I think it'd be a great idea.. you either are on disability, work an average of at least 20 hours a week at a paid, taxable job (under the table work won't count), or you volunteer for registered services programs for 20 hours a week.
20 hours a week is just my suggestion as a minimum that would allow for people to still job search if they choose to and could be averaged over a quarter or year or similar. Exceptions would be for those who would traditionally be on Medicare. Note: I think if UBI were implemented that Medicare and a lot of other programs should be replaced by it.
I think a UBI would work well alongside a jobs for all program rather than instead of it. Say 20k a year for UBI for the disabled, carers, parents, pensioners, and people who are unemployable for whatever reason, or 40k a year working on some huge infrastructure project.
I honestly think the way to go is UBI plus a job offer program - that doesn't take away the UBI, but actually pays on top of the UBI like a regular job would.
Of course, I also think thatwe should give folks with a certified disability more than the basic UBI: Disability should not be a sentence to poverty.
UBI isn't about libertarianism, it's about reducing the fucking stupid disincentives built into current benefits systems.
Instead of telling people that they can have this money only if they work less than 16 hours a week, or only if they stay disabled, just give them the money.
That way you don't need to employ doctors to see if someone is still as disabled as they were last year, and people who get a part time job can increase their hours without penalty.
You're forgetting the structural flaws in the existing welfare system.
The way things are right now, if you qualify for benefits, you can get thousands of dollars a year in free stuff. If you take any full time job, you immediately lose most of the benefits.
If you give people the choice between free stuff where they can do whatever they want all day vs. working 40 hours to get substantially the same thing, no kidding there aren't a lot of takers for the option to work full time in exchange for what amounts to a gain of only around $5000/year.
The point of a UBI being universal is that you don't get that perverse incentive. There is no means testing, you don't lose the benefit from taking the job, so a job that pays $20,000/year after taxes gives you $20,000 in additional money, not $5000 because taking the job costs you $15,000 in benefits.
While widening the scope in either duration or number of people would certainly help, I think this is still useful. It should still tell us to what extent the current benefits system leaves short side gigs and new small businesses on the table.
The time limit may, to an unrealistic degree, encourage the subjects to look for solutions for the long term. Then again the question of whether UBI encourages laziness seems to be out of scope already, since this targets only people who are already unemployed.
I see UBI as more of a response to the existing conditional welfare system which already exists and circumvents this system in the most perverse way where you can make _more_ money on disability than doing something economically useful. At least with UBI you can eliminate these incentive gaps.
Doesn't have to be UBI either, a NIT could do the same thing, maybe even the EITC as long as it keeps the earning curve monotonic.
I think it's one of the problems of UBI: it can only exist in addition to all other social benefits, because it can't solve every situation appropriately.
Disabled people will need more help than a fit 22yo guy for instance. Social benefits are individualized: UBI can't be the same for everyone and erase existing social benefits.
I just want to clarify the position of it proponents.
We already do a version of what you're saying and it has a lot of administrative overhead and costs.
For example unemployment requires recipients to actively be looking for a job. Unless you have a doctor approved disability. Or you got a really bad flu and were stuck in bed for a week.
Then you have the people who go apply at the same place every week just to fill the requirement. Other people get an offer but come up with a reason why that job doesn't suit them, it's too far, etc.
So now you need to legislate all that stuff and validate it.
It gets complicated and expensive real quick.
So maybe it's cheaper to "waste" money paying some young/rich people, if you can save all the administrative work.
Yep. This is one of the big reasons in favor it UBI. It flattens the curve so people can try to get back on their feet without severe consequences of they fail.
I know someone who is on social security disability. They can't even save money to buy a car without losing their benefits. For medical reasons, they are unable to work a full-time job, but they could possibly work virtually part time. But if they even apply to a job they lose their benefits. And the amount they get from social security isn't even enough to pay housing and medical expenses, nevermind food. If they didn't have external support they'd be SOL.
I think most proposals - at least right now the serious ones - are only talking about those already receiving similar value government assistance.
Personally I see something close to universal UBI way down the line assuming we can eliminate a large % of human jobs and reduce the amount of work significantly so even if you wanted to work there isn't any work to do. Take the profit dividends and redistribute it.
I think it's the exact opposite of UBI. The key defining feature of UBI is that everyone gets it. You don't lose it if you are able to work.
Whereas the key feature of SSDI is not really being "disabled" as TFA explains, but rather that you must not have any substantial gainful activity -- no more than $1,170 per month.
SSDI has become less of a form of insurance against a set of particular diseases, and more a kind of insurance for where someone decides it's no longer viable to work, as long as there's an associated physical scapegoat. Either because work is not available, or not reliable enough, or because your body is not reliable enough for the jobs that are available, it's a steady check that you can get, only if you don't work.
The issue is confounded by the fact that after about 3 years of qualifying for SSDI you also become eligible for Medicare, which can provide more value in reduced healthcare costs than any locally available job could ever hope to.
A variant on UBI that I would like to see explored is to make the payments conditional on doing some kind of community service. Something like cleaning a park or volunteering at a school or something. Maybe a 1-3 hour / week commitment. Not as a way to save money so much as to strengthen communities and give people a way to contribute.
One proposal I've heard for this is spreading it over the year, have the government deposit money in a back account once per week (this requires a system where everyone has bank accounts to get UBI, but that shouldn't be too costly).
This misses what is probably the more important point, which is that any system which tries to measure who has their needs met is going to screw up.
People won't fill out the paperwork, they'll check the wrong box, the papers will get lost, the wrong flag will be entered on the database, they won't fulfill the criteria on paper but still really need the help: people in need fall through the cracks all the time.
Also, great care needs to be taken with welfare to avoid income traps. It's easy to set up a system where working more means you lose money, and that's hard to get out of. This remains a problem with US welfare and disability payments.
With a UBI, it's simple: do they know who you are, and have you been paid yet.
And the people who have enough are generally easy to find, and have, let's say, a preexisting relationship with the IRS. It's easy enough to tax the UBI back from them, and it would be comforting, if and when they unexpectedly lose their job, to know that a check will be arriving. One less thing to think about.
I have some reservations about UBI, but I'm familiar with the case for it, which I'm conveying here without a full endorsement.
A limited test is hard. In my view UBI needs to be a life-long guarantee. Otherwise you would be crazy to leave the workplace only to find out that your UBI has been cut 10 years later and you have to scramble to find a job again.
One of the biggest problems with disability pay is the barrier it creates to joining the workforce. Losing payments when you get employed is a huge disincentive to looking for employment. That's the opposite of what UBI is trying to do.
exactly. I'm for UBI because disability benefits are pathetic - years of jumping through hoops, getting denied the first time no matter what your disability is - for $700 a month. and if you make more, or live with anyone who makes more, it gets taken away. we have to divorce our spouses to stay on that measly amount. and nobody in power really cares about us, so there's no will to change it - broke disabled people don't donate a lot of money to campaigns.
assuming UBI pays minimum-flipping-wage it'd be multiple times SSI/SSDI.
20 hours a week is just my suggestion as a minimum that would allow for people to still job search if they choose to and could be averaged over a quarter or year or similar. Exceptions would be for those who would traditionally be on Medicare. Note: I think if UBI were implemented that Medicare and a lot of other programs should be replaced by it.
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