The case for a universal basic income | Free Lunch on Film
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 18 ธ.ค. 2021
- The coronavirus pandemic has opened the door to radical economic reform, argues FT columnist Martin Sandbu. A no-strings regular cash transfer to everyone could shake up the welfare system, bring new economic security, and create more opportunities for all. Welcome to Free Lunch on Film where unorthodox economic ideas are put to the test. Read more at on.ft.com/3GEHzKc
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I remember those "economic stimulus" checks. I received two of them while I was woefully behind on my child support. You know what I did with it? I made several child support payments. If I was already current on my child support I would be able to stay current. If I had that and a simple minimum wage job, I'd continue to work while looking for the job I want. I'd also be able to give my kids the future they deserve instead of just hoping to save up enough for their future while giving up on myself -- a parent should be able to make better choices for themselves as well as their children. I've had some low-income parents tell me that if you haven't driven yourself to mental illness in the first few years, then you haven't done your job as a parent.
We're going to need UBI out of pure necessity in the next 2 decades because of automation
A big part of it for me as someone who has been on and off disability benefits all my life as a result of a incurable chronic illness is the sheer amount of stress caused by having to prove my health status every couple of years. The more unwell I am the more gargantuan the task of filling out the horrible means testing form that requires you to analyse every part of your life and document everything you can’t do, every way you’re life sucks compared to most people, and the more overwhelming the prospects of having to sit through a medical assessment with someone who you know will lie about what you say and do at any opportunity to make you look less ill than you are. Then when your almost inevitable rejected by the medical report, gathering evidence and sit before a tribunal panel for multiple hours trying to defend yourself like a defendant in a court case, when the very reason you are doing any of this is because you have medical issues that make doing that very thing incredibly hard. That process usually takes all my availability energy for 6 to 12 months depending on how slow the system is running, and all the time you are in limbo as to whether you’re going to keep receiving the money you need to survive. The stress of it usually causes my health to significantly worsen. When I’ve been on regular unemployment the situation is even more degrading and humiliating, although on a more day to day level. Always knowing that you have to please your work coach at every turn to avoid being sanctioned. Having to apply for dozens of jobs you know you’ll get rejected for, or even worse knowing you wouldn’t be able to actually do if by some mistake they did offer you the job, just to keep up with the quota. And then occasionally getting sanctioned anyway for things out of your control like because they told you the wrong date for a meeting so you turn up a day late, and that’s your fault. Unless you’ve been inside the means testing system you can’t know quite how personally invasive and soul crushingly demoralising it is. A UBI would eliminate all that stress and pain on the most vulnerable people in society and give them time, space and security to actually improve their health a little, and maybe even do a little bit of work with the energy they are no longer having to spend fighting their way through the system
I once looked into the poverty trap. Based on loss aversion and prospect theory, it seems that not the unemployment benefit which leads to poverty trap but the fear to lose the unemployment benefit. This is because they might encounter the loss in expect value first before recieving the joy of gain from working. Therefore, the UBI could result less poverty trap than traditional unemployment benefit.
I don't have any strong opinion about UBI.
Happiness. THAT is what matters most. My biggest takeaway from reading how people felt who were part of a UBI study is that they were overwhelmingly more happy.
I agree completely. I am still watching the video so I don't know if you get to it, but the most compelling reason to move towards something like this is that within 10-20 years the vast majority of jobs will be automated out of existence. It's not really necessary to have a lawyer to file a divorce, bankruptcy or deal with an estate, nor is it necessary to have an accountant to file taxes, investment advisors are almost completely useless and always have been, an automated investment program would do just as well; most physicians are not particularly good at it, and an expert system can probably do a better job of checking a CT scan for cancer, and likewise run a diagnostic tree more intelligently that a human physician. We don't need doctors, and even more obviously don't need health care insurance companies. The list of replaceable professions goes on and on, and essentially replaces the vast majority of them, except perhaps IT and software engineering. It's not that I advocate any of this, but I regard it as inevitable.
The overall goal is to eliminate poverty so whatever works for that. I would also add: universal child care, universal pharmacare, deregulating zoning to increase housing supply, year-round schools, etc
Your documentary is fantastic! Thank you. 🙂
The Finnish study is slightly misrepresented here. It didn't give people lots of extra money it replaced unemployment benefit for those already in work - the difference was small. What it did promise was that the money would not be taken away if they found a job.
I might support UBI if I thought that it would replace the hodge podge of welfare programs we have now. But I fear that the old programs and the bureaucrats who administer them will remain and UBI will just be layered on.
This was a great video, but unfortunately it didn't address the problem with UBI that I hear the most and that is the inflationary effect it could have on the economy. Things might just get more expensive relative to the UBI.
Basic income would not weaken the incentive to work. Bad working conditions weaken the incentive to work.
The people who say no, are the people who forgot the people, that got them to their position in the first place. Those kinds of people are the worst
Everybody completely reliant on the government. What could possibly go wrong?
Try saying free money won't help you to someone who's starving. If you have the basics met it gives the best chance to upskill and get a better job, otherwise you've got professionals working in chippers because the bills have to be paid.
Giving the very few people who make 100,000 an extra 24,000 thousand is a smaller proportion of the income, 24,000 to someone who has nothing then it's EVERYTHING.
I like the idea of this series , can't wait for the next episode .
It would be VERY interesting to see what people would do if they were not worried about losing their regular paycheck;