443
People get out of poverty faster with a guaranteed livable income says Ontario senator
(www.aptnnews.ca)
this post was submitted on 20 Oct 2023
443 points (98.5% liked)
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Why are you playing devil's advocate? Are you opposed to giving everyone an equal opportunity in life?
Have you even read the links I provided to you? At least read the article?
I have followed the UBI subject for the past ten or fifteen years. I used to be an advocate for it. It was precisely through reading and thinking about it that I started to question whether it really was a better alternative to our current welfare programs.
It stands to reason that if extending OAS to people over 60yo would lead to more people retiring early and stop contributing significantly to our tax base, then a UBI which essentially means extending OAS to every adult would have a similar effect, only multiplied. And with fewer workers, how do we pay for UBI and everything else?
I'm sure there's plenty of room for improvement to our existing welfare programs, but that doesn't automatically mean extending them to every healthy person is the only solution or the best one.
Giving everybody a good opportunity in life doesn't mean a UBI, and a UBI doesn't mean giving everybody a good opportunity either. It's a false dichotomy.
Heres a more pressing quandry. What are we going to do about the fact that Technology continues to kill more jobs than it creates, and is starting to do so at a faster rate. There isnt enough livable wage paying jobs left to allow everyone access to proper food and housing.
Edit: Also, UBI doesnt need to fulfill ALL needs, there are many luxuries and ways to better ones life and social standing that would provide enough of a carrot for enough of the population to seek ways to contribute. The flip side that people who are worried about societal contribution I have 2 points:
1: Do half of the highest paying jobs we do now contribute all that much to society? It really seems nowasays that the highest paying jobs include the highest levels of exploitation
2: If people are freed from being forced to work to pay their bills, more people would ve free to volunteer, our society is so work heavy its incredibly hard to convince oneself to donate what little time one has left afterwards to a volunteer organization
Yeah, that is a big deal.
For starters I think that minimum wages are too low in North America. Anybody working full time should be able to afford a place to live without roommates. Housing cannot be an investment vehicle if we want it to be affordable.
Some pensioners do some volunteering, but on average the amount they contribute to society is a small fraction of what they did when they were working full time. Society needs enough full time workers to fund the ongoing cost of a first-world nation.
Ah wait hold on. You're taking about UBI applying only to retired people?
I'm talking about it applying to everyone that's independent. Whether it's a 16 year old that is emancipated because they can't live with their parents for whatever reason, anyone over 18, or even retired people.
Playing devil's advocate is important for understanding both nuance and thinking dialetically.