If getting your needs met was a disincentive for work then why are all the multi-millionaires still working instead of downsizing their lives and playing video games / smoking weed for 40 years?
Most people are not facing that binary.
Would you work 40 hours a week at McDonald's for an extra $20k/year if all your basic needs are met?
OR at that point, would you say screw it and spend your days hiking, reading, and laughing with friends?
If we're having to say that the only reason someone ever would work a specific job is because it's an alternative to homelessness then that's on the job at that point. These are "inferior jobs" in an economic sense and it's up to the employer to do better. Make working for you suck less. Even in customer-facing retail jobs it's more than possible.
I'm having a hard time seeing the downside. Employees can afford to take more risks because they're not betting their livelihood anymore, and it provides a natural upward pressure on wages and working conditions at the bottom on the labor market which is sorely needed. Anyone whose desired lifestyle can't be supported on the meager income, which is most people, there's no change.
I think that is a major motivation for most work and I question if it is as bad as you think it is? Is it really that unreasonable that someone do something they don't like to get shelter, food, and healthcare?
>But would I continue working my SWE job for my current salary, easily.
Would you do it if your take home income was reduced by 50% to pay other people who choose not to work?
How small would the difference between working full time and full retirement have to be before you considered it?
I don't actually think it's that bad but I was trying to steelman your argument. The hypothetical presumes a terrible job with not enough pay to make up for it. The kind of job that someone would only take if they had not better option. If the job isn't that bad, or it pays well enough I think people will take it despite not needing it to make rent.
> you do it if your take home income was reduced by 50%
I don't think that would happen because UBI is supposed to be replacement for all other forms of welfare and I would also expect some small gains in reducing the prison population, and administrative overhead. But to answer your question, yes. Government already takes >30% right now and because of the U I'm getting the benefit as well so that covers a good chunk of mandatory expenses. In a very real sense I need less money under this system.
I'm not really sure how to answer the retirement question because under this system I can't "just retire" because my lifestyle wouldn't permit it.
>I'm not really sure how to answer the retirement question because under this system I can't "just retire" because my lifestyle wouldn't permit it.
another way to frame this is how much (if any) of your income would you be willing to give up if it meant 0 work hours. Would you take a 10k pay cut? 50k? or are you completely inflexible when it comes to lifestyle spending, or alternatively, do you like your job enough that you would do it for free.
I think we are discussing different magnitudes of Ubi. I would consider leaving a 200k job for 40k Ubi (which I think is a number more in line with what people describe.
First off, my 200k salary would be taxed into effectively a 100k salary.
I could live pretty well off 40k if I never had to work, so quitting my job would be a quality of life upgrade.
I think a lot of my peers would consider the same.
When I think UBI, I think paying for a shared living space and food. A minimum budget, not necessarily a comfortable budget.
That being said, I can see the argument to reduce disability in the event of UBI.
I can afford it because a healthy society is a productive society, and this will return to me because good economies are built largely upon productive societies, and healthy societies are more productive than unhealthy societies are.
Productivity generates wealth.
Are these not things that we generally understand to be true?
(Unless... Can it instead be shown that it is economically beneficial to have a relatively unhealthy and unproductive society?)
[Shall I make popcorn?]
(edit, can't reply further because of HN thread limits:
My dudes, "free" money from UBI isn't to keep people from working who want to get ahead. Most people can work, and most people do want a lot more than a shitty apartment in their life and are willing to work for that.
Y'all certainly want more than shitty apartment in your own lives, don't you? So why in the fuck would you ever assume that "dur, I have a shitty apartment and some simple food, so I don't have to do anything ever!" is the be-all, end-all human state?
Please re-align yourselves with the people you actually-know in life: I promise you that you'll see that almost none of them will give up on the rat-race if they start getting UBI. They'll generally want to keep making steps that seek to bring them ahead of their peers, and that means that they'll continue to do productive things. A thousand dollars per month (or whatever) isn't enough motivation for them to somehow cease being productive and stop working to get ahead.
There is no proposal for UBI that means the end of the fantastic American dream. UBI doesn't even mean the end of capitalism. UBI just creates a baseline financial safety net onto which anyone may fall without necessarily facing disease and death in the gutter, and it's there for everyone without even a shred of additional paperwork because it exists like clockwork without additional action on the part of the recipient, while also providing a bit of a boost for those at the low-end who do produce something that lets them get ahead of the game a little bit easier.)