Capitol Hill Blue Forums Political Issues Finance, the economy & Economics Universal Basic Income? Guaranteed Job?

Imo, the ironic thing is that ...by in large... Poor people in this country seem not very adept at living a frugal lifestyle. They tend to use check cashing places, smoke cigarettes, have cable service, etc

I just watched a youtube about how used car dealers essentially rip off people with bad credit

If you miss a credit card payment, or bounce a check....ka ching

My sister is one of those people. She simply doesn't care to learn how to be poor, so she does all sorts of shady and downright criminal things. She is a big pawn shop, pay day loan, check cashing. fast food user.

She has ripped off so many banks I don't think she can have a checking account any more. And yes, she does have cigarettes, broadband internet, cable tv, cell phones for every child, new cars, etc. with zero employment income.

I've lived in a single-wide on church-collections of canned food for a while too. No unemployment and no job. Family charity to pay rent.

I would suggest a few eggs and some government cheese if you can get it. And apparently there is a big dumpster-diving behind supermarkets and restaurants movement at present. The sheer quantity of slightly old or blemished food we toss is amazing.

Interesting how we have devolved to what is the least a person can subsist on. There are huge amounts of wealth in this country and the world.

We do not have to put up with the least. All of us deserve a decent living level.

I have another example of how some might find and develop a great deal of opportunity from the secure base of a UBI. I would have, and would continue to find it very helpful in pursuing small business ideas. One of the killers of small business is that you generally have to go all in - risk everything you have - on the bet of making a go of it. But a YOOGE amount of small businesses are best evolved from a part time basis. That is extremely difficult to do when you also have to work other jobs to make ends meet.

When my edit and duplication business was wiped out in 1994 by the quake it was a very long road back.
I had to survive on fallback jobs until around 2005 or so and just do video part time.
When the wage floor started falling out the bottom in North Texas we finally moved, also for a variety of other reasons, and I've now found that starting over in a new city at nearly sixty is not a great idea.

Work is small and low pay compared to what I used to make in L.A. back in the 80's and 90's. I've been getting some interesting shoot gigs to supplement the editing work but it's overall not very much.
Thank God for the Leon DVD.

I have to get the real estate we inherited to start producing, which is a tough row to hoe with the older brother being the executor, in order to have steady revenue of at least some reasonable means.
He's slow walking things, an irritant. With that coming in I could maybe position myself with better gear to do better paying work.

Right now I am at an impasse, so although we do okay, I am not as productive as I would like to be, and it rankles me.
I do not want to slowly lose my sight, hearing and physical health wishing I could keep doing what I am good at just because a few thousand dollars stands in the way.

That's tough because you need to spend some money for film and video editing equipment even to get started again. And inheritance takes a couple of years at best.

But like loggy said, there would be plenty of small business ideas that could grow and then become established if the we had the basic survival minimums or the UBI covered. You could build the business at a speed you couldn't survive otherwise. You could also afford to fail and try something else a few times, which small business persons rarely get to do now.

I'm not suggesting anybody live on the least possible. I'm just pointing out that we have a whole almost invisible underclass of people who live on much less. Any UBI or "minimums" program has to reach all of them as well as the better off. But we don't have to give people living on four times the poverty level a subsidy. (The upper limit on tax credits for Obamacare.) We need a program that starts with the poorest of the poor and phases out as your income reaches some point. That point is certainly open to discussion.

Should we give every surplus non-worker a house and a car, insurance and gas money, an entertainment budget, a cell phone? Probably not. Should we give them a bed, all the rice and beans they can eat, free second-hand clothing, and medical care? Yes. Somewhat more? Maybe.

Thank you, Phil!

BREAKING NEWS, Guys, everyone else is not like you. People fall on hard times for many different reasons. Their reactions and individual stories are very different. Many times there are health issues, both mental and physical. Many have no family that they can fall back on.
And Phil has nailed it: We are the richest country in the world. We should be able to provide for our citizens. We should be able to provide both work and assistance when needed.
The dearth of training available to people who have lost their jobs due to automation and/or trade agreements (I have family in the rust belt so I know the drill) is yet another failing of the system and its government with respect to the people it is supposed to represent.
UBI could be a good starting point (depending on how it is implemented) toward organizing true community in our cities (big and small) and getting people to demand a government that actually represents them. And I bet that even Trump supporters would benefit from programs like these - thus eliminating the allure of the buffoon and his hot air.