# Just give them the money (the argument for basic income) **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 10, 2015, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-give-them-the-money-the-argument-for-basic-income/714704 "2015-03-10T16:59:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 14
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2016, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-give-them-the-money-the-argument-for-basic-income/714704/261 "2016-12-21T17:58:33Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > They will have childcare for the month, transportation for the month, and a TV for the month. Doesn’t seem like “nothing” to me. What are they supposed to eat for that month? The TV? What happens when they get evicted for not paying rent? Their poor choices have left them unable to pay for life’s necessities. Would you like to see government step in and help them in that case, or let them die in the street? ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2016, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-give-them-the-money-the-argument-for-basic-income/714704/262 "2016-12-21T18:02:18Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > What are they supposed to eat for that month? The TV? What happens when they get evicted for not paying rent? Their poor choices have left them unable to pay for life’s necessities. Would you like to see government step in and help them in that case, or let them die in the street? I don’t know, maybe they can use money from their job that they require daycare for? ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2016, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-give-them-the-money-the-argument-for-basic-income/714704/263 "2016-12-21T18:09:52Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > I don’t know, maybe they can use money from their job that they require daycare for? I mis-typed. “childcare” should have been “child support”, as in, guy gets divorced, has to pay ex-wife every month because he’s not the custodial parent. That was the start of the topic in posts #257-#259. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2016, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-give-them-the-money-the-argument-for-basic-income/714704/264 "2016-12-21T18:13:45Z")
> [@DrCube](#): > > No, each person gets an income. Unless that person that died is half the people in the house, the income won’t get cut in half. I was answering **Salvor** , who regarded No UBI for Children as a useful _feature_ — as an incentive for poor people not to reproduce! (This seemed ironic, since others complain that my proposal is toward government incentives rather than freedom.) > [@Crazy\_Canuck](#): > > I can agree with you on housing being a basic need. The question would be how would you implement it? Does the government go full eminent domain, and seize every residential property in the country, becoming everyone’s landlord? Do they instead just cut checks to every landlord who asks for one? What methods do you think we should use to maximize the value of the huge amount of money that this would cost? To do it your way would either cost more than issuing a check to each adult citizen, or would be ripe for abuse. > > As for childcare … well, there I disagree with you. I strongly feel that the government shouldn’t be raising children. I can’t quite put my finger on why, so I’ll just leave it at that for now. The free housing and free childcare would be _ **safety nets** _ — low-cost services that, while available to anyone, people with means _would not avail themselves of_, except in emergency. (There might also be housing and childcare of a somewhat higher quality, not free but with subsidized price.) I certainly don’t have any details worked out — mine is just a general path to reduce the cost of a “UBI” program and ensure that funds are targeted at the clearest safety-net needs. ---
**Author:** ![DrCube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a3d4f5/32.png) [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2016, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-give-them-the-money-the-argument-for-basic-income/714704/265 "2016-12-21T18:15:19Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > The point I was getting at is that if we allow others to also deduct from someone’s UBI, like the IRS to cover unpaid taxes, or as a replacement for court-ordered wage garnishments, or municipalities to cover parking tickets, or colleges to make sure students pay their tuition or student loans, or payday lenders to make sure they get paid, then we don’t really have a UBI anymore. We just have a government-guarantees-debt-repayment system now, and many of the poor people, who are most in need of a UBI, will not see a dime of it. $430 will go to pay their childcare, and $350 will go to pay their car loan, and $250 will go to student loans, and $55 will go to pay for the TV they foolishly leased, etc. until they have nothing left at the _beginning_ of the month. Well, ensuring your children are cared for financially is more important than making sure the payday loan company remains solvent. I’m not really in favor of wage garnishment _except_ in child support cases, whether we have a basic income or not. Others may disagree. > [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > What are they supposed to eat for that month? The TV? What happens when they get evicted for not paying rent? Their poor choices have left them unable to pay for life’s necessities. Would you like to see government step in and help them in that case, or let them die in the street? Then they beg for food, sleep in the streets (or more likely at a friend’s place) and try not to waste their money again next month. Not sure how this is relevant to basic income, it happens in every economic system in every country ever, because there are always ignorant people who make bad decisions. Basic income just ensures that those bad decisions are for the most part temporary. Instead of losing your home and never being able to rent again, you have to crash on a friend’s couch for a month or so until you can afford to pay rent again. You’re still in trouble on account of those ignorant decisions, but the severity is blunted, which allows you to get back on your feet in a more reasonable period of time than “hopefully before you die”. