UBI would, and should, replace current welfare schemes. We already have those in place.
But that would still require a huge amount of additional money if you want UBI to be above subsistence levels.
Otherwise the amount received by current welfare recipients would have to be cut several times. Also what about disabled people and others who can't work? Would they get the same amount as everyone?
Whose fault is it then? I mean if we agree that some governments/organizations are more efficient than others who else could we blame?
>UBI replacing many systems
For instance the British government spends about £2500 per capita on welfare. Even if admin etc. would cost nothing £200 per month is not exactly an amount which would allow you to not work, meaning people who can't actually work would starve/freeze/etc. to death without any additional support from the government or somebody else.
Look I am not a political philosopher, not even close. But I can refer you to Robert Nozick's the Minimal Estate. I am not sure I agree with everything he says there, but I think he describes interesting points regarding govnmt efficiency.
For fraud issue you have the bank or banks running the program handle fraud per normal procedures and the government steps in to prosecute people who abuse the system as they do in present situations. The program loses no more than a normal bank to fraud and covers losses from fraud by investing deposits in safe securities.
You can just give everyone an equal amount of cash instead but then disabled and other people who are unable to work would starve to death unless there is massive increase in taxes/redistribution.
It can't. There still needs to be a safety net for people who don't use their UBI to buy food or shelter.
And then you're back where we are now - some sort of safety net for people who don't have food or shelter.
Some initiatives still need to exist but UBI obviates the need for the majority of them, simplifies the administration, removes bureaucratic expenses, and reduces the "othering" of people who depend on the support the most.
That's still a non-zero need for the administration and overhead of a welfare system.
> Some initiatives still need to exist but UBI obviates the need for the majority of them, simplifies the administration, removes bureaucratic expenses,
How does it remove anything if the other systems still need to exist?
By definition alone, the existing systems still need to exist, only without the economies of scale that they have today.
By the way, I don't think UBI obviates the need for a "majority" of them. It obviates the need for one welfare payment system. The others still need to exist to serve whoever they are serving now.
Most of the other systems don't need to exist. Those that do are narrower in scope and can better serve a much smaller group of people.
> By definition alone, the existing systems still need to exist, only without the economies of scale that they have today.
Means tested welfare systems have almost no economies of scale. Every case needs an assessor and the more people you deal with the more assessors you need. The alternative is to reduce the quality of the assessment. Even worse, the assessment process is often contracted out. So now the program pays wages to a fleet of assessors and also to shareholders.
> By the way, I don't think UBI obviates the need for a "majority" of them. It obviates the need for one welfare payment system. The others still need to exist to serve whoever they are serving now.
In the UK, off the top of my head, it would entirely replace: unemployment benefits, housing benefits, child tax benefits, disability benefits, working tax credits, EMA, and childcare payments.
The main difference to many of the people who are "served" by the current system is that they'll actually receive the benefits they're entitled to, without having to know how to apply, and roll the dice on a minimally trained assessor with a financial incentive to say no.