Universal Basic Income

[dfrecore]

UBI - sounds good in theory, and Finland is trying it out for 2 years. BUT, one of the reasons they think it will work is culture, and homogeneity. They have very strong cultural pressures there to work hard and make a decent living. We do NOT have either of those things (that kind of culture or homogeneity) here in the US, so it would probably not work well.

Also, when I heard someone talking about it here, it was in PLACE of welfare. So, take away all kinds of welfare from people, and give them all a wage (it was something like $10k a year). I think most people on welfare actually get more than $10k/yr, so they're not going to vote for that. The one good thing it did though, was take away the disincentives for men and women to get married. The war on poverty, which has been disastrous for black families especially, made women basically kick men out in order to qualify for benefits. This instead will encourage them to stay together - 2 adults making $20k a year is a lot better off than 1 adult making $10k. The welfare system also provides disincentives for working - taking away benefits the more money you make. This plan would give the money to you whether you worked or not. The other thing the welfare system does in incentivize having more children. This money would be for adults only, meaning no incentives to have children. The more kids you have, the more you have to spend. The fewer children you have, the less you need to spend.

The other interesting thing is that the person I heard talking about it was saying that it provided disincentives for people to make excuses for themselves. If we both get our monthly check of $833, and after rent, you spend it all on cigarettes and Xbox games and a bunch of other crap that you don't need, and I spend it on groceries and still have some money left over at the end of the month, if you think I'm going to feel sorry for you when you complain about not having any money, you've got another think coming. Everyone will start to see who is wasteful and who is being smart with their money.

I really don't think it will work - it would turn into $10k a year PLUS welfare at some point, when people realized that $10k was not enough for those who weren't earning enough, and too much for those making a good salary. I just don't see it making a difference.

Plus, it's a crazy amount of money. I'm roughly estimating that there are 208million adults in the US. That's $2 trillion dollars a year in payouts. Yikes. We currently spend $1 trillion now, so doubling that would be hard.

One last thing - Mike Rowe is constantly talking about how many jobs go unfilled in the US all the time. Something like 5 million jobs. For skilled labor, no degree required. So it's not like we don't have jobs here. What we do have is a culture that is constantly trying to make everyone go to college (and get a little student loan debt as a bonus), and talking about blue collar work like it's the worst possible thing that could happen to anyone. We need to change that mindset, so that 5 million more people have good jobs doing what is actually needed, rather than those same people going to college for jobs that don't exist. Yeah, it may not be a "good" job sitting behind a desk in A/C for 8 hours a day, but the jobs exist, people just look down their noses at them. Change your definition of a "good" job and you just might solve the unemployment problem, and not need a Basic Universal Income in the first place.