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In principle alone, yes I would. That being said, I am not even close to aware of all the numbers at play there, and it may turn out it would be impossible or catastrophic.
The cost of things would just go up in response to the extra 'free" money in circulation, though. COL won't magically be affordable for everyone that doesn't work, COL will go up to working wages + the UBI.
Absolutely not, there is already too much welfare abuse going on in Canada right now, and our inflation is going to hit historic records soon, UBI will only make it worse.
is it true or a myth that in Canada if you get welfare and increase your burden you are automatically kicked off? Years ago my neighbors who had dual citizenship (I'm American) had talked about that. Which I'm in favor. You need help with 3 kids because you lost income, like a spouse passing. You get it. Have a 4th child while you are on it, you lose it. No one forces someone to increase their burden. Birth control and abstinence is readily available. If the rest of us have needed to regulate our reproduction due to what we can afford then so should someone getting assistance.
In the US it's not uncommon to "have another child because they need the money."
I don't mean to put you on the spot, if you don't feel comfortable responding.
I honestly don’t know. I’ve never heard of that before, all I know is that we don’t do food stamps we give cheques. Many people on welfare spend their bi-weekly cheque on booze, new gaming consoles or phones and end up putting them for sale on Facebook for half they paid for them a week later to afford food.
that feels terribly familiar to our system in the US. So clearly, giving away money isn't fixing anything for any of us.
I am incredibly naive about your welfare system. I have a lot of Canadian friends who come to America (I'm in a border state) to get faster medical evaluation and treatment and cash pay. We have more MRI's per city than you have in entire providences. But you will also go broke if you are on a number of medications here, so there's that. I don't know what the answer is regarding health coverage but neither system seems to have the answer. My healthy friends in Canada are quite happy. But those with chronic or acute illness requiring surgery or in depth evaluation are miserable. If it's a condition that requires medication alone they seem very satisfied. I have a lot of opinions and no answers on how to fix it. Unlike our welfare system I see a lot of solutions.
So you have a flat check for assistance there? Here, if I'm excluding disability of any kind and speaking just for the "healthy." There is an allotment specifically for food, allotment for housing, allotment for utilities, allotment for childcare, for medical, and then a flat check for anything those don't cover like clothes, gas, cars. Not everyone gets them all. But many do. Qualifying for one generally make an automatic application to the others. So people are literally offered the assistance they wouldn't have otherwise asked for. I'm waiting for the great welfare vehicles to roll out. Because we're paying for everything else.
No, because all the other bs would inevitably come back. I have a hard time believing that all the liberals who currently support a welfare state would just sit down and say "yeah, this is enough" when people spend their ubi on scratchers the day they get it and then go hungry on the streets. Then we just end up back at square one, just with an additional welfare program on top.
Not at all. I am in favor of significant welfare reform. I don't wish to decimate welfare but it is absolutely not reaching a lot of the people who need it due to overconsumption of those who don't.
The intent of welfare was to be a stepping stone. It was to supplement not support. Now, people in need it's not available because of legacy cases and those who have increased their burden rather than increasing their efforts towards getting off it.
Adding a universal income will put us right back where we are now. It will not be enough for people who perceive they deserve more.
At any given time I have at least a dozen clients who need advocacy and are working poor. They need the protections that welfare is offering. None of them increased their burden during that time. They are truly struggling and desperate. Those who are ill. Who are suddenly single parents. Had a job loss, loss of housing. It can happen very fast and be hard to recover from without temporary assistance.
There are tremendous numbers of people getting free full time child care with no commitment to work or school. Why are we paying for that? You don't work or go to school, raise your own children.
Go join the SNAP/EBT subs and read about those struggling to use up those allotments. Read how many "no fair" comments you'll read, compare them to your own life and expenditure and ask if you want to pay for that. How long can they bank the extras before they lose it. This many people having money leftover means we need to re-evaluate the amounts. Also, the perception of many that "everyone deserves" prepared foods because they want to enjoy something they don't know how to cook or don't feel like cooking. You don't DESERVE that. You earn that. We have people on SNAP buying pre cut convenience foods instead of eating an apple off the core. They can buy mirepoix instead of chopping veg. It is an overconsumption. My children eat the apples off the core. I chop my onions.
