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Comment by anchpop | Hacker News Reader

One reason a UBI might be preferable is because it distorts the labor market less. Also a job guarantee program has issues like what to do for people who are generally toxic and negative to any work environment (these people do exist) and people who are disabled or mentally handicapped or otherwise find it hard to participate in infrastructure projects. A UBI also allows people to collect it while doing things like educating themselves, or doing unpaid work like taking care of aging relatives.

There is an argument to be made for job guarantee programs on the basis that they're cheaper, since you get some useful labor out of people who might otherwise be unemployed. But in my view that doesn't outweigh the disadvantages.

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People also get useful skills, a sense of pride, belonging and accomplishment from it.

Although I don't see the problem of providing a combination of UBI and a Guaranteed Work program; with the UBI being a thing an GWP would have to offer actual progression and hope beyond just surviving.

I don't know. Sometimes a job is just things like cleaning the portable toilets at job sites. I'm not sure there is much pride in that. I'm not even sure there are lots of useful skills there.

Sometimes work is just work, and not everyone gets pride from "A job well done".

Then why not charge people to do those kinds of jobs more? Or encourage companies to make the jobs less unpleasant and more fulfilling? A UBI means that workers have more power to be picky about where they work, which puts pressure on companies to improve conditions.

I've done a lot of jobs, some crappy some great. I always got pride and a sense of meaning from the fact that I was doing that instead of staying at home playing videogames.

People don’t really need UBI. They just need an affordable place to live, and some food to eat, and some electricity to run their fridge, so they don’t starve, or freeze, and keep the lights on. And some internet services, so they can communicate with others to stay connected.

The primary problem, is that after 2008, instead of fixing the problem, the morons in leadership, bailed out the rich. They lowered interest rates so low, that it forced a bidding war on housing. Which drove up the cost of rent, which put some people on the streets.

For others, their rent became so high, relative to their income, that they cannot save any money.

Meanwhile, the rich kept buying more stocks. The corporate buybacks forced a scarcity issue in stocks, that it drove prices higher. Then, they cash out, and take that fake money, and spend it out on the real world.

So now, we live in a world where the rich are safe behind their walled gardens, and the poor are sacrificed as the essential workers. And Bezos is about to becomes the first Trillionaire.

Rising property values didn't drive higher rent, it was the other way around. People flooded into cities because that's where the economic growth was, and cities didn't build enough housing to keep up.

This argument only makes sense if you assume that the people receiving UBI do nothing of economic value - something UBI advocates vehemently argue against.

This is why UBI is a lose-lose program. Either you are paying people to do nothing, or you are distorting the labor market by providing work product for free, displacing a paid worker.

> displacing a paid worker

It's a common misconception that there is a fixed amount of productive work to be done, such that immigrants / robots / UBI recipients "steal jobs" from workers.

In fact, when people are liberated from dull, meaningless and unnecessary jobs, they inevitably find more productive uses of their effort and creativity.

When people talk about "restarting the economy" they conveniently forget that the economy that provides food and shelter to people never stopped.

The fact that we can live pretty well without so many financial analysts, consultants and managers-of-managers shows that a very large share of the old economy was meaningless at best, and grift at worst.

Absent all that wasted commuting and office face-time, we can see more clearly the incredible surplus the core economy produces.

> they inevitably find more productive uses of their effort and creativity.

This is only true if they define what "productive" means. ...because they obviously aren't providing a product or service that anyone is willing to pay more for than their original employer - otherwise they could have made the switch without UBI.

Just because an employer pays for bullshit work doesn't mean the work isn't bullshit.

I honestly think the way to go is UBI plus a job offer program - that doesn't take away the UBI, but actually pays on top of the UBI like a regular job would.

Of course, I also think thatwe should give folks with a certified disability more than the basic UBI: Disability should not be a sentence to poverty.

> I honestly think the way to go is UBI plus a job offer program - that doesn't take away the UBI, but actually pays on top of the UBI like a regular job would.

That's supposed to be how UBI worked: a basic income that complemented other sources of income.

To put it differently, UBI is an income baseline.

I more meant UBI plus a government-funded jobs program for folks that want to work. They'd both be investments.

Most, if not all government jobs are directly or indirectly from jobs programs.

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