I think it likely that this would cause low end job wages to rise, not necessarily increase employment.
This isn't just common sense; the data on working age economically inactive people, working age economically inactive people receiving benefits and admin costs is free and open for most countries.
The only reason not to back an idea like this is how much the top earners will be able to evade paying their part, overburdening those who can't dodge taxes as efficiently.
Which is quite surprising because every, and I mean every, UBI proposal talks up how much money we'd _save_ because welfare would be eliminated. I just don't see how that's possible, because inevitably there are going to be a lot of people with real or self-imposed crises crying about how they don't have enough money to pay rent or buy food, and what is the government going to do, tell them "tough shit, you should've managed your UBI better"? Uh, I doubt it. We'll end up stuck with welfare programs as a UBI safety net and then people will inevitably game the system by crying broke every single month.
This whole thing is such a ridiculous leftist fantasy, the biggest giveaway is that it completely ignores basic human behavior.
And you're dodging the bigger question: I'm on UBI and my money runs out, can't afford to feed the kids. Multiply that by at least several thousand people every month. Now what?
In the UK, many welfare payments go directly to the person, so this wouldn't be a new issue.
Many of them are designed really just to ensure a floor people don't drop below, but combined with exceptionally high marginal tax rates and odd conditions. The marginal tax rate in many cases is 100%, and can be above this.
Not sure what you mean by this. The issue is that currently welfare payments are earmarked: this money can only be used for rent, this money can only be used for food, etc. By eliminating our existing welfare programs, as is the case with every UBI proposal, we would instead be giving a single check and saying "manage this money wisely and pay your expenses." The problem is that when the money isn't earmarked for a specific purpose you can't be sure that the basic necessities are actually paid for before the money runs out. Just ignoring the fraud angle (spend all the money and claim an emergency makes you unable to pay for rent), how do you deal with someone having a _real_ emergency, having to spend all their UBI, and then being unable to pay for rent? Tell them tough shit? That's not what's going to happen.
I mean this is often not the case in the UK. We don't have food stamps and housing benefit is afaik generally paid directly to the person, not the landlord.
That's what happens now, whether the person gets money from a job or from any kind of benefits. Why should it change? It's called 'Basic Income', not 'Basic Relax All Your Needs Will Be Met'.
People who are broke care. Some money is always better than no money.
In addition. The total money supply isn't growing, it is being redistributed to people more likely to consume. The velocity of money will increase but the total amount won't. This will keep prices relatively stable.