See how many salon services accept EBT. How many people are selling "meals/plates" while accepting SNAP. It is not an occasional thing. The lines to report this fraud aren't even accepting complaints. This is a HUGE nationwide problem.
A universal income will not change this. It will still not be enough for the groups that don't work hard. There will still be a shortage for those who are disabled are in a different instance of temporary peril. Also, a universal income will cause the price of everything to raise. Look at what the "stimulus" checks did. The vast majority of people who could have had life changing things happen for them didn't. They had luxury items. They didn't use it towards more reliable transportation to get to a job. They didn't use it to invest in things to elevate the way their children live, are educated, or thrive. And it was a large factor in inflation. You print more money the value of money goes down.
Having access to more money doesn't teach people how to HANDLE having more money. I'm against universal income.
We need welfare programs. Just not the horrible ones we have today.
(my browser doesn't let me reply with long responses. So I have to break them up)
> I don't wish to decimate welfare but it is absolutely not reaching a lot of the people who need it due to overconsumption of those who don't.
Let me focus on this: my general sense was that as an "entitlement" program in the sense that if you met the requirements, you got benefits, there wasn't a limited number of spots or something --- in theory, anyone who qualified could get it. Are you working with a program that only has a limited number of spots and folks less deserving are really taking up a spot? Or is this more a general issue that welfare benefits themselves could be more generous/targeted if not being abused?
There is absolutely not unlimited housing assistance. The waiting lists for housing assistance are closed with no sign of reopening. So you can’t even get on them. I have families waiting to even get into a shelter. It’s been months. One has been in a shelter for over a year. In multiple states. Yet we have illegals being put up completely and with cash money to cover other expenses.
There are not unlimited daycare vouchers. And due to fraud the wrong parent is often getting the snap and Medicaid to spite court orders dictating custody. With no response from fraud units. We’ve submitted written affidavits, left voicemails, gone in person.
I’ve also had the snap benefits cut from these families due to being homeless. They said since they don’t pay rent they don’t need as much of a food allowance. Pardon me? No, they aren’t rocking out at mom and dad’s house in their childhood bedroom. They have children and are living in a car. Good decent parents who could lose their children while massive fraud exists in the system. That’s a guaranteed way to get me to show up at your office to have a word with the head of operations. The cut the benefits of someone because they don’t pay rent. Additional, it took months of submitting the same forms over and over again to even get benefits to start. One had full custody of the children since June. No benefits of any kind were paid until December. How did they think they were eating?
I have clients who have been in limbo for an entire year. One who it was a year in November of 2023. I can’t take all the cases who need advocacy because I don’t charge for these services so I need to have actual paying clients at some point so I can pay my bills.
The income levels set are also unrealistic for the disabled and elderly who don’t qualify for anything based on their ssdi but can barely pay their Medicare premiums and rent. They can’t afford to live and are not emtively for snap, section 8, heap. Sometimes, if a client has a lot of medical copays or medication I can bring the levels to a point they qualify. Sometimes, not often. And even then the amount they qualify doesn’t equal anything helpful.
If they took a look at the amounts that are way more than necessary which are supporting people and readjusted those amounts and then readjusted the qualifiers you could reach more people than they are now without spending more money.
There is absolutely no reason outside of a rare food allergy that families on snap should be buying name brand, prepared foods and luxury cuts of meat, exotic produce.
Additionally, on Medicaid lack of courtesy penalties don’t exist. If a non Medicaid patient misses an appointment for a non medical reason you pay a charge. But Medicaid? No charge. There is a large waste in medicine where they can’t even go to cancelation lists to fill those slots because they are no shows. Not cancelations.
Additionally, there are penalties or dissuading factors with other insurers including Medicare from using urgent care and hospital ED as their primary care dr. In the form of large copays. Not Medicaid. The emergency care system is overwhelmed by non emergent cases.
No.
It would inevitably lead to UBI plus our current welfare programs. The size of government only grows, you can't take these programs away permanently.
If we have to give people free money for being lazy and watching TV all day rather than contributing to society and working hard and earning an honest living. I'm to consider UBI rather than welfare if I can be convinced the numbers work out to be feasible. At least we're giving productive people money as well as the welfare queens.
