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How a guaranteed $600 per month is changing lives in Durham (wral.com)
12 points by mooreds on Oct 9, 2022 | hide | past | favorite | 5 comments



What UBI skeptics want to know is:

- where is the proof that we can afford to tax ourselves to pay ourselves,

- where is the proof that it won't hurt long term productivity,

- and where is the proof that it doesn't cause inflation.

A 100-person 12-month trial program of $600 a month funded by a non-profit or small township can't answer any of these questions. They can keep repeating these studies in small towns across America but it simply doesn't provide any answers to these questions.

Giving people free money, with no strings attached, in a situation where neither taxes or inflation will rise as a result will have positive results, but we don't need studies to confirm this. It doesn't prove we can afford it because these studies are small and funded by the study group instead of taxes or government money printing. It doesn't prove people won't stop working because no one will quit their job due to temporary income from an explicitly short term study. And finally, it doesn't prove inflation isn't a concern because of their small scale.


> where is the proof that we can afford to tax ourselves to pay ourselves

US military expenditures are approx 800 billion per year, right now, which equates to something like $200 per month UBI per living American or something like $1600 per month UBI to every American living in poverty right now.

Not answering your question, but putting some numbers in context


My question is what stops landlords from eating it all? Assuming the ubi is primarily to help low income people who are most likely renting


Landlords get more food than they can eat from HUD and Social Security.

Should be a relatively straightforward effort for government to identify redundancy if a UBI were to replace such efforts.


It's not surprising to anyone that handing people free money improves those people's lives.

That's entirely missing the point of any criticism of UBI ?




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