Charlie Wood, writer for the Christian Science Monitor, presents evidence from “cash transfer” programs showing that assigning monetary payments to citizens regardless of employment seems not to encourage retirement, alcohol use, or “laziness”, as some suspect it would.
In fact, results of cash transfer programs conducted by several NGOs show guaranteed cash reduces poverty and increases personal income and savings. Wood’s article, which appears on the CSM website, recognizes the difference between UBI and targeted charity, though the results of a UBI will likely come soon from studies in Finland and other places.
See the full article:
Charlie Wood, “Guaranteed paycheck: Does a ‘basic income’ encourage laziness?” (March 1, 2017)
Not UBI, NEW MONEY. Not supported by taxes, not as income, not replacing any programs already in place but NEW MONEY to keep the GDP circulating on a need only basis, as calculated by a yearly accounting. Make every adult citizen responsible for infusing the new money into the economy.
SOME THOUGHTS:
It’s winter or spring in only half the world at any given time. In the other half, it’s summer or autumn with abundant crops and harvests providing more than enough to supply nations locally and to be exported everywhere that people abide. Likewise with manufactured goods and products. Trade and technology exist in great abundance from one end of the earth to the other. WE ARE HERE.
Numbers reaching into the trillions challenge socioeconomic and political thinking everywhere. Yet world leaders disregard all such abundance. Choosing borders and walls and impoverishment and war and reshuffling the tax money pie, they studiously avoid new levels of governance.
All agree it’s unthinkable to add NEW MONEY freely, like sunshine, to energize economies and support expanding GDPs from the grassroots up. Never mind that money, being what it is, migrates out of circulation to become less, not more. Never mind that only federal governments print and mint NEW MONEY. Never mind that the NEW MONEY adjustment only works as maintenance during the good times. Failing recessions/depressions are still the only motivations that impel governments to interact to solve economic connundrums.
No government wants to disburse NEW MONEY on a regular basis, equally to the just and the unjust, like sunshine, not even for a one year trial. Human nature being what it is, nobody thinks NEW MONEY should ever be free, like sunshine, no matter how beneficial the outcomes may be
Basic income will eventually ask for a raise..and taxpayers (you know, the ones
that have to work for their money and pay tax?) Expensive gimmick instead
of getting off your butt, and work at anything, like the rest of us.
Hi Roxann,
A complete answer to your comment would take too long. But maybe it will suffice to say that, as I speak, there are very rich people who just don’t get off their butts, and work at anything. They just don’t, and we allow them to (the reason, it seems, is because they have money). While I agree that some contribution to society is a good thing, even a necessary thing, for it to be balanced, it should not be forced upon people. Not “work at anything”, as if a person cannot choose what to do with his/her life. In a moment of time when automation reaches the highest peaks ever (and still climbing), as much as unemployment and the existence of “bullshit” jobs, then a higher degree of freedom for all (not only for the rich) is not only possible, it is almost compulsory.
Best regards,
André