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Comment by lfowles | Hacker News Reader

> How many understand that if the people who earn money are burdened with much higher taxes to pay for someone else's BI, a lot of them them will just stop working because fuck that? How would that affect the burden on the remaining earners?

Do you think Basic Income will be sufficient enough to sustain anyone's lifestyle that they will _stop working_ out of spite?

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There are a ton of jobs that need doing that probably no-one actually likes, like stacking shelves in a supermarket, sweeping the streets, waiting tables, and so on. There are a few more that people maybe do like, at least some of the time, but would probably rather be doing something else, like tending bar. If everyone doing those jobs quits to focus on their guitar or something, what happens? Well the demand for those jobs doesn't go away but now employers have to pay a lot more to attract people to work them. Which sounds pretty good until you realize that that feeds back into the cost and suddenly everything in the economy costs more and the BI doesn't stretch as far as it used to. Which rather defeats the entire point of the exercise.

For those that make an only moderate amount more than the basic income? It's a good probability that they will not want to work.

Perhaps not out of "spite" as you suggest, but a simple time tradeoff. E.g. "Work 8 hours per day, and get $100 more. Or work 0 hours per and have $100 dollars less to spend, but 8 hours more to work on hobbies and leisure and social activities.

That situation exists today, and to a greater extent than it would with a basic income. Due to the loss of benefits, as income increases the working poor face huge effective marginal taxes, sometimes over 100% so that they are literally made worse off by earning more. See https://www.epionline.org/studies/r27/ for example.

Some people would stop working just because it would be kind of silly not to, considering their circumstances. Some other people would stop working because why bother when those lazy scumbags aren't doing anything either, and others would stop working because being productive just gets you assraped with taxes.

All in all, it just doesn't "work".

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