Comment by solatic | Hacker News Reader

Comment by solatic | Hacker News Reader

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If workers quit working for abusive employers, then you end up having more job-seekers, which makes it more difficult to find a job. That only becomes irrelevant if you have a parallel increase in entrepreneurship.

One of the reasons why UBI appeals to the HN crowd is because the HN audience leans towards entrepreneurs and wannabe entrepreneurs. But for the economy at large, far more people would rather try to keep their heads down and get home to their families.

Most people are not responsible financial stewards. They don't take their excess income and put it into investments, they take their excess income and put it into improving their standard of living. That means using the extra income generated from a day-job goes to higher rent, car payments, and other liabilities not easily released.

Most middle-income people will end up in the same place - unable to leave their jobs due to the difficulty of finding a new one. Upper-income people will pay more in taxes essentially to end financial insecurity among lower-income people living paycheck-to-paycheck.

I think the only issue I take with your assumption is that you will end up having more job-seekers. It could just be the case that the abusive employer's business will fail and thus create an opportunity in the market for another company to take over. If you rinse and repeat, you could assume that it would provide a force to push abusive employers out of the marketplace and replace them with more productive employees and employers.

I'll also argue that "improving their standard of living" does not have to be separate from an expansion in the economy. Often the means these irresponsible financial stewards take in "improving their standard of living" is in spending on goods and services, which continues to contribute to liquidity in the market. Not to mention that improving the standard of living for consumers is generally an overall win for society as a whole (lower crime, lower healthcare costs, higher productivity, etc.)

This identifies why I tend to think social spending is a good idea even if there is some uncertainty about the benefits.

If everyone gets a few thousand dollars and runs out and spends it on beer and pizza, at least they got some beer and pizza. And then the money ends up back in the hands of the people who had it originally.

There are worse ways for a project to fail, and of course all the benefits discussed elsewhere could happen.

If excessive income doesn't serve to increase my standard of living, why the hell am I getting up from bed every morning? Might as well get a lower paying job, if my standard of living should remain the same.

I highly doubt anyone would quit a high paying job because of that. You'd have access to more of society. It simply wouldn't be as much of a dip in quality.

Folks would leave stressful jobs or jobs that require you to work long hours.

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