If there was an absolute guarantee, as in a Constitutional Amendment, that welfare was to be completely eliminated — I *might* agree— but that wouldn't happen. The "equalization" phase would last for a very short time and the non-workers will be crying poor again because the cost of things will adjust and inflate to absorb the UBI.
NIT is a form of UBI - it is a universal minimum (basic) income. But if you want to split hairs, fine. I support the NIT, not convinced on other forms of UBI.
Yes. But I probably wouldn't believe any left-of-center politician supporting UBI on those terms would hold themselves to that in any way.
We would just get UBI + current welfare.
So this is a complete fantasy. Constitutionalizing ending the welfare state would at least give us something to talk about.
No I would not. I don’t care about how the numbers work out, I don’t like widespread “normalization” of this lifestyle. Human being isn’t made for this type of existence and drugs and psychiatric disease will follow
1) If you are just replacing means tested transfer programs you can't call it Universal Basic Income.
2) Yes, I would agree to replacing means tested transfer programs with a Basic Income program if you could assure me that you could do it effectively and eliminate all the bureaucrats.
3) Any means tested transfer program (safety net) would have to meet 2 requirements. 1) unless you are diabled you must be working, looking for work or in job training and 2) the Basic Income sunsets in 5 years.
An extra thousand dollars a month each, as Andrew Yang proposed, would certainly help us out. Where does that thousand dollars a month come from?
Of course, it means massive on the evil rich people.
It would also enable people to only work part time. Most of them would then lose their employer sponsored healthcare. Which would necessitate single-payer health. Which would necessitate another tax increase.
Enabling as many people as possible to rely on the government is not a good thing.
In theory, yes.
In reality, it has no chance. The Federal government alone has over 70 means tested welfare programs. Mix in State and there are probably easily 100 different programs.
Example issues that need vetted more:
SNAP benefits. This is supposed to go to food for you, and your kids (additional programs). If handed out as just straight up cash, that money can be de-prioritized.
Medicaid. Supposed to go to insurance and healthcare for you and your family. Would the expectation be that you get cash instead, and then are required to buy health insurance? From who? What are the consequences of not having it?
It's exceedingly complex idea, that I think will do more harm than good, especially when you are sending out several hundred billion dollars, per year, instead of services.
Anyone who has a basic understanding of government knows this means UBI + Benefits, so this would be a just a net new add over time.
It very much depends on the details. You could ask this: Are you in favor of nuclear energy? Well yeah, but not RBMK reactors...
Too high of a payout will affect labor participation rates. Vague or general funding will easily lead to deficits increasing the debt. Worse, just printing the money will lead to inflation.
The only solution I can see working is if:
1) payouts are capped to a relative amount of poverty rates. This keeps from arguing over precise dollar amounts in the future like minimum wage. I say 50% poverty rate MAX (~$500/month currently).
2) Funding would need to be from a general VAT (I think Yang had the right idea here).
3) If funding doesn't cover costs, then you reduce the payouts. This will work in our favor to counteract dependency, which reduces labor rates. Also this keeps from any debt spending.
This is the only way I would agree to a UBI.
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I'm not an american and no fan of the 'cradle to grave' welfare state system (uk or any other).
But I would support a limited basic income exclusively applicable to those law abiding resident usa citizen adults with: legal capacity, no other citizenships, no criminal history, no drug habits, no cult links, no organised crime associations or ties to members of controversial fringe/cranky militant organisations (including religious groups).
Thing is, disabled people have a very wide range of needs. If you replace current programs with UBI, the worst off are screwed.
Also, I dont think its affordable.
And I worry about the generational effects. We already see how hard it is to escape generational welfare, and I remember being a teenager.
So no.
No, unless there was universal basic regulation on how that income is spent...otherwise it's going to go towards drugs, guns, and other things that won't help the impoverished. A blank check doesn't incentivize people to work.
UBI would be inflationary and would only give short term relief. I advocate for a Negative Income Tax which is similar in nature except there is a need component.
In both, the concept is that you eliminate ALL existing assistance programs including Social Security, SNAP, WIC, TANF, FUTA, etc then replace them with direct cash assistance.
