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There's a segment of the population who are vehemently against the idea of undeserving/lazy/the wrong people receiving any kind of welfare benefit, and the conc

There's a segment of the population who are vehemently against the idea of undeserving/lazy/the wrong people receiving any kind of welfare benefit, and the concept of UBI really, really triggers that segment. To the point where rational analysis goes straight out the window. I'm quite certain that all the same arguments were had about every kind of retirement or disability pension everywhere. Many of our societies are producing an enormous amount of resources surplus to our basic needs, often distributed very unevenly. Putting some of that surplus towards ensuring all members are at least housed and fed would not be a bad thing.

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Manuel_D 1y ago
Time-boxed UBI experiments don't represent how people would behave if they had the benefits for life. That's not throwing rational analysis out the window. If anything, trying to extrapolate the results of a UBI pilot that didn't last 3 years is playing fast and loose with rationality. Disabled people receive benefits because their ability to work is impeded by their disability and thus those programs don't have the same potential to disincentive work among the disabled population. Retirement benefits do diminish older people's labor participation rates. That's the intended purpose of retirement programs. Society agrees that at a certain age people should ideally be able to relax and not work if they don't want to. Why do people protest when countries raise their retirement age? Because people don't want to have to work in their 70s or late 60s. Some do (my dad kept consulting for the fun of it), but they're probably in the minority.
somedude895 1y ago
> ensuring all members are at least housed and fed would not be a bad thing. Not sure about your country, but normally those cases are covered by social security and welfare, it doesn't require helicopter money.
chneu 1y ago
You're talking about the "welfare queen" myth. The idea that given any sort of welfare, a large percentage of the population will exploit that welfare and quit being productive.

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Manuel_D 1y ago

Time-boxed UBI experiments don't represent how people would behave if they had the benefits for life. That's not throwing rational analysis out the window. If anything, trying to extrapolate the results of a UBI pilot that didn't last 3 years is playing fast and loose with rationality. Disabled people receive benefits because their ability to work is impeded by their disability and thus those programs don't have the same potential to disincentive work among the disabled population. Retirement benefits do diminish older people's labor participation rates. That's the intended purpose of retirement programs. Society agrees that at a certain age people should ideally be able to relax and not work if they don't want to. Why do people protest when countries raise their retirement age? Because people don't want to have to work in their 70s or late 60s. Some do (my dad kept consulting for the fun of it), but they're probably in the minority.

somedude895 1y ago

> ensuring all members are at least housed and fed would not be a bad thing. Not sure about your country, but normally those cases are covered by social security and welfare, it doesn't require helicopter money.

chneu 1y ago

You're talking about the "welfare queen" myth. The idea that given any sort of welfare, a large percentage of the population will exploit that welfare and quit being productive.