I was once talking with one of my classmates and he said that in the future, there will be universal basic income implemented by entire world. I was not convinced at that time and thought he is just being stupid but given the layoffs happening and massive amount of unemployment, I am thinking about this possibility. What do you say?
USian perspective:
Things are currently going in the opposite direction where safety nets are being removed.
In 2027, a huge chunk of low income people will lose Medicaid. It will be hard to see who can stay on it, because in most states with a higher minimum wage, working 80 hours would put them very close to or over the income limit. And people not working also lose it. There are problems people have that aren’t considered “real” disabilities, yet prevent having jobs. Obamacare does provide a low income discount, but there are still multi-thousand dollar deductibles. My prediction is that this is going to put a massive strain on hospitals because people simply won’t be able to pay. We’ll probably start to see some smaller ones go under (already are, actually, but it’s going to get worse, IMO).
I think the Medicaid purge is relevant because working people got jealous that unemployed and poor people had better insurance than they did in some ways, and stripping that made them feel better about their own situation. That goes completely against the spirit of UBI, which is paid to both rich and poor and people in any situation.
UBI would likely result in price hikes where the UBI money wouldn’t provide a real leg up as everything just became more expensive. We just saw that happen with the COVID stimulus checks. Or for another example, McDonald’s using the app provides a “discount”, but not even close compared to the prices they used to have pre-COVID.
As a leftist, UBI is a concept that both excites and scares me. It is a last ditch effort to save a consumer economy, and further removes people from labor organizing. With price hikes and unethical corporations and governments, a UBI could simply become a way to increase the price of every object and service, while also preventing the one method through which average people have ever genuinely impacted change: the union and strike. How do we unionize around ourself when we are removed from work? It’s a scary concept.
I love the idea of removing the means of survival from meaningless work, and I truly believe that is the direction we need to go if we wish to continue basing our economy off of consumerism and money (which, frankly, I don’t think we need to do), but in order for it work and be anything other than an actual nightmarescape, UBI has to be coupled (in some concrete, irreversible way) with things like price controls, rent controls, and some way for people to functionally unionize as citizens outside of their respective employment.
But all that said, we can’t even get single payer healthcare in the US, so this is more of a “what they should do in Europe” situation, as here in the US the answer to “will we get a UBI” is “go fucking die in a hole, you disgusting poor. But not that hole. That’s my hole.”
what is this removing means of survival?
It’s not removing the means of survival. I said “removing the means of survive from meaningless work.” In other words, to decouple the two concepts so that one may survive without having to rely on meaningless work.
20hrs is already over the limit for most states. even in lower cost states 20hrs is way over, as red states likely arnt expanding medicaid to raise the max income for it. i know someone that works only 18hrs/week to stay on medicaid/ Denti-caid, actually less because lunch isnt counted as pay.
i think it should be referred to ACA, obamacare is coined by conservative media to make it a boogeyman so republicans will also vote against it. i dont think people got jealous, schumer+republicans ended the shutdown it already made millions drop out of thier aca plans because thier premiums doubled or quadrupled in cost.
Thanks for disagreeing with me without hostility or personal remarks. Appreciate you!