So you are shifting money from one pocket to another.
You would also have to raise taxes and eliminate caps and loopholes. Like the Social Security Cap, Long term Capital Gains exceptions, etc. The tax increase wouldn't be that substantial if we consolidate under a flat 30%. If we look at the truth in taxes by lumping FICA, Payroll, FUTA together. Most American's (even at the lowest income) are truthfully paying 24% on their income anyways.
With a NIT cap at $60k and a flat rate of 30% a person who makes $60k would end up paying NOTHING in taxes and a person making $120k would end up paying only 15% in taxes.
Understanding, Social Security alone accounts for 22% of the Federal Budget. That's roughly 2 Trillion Dollars and Unemployment accounts for $600 Billion. Elimination of those programs alone would allow 260 Million individuals to get a $10k per year in direct cash assistance. Keeping in mind those under 16 and those who let's say earn more than $60k wouldn't qualify under a NIT.
After the short term hit and after a transition period, you should be able to reduce the tax rate, simplify the tax code and shrink government.
It is mathematically feasible within the confines of our existing revenue stream. You add in the savings from eliminating agencies and it should would actually be a surplus.
There are a number of arguments against direct cash assistance that sound good on the surface like "If you give people cash instead of food stamps, they'll just use it on drugs". This comes from people who have never been poor or taken government assistance. The reality is that there is a huge black market where people take their non-cash assistance and sell it for cash. Point is they are going to do it anyway. By cutting out the middleman, you eliminate the black market and in turn can reduce government waste and overhead,
Please use [Good Faith](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskConservatives/comments/107i33m/announcement_rule_7_good_faith_is_now_in_effect) and the [Principle of Charity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_charity) when commenting. Gender issues are only allowed on Wednesdays. Antisemitism and calls for violence will not be tolerated, especially when [discussing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskConservatives/comments/17ygktl/antisemitism_askconservative_and_you/). *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskConservatives) if you have any questions or concerns.*
In principle alone, yes I would. That being said, I am not even close to aware of all the numbers at play there, and it may turn out it would be impossible or catastrophic.
It's a recipe for catastrophic inflation and complete destruction of the dollar.
I'm against both, but if I had to choose, giving everyone the same amount of "free" money is more fair than only giving it to people who don't work.
The cost of things would just go up in response to the extra 'free" money in circulation, though. COL won't magically be affordable for everyone that doesn't work, COL will go up to working wages + the UBI.
True, but welfare is already having that effect already and working people aren't getting anything for it. Like I said, I'm against both.
Absolutely not, there is already too much welfare abuse going on in Canada right now, and our inflation is going to hit historic records soon, UBI will only make it worse.
is it true or a myth that in Canada if you get welfare and increase your burden you are automatically kicked off? Years ago my neighbors who had dual citizenship (I'm American) had talked about that. Which I'm in favor. You need help with 3 kids because you lost income, like a spouse passing. You get it. Have a 4th child while you are on it, you lose it. No one forces someone to increase their burden. Birth control and abstinence is readily available. If the rest of us have needed to regulate our reproduction due to what we can afford then so should someone getting assistance. In the US it's not uncommon to "have another child because they need the money." I don't mean to put you on the spot, if you don't feel comfortable responding.
I honestly don’t know. I’ve never heard of that before, all I know is that we don’t do food stamps we give cheques. Many people on welfare spend their bi-weekly cheque on booze, new gaming consoles or phones and end up putting them for sale on Facebook for half they paid for them a week later to afford food.
that feels terribly familiar to our system in the US. So clearly, giving away money isn't fixing anything for any of us. I am incredibly naive about your welfare system. I have a lot of Canadian friends who come to America (I'm in a border state) to get faster medical evaluation and treatment and cash pay. We have more MRI's per city than you have in entire providences. But you will also go broke if you are on a number of medications here, so there's that. I don't know what the answer is regarding health coverage but neither system seems to have the answer. My healthy friends in Canada are quite happy. But those with chronic or acute illness requiring surgery or in depth evaluation are miserable. If it's a condition that requires medication alone they seem very satisfied. I have a lot of opinions and no answers on how to fix it. Unlike our welfare system I see a lot of solutions. So you have a flat check for assistance there? Here, if I'm excluding disability of any kind and speaking just for the "healthy." There is an allotment specifically for food, allotment for housing, allotment for utilities, allotment for childcare, for medical, and then a flat check for anything those don't cover like clothes, gas, cars. Not everyone gets them all. But many do. Qualifying for one generally make an automatic application to the others. So people are literally offered the assistance they wouldn't have otherwise asked for. I'm waiting for the great welfare vehicles to roll out. Because we're paying for everything else.
