What if your washing machine breaks or your kids need new clothes or your car needs gas?
It seems to me with this approach people would be stuck in perpetual poverty even more.
It seems to me with this approach people would be stuck in perpetual poverty even more.
How does the government currently help people that got a broken washing machine?
It's hard to make long term plans with that, because instead of putting aside $100 at the beginning of the month, now you need to save $3 a day. With amounts that small, it's easy to accidentally overspend.
Plus sometimes sudden unexpected costs happen, and you cannot wait another week to slowly save up for it, you need that money now.
Not all poor people are poor because they're drug addicts that cannot handle money. Poverty is hard to escape. I'd rather not humiliate these people any further and make it even harder for them to lead a dignified life just because some people might waste their money in the first week.
How do we help people when this happens NOW?
Plus that question has so many answers depending on which country you live in. I can tell you for example that in my country you are expected to save part of your welfare money for those cases, which does not necessarily work very well since it's often not enough money to really save it.
If unexpected costs happen currently, you either have the money or you don't and have to wait - the situations are the same.
(Upfront payment - Have the money? Great. If not, wait until next payment. Daily payments - Have the money? Great. If not, wait)
> I'd rather not humiliate these people any further and make it even harder for them to lead a dignified life
(FWIW, I live on benefits due to medical issues) How is this undignified? If anything, it's one less thing to worry about (I've occasionally forgot about payments and ended up having ~zero money left just after a payment. A rolling income would at least mean I get money for essentials pretty much immediately)
If it's basic income, then you should be free to choose how and when to use it.
For your example about forgotten payments, the result would be that you did not pay, so potentially you may lose your insurance, or you receive a fine or something worse. That's a decision you should be able to make yourself.
If you don't have control over your own money, that's not very dignified.
paying out nightly would be better for the "car needs gas" and really no worse of the other two. Many families are going to take a hit on major repairs.
I assume we are talking about the same amount of money as the single monthly check divided up my payment days.
If you start coming up with extra cases for when it's urgent and you can get a bigger payout, you're again complicating the system and adding extra bureaucracy where part of the idea is that the simplicity of the system compared to classic welfare systems is what makes it more affordable and allows to give bigger monthly payouts.
That doesn't work in practice as people are really poor at budgeting thus the big trip on the 1st of the month to buy groceries.
> That might be the difference between making it to a job interview or not, or buying medicine for your kid when it needs it.
If I'm paid daily, its more likely I can buy that medicine or make that job interview. The actual difference is the big payments and frankly sucking up a chunk of the monthly is going to hurt pretty badly. We're talking about the same amount of money distributed differently.
> If you start coming up with extra cases for when it's urgent and you can get a bigger payout, you're again complicating the system and adding extra bureaucracy where part of the idea is that the simplicity of the system compared to classic welfare systems is what makes it more affordable and allows to give bigger monthly payouts.
I don't think I understand what you meant by this paragraph.
If someone is having trouble saving money with daily allowances, they will definitely not save money with monthly lump sums.