If You Think Free Money Kills Work Ethic, Your Definition of “Work” Is Horrible

Re:If You Think Free Money Kills Work Ethic, Your Definition... by DougN7 on Wednesday May 04, 2016 @02:58PM (#11630748)

That brings up an interesting point. What if UBI was $50K. And garbage men made an extra $50K for working. So do the lettuce pickers, and then sewage workers, and the newpaper deliverer, burger flippers, -- basically every job that needs to get done that isn't pleasant. Sure, they won't all get $50K - some more, some less. Labor _costs_ are now very high, high enough that I think prices would have to rise significantly. Suddenly $50K isn't enough to live on any more... Seems like a spiral that could never be satisfied.

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Re:If You Think Free Money Kills Work Ethic, Your Definition... by antisthenes on Wednesday May 04, 2016 @03:34PM (#11631048)

I believe you're just talking about inflation as a result of UBI and the potential

> Labor _costs_ are now very high, high enough that I think prices would have to rise significantly

Your assertion is not supported by data: https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=2Xa

Labor costs have been shrinking for years, much more drastically so since the mid 1970's. This is also supported by data about effective wage stagnation (approximate 6% growth over the last 35 years, most of that going to the top quintile)

Regarding your original assertion about rising prices - that may be true to some degree if we're talking about consumables, but you could argue that some of the current welfare systems are doing the same thing.

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