Universal Basic Income

[Pat Mustard]

I was wondering what you guys think about this? Are you for or against? And why? I love the idea, and I feel that this could work with a bit of push, but I have no confident position on this just yet.

For those not in the know:

A basic income (also called basic income guarantee, Citizen's Income, unconditional basic income, universal basic income, or universal demogrant[2]) is a form of social security[3] in which all citizens or residents of a country regularly receive an unconditional sum of money, either from a government or some other public institution, in addition to any income received from elsewhere.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income

Unless the world is willing to let about 90% of the population starve, in about 20 years this kind of idea will not only be desirable but necessary. With the increased mechanisation of work and the loss of even more jobs to machines or far eastern slave labour, many countries in the west will have to start looking at ways of providing for their citizens in a method other than that of full employment economies.

If they could also ditch the stupidity of "permanent growth" economy as well we'd be getting places.

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We're going to have to make a social and cultural shift on this issue in the next 20 years, I think.

When technology hits the service industry like is has hit the manufacturing/logistics industries, you either better be good with computers or you're gonna be SOL.

When we have iPads and touch screens instead of servers, and McDonalds only needs 2 people on staff to manage the fryer and hand food out the window, and jobs like cashier and truck driver become things people used to do, the acceptable unemployment rate will be somewhere in the mid teens, I think.

The broad unemployment figure is already in the mid teens or higher in most countries. Broad unemployment is a measure of more than just the official unemployment figure, but of all those out of work (many countries don't count unemployed people on state mandated courses or unpaid labour, and countries like the US don't count those unemployed so long they've fallen off the welfare system), those in zero or low hours contracts (where you're likely to be working on average eight hours a week or less, barely making enough money to get to and from work), and those working in the gig economy (employees counted as self employed who are short on hours, pay and employment rights).

Because of the massive changes in work practices the last twenty years and more, the way countries count the unemployed is inadequate, and given what most countries are doing the methods are getting worse (for example when I was out of work at the height of the crash, I was not counted as unemployed for eighteen months, first when I was on a Springboard course and then on a JobBridge internship {with a "company" that grossed €300 per week} despite the fact that for the whole of this period I was receiving unemployment benefit as my sole income).