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Comment by massemphasis | Hacker News Reader

On the other hand, instituting UBI will decrease the people's willingness to accept immigration. The Nordic countries are notoriously homogenous in respect to diversity. A country like the US is extraordinarily far more diverse than something like a Nordic country. Countries like Norway, etc... that institute these welfare programs for their population are also among the least welcoming of immigrants.

If Donald Trump were smart he'd likely pursue the UBI dependent on how much money the US makes versus the number of citizens. This would definitely trigger the same kind of mentality resident in welfare states like the nordic countries to resist immigration.

How would this be addressed in the US? Would it signify a change in the immigration trend in the US?

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One could mitigate that by setting it up where new citizens have a waiting period before they can qualify --kind of like retirement [where you wait till you qualify]. Same for anyone under 18, they [or legal guardians] receive progressively more as the children grow and need more.

Or alternatively, your qualification follows you as a natural-born citizen of a given country --so you as a Canadian or American, Japanese, etc., receive UBI from your [original] country no matter where you live or move to so you would never qualify for UBI from a new host country blunting the threat of people thinking new immigrants get a free ride from the new host country.

Under current rules babies are eligible for more entitlements than older kids up to teenagers just because at that time in life they need more care.

If UBI is replacing existing entitlements, that means taking away food stamps, WIC, free child annual physical / dental / vision exams (under AAC/Obamacare), tax deduction for dependents on 1040, and a host of other programs like free baby formula or car seats.

UBI would be less successful, or, I can see it run into problems, if it were to replace medical care, for example. There would be those who would forgo the checkups in order that they might have more money for something less critical. I would lean heavily toward separating those to avoid that hazard.

My take would be Medical, basic education [k-12], would be provided by the state and the rest, immediate things people can't skimp on [housing, food, clothing, etc.] could be covered by UBI

Yeah. Hopefully the UBI amount exceeds the cost of health insurance premiums, or Obamacare penalty for those going that route.

I would worry about replacing many of those child-focused programs with something cash-based. You want to do everything possible to ensure children are getting a basic level of care, and unfortunately if you give parents the choice between paying for a child's vision exams and keeping some extra cash, more than none will choose the cash.

>"if you give parents the choice between paying for a child's vision exams and keeping some extra cash, more than none will choose the cash."

The question we should ask is whether children would be better off, not how much would be spent on them. It may be that money allocated more efficiently by caring parents would be more beneficial than the neglect which may occur.

Alternatively, the questions is, should we have a minimum floor ensuring all children have basic access to care, or are we more interested in maximizing the average [and admitting this could result in some children being neglected medical care].

I disagree with the premise of your statement that there can be an absolute floor, as government is fairly good at distributing money, but bad at providing outcomes; but agree that there should be some discussion of the classic mean vs median vs 5th (or other) percentile outcome prioritization trade-off.

I think as a society we went through that discussion when those programs were introduced and were made not cash-based.

99% of the recipients will probably do what's best for their kids, but due to the remaining 1% (who might struggle with drug addiction, alcohol addiction, abusive relationship where cash might be taken away, etc.) the programs are not cash-based.

With that said, a bunch of countries with demographic problems have instituted cash-based payments for children (Russia and Ukraine come to mind) with reasonable success and limited stories of abuse.

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