Thursday, June 15, 2017

Cameron K. Murray — Why does a basic income need to be universal?


Detailed analysis.

Renegade Inc.
Why does a basic income need to be universal?
Cameron Murray

2 comments:

NeilW said...

It's interesting how the UBI has morphed from a 'basic income' that you can live on to just a combined form of tax credit and unemployment benefit that withdraws via the tax system rather than a direct clawback.

So it is still just a private sector subsidy that is 'more efficient', where efficient means less public sector employees with jobs processing forms. So who's going to hire them instead?

Compare this to the Job Guarantee where not only is the income higher but there is no marginal withdrawal. From the individual's point of view they move from the Job Guarantee job to another job and carry on getting a wage just as they did before. But the public sector spending stops instantly.

Joe said...

Imo, a job guarantee is superior to a ubi, simply because humans just don't do well sitting around. People really are happier if they have some responsibility, have something to work towards and get satisfaction from a job well done. There's truth to the adage "Idle hands are the Devils workshop".