What if working would provide you with a basic income? Would it then not make sense for people working poor jobs to quit and just get the guaranteed basic income along with all their free time?
In most proposals, basic income is covered by dropping the programs it replaces (social security, disability, etc.) and raising income taxes in all brackets.
Basic income is something you get regardless of whether you work, so there is still incentive to work - if you want anything other than what basic income (which should cover little more than food + shelter in a relatively inexpensive area) can get you.
Because this gives low-income people more power over their employers than before (they don't need to work), it probably allows you to repeal minimum wage laws, and let the wage fall somewhere reasonable.
"As of the latest data released on September 6, 2013, the total is 47.76 million, which is more than the entire populations of many large nations."
source: http://www.trivisonno.com/food-stamps-charts
Compared to when Clinton was in office:
“Caseloads declined by 54 percent. Sixty percent of mothers who left welfare found work, far surpassing predictions of experts,” President Clinton wrote in a 2006 op-ed in the New York Times. “Child poverty dropped to 16.2 percent in 2000, the lowest rate since 1979, and in 2000, the percentage of Americans on welfare reached its lowest level in four decades.”
source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/06/18/w...
There was something on people going on disability in a recent This American Life. People were going on disability because they just weren't useful in today's working world. They didn't know how to use computers. They had suffered some sort of injury and were no longer suited for manual labor. For these people the idea of working behind a desk never even entered their mind.
I mean, I would. But there still needs to be someone to work those jobs. Also, a lot of times people gain a sense of self-worth from doing work that is appreciated. Whether they are getting it or not, or whether it's right or not, I believe this continues to hold true.
I think that if those jobs can't pay a worker enough to maintain that worker, they should end. Business models based on slavery/poverty should be deprecated.
What if working would provide you with a basic income? Would it then not make sense for people working poor jobs to quit and just get the guaranteed basic income along with all their free time?