When talking to people who dislike UBI about UBI, they'll often say both that 'people need a purpose in life' and that 'nobody will work if they get free money'. - eviltoast

Those seem incompatible to me.

(UBI means Universal Basic Income, giving everyone a basic income, for free)

    • snooggums@kbin.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      10
      ·
      edit-2
      10 months ago

      It has been massively successful in a bunch of locations. Where are you seeing reports that it failed?

        • snooggums@kbin.social
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          5
          ·
          10 months ago

          Stockton’s experiment in guaranteed income — which paid more than 100 residents $500 a month with no strings attached — likely improved the recipients’ financial stability and health, but those effects were much less pronounced during the pandemic, researchers found.

          “We were able to say definitively that there are certain changes in terms of mental health and physical health and well-being that are directly attributed to the cash,” Castro told CalMatters on Tuesday. “Year 2 (2020) showed us some of those limits, where $500 a month is not a panacea for all social ills.”

          Being less pronounced is not the same thing as failing and the whole article supported the program being effective. Looks like maybe you misremembered this article?

      • ZahzenEclipse@kbin.social
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        10 months ago

        "One glaring problem with allowing this program to exist for any extended period of time is that, unless it is privately funded, it would be too expensive to maintain and would require substantial tax increases across the board.

        The group’s page even admits that, saying, “there’s a number of ways to pay for guaranteed income, from a sovereign wealth fund in which citizens benefit from shard national resources like the Alaska Permanent Fund, to bringing tax rates on the wealthiest Americans to their 20th century historical averages.”

        I think it part of it may have been related to how high taxes might have to be made and it would be damn near impossible to pass those level of taxes. It couldn’t be done souly city by city I don’t think otherwise wealthy would flee the city to avoid the taxes levied - at least that woulf be a concern of mine.

            • snooggums@kbin.social
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              3
              ·
              edit-2
              10 months ago

              It starts with the assumption that raising taxes is unreasonable.

              Bringing taxes up to their 20th century averages is completely reasonable, as they were highest during the time period where actual business growth was the highest.

              • ZahzenEclipse@kbin.social
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                1
                arrow-down
                1
                ·
                10 months ago

                Do you think the majority of US citizens want higher taxes? There’s alot of de-programming that has to be done. Democrats, who are generally better than Republicans when it comes to this stuff (due to the low bar they’ve erected) aren’t necessarily full on board with tax increases.

                • snooggums@kbin.social
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  2
                  ·
                  10 months ago

                  Taxed at a flat percentage of income or progressively without caps, 75% of people UBI will be a net increase in income over what their taxes would increase. It should be an easy sell unless there is a lot of misinformation or demonizing of low income people.

                  Of course people also don’t understand how single payer would save most people thousands per year by cutting out all the for profit companies, since misinformation is such a problem.

        • spacecowboy@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          10 months ago

          Okay so, there are a bunch of different agencies in charge of different types of social services. If you have UBI, those are no longer required. The money is coming from those programs. You spend LESS because you don’t have a giant work force on the back end of all those services/agencies anymore.

          Eg. current: 20 departments, 100 people working at each. Gives out 1 million dollars a year in social services.

          UBI: 1 department. Far less than the total of above working for it. Gives out 1 million dollars a year in social services.

          See? The numbers are fluff just for the sake of the example.