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Basic Income cannot replace Social Security and Medicare. It can only provide a floor for it. Same for Welfare. The intent of basic income is to enable a famil

Basic Income cannot replace Social Security and Medicare. It can only provide a floor for it. Same for Welfare. The intent of basic income is to enable a family of minimum wage earners to have a much less stressful financial existence: 2 minimum wage jobs ($9.00/hour in California) + 2 adult basic incomes at $12,000 each = $61,440. By no means a king's ransom, but certainly gives a family of four a fighting chance to live in a less unsafe place, feed the kids a little better and maybe take a modest vacation once in a while. Lower financial stress across the entire country will free people up to focus more on raising their kids. Many, many social problems subside when families do better.

falsestprophet 12y ago
> certainly gives a family of four a fighting chance to live in a less unsafe place Of course if everyone has basic incomes, then everyone can bid more for housing and push up the costs of both safe and unsafe housing. It isn't clear that a basic income would make neighborhoods safer or make it easier for the poor to move to safer areas.
dragonwriter 12y ago
> Basic Income cannot replace Social Security and Medicare. It can only provide a floor for it. Same for Welfare. It can replace those things. Whether it is desirable is a matter for debate (but I don't see you make the argument that its not, just asserting it.) > The intent of basic income is to enable a family of minimum wage earners to have a much less stressful financial existence I disagree: the intended beneficiaries of Basic Income are not just "minimum wage earners", further, your calculation of minimum wage + basic income is misleading since many BI advocates advocate eliminating the minimum wage with the adoption of BI. (More libertarian and less liberal BI supporters tend to do so; more liberal and less libertarian supporters tend not to.) I would say that the intent of BI as a replacement for means-tested welfare is to (1) increase short-run efficiency but eliminating costs and perverse incentives associated with means-testing, (2) provide a system which is easier to scale up as automation reduces the relative demand for labor as compared to capital, and (3) reduce financial stress generally, and increase labor market fluidity.

falsestprophet 12y ago

> certainly gives a family of four a fighting chance to live in a less unsafe place Of course if everyone has basic incomes, then everyone can bid more for housing and push up the costs of both safe and unsafe housing. It isn't clear that a basic income would make neighborhoods safer or make it easier for the poor to move to safer areas.

dragonwriter 12y ago

> Basic Income cannot replace Social Security and Medicare. It can only provide a floor for it. Same for Welfare. It can replace those things. Whether it is desirable is a matter for debate (but I don't see you make the argument that its not, just asserting it.) > The intent of basic income is to enable a family of minimum wage earners to have a much less stressful financial existence I disagree: the intended beneficiaries of Basic Income are not just "minimum wage earners", further, your calculation of minimum wage + basic income is misleading since many BI advocates advocate eliminating the minimum wage with the adoption of BI. (More libertarian and less liberal BI supporters tend to do so; more liberal and less libertarian supporters tend not to.) I would say that the intent of BI as a replacement for means-tested welfare is to (1) increase short-run efficiency but eliminating costs and perverse incentives associated with means-testing, (2) provide a system which is easier to scale up as automation reduces the relative demand for labor as compared to capital, and (3) reduce financial stress generally, and increase labor market fluidity.