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The "B" in UBI demands that the income be sufficient for basic needs and other social welfare systems observably do not provide that unconditionally.

jltsiren 2y ago
The "B" means that UBI is a welfare system where everyone in the relevant population group receives the same basic income (at least in some technical sense), regardless of their other income. The "U" means that "everyone" gets it. People sometimes distinguish between full and partial basic income, depending on whether the basic income is sufficient to cover most people's basic needs.
- jncfhnb 2y ago
  Does that really make sense to you? You’ve identified the connection between basic income and basic needs; and even identified that there’s full basic income and partial basic income; but you think that the “basic” in universal basic income is just a redundant qualifier of the “universal” bit? The B in universal basic income means everyone gets a basic income to cover their basic needs. Obviously.
  - jltsiren 2y ago
    Of course it does. There have been many basic income proposals over the decades, some of them universal and some not. It does not make sense to assume that UBI refers to any specific model. In particular, there are some UBI proposals where the level of the basic income is intentionally too low to cover basic needs. Those proposals aim to dismantle the welfare traps that plague non-basic income models. Once your income grows high enough that you start losing welfare benefits, your effective marginal tax rate can be very high. Rates above 80% are common, and sometimes they rise above 100%.
    - jncfhnb 2y ago
      Using your logic then, what’s the difference between a universal income and a universal basic income? There doesn’t seem to be any. You seem to have confused yourself into thinking that since you could run a “universal partial basic income” scheme that the definition of the term UBI must refer to a general framework that can accommodate this. But that is semantically backwards. UBI is universal full basic income. Partial UBI is a different thing. It’s like saying you can do a 360 flip and then doing a “partial 360” where you turn 180 degrees. “Full basic” means it meets your basic needs. It means basic. Binary. “Partial Universal Basic Income” equates to “Universal Not Basic Income”.
      - jltsiren 2y ago
        The "basic" part is an accounting technicality. Everyone entitled to the benefit gets the basic income, but it's taxed away from those who earn enough. This is in contrast to traditional welfare benefits, which you only get if you apply for them. There are also basic income proposals without the "universal" part. For example, only those who work get the basic income. (This is often called negative income tax.) This is supposed to give those in necessary but low-paying jobs a fairer share of wealth than what the market would give. I've never heard of anything called "universal income".
loudmax 2y ago
There's no "demand". Basic means setting a base income level. That's it. It's disingenuous to assert that you can't have UBI below some threshold. You could set UBI at $50 per month ($300 per year). By itself, this isn't enough to survive on in a developed country, and the amount would be negligible for almost everybody. But if you're in a situation where $50 per month is going to make a material impact to your life, then you really need it. UBI disproportionately helps the most desperate. That's the point.

jltsiren 2y ago

The "B" means that UBI is a welfare system where everyone in the relevant population group receives the same basic income (at least in some technical sense), regardless of their other income. The "U" means that "everyone" gets it. People sometimes distinguish between full and partial basic income, depending on whether the basic income is sufficient to cover most people's basic needs.

jncfhnb 2y ago
Does that really make sense to you? You’ve identified the connection between basic income and basic needs; and even identified that there’s full basic income and partial basic income; but you think that the “basic” in universal basic income is just a redundant qualifier of the “universal” bit? The B in universal basic income means everyone gets a basic income to cover their basic needs. Obviously.
- jltsiren 2y ago
  Of course it does. There have been many basic income proposals over the decades, some of them universal and some not. It does not make sense to assume that UBI refers to any specific model. In particular, there are some UBI proposals where the level of the basic income is intentionally too low to cover basic needs. Those proposals aim to dismantle the welfare traps that plague non-basic income models. Once your income grows high enough that you start losing welfare benefits, your effective marginal tax rate can be very high. Rates above 80% are common, and sometimes they rise above 100%.
  - jncfhnb 2y ago
    Using your logic then, what’s the difference between a universal income and a universal basic income? There doesn’t seem to be any. You seem to have confused yourself into thinking that since you could run a “universal partial basic income” scheme that the definition of the term UBI must refer to a general framework that can accommodate this. But that is semantically backwards. UBI is universal full basic income. Partial UBI is a different thing. It’s like saying you can do a 360 flip and then doing a “partial 360” where you turn 180 degrees. “Full basic” means it meets your basic needs. It means basic. Binary. “Partial Universal Basic Income” equates to “Universal Not Basic Income”.
    - jltsiren 2y ago
      The "basic" part is an accounting technicality. Everyone entitled to the benefit gets the basic income, but it's taxed away from those who earn enough. This is in contrast to traditional welfare benefits, which you only get if you apply for them. There are also basic income proposals without the "universal" part. For example, only those who work get the basic income. (This is often called negative income tax.) This is supposed to give those in necessary but low-paying jobs a fairer share of wealth than what the market would give. I've never heard of anything called "universal income".

loudmax 2y ago

There's no "demand". Basic means setting a base income level. That's it. It's disingenuous to assert that you can't have UBI below some threshold. You could set UBI at $50 per month ($300 per year). By itself, this isn't enough to survive on in a developed country, and the amount would be negligible for almost everybody. But if you're in a situation where $50 per month is going to make a material impact to your life, then you really need it. UBI disproportionately helps the most desperate. That's the point.