"So what's my incentive to work? Screw this, I quit"
Your incentive to work is that you earn $100k instead of $12k. I certainly wouldn't quit my job if it means that much of an income hit. This is actually a real situation for me - I could quit my job tomorrow and get more than $12k in benefits, but I won't.
Good point. But what if you earned $20k? The problem here is, you would have to go straight from $0 to at least $24k to have incentive to work. Anything less is just not worth the hassle, if you get $12k for nothing. And that creates a problem - how people are going to go up the career ladder, if at the starting point they want so much?
Interns? Work for nothing/benefits/nonmonetary compensation/experience?
(I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with the premise, just brainstorming)
Re:We Need a Basic Income Guarantee
by TheCoelacanth on Monday September 02, 2013 @06:18PM
(#6317498)
Even a minimum wage job would double your income. That is plenty of incentive to work.
Re:We Need a Basic Income Guarantee
by moocowduckquack on Monday September 02, 2013 @10:54PM
(#6318468)
Making things easier for people never actually helped them.
You'd lose a lot of people as a lifeguard.
I'd rather teach them how to swim when they are young.
Re:We Need a Basic Income Guarantee
by moocowduckquack on Tuesday September 03, 2013 @09:15PM
(#6324953)
Then, in addition to my previous comment, especially at a pool for the elderly.
USA Inc. with every citizen as shareholder would work like this: I earn $100K/y, my neighbour just $0/y. I pay $20K in taxes, he pays none. We both get $12K/y from BIG. For me it's a dividend. For my neighbour it's free money. So what's my incentive to work? Screw this, I quit. Now, USA Inc. get's $0/y from both of us. For 4 months we still get the cash, from the surplus. But that runs out, and now we both get $0 and are jobless.
BIG will only work if there are more people who work than those who don't work. Making things easier for people never actually helped them. Those who succeeded had to go through hard work.