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2016, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-give-them-the-money-the-argument-for-basic-income/714704/266 "2016-12-21T18:16:04Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > On the other hand, it’s good to have a disincentive to having children that doesn’t adversely affect the children themselves. We don’t really want people to have children they can’t afford, but if they do have children (due to accident, stupidity, etc.), we want the kids fed and clothed. A universal income works to this end. Maybe I should link to the thread about my SIL and the Poverty Mentality to show you the fallacies in this argument. Many (but not all) people that cannot subsist on their current income won’t subsist with $5000 more for reasons that have nothing to do with the amount of money which is why I oppose it. ---
**Author:** ![DrCube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a3d4f5/32.png) [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2016, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-give-them-the-money-the-argument-for-basic-income/714704/267 "2016-12-21T18:26:35Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > I was answering **Salvor** , who regarded No UBI for Children as a useful _feature_ — as an incentive for poor people not to reproduce! (This seemed ironic, since others complain that my proposal is toward government incentives rather than freedom.) Yeah, I’m not on the same page there. Kids are people too, and need to eat. Ideally the child income payment would be enough to feed them and cover other basic expenses, but nothing more. Meaning a parent who wanted to buy their kids birthday presents, send them to private school, or get them swimming lessons would realize that more kids = less disposable income, even if they technically get a little more from Uncle Sam than they would if they were childless. Not sure how feasible that is. Anyway, I think the fear of welfare queen sows having litters of piglets in order to draw more benefits from the government is far overblown. Children are an expensive and time consuming chore whether they get subsidized or not. Unless the government is handing out full time nannies in addition to the basic income checks, I doubt this will be a significant problem, except in PR terms. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2016, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-give-them-the-money-the-argument-for-basic-income/714704/268 "2016-12-21T18:35:31Z")
> [@DrCube](#): > > Then they beg for food, sleep in the streets (or more likely at a friend’s place) and try not to waste their money again next month. Not sure how this is relevant to basic income, it happens in every economic system in every country ever, because there are always ignorant people who make bad decisions. Basic income just ensures that those bad decisions are for the most part temporary. Instead of losing your home and never being able to rent again, you have to crash on a friend’s couch for a month or so until you can afford to pay rent again. You’re still in trouble on account of those ignorant decisions, but the severity is blunted, which allows you to get back on your feet in a more reasonable period of time than “hopefully before you die”. I think you overestimate how many friends the sort of person I’m talking about has. One of the challenges of UBI-style cash payments (as opposed to septimus-style free stuff) is that some of the recipients misuse the cash, badly, and end up without a way to pay for life’s necessities. There are various proposals floating around this thread, but a more common one is to replace all / much of the current welfare state with UBI. If that were the case, a foolish UBI recipient that wastes their money instead of paying for life’s necessities might end up without a homeless shelter to sleep in or a soup line to eat from. As a cold-hearted conservative, I’m not opposed to letting such foolish people die in the streets, but I’d like to avoid having to pay for both the current welfare state _and_ a UBI because my countrymen who aren’t as pragmatic as me, at the sight of widows and orphans begging for food might lose their nerve and become convinced that we might actually need programs like SNAP and WIC instead of just giving everyone cash. Also, I would hope that any sort of welfare program we undertake would result in fewer people begging for food and sleeping in the streets. Your response does not convince me that would be the case if we implemented UBI, at least if it was done in conjunction with repealing other government assistance programs. ---
