To take a market perspective to this: I think there are some costs that people fail to accommodate for when comparing employment vs welfare. We used to consider homemaking an actual profession, because... it really is. Now that we are expecting households to have dual incomes, we are recognizing that income on paper, when in reality it always was there, it just was not formally recognized.
With the cost of childcare these days, staying home to earn $28,000 in welfare instead of working a job making $30,000 isn't laziness, it's a no-brainer. You have to consider the non-monetary "income".
$28K < $30K is the wrong math. It really is: $28K + 2000 hrs of opportunity cost > $30K
And to your second point: being fair is not the only reason to have assistance programs. Even if I don't think assistance programs are not fair I still support them so that there is less crime in my neighborhood, etc.
But I disagree with your comment on the second point. As I said, I'm all for welfare/assistance given generously to those in need, but that's different from funding non-working lifestyle of those who have good working options and simply don't want to work.
Some part of UBI might overlap with the welfare part, but it's going to significantly increase the number of people who don't work just because - and it's not fair to fund that from the money made by those who work, and especially not fair to take it from those who must work because UBI is not enough in their situation.
UBI could be funded from sources like sovereign funds - why not. But let's not take money from people who need it just so a group of people can quit their job. Classic welfare at least says that those who receive it need it more that the person that pays.
> As I said, I'm all for welfare/assistance given generously to those in need, but that's different from funding non-working lifestyle of those who have good working options and simply don't want to work.
I don't really know if that's worth worrying about. We're not living in a subsistence economy where if someone isn't carrying their weight the whole tribe dies. I think it's perfectly acceptable to have a certain amount of non-participatory portion of the population, we should make sure it doesn't get to the point of unsustainability but trying to police absolutely everyone in society is a recipe for disaster.
> But let's not take money from people who need it just so a group of people can quit their job.
The people who need that money aren't going to bear the majority of the burden - when you get down into the range of poverty wages people are already exempt for non-transactional taxation and end up receiving more money than they pay. I don't think it's fair to paint any new expenditure as "But how will the poor bear this cost" - when, in the end, the middle and upper classes are where we look to for funding.
The 1980s perpetuated the idea of a "welfare queen" that we should all be really mad at - there are folks that take advantage of the system but it's such a small cost that, honestly, whatever. Most people can't enjoy that kind of a lifestyle so if a few people get to live content lives that would otherwise be ground into the dust I'm perfectly happy for them.
> As I said, I'm all for welfare/assistance given generously to those in need, but that's different from funding non-working lifestyle of those who have good working options and simply don't want to work.
I guess what I’m getting at is that someone options for employment might not make sense given their life circumstances. A good job for someone is not a good job for everyone because of the opportunity cost.
On one hand, we can make our benefit systems so barebones that any minimum wage job is better, even including opportunity cost, but then the people who actually need those programs are starving.
If we make those benefit programs generous to properly support those who truly need it, then minimum wages are going to have to support more than bare survival to be a better option.
It’s really not an easy dilemma to solve because incentives are working against you.
Really, I think the best way to get people off welfare is not to decrease welfare benefits, but increase the incentives to get a minimum wage job.
With the cost of childcare these days, staying home to earn $28,000 in welfare instead of working a job making $30,000 isn't laziness, it's a no-brainer. You have to consider the non-monetary "income".
$28K < $30K is the wrong math. It really is: $28K + 2000 hrs of opportunity cost > $30K
And to your second point: being fair is not the only reason to have assistance programs. Even if I don't think assistance programs are not fair I still support them so that there is less crime in my neighborhood, etc.