we have a counterfactual to this in Europe though. A billionaire goes to the hospital for free in France or Germany. His son can go to college for free. We already have countries with welfare-for-all provisions which apply to billionaires too, without that being controversial at all

yes a well designed UBI avoids poverty traps. There are currently extremely high marginal rates applying to low or medium income households, when we count the phasing out of welfare in the equation.

An UBI would smooth that to a very linear marginality of rates, especially if coupled with a flat tax on income.

OK, then ... don't work?

I mean if your argument is that nobody will work for $100/week I agree with you, what's the problem?

Charles Murray (a libertarian) argues for a UBI in his book, In Our Hands: A Plan to Replace the Welfare State.

Where will humans get their personal sense of value and accomplishment from if they don't perform menial tasks for 40 hours a week?!!

Heard on radio that countries that have the shortest average work week have the least TV consumption because people have the energy to do more interesting things.

For a large segment of the American population ~all of their self worth is tied to their job. There's nothing lower to them than someone who doesn't work or has a menial job.

I've been trying to think of how to get a basic income into the hands of the street people and can't come up w/ anything that works. Can't just hand them $1K on the first every month, they'd either spend it all quickly or get robbed. Give them a debit card? Someone will come along and rob them of that too or buy it off of them w/ the password for a few dollars. Then there's the problem of them trying to double-dip which I suppose could be prevented if they all had to give fingerprints and wait for processing. Anyone have any ideas?

Great, this system won't penalize them for working. They can go find a nice, fulfilling job instead of taking some **** job because they're desperate. And if the ****ty jobs don't get filled, then the employers will have to ... (gasp) pay more in order to attract workers.

Yeah guys let's just pack it up, this won't work because someone might ... sell the money we give them, OK, great idea ON PAPER but in the real world we just can't do it.

There is fraud and waste in every system. The goal is to minimize both as much as possible.

It's not particularly important that people game the system. The existence and action of those people is inevitable. It's about making the system as efficient as possible for the rest of us.

Wait, someone's biggest problem with UBI is that they can't figure out how to set up bank accounts to put the money in? Where do you think welfare payments go currently? In sacks with $ signs on them?

The problem is we still need people to do useless jobs until we get closer to near post-scarcity via robotics/power/materials innovation. We are likely around 20 years away from the first wave of difficult manual labour automation.

A better solution might be to create easy/entertaining jobs people could get paid a minimal amount to do comfortably. Sort of like Mechanical Turk, but offer a lot of mobile game options that provide societal value. For example Foldit, or word games that help train AI translators.

Come on, ppl, it's not the biggest problem but it's A problem and I like to solve problems.

Does UBI replace all safety nets? No more Medicare, Medicaid, SSI etc?

I would say no. Ideally a UBI would be accompanied by free health care - the idea the state pays its citizens a basic income, a portion of which is then paid to private health insurance firms is more costly than simply providing the service directly with a guaranteed quality. (The same could be said of most services)

In terms of Medicare etc, these are US systems I am unfamiliar with. I am guessing these are inferior insurances provided to the poor. If you paid every citizen enough UBI for a quality private health programme then there is an argument for that, but you are still transferring massive amounts of public cash to private interests.

Medicare is like universal healthcare in other countries, except you have to be over 65 to get it. Also it sucks and doesn't always cover everything.

You're going to create an entire class of people who become social outcasts because they aren't employed.

That class already exists

This can never happen. Even if the full on libertarian idealized version of UBI occurred, and every single current government program was eliminated in exchange for UBI, in time people would fall through the cracks and the calls for the old social programs would begin. What do you do with someone who has UBI of $12,000 per year but a permanent disabling health problem that costs $30,000 to treat? What do you do with someone who wastes all their UBI and has kids that need to be fed and sheltered? What do you do with a family of 4 with a UBI of $48,000 but a special needs child whose care costs $100,000 per year?

I don't think UBI can work in the way that conservative/libertarian types might hope. If it has to be sold to the right by telling them that actually we'll eliminate a bunch of government spending so the net cost is not that bad, then that's fine. But presenting UBI as one-stop shopping for government safety net solutions is either misleading or short sighted. It will definitely not work out that way.

I mean, the system for EBT cards already works now. It is a debit card system (at least where I live in NY). Money gets loaded onto it I think the first of every month. There’s no reason to think that system couldn’t be expanded to a UBI.

Well what happens to people now who fall through the cracks? It can't solve everyone's problems but for the vast majority of people it should improve their livelihoods and be a boon to society at large.

Part of the problem is solved by people having some form of income that can afford basic housing prior to them becoming homeless. Other parts of the problem are solved by underpinning this with better public services like universal healthcare and such.

And then when you approach a homeless person who for some reason has slipped through the cracks, there is this ready built system of support for their health and basic living such that all we need to do is get them access. That's really a tiny problem relative to now, where the issue is that the safety nets don't exist or are insufficient.

A judge I practiced in front of always said you calculate how much it costs to house someone in prison in your area and then you give that amount to everyone as a UBI.

I think this is probably true, but my point (if you were commenting in response to that) is that even in UBI World there will still be a large government bureaucracy to administer social safety net programs to solve those problems that aren't solved by giving people money. I don't say that to suggest that UBI is a bad idea, but there are many people that seem to think that UBI costs money but will be offset by the closure of large parts of our current social programs. I don't think that's the case, and people who enthusiastically endorse UBI with that in mind are going to be very disappointed with what UBI World actually looks like.