**Author:** ![Salvor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Salvor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Salvor)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2016, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-give-them-the-money-the-argument-for-basic-income/714704/269 "2016-12-21T18:50:10Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > IOW, Yes: The large household loses half (or all) of its UBI when the breadwinner dies. Presumably this is good because it creates an incentive not to die. Got it. What happens when a married spouse over the age of 66 dies? Doesn’t the widow get some of the spouses social security benefits? I see no reason that cannot be extended to a UBI if you and others are inclined to extend it there. But what is the problem? If a spouse dies today it’s all on the surviving spouses income and nothing else. With a UBI they get that plus the UBI income, less than that extra from their spouse, but still more than they would have gotten. ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2016, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-give-them-the-money-the-argument-for-basic-income/714704/270 "2016-12-21T18:55:09Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > I mis-typed. “childcare” should have been “child support”, as in, guy gets divorced, has to pay ex-wife every month because he’s not the custodial parent. That was the start of the topic in posts #257-#259. Yes, that why it sucks to be a non-custodial parent. Basic income is not going to change the basic nature of child support. ---
**Author:** ![Salvor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Salvor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Salvor)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2016, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-give-them-the-money-the-argument-for-basic-income/714704/271 "2016-12-21T18:55:45Z")
> [@DrCube](#): > > Personally, I think children should receive a reduced basic income, to be controlled by their parents, until they are 18 or emancipated. So yes, if there are children and dad died, the household income doesn’t get halved. Just reduced by one adult’s income. > > The kids still get to eat, but if there is no other income stream, maybe mom has to move the family into a cheaper place. It sucks, but that’s essentially how it goes now, minus the basic income part. I’d be OK with some additional basic income rewarded to the parents based on the number of children, but I’d cap the basic income to 2 and no more. I do NOT want mothers using babies as a boost to personal basic income, you might say it’s spent on the kids, but again, if you are more reliant on that I don’t want to incentive you having more kids. Sorry. ---
**Author:** ![Salvor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Salvor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Salvor)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2016, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-give-them-the-money-the-argument-for-basic-income/714704/272 "2016-12-21T19:00:35Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > Salvor, would child support be the only reason to dock someone’s UBI, or would you allow others to dock it as well (alimony, civil suit judgements, the IRS, etc)? > > For reference, you could maybe expect [3.6 million adults to lose an average of $430/month](https://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/children/cb12-109.html) if you allow child support to tap UBI directly. I have not thought through all the potential taps to a persons UBI. Off the cuff, I do not consider alimony a legitimate tap to a basic income, in fact a UBI undercuts the need for alimony in the first place. I don’t even like the idea of tens of thousands of dollars or millions of dollars being transferred to divorced spouses to maintain a “lifestyle” as if luxury is their legal mandate because they were married to wealth. That is a joke of justice to me. Allowing too many things to tap into a persons UBI kind of cuts against it’s effectiveness for the person in the slump, so there may be a need to cap what can be taken from it, again, I’ve not thought all of that through to reason out what I consider just or fair. ---
**Author:** ![DrCube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a3d4f5/32.png) [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2016, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-give-them-the-money-the-argument-for-basic-income/714704/273 "2016-12-21T19:02:39Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > I think you overestimate how many friends the sort of person I’m talking about has. > > One of the challenges of UBI-style cash payments (as opposed to septimus-style free stuff) is that some of the recipients misuse the cash, badly, and end up without a way to pay for life’s necessities. > > There are various proposals floating around this thread, but a more common one is to replace all / much of the current welfare state with UBI. If that were the case, a foolish UBI recipient that wastes their money instead of paying for life’s necessities might end up without a homeless shelter to sleep in or a soup line to eat from. > > As a cold-hearted conservative, I’m not opposed to letting such foolish people die in the streets, but I’d like to avoid having to pay for both the current welfare state _and_ a UBI because my countrymen who aren’t as pragmatic as me, at the sight of widows and orphans begging for food might lose their nerve and become convinced that we might actually need programs like SNAP and WIC instead of just giving everyone cash. > > Also, I would hope that any sort of welfare program we undertake would result in fewer people begging for food and sleeping in the streets. Your response does not convince me that would