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Poverty can also be a trap because the simple solution (just giving someone money to alleviate poverty) isn't the same as earned success. When you feel like you've earned money through hard work and you feel like you're a contributor and needed and respected by your peers it brings a significant amount of satisfaction and happiness in life, which in turn drives you to be more productive and alters the way you think a…
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Poverty can also be a trap because the simple solution (just giving someone money to alleviate poverty) isn't the same as earned success. When you feel like you've earned money through hard work and you feel like you're a contributor and needed and respected by your peers it brings a significant amount of satisfaction and happiness in life, which in turn drives you to be more productive and alters the way you think a…
Yes, and it's important to remember that it is complex, not reduce it to simplistic formulae. Your theory is pretty much exactly contrary to empirical evidence. When you've earned money through hard work it can create a reward cycle, but it can also create a feeling of completion, of having done enough and having the right to stop. When you haven't earned money it can make you feel like a burden, but that doesn't necessarily lead to defeatism. Feeling indebted can also motivate someone to pay it back or pay it forward.
There are plenty of theories leading in all directions. Where does the evidence point? There's plenty of evidence that unconditional cash transfers (the term you should Google for) work just as well as in-kind or strings-attached aid[1][2]. Often better, and easier to administer too. Maybe the problem isn't that poor people lack motivation or work ethics. Maybe that's just an ugly stereotype. What they seem to lack is, obviously, money - or not money itself but the time and security and opportunity that even a little bit of money can provide. One of the most important things money can provide (especially in the absence of universal health care) is better health, including mental health, which is in a sense what the OP addresses. Giving people a small temporary opportunity without addressing these more permanent limiters to their success might be putting the cart before the horse. Preference for such approaches might have more to do with the givers' attitudes and biases than with results.
[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/09/we... [2] http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2013/05/unco...
Poverty can also be a trap because the simple solution (just giving someone money to alleviate poverty) isn't the same as earned success. When you feel like you've earned money through hard work and you feel like you're a contributor and needed and respected by your peers it brings a significant amount of satisfaction and happiness in life, which in turn drives you to be more productive and alters the way you think a…
> Poverty can also be a trap because... Actually there is contrary evidence. A study was carried out on the streets of London where they gave larger sums of cash no-strings-attached, and it showed that people in general took that money and used it to set themselves up in a job. One started a gardening business, for instance [0]. The idea that work is what people need is very Victorian, and reminds me of the tread-mil…
I can't speak to social programs outside of the US, but here, most of our programs (SNAP, Section-8, unemployment benefits) are on a sliding scale. This allows for benefits to somewhat decrease as earnings increase.
That said, I anecdotally have noticed a couple things:
1. Many low income people actually aspire to be accepted into these programs, especially Section-8 (US housing assistance).
2. Once people are accepted into these programs, they never leave.
I own dozens of rental properties, some of them low income where we accept tenants who receive housing assistance. I've never seen a singe person lose this benefit or have it decreased because they start earning more.
Now, I'm not sure whether these programs are a trap or not. I think it is waaay more complicated than that. Some people need help. Some people will leverage this assistance to climb up or make it through a tough time. Some people will take advantage.
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You can't just call something a nightmare. You have to point out to these blindly privileged rich knuckleheads that the garbage man won't be taking out the garbage if UBI comes to pass. No shit. He won't. Not unless you pay him 300,000/year and that's a whole other kind of economic catastrophe.
It's no economic catastrophe. If the market price for garbage collection by people not threatened with starvation is 300000/collector/year then there is a very strong incentive to automate it.
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UBI is not a socialist invention. In fact you'll find a lot of opposition to it on the left for various reasons, ranging from opposition to enabling people to live off the back of others, to a belief it's a thin wedge to reduce welfare. The socialist slogan is - as Marx pointedly remarked in "Critique of the Gotha Program" -, not an argument for equality but "from each according to ability , to each according to thei…
In his influential book on Universal Income, "Utopia for Realists", Rutger Bregman discusses this at some length (referencing the same study). I have to say I have experienced it myself, and not having enough money for the essentials is so all consuming that you cannot possibly perform well at work and make good life decisions. I have succeeded at work under these conditions, but I gave up everything else, hobbies, l…
Edit: Don't know why was my post down-voted. My intention was only to give emotional support to a fellow human being that goes/went through pain that I personally have struggled with and know all too well.
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How many under 18s in that 325m? UBI would be for those of working age would it not? I've seen arguments UBI should include pensioners, but never for it to include minors.
So if you only include 15-64 that is 200m [0] But since you want to keep social security, medicaid and medicare you need to keep a budget that somehow has 2 trillion dollars for BUI and 2 trillion for pensioners and children. Not much of an improvement really. Which is my main issue with everyone who proposes UBI. Once they are shown the number you get by multiplying population by income they slowly start to reinvent…
Also I don’t know which version of libertarian you’re using, but I don’t think I’d classify libertarians as being super supportive of UBI...