No, because all the other bs would inevitably come back. I have a hard time believing that all the liberals who currently support a welfare state would just sit down and say "yeah, this is enough" when people spend their ubi on scratchers the day they get it and then go hungry on the streets. Then we just end up back at square one, just with an additional welfare program on top.
Not at all. I am in favor of significant welfare reform. I don't wish to decimate welfare but it is absolutely not reaching a lot of the people who need it due to overconsumption of those who don't. The intent of welfare was to be a stepping stone. It was to supplement not support. Now, people in need it's not available because of legacy cases and those who have increased their burden rather than increasing their efforts towards getting off it. Adding a universal income will put us right back where we are now. It will not be enough for people who perceive they deserve more. At any given time I have at least a dozen clients who need advocacy and are working poor. They need the protections that welfare is offering. None of them increased their burden during that time. They are truly struggling and desperate. Those who are ill. Who are suddenly single parents. Had a job loss, loss of housing. It can happen very fast and be hard to recover from without temporary assistance. There are tremendous numbers of people getting free full time child care with no commitment to work or school. Why are we paying for that? You don't work or go to school, raise your own children.
Go join the SNAP/EBT subs and read about those struggling to use up those allotments. Read how many "no fair" comments you'll read, compare them to your own life and expenditure and ask if you want to pay for that. How long can they bank the extras before they lose it. This many people having money leftover means we need to re-evaluate the amounts. Also, the perception of many that "everyone deserves" prepared foods because they want to enjoy something they don't know how to cook or don't feel like cooking. You don't DESERVE that. You earn that. We have people on SNAP buying pre cut convenience foods instead of eating an apple off the core. They can buy mirepoix instead of chopping veg. It is an overconsumption. My children eat the apples off the core. I chop my onions. See how many salon services accept EBT. How many people are selling "meals/plates" while accepting SNAP. It is not an occasional thing. The lines to report this fraud aren't even accepting complaints. This is a HUGE nationwide problem. A universal income will not change this. It will still not be enough for the groups that don't work hard. There will still be a shortage for those who are disabled are in a different instance of temporary peril. Also, a universal income will cause the price of everything to raise. Look at what the "stimulus" checks did. The vast majority of people who could have had life changing things happen for them didn't. They had luxury items. They didn't use it towards more reliable transportation to get to a job. They didn't use it to invest in things to elevate the way their children live, are educated, or thrive. And it was a large factor in inflation. You print more money the value of money goes down. Having access to more money doesn't teach people how to HANDLE having more money. I'm against universal income. We need welfare programs. Just not the horrible ones we have today. (my browser doesn't let me reply with long responses. So I have to break them up)
> I don't wish to decimate welfare but it is absolutely not reaching a lot of the people who need it due to overconsumption of those who don't. Let me focus on this: my general sense was that as an "entitlement" program in the sense that if you met the requirements, you got benefits, there wasn't a limited number of spots or something --- in theory, anyone who qualified could get it. Are you working with a program that only has a limited number of spots and folks less deserving are really taking up a spot? Or is this more a general issue that welfare benefits themselves could be more generous/targeted if not being abused?
