LogFAQs > #938359780

wolfy42 posted...

But yeah, if you say gave everyone 400$ a week UBI, you would instantly lose a large percentage of people working the menial jobs, you know, those jobs everyone likes to say are only for high school students etc, except that they current account for about 50% of the jobs in this country. Who is going to work at a gas station, or serve food, or be a clerk at a hotel etc, if they can get as much money just staying home?

So until you automate most of those things (and then raise the pay on the others), UBI would be a disaster.

The point of UBI is that unlike the current safety net, you receive it no matter what. No costly bearuacracy or infrastructure for people to constantly apply for benefits, have people check the claims, and frequently update the rolls as people drop off or join them again.
If you have a job, you get that pay on top of UBI, not in place of it. Having a job will always be more lucrative than not having one, under UBI. Now...will people still think it's worth making another $8/hr to do awful/menial/physically taxing labor when they don't need that money just to afford food/clothing/shelter/healthcare ? Perhaps not! Just means companies will have to pay a bit better to attract a labor pool that's no longer feeling like it's being held hostage.

In the current situation people who are at home not working are making more then most of the people who are actually still working as grocery stores only pay $15 (if that much) etc. So yeah, stay at home and don't work and get $750 a week, or make $15 an hour and get only $600 a week for 40 hours of work. Totally fair.

I agree, it's disgusting and stupid and unfair. It's also not a problem with UBI, as I already explained. You work or you don't, you still get the same UBI.

I still think affordable housing needs to come first, especially since you can't set a base UBI for a nation where rent prices vary so much from one place to another. In the bay area your lucky to get a 1 studio apartmetn for $2000 but ii other places you can get a 3 bedroom for $1000...how do you balance UBI with such extremes?

I agree housing is ludicrously expensive in some areas and it's not sustainable. Not sure if that can be fixed w/o direct government intervention/restrictions that would make the Right lose their fucking minds, though.
I would say...price UBI based on the national median cost of living. States that have super expensive areas to live are free to supplement the national UBI with their own kick-in to target expensive localities if they want, but leave it to more local government to figure out that problem. They let it get like this, and those local governments love those massive property tax windfalls. Let them fucking deal with it or let those housing bubbles collapse like they deserve to.