themselves This lowers the barrier of entry for people to free themselves of being shackled to giant corporations or dead end jobs just for “security”

ww520 6y ago

Because of equality. Giving everyone a cut makes sure everyone is participated in the program.

JumpCrisscross 6y ago
> Giving everyone a cut makes sure everyone is participated in the program This also applies to the negative income tax.

postingawayonhn 6y ago

> Why give free money to everyone? For administrative simplicity.

dragonwriter 6y ago

> Why give free money to everyone? Because it's simpler and avoids duplicating effort, since the means testing is rolled into the tax system, and avoids perverse consequences, since with a single payment system you don't end up with a combination that has greater than 1:1 reductions in benefits without outside income for some recipients at some income levels. > Milton Friedman long ago proposed a negative income tax to replace means-tested welfare programs. A negative income tax is, in terms of who gets what payment, exactly equivalent to a UBI funded by a progressive income tax. A monthly UBI with the usual annual income tax filing and reconciliation payment/refund is a better mechanism than simply rolling the UBI into the income tax calculation and annual reconciliation, though. > I do think people radically underestimate the unforeseen consequences of a free guaranteed income, even if it was low. I’d be willing to live as a poor person if that meant not having to work. I think people like you overestimate it, because they ignore the well-established effects of general deprivation and voracious human wants. They may also overestimate their own tolerance for non-work, as do many people leading up to retirement. > I’d be willing to live as a poor person if that meant not having to work. Some people would. But many more people would also be willing to work a little bit more for a little bit more, which UBI makes easier than existing means-tested programs. And many people who initially would reduce work for the novelty of leisure would turn around later and work to have the things they couldn't afford on the basic stipend. > I definitely would choose not to work or work less if that money came free from government. If I got free money I wouldn’t increase spending, I would reduce work. Unless you are the poorest of the poor, that outcome isn't actually contrary to the design or problematic.

tomc1985 6y ago

> Why give free money to everyone? Clearly a rich person doesn’t need a monthly check from government... The problem is that a small loophole or exception paves the way for larger exceptions, and so on, which continues until the original concept is gutted and bleeds out to the status quo

_jal 6y ago

> Why give free money to everyone? Two major reasons. The principled reason is that it is, well, universal. If you're a citizen, you get certain rights and responsibilities, end of story. A more realist perspective notes that historically, if you make a program for the poor, it becomes a poor program (underfunded). A scheme it is more likely to succeed the more people who buy in to it. (Notice how the ACA is becoming more popular over time? Or look at Social Security vs. SNAP.) > I definitely would choose not to work I think people both pro- and con- are not really thinking through how this would play out in reality. Income, wealth, type of work and social status are intimately linked, especially so in the US. There will immediately be some slur for people who choose not to work that will probably replace the "your momma's on welfare"-type crap. Lots of people's shallow, status driven dating rules will expand to exclude the voluntarily-unemployed. It will become obvious that there's a very low glass-ceiling over their heads that limits them in all sorts of ways. It will also become harder to crawl out of over time, both for individuals who don't maintain useful skills, and as a social class, because that's how humans act. Some people will of course choose that life. But I think it will be a lot less appealing than you think.

didibus 6y ago

Its a good point you bring up. And I think people don't talk enough about other options that assume you're working or trying to find work, such as increasing minimum wage and unemployment benefits dramatically, instead of UBI. Or like that proposal you brought up. I think UBI is easier to swallow for some people, cause they'd get it as well, they might be more willing to open up to the idea. That said, I think the amount you'd get on UBI would balance itself out to what can be given. If everyone becomes lazy bums that rather not work, we'd all see our UBI payments decline year over year until we can't live off it and would need to go back to work. A bit of a simplification, but it's possible that the system thus finds a stable level on its own that works.

prostoalex 6y ago

> Why give free money to everyone? Clearly a rich person doesn’t need a monthly check from government... Because then you need to test for means, and that means you have to hire new bureaucracy to conduct those tests, and then pay their benefits and pensions and travel expenses, and then you need to hire additional bureaucracy to address occasional loopholes in your checks, and then 10-20-50-100 years later you're back to square one with massively bloated self-serving bureaucracies conveniently appropriating dollars to save pennies. That's what drives UBI advocates bonkers about the current benefit programs. For example, food stamps benefits. I say anyone with an SSN should be able to apply for one and get it electronically. It helps farmers, helps food availability, and is generally spent locally. Instead we have layers and layers of bureaucracy ensuring Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates are prevented from receiving SNAP benefits.

ajzinsbwbs 6y ago
I hear this argument a lot but it makes no sense to me. Suppose UBI is $12k/year. Then as long as it costs less than $12k to identify a rich person, it’s cheaper to not pay the rich people than to pay everyone. In fact, we already have any agency that does this for most Americans called the IRS. The budget of the IRS is $12 billion, which comes out to about $100 per taxpayer. The cost of the IRS administering the tax system is less than 1% of the value of the money it raises. The IRS does things like check if people are eligible for credits and deductions they claim, and if they are due a refund. Clearly it’s much cheaper to employ an agency like the IRS to check the numbers than it is to just pay everyone. Increases to the budget of the IRS raise tax revenues, yielding a positive return. And since we already have the IRS, we don’t even need to fund a new agency to do this work for UBI. Compared to the overall cost of the UBI program (trillions of dollars) it would be trivial to fund the IRS to do means-testing. This would make UBI a much cheaper program, so it would be easier to fit into the budget. I don’t doubt that local welfare agencies are a shitty bureaucracy, and I wouldn’t advocate putting them in charge of UBI.
- viklove 6y ago
  You're forgetting that the citizens of the US are people, not robots. When everyone gets the same treatment, you get a feeling of unity and you don't divide society into "leeches" and "providers" based on who gets UBI and who doesn't. The UBI becomes part of what it means to be American. Furthermore, you can solve the same problem just by increasing taxes on the rich. If you send every rich person $12k, but also tax them $12k more per year, the money spent/saved is exactly the same as not sending it to them in the first place. So this statement you made is false: > This would make UBI a much cheaper program, so it would be easier to fit into the budget.

Gustomaximus 6y ago

Theres 2 points here; > I definitely would choose not to work or work less if that money came free from government. Is that a bad thing? Say We went from participation rate from ~65% to 40%. That could be good, we stop trying to force people into jobs unnecessarily as we automate + it might encourage dirty jobs like cleaners to be better paid and balance the wage market as people have a way to walk away. Point 2: Generally I agree that UBI is a bit of a pipe dream for now. I think we'd be better off doing some 'guaranteed job' system where we focus on societal roles that add value but dont compete with free market. Give people a guaranteed 3 day a week job for basic living wage type deal and earlier retirement ages. Use this as a transition point to hopefully automating much of the world and some system of UBI as we slim workforce needs.

irjustin 6y ago

It's literally cheaper to simply give everyone a $1,200 check than it is to try and create rules that exclude people based upon some criteria. That is how the welfare program operates today. It's expensive to manage and at its current position not inclusive enough which then leaves a number of people worse off when you are just above the cut-off.

spyckie2 6y ago

I think you'd be surprised and how meaningful work can be if it is actually meaningful. The definition of work has been taken over by the current economy as maintaining some rich corporation's systems of printing money. Work instead should be defined as adding value to society.

x87678r 6y ago

Look for the U in UBI.

avierax 6y ago

Oh, you sound too sure... Have you considered that maybe once not obliged to work anymore you could instead adopt a more entrepreneurial attitude? Perhaps exploring your genuine interests?