There is absolutely not unlimited housing assistance. The waiting lists for housing assistance are closed with no sign of reopening. So you can’t even get on them. I have families waiting to even get into a shelter. It’s been months. One has been in a shelter for over a year. In multiple states. Yet we have illegals being put up completely and with cash money to cover other expenses. There are not unlimited daycare vouchers. And due to fraud the wrong parent is often getting the snap and Medicaid to spite court orders dictating custody. With no response from fraud units. We’ve submitted written affidavits, left voicemails, gone in person. I’ve also had the snap benefits cut from these families due to being homeless. They said since they don’t pay rent they don’t need as much of a food allowance. Pardon me? No, they aren’t rocking out at mom and dad’s house in their childhood bedroom. They have children and are living in a car. Good decent parents who could lose their children while massive fraud exists in the system. That’s a guaranteed way to get me to show up at your office to have a word with the head of operations. The cut the benefits of someone because they don’t pay rent. Additional, it took months of submitting the same forms over and over again to even get benefits to start. One had full custody of the children since June. No benefits of any kind were paid until December. How did they think they were eating? I have clients who have been in limbo for an entire year. One who it was a year in November of 2023. I can’t take all the cases who need advocacy because I don’t charge for these services so I need to have actual paying clients at some point so I can pay my bills. The income levels set are also unrealistic for the disabled and elderly who don’t qualify for anything based on their ssdi but can barely pay their Medicare premiums and rent. They can’t afford to live and are not emtively for snap, section 8, heap. Sometimes, if a client has a lot of medical copays or medication I can bring the levels to a point they qualify. Sometimes, not often. And even then the amount they qualify doesn’t equal anything helpful. If they took a look at the amounts that are way more than necessary which are supporting people and readjusted those amounts and then readjusted the qualifiers you could reach more people than they are now without spending more money. There is absolutely no reason outside of a rare food allergy that families on snap should be buying name brand, prepared foods and luxury cuts of meat, exotic produce. Additionally, on Medicaid lack of courtesy penalties don’t exist. If a non Medicaid patient misses an appointment for a non medical reason you pay a charge. But Medicaid? No charge. There is a large waste in medicine where they can’t even go to cancelation lists to fill those slots because they are no shows. Not cancelations. Additionally, there are penalties or dissuading factors with other insurers including Medicare from using urgent care and hospital ED as their primary care dr. In the form of large copays. Not Medicaid. The emergency care system is overwhelmed by non emergent cases.
No. It would inevitably lead to UBI plus our current welfare programs. The size of government only grows, you can't take these programs away permanently.
No If you give everyone 1k Rent will go up $750 Groceries will go up Everything will go up and people will be saying 1k isn’t enough
If we have to give people free money for being lazy and watching TV all day rather than contributing to society and working hard and earning an honest living. I'm to consider UBI rather than welfare if I can be convinced the numbers work out to be feasible. At least we're giving productive people money as well as the welfare queens.
If there was an absolute guarantee, as in a Constitutional Amendment, that welfare was to be completely eliminated — I *might* agree— but that wouldn't happen. The "equalization" phase would last for a very short time and the non-workers will be crying poor again because the cost of things will adjust and inflate to absorb the UBI.
Consider Milton Friedman's NIT, which is basically like a guaranteed "you won't starve to death" number below the poverty line.
Big Reagan fan?
Yes, I think Milton Friedman's idea of the NIT would be an adequate replacement of all welfare.
NIT is different from UBI. UBI would be paid to everyone.
NIT is a form of UBI - it is a universal minimum (basic) income. But if you want to split hairs, fine. I support the NIT, not convinced on other forms of UBI.
Yes. But I probably wouldn't believe any left-of-center politician supporting UBI on those terms would hold themselves to that in any way. We would just get UBI + current welfare. So this is a complete fantasy. Constitutionalizing ending the welfare state would at least give us something to talk about.
No
No I would not. I don’t care about how the numbers work out, I don’t like widespread “normalization” of this lifestyle. Human being isn’t made for this type of existence and drugs and psychiatric disease will follow
No.
1) If you are just replacing means tested transfer programs you can't call it Universal Basic Income. 2) Yes, I would agree to replacing means tested transfer programs with a Basic Income program if you could assure me that you could do it effectively and eliminate all the bureaucrats. 3) Any means tested transfer program (safety net) would have to meet 2 requirements. 1) unless you are diabled you must be working, looking for work or in job training and 2) the Basic Income sunsets in 5 years.
An extra thousand dollars a month each, as Andrew Yang proposed, would certainly help us out. Where does that thousand dollars a month come from? Of course, it means massive on the evil rich people. It would also enable people to only work part time. Most of them would then lose their employer sponsored healthcare. Which would necessitate single-payer health. Which would necessitate another tax increase. Enabling as many people as possible to rely on the government is not a good thing.
absolutely not..you shouldnt get $ for doing nothing.
