My understanding of BI is that it's a flat amount paid to every person (adult? working age adult? I'm not sure) without consideration for any other factor. From the Wikipedia article on the topic, "Basic income is entirely unconditional: the only requirement for receiving it is to be a citizen and/or resident of the country."

State welfare programs have a long list of conditions for who is and is not eligible for welfare assistance. If you're just talking about liquidating all state welfare and distributing raw cash instead with no net change, then sure, okay, no big loss there except for the elimination of thousands of government jobs. That's not what BI is, though - BI is Oprah. "You get $1000! You get $1000! Everyone gets $1000!" Unless I grossly misunderstand the concept, liquidating existing state welfare services wouldn't even begin to approach the financial needs of BI.

Most of the people commenting are probably urban or suburban residents, and as such, the minimum living wage is considered a lot higher than in a rural area. Basic Income shouldn't provide people the ability to live in an urban or suburban area comfortably, that's a luxury. It should provide sometime the ability to live in a rural community acceptably, not comfortably.

It shouldn't replace everyone's desire to work. It should have some built in compelling agent to keep people working m even if it isn't that much work.

1. Cities need places for the poor to live, that cannot go away unless you can completely automate unskilled labor, or make serious changes to transportation infrastructure.

2. Living in rural areas isn't always as cheap as you think. Gas, Food, Internet, Phone, TV, etc.

Are all of those needs or wants? And what are the costs compared to urban living?

Gas especially for my first question.

You could argue that none of the listed utilities are 'needs' if we're okay with the entire populace living in the equivalent of the dark ages, and only having a ruling noble class in the US that are the people who were rich enough to afford to keep their utilities and thus maintain access to the modern economy, while people on basic income only get 'necessities'. It would certainly solve our labor problems without needing us to fix immigration!

We'd save a lot of tax dollars if we denied them money for gasoline to drive a car to the hospital, money for natural gas/wood to run a heater in the winter, and money for funeral services when they finally die from neglect!

It's simply not possible to argue at this point that urban living is a 'luxury'. Non-urban living is not a realistic option for a large portion of the US population. If you dislike this reality, that is fine - I'd certainly be in favor of efforts to change it - but you can't just willfully disregard it and pretend that people who live in urban areas are greedy or spoiled or something. Living in rural areas in the modern United States comes with dozens of hidden costs, some in the form of actual money spent and others in the form of lost opportunities, impaired health, etc.

They're needs, qualified by kevingadd that rural life != dark ages.

By gas, I meant fuel for transportation. One simply cannot survive in a rural area without an automobile and the ability to use it.

Food, ironically is more expensive, and lower quality. I still haven't figured out why (other than market opportunism).

Internet, same as food, more expensive, and lower quality.

TV, I agree is not a necessity, but another example of a common expense that tends to be lower quality in rural areas when compared to urban areas.

OTOH, housing is generally cheaper.

I was fairly certain that the point of BI is that you didn't need to work unless you wanted to or had something you decided you wanted above the basic needs.

Frankly, we don't need as many people working as much as they do. (speaking about productive work)

Well, yes, you don't need to work unless you want to. But is urban living a basic need?

I can't tell if you're agreeing with me or not...

Thats pretty much what BI is. Many people I talk with use BI interchangeable with a negative income tax, which would give more money to people with less income.