RE: The Progressive Case for Greatly Replacing the Welfare State with Unconditional Basic Income

[numpypython]

Wow, that's a very well argued post. I like to think of UBI as having a moderately well-off parent who supports you while you pursue something meaningful so that you don't starve.

Comments

[scottsantens]

Andy Stern (former president of the SEIU and author of Raising the Floor) speaks of UBI on similar terms. He talks about how many kids are already receiving parental basic income.

One thing we see right now is what I call parental basic income. There is a large number of friends of mine who are middle- or upper-middle class and are providing some level of support for their kids—cosigning for their apartment, taking them on vacation, helping them make a payment if they have an emergency, giving them some kind of gift periodically, letting them move back into their house. So I think we can see in that the stabilizing effect of the universal basic income. It may not be the best macroeconomic policy, but it could produce a lot of good during transitional times, it could be a tremendous supplement, and I think it offers a lot of different other considerations, for women and others in historically unpaid work. We need to juxtapose universal basic income against other well-thought out policies.