Echelon Insights has developed a poll where, amongst other issues, has questioned 1006 registered voters about Andrew Yang’s universal basic income (UBI) policy (to be implemented if he’s elected). It turns out that, globally, support for UBI is tightly close to opposition to it (40% support vs 43% opposed), within the surveyed sample.
However, further questions in the poll reveal exactly who is in support and in opposition to the UBI idea as proposed by Yang. Supportive are younger, Democratic voters with lower incomes. Less supportive are older, richer and politically inclined to the Right voters. Breaking down the numbers, the following charts clearly show these trends.
More information at:
Tyler McDonald, “Andrew Yang’s UBI Has The Most Support From Democrats, Voters Under 50, And Earners Under $50,000”, Inquisitr, July 13th 2019
Interesting results. It would be nice if they also phrased it as replacing conditional benefits with unconditional ones.
Why does it seem old people lack being
altruistic,?
If I said to you. “Give me money.” And you said, “No way.”
Do you lack altruism?
The problem with any poll question is that it’s not always framed correctly. If you were to ask, “Would you support a UBI, that would fix our tax code, and make everyone’s life better.” You’d get totally different answers.
I don’t know. At 64, I don’t personally know anyone on the capitalist right. I do know that popular stereotypes rarely fit, and that many in my age group have been dismayed by how far to the right younger people moved since the Clinton administration.
Maybe because by supporting this the U.S.’s safety net would be cut – taking away programs that seniors rely on such as Medicaid/medicare leading them to a later retirement.
In all, the poor people support it, the people who have regular income or more oppose it. If it seems having anything to do with the ages, it is because different age groups have generally corresponding levels of incomes.
Yang is the only candidate with an infastructure program for the lowest American, it would work to both lift poverty and stimulate economics. No other candidate is showing enough initiative towards America’s infastructure like Yang.
When my grandpa was in a train accident my grandma had to stop being a mom and start working. She works herself to a pulp and barely scrapes by. She won’t be able to retire for years. Should I tell her she isn’t working hard enough? Did it become a sin to help the less fortunate? Hubris is your new religion. When you get to heaven you can boast how much money you made and how hard it was for you to make it. “Those wretched beggers couldn’t even afford to pay their bills, Lord. Those dirty lazy dogs.”
To be fair, I’m 35, Left-leaning, and earn >$125k and if I was asked this question before hearing Andrew Yang I likely would’ve said Unsure or even Somewhat Oppose. And I had previously read and thought about UBI not a small amount and was
still very much on the fence until I heard Andrew frame up what has already happened due to the wave of automation in the manufacturing sector.
I’d love to see a focus group style analysis that asks the non-UBI supporters to listen to one of AY’s longer talks on the need for UBI and see if that shifts them to a more favorable position.
People 50 and over worked in a different era and economy. When they were in their prime working years income inequality was not what it is today. Companies did not commonly pay their CEO’s 1000% more than their average worker. Companies re-invested in their employees and offered pensions. You could work your way up in a company without a college degree, provide a comfortable middle-class lifestyle for your family and retire with a pension. That DOES NOT exist today. Corporations are more interested in shareholder value and stock valuation because CEO compensation is tied directly to those metrics. Pensions are almost non-existent. Profits and shareholder appreciation are benefiting a very small portion of our population. The advances in automation will make this situation even worse. People 50 and older still believe if you work hard enough you will succeed. I do not totally disagree that a good work ethic is favorable however this current and future economy doesn’t necessarily care how hard you work. The reality is consumer debt is at record highs due to stagnate wages and the lack of jobs paying a living wage. Borrowing our way forward will come to a crashing end. The majority of our population will need a base income. Andrew’s Freedom Dividend is not enough to stop working however it helps people stay on their feet so they can be more productive, innovative, healthy and work with less stress. It helps to distribute the gains from automation to everyone. This is logical because automation is based on data. The companies building automation are doing using our data that we essentially give to them for free.
No. There was never a time when everyone was able to work, and viable jobs were available for all. Remember that America’s great job drain began back in the Reagan 1980s, Many of those who lost their jobs, homes, etc., were never able to recover. In the 1990s, Democrats ended actual welfare aid, making poverty permanent for millions. Since then, US job losses well surpassed job gains, and deep poverty has quietly continued to grow. Media (liberal included) decided to simply disappear US poverty, acknowledging no one worse off than minimum wage workers.
I respectfully disagree. The amount of money the USFG will need to support such a program as large as this will need to cut/replace all the safety nets already in place for U.S. citizens. Even then it will leave the U.S. borrowing for money – and it’s citizens heavily reliant on their government.
Why do we need sophisticated surveys to find out the surprise result that redistribution of income is favored by the poor and not by the rich and comfortable?!
Basic Income will not simply allow the lazy to be more lazy. Beware blaming the victims for their condition. That is the tired propaganda of the right: so long and often repeated it appears to be truth.
Permanent income programs that require a serious work of participants on their educational level improvement are promising, as we hope our arguments show. Excerpt of a text pertinent to the theme, as exposed in https://poutpoury.blogspot.com , follows:
Permanent availability of exchange among ” learning work” and “usual work ” through Education Conditioned Income Programs (EUBI) Concatenated with Unconditioned Income Programs (UBI) as an Efficient Way to Universalize Work and Income and achieve a harmonious and productive socioeconomic system worldwide.
These programs rely on the idea that a person involved in educational activities as an apprentice or student, through self-education, distance learning or in face-to-face classes, will be entitled to an income for this hard work of self-transformation. For those over 21 years of age, mechanisms that permanently, continually and adequately serve the transit between the education income program, “educational universal basic income” (EUBI) and the usual labor market and back are crucial.