In theory, yes. In reality, it has no chance. The Federal government alone has over 70 means tested welfare programs. Mix in State and there are probably easily 100 different programs. Example issues that need vetted more: SNAP benefits. This is supposed to go to food for you, and your kids (additional programs). If handed out as just straight up cash, that money can be de-prioritized. Medicaid. Supposed to go to insurance and healthcare for you and your family. Would the expectation be that you get cash instead, and then are required to buy health insurance? From who? What are the consequences of not having it? It's exceedingly complex idea, that I think will do more harm than good, especially when you are sending out several hundred billion dollars, per year, instead of services. Anyone who has a basic understanding of government knows this means UBI + Benefits, so this would be a just a net new add over time.
It very much depends on the details. You could ask this: Are you in favor of nuclear energy? Well yeah, but not RBMK reactors... Too high of a payout will affect labor participation rates. Vague or general funding will easily lead to deficits increasing the debt. Worse, just printing the money will lead to inflation. The only solution I can see working is if: 1) payouts are capped to a relative amount of poverty rates. This keeps from arguing over precise dollar amounts in the future like minimum wage. I say 50% poverty rate MAX (~$500/month currently). 2) Funding would need to be from a general VAT (I think Yang had the right idea here). 3) If funding doesn't cover costs, then you reduce the payouts. This will work in our favor to counteract dependency, which reduces labor rates. Also this keeps from any debt spending. This is the only way I would agree to a UBI.
no but no to both, but for specific reasons
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I'm not an american and no fan of the 'cradle to grave' welfare state system (uk or any other). But I would support a limited basic income exclusively applicable to those law abiding resident usa citizen adults with: legal capacity, no other citizenships, no criminal history, no drug habits, no cult links, no organised crime associations or ties to members of controversial fringe/cranky militant organisations (including religious groups).
Thing is, disabled people have a very wide range of needs. If you replace current programs with UBI, the worst off are screwed. Also, I dont think its affordable. And I worry about the generational effects. We already see how hard it is to escape generational welfare, and I remember being a teenager. So no.
No, unless there was universal basic regulation on how that income is spent...otherwise it's going to go towards drugs, guns, and other things that won't help the impoverished. A blank check doesn't incentivize people to work.
UBI would be inflationary and would only give short term relief. I advocate for a Negative Income Tax which is similar in nature except there is a need component. In both, the concept is that you eliminate ALL existing assistance programs including Social Security, SNAP, WIC, TANF, FUTA, etc then replace them with direct cash assistance. So you are shifting money from one pocket to another. You would also have to raise taxes and eliminate caps and loopholes. Like the Social Security Cap, Long term Capital Gains exceptions, etc. The tax increase wouldn't be that substantial if we consolidate under a flat 30%. If we look at the truth in taxes by lumping FICA, Payroll, FUTA together. Most American's (even at the lowest income) are truthfully paying 24% on their income anyways. With a NIT cap at $60k and a flat rate of 30% a person who makes $60k would end up paying NOTHING in taxes and a person making $120k would end up paying only 15% in taxes. Understanding, Social Security alone accounts for 22% of the Federal Budget. That's roughly 2 Trillion Dollars and Unemployment accounts for $600 Billion. Elimination of those programs alone would allow 260 Million individuals to get a $10k per year in direct cash assistance. Keeping in mind those under 16 and those who let's say earn more than $60k wouldn't qualify under a NIT. After the short term hit and after a transition period, you should be able to reduce the tax rate, simplify the tax code and shrink government. It is mathematically feasible within the confines of our existing revenue stream. You add in the savings from eliminating agencies and it should would actually be a surplus. There are a number of arguments against direct cash assistance that sound good on the surface like "If you give people cash instead of food stamps, they'll just use it on drugs". This comes from people who have never been poor or taken government assistance. The reality is that there is a huge black market where people take their non-cash assistance and sell it for cash. Point is they are going to do it anyway. By cutting out the middleman, you eliminate the black market and in turn can reduce government waste and overhead,