be the case if we implemented UBI, at least if it was done in conjunction with repealing other government assistance programs. But what about people who don’t avail themselves of the welfare that’s available _now_? Almost 100% of the homeless problem is caused by people who _could_ go to a shelter, eat at a soup kitchen, and apply for SNAP or some other benefit, if not social security disability. But they don’t, either out of ignorance or mental illness or skepticism of the government or they’re just too proud for handouts. UBI would _alleviate_ this problem. It won’t eliminate it, because nothing will, but I’m still not sure why that is an argument against basic income. ---
**Author:** ![Salvor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Salvor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Salvor)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2016, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-give-them-the-money-the-argument-for-basic-income/714704/274 "2016-12-21T19:10:40Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > I was answering **Salvor** , who regarded No UBI for Children as a useful _feature_ — as an incentive for poor people not to reproduce! (This seemed ironic, since others complain that my proposal is toward government incentives rather than freedom.) Poor people are still free to reproduce as much as they want, there just won’t be (and shouldn’t be) an endlessly scaling benefit boost to that activity. No one is stopping people from reproducing anyway, but I don’t want to give people more cash beyond a certain point. Think of it like the mortgage interest deduction for homes. This is a massive wealth transfer from non homeowners to home owners. There was a reform floated, by Romney no less, of capping the deductions so that people buying multi million dollar mansions could not use that tax reduction feature to subsidize their own personal mansions. You want that mansion? Fantastic, go for it, but why are we helping to pay for it with a special tax break that was primarily intended to help people afford housing and get relief for home ownership by making it cheaper for you to enjoy luxury goods? Same for popping out kids while poor. Having children at replacement level is generally a good thing. But more than that can be considered a luxury of wanting a larger family. Want that? Great, but if you are the kind of person that can barely make ends meet, and more heavily reliant on a UBI to survive… why do YOU want to incentivise those people to have more kids? Incentivise the very people LEAST able to take care of their own kids financially to have more? Answer this Septimus, I need an answer here, why is that a good idea? Compassion is not enough. ---
**Author:** ![Salvor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Salvor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Salvor)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2016, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-give-them-the-money-the-argument-for-basic-income/714704/275 "2016-12-21T19:32:53Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > I think you overestimate how many friends the sort of person I’m talking about has. > > One of the challenges of UBI-style cash payments (as opposed to septimus-style free stuff) is that some of the recipients misuse the cash, badly, and end up without a way to pay for life’s necessities. > > There are various proposals floating around this thread, but a more common one is to replace all / much of the current welfare state with UBI. If that were the case, a foolish UBI recipient that wastes their money instead of paying for life’s necessities might end up without a homeless shelter to sleep in or a soup line to eat from. > > As a cold-hearted conservative, I’m not opposed to letting such foolish people die in the streets, but I’d like to avoid having to pay for both the current welfare state _and_ a UBI because my countrymen who aren’t as pragmatic as me, at the sight of widows and orphans begging for food might lose their nerve and become convinced that we might actually need programs like SNAP and WIC instead of just giving everyone cash. > > Also, I would hope that any sort of welfare program we undertake would result in fewer people begging for food and sleeping in the streets. Your response does not convince me that would be the case if we implemented UBI, at least if it was done in conjunction with repealing other government assistance programs. All of these concerns can be teased out with actual experiments. There have already been some in places like Africa and India, there are some planned for smaller subsets of the population in the US and Canada, but we need data. I suspect that all of the things you and others worry about will be drastically reduced. Having a UBI lifts far more people up and puts them in a better position compared to the current subsistence model of welfare, where we help people survive and barely at that. One of the demoralizing things about being so far away from a financial goal or sense of self sufficiency is looking around at rent prices, the costs for things, the entry level job market wages, and thinking even if you worked hard you still would not be able to afford the basic to live comfortably in many towns. A UBI would provide a kind of financial certainty and stability to such people they never had. It’s like the basic income assistance provided by more well to do parents to their children after college to ease transitions, but on a much wider scale. Poorer people do not have that, and increasingly with the hollowing out of middle class wages