this post was submitted on 18 Oct 2023
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Universal basic income does not fix inequality, it doesn't take existing accumulated wealth into account. You get X amount per month, yay, food. Jeff Bezos gets the same and throws it on the money pile without blinking an eye. It will lead to more inflation and you'll still be poor compared to who's wealthy. Socially corrected incomes are a way better tool for battling inequality, and in today's world's, it shouldn't anymore cost a million-person bureaucracy to run a wealth-distributing system either.
That's quite a shallow take on the whole thing. Universal Income's main impacts are indirect and affect the whole of society, for example:
As for means testing it or not, it really boils down to the complexity and cost associated with means testing: if it's cheaper if not means tested, why do it? It suspect Jeff Bezos' "pleasure" in getting Universal Income will be nothing next to what the losses from not to being able to pay shit salaries and treat his workers like shit anymore will make him feel.
With UBI everyone would get it and any salary from a job would be additional. So salaries would go down, but compensated by UBI
Then they'll tie eligibility for UBI to being employed or seeking if able or having some sort of medical excuse for not being able and we're back here.
The U in UBI is for unconditional. If there are conditions, it's not UBI...
Whilst I wouldn't say that would be the case for certain, it does sound like a genuine possibility for a trully Universal (rather than in name only) UBI.