The benefits are designed to be only as generous as they need to be to ensure that all of the least desirable (though necessary) jobs in society are filled.

It's not about feeding and clothing everyone who needs it. It's about seeing if there are any jobs out there that people feel are beneath them and if you find any, lower the floor a bit until the jobs don't look so bad.

You’re saying that on Hacker News though, which means you’re probably well (i.e. expensively) educated with good prospects and an income significantly north of the minimum wage being offered in these jobs.

lower the floor a bit until the jobs don't look so bad

Surely you can see how this reply reads as “let them eat cake”? (And thats the most polite way to put it I could think of).

>reply reads as “let them eat cake”

I don't think that was the parents intent. I read it as descriptive of how the system currently functions, not as justification for it being that way.

I've been thinking about this, how a society can get necessary work done without forcing some people to choose between doing it or starving. Perhaps if everyone was guaranteed to be fed, to be housed, and to have medical care, then the market would find a fair price for collecting garbage or cleaning floors.

Again, the article says it was not so. A hypothesis is explored and found lacking.

How shall we know with a paywalled article? Provide the text or expect peripheral topic discussion

You may want to use internet archive to go beyond paywall. Loads fine for me.

https://web.archive.org/web/20210531112440/https://www.econo...