Comment by remarkEon
10 years ago
One thing I haven't really seen adequately addressed is this: what happens when some people inevitably waste their $2000 a month stipend on non-essentials and then don't have enough money for rent or food?
Do we just end up recreating the current welfare state on top of UBI? Perhaps a better way to ask that is, what would stop us from recreating the current welfare state on top of UBI?
> what would stop us from recreating the current welfare state on top of UBI?
The same thing that stops us from recreating the current welfare state on top of the current welfare state to protect people who barter away all their food stamps for drugs.
What happened to create all those homeless people that exist today?
They have no income whatsoever. If you waste 1 months income of UBI and end up on the street, you will have learned a very harsh lesson, but there will always be the next payment coming. Hence if you're not a total imbecile, you presumably will make better use of money in the future.
This "thing" is not addressed because it really isn't an issue for UBI. What happens to a teenager who wastes say a $1000 present for his 18th birthday? Presumably they become better at managing money.
What happened to create all those homeless people that exist today?
They have no income whatsoever.
I am currently homeless and I previously had a class on homelessness. Not all people on the street "have no income whatsoever." Not having enough income to afford a middle class lifestyle and no income whatsoever are not the same thing.
Just to be clear: I am not for basic income and I blog about that and I intend to blog more about it -- when I have the time. At the moment, I am busy trying to do more paid work so I can try to get myself off the street in the near-ish future, now that some of the underlying problems that caused my homelessness are nearly resolved.
You make some great points from personal experience which some might take as anecdotal but I'm grateful for you sharing something I haven't dealt with personally.
You obviously have no idea what you are talking about.
This statement unnecessarily weakens your comment as it comes across as an attack and uncivil, regardless of the context. Your comment is very strong—and makes this very point—without it.
Thanks again for sharing your personal experience here. I trust you'll continue to do so!
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>Presumably they become better at managing money.
That's, uhh, a bold assumption.
For one thing, any "recreated system" would be dealing with fewer people. For another, it would be clear that the help those people need is of a different kind.
> Perhaps a better way to ask that is, what would stop us from recreating the current welfare state on top of UBI?
In a democracy? Nothing can prevent that. Even if we wrote UBI into the constitution, it could always be amended. There are always going to be proposals to give some people different amounts of money than others under basic income, and some of those proposals will gain enough voter support to pass.
You may be interested in Tyler Cowen's post on this subject, which I posted about elsewhere in this thread: http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2013/11/wha...
There's no reason to assume that it's paid monthly. There is no reason a basic income couldn't be paid daily.