Re:Coronavirus Is Making Universal Basic Income Look Better
by lmm on Saturday May 16, 2020 @05:17AM
(#23201825)
No. The whole point of UBI is to remove the cliffs and high marginal tax rates that the working poor face; people in low-income jobs would benefit the most, approximately doubling their income (someone on minimum wage would instead get the equivalent of minimum wage + unemployment). Also it becomes more practical to ease into work, since if you work e.g. 5 hours/week you get full pay for those 5 hours rather than losing more in lost benefits than you gain. Of course this has to be balanced by higher earners paying more tax.
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Re:Coronavirus Is Making Universal Basic Income Look Better
by luckylion on Saturday May 16, 2020 @12:33PM
(#23204881)
We have some of this already included. If you work in so called Mini-Jobs (up to 450€/month, employers do not need to pay into social security, reduced bureaucracy and public health insurance premiums), 100€ won't change your benefits and 20% of whatever more you make will also not affect your benefits. This is primarily meant to be exactly that: low-threshold ways to work for a few hours and have extra benefits.
Imho the primary issue remains: it's not required to work, you won't get a massive improvement if you're okay with the current situation and you have to expend energy and do stuff you don't love. Open source projects that rely on donations often face similar issues. Donations are not mandatory, so few people will donate, as they can still use the software without contributing. I don't believe that "donating is difficult" is the issue there either, most accept paypal, github sponsors etc.