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OrphanWilde comments on Stupid questions thread, October 2015 - Less Wrong
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Given the way welfare is set up in the US right now, I'd argue, quite strongly, that the motivation to go get a job would be more, given, under many circumstances, that you have to reach upper-middle class levels of income before you reach the same standard of living achievable on welfare. (I'm a staunch libertarian, mind. UBI isn't my ideal, far from it, but it's a hell of a lot better than what we have right now.)
I strongly recommend anybody opposing the UBI on general principle grounds run a google search on "Welfare Cliff", and research exactly how terrible the existing system is. Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the better.
Yup. Much of the advocacy for UBI can be rephrased as "let's get rid of welfare cliffs!" given that mostly any sane (cliff-less) welfare system can be rephrased as a UBI plus a marginal tax/phaseout schedule. (Sometimes these are dependent on other factors like the presence of children, but you could also account for such variations in a UBI-based system if you really wanted to.)
If I understand the current US system correctly, if you are a single person who is able to work and simply chooses not to do so, you may not qualify for any welfare whatsoever. If that is correct, a UBI would surely decrease your incentive to work.
Yes, this is the least convenient case. But UBI can still be a win in the longer run since it obviates the case for minimum wages and a lot of onerous regulation in the labor market. And let's be honest, if there are single folks who would be induced to exit the labor market under a (realistic) UBI, they're probably not getting much done at work in the first place!