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Comment by angularly | Hacker News Reader

Not to talk about an enormous spike in unemployment rate, just like in all other countries where you get paid money for not doing anything. I.e. in Denmark where I come from, we have 400.000 people - out of a population of 6mill - who gain nothing or very little from working, to a point where it don't make sense to work at all, compared to just receiving unemployment pay. And logically people opt to just not work.

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The difference is that in Denmark (I assume) you trade unemployment benefits when not working to a roughly equivalent salary when you start working. So no, you don't gain anything. With the proposed Swiss system, any salary you earned would be in addition to the basic salary, so there would still be an incentive to work. It's just that it's not strictly necessary to survive.

I think the proposed system makes better, as the economical margin effect of working is not negligible, as it is when you just have unemployment benefits.

NB: I live in Sweden, and I'm assuming your system is similar to ours. It's a problem I have observed here and I suspect the same applies to you. I may be wrong if it works differently.

> And logically people opt to just not work

Your logic isn't backed up by places that have experimented with this.

Yes, there will always be some people who are content to live at the poverty line if they don't have to do any work for it. They are not the people to base your system around.

There are many more people who are happy to do something to improve their quality of life even a little. A problem in many countries with an advanced welfare state is that doing even a little work reduces your benefits significantly enough (and introduces so much bureaucracy into your life) that it's not work it. With a basic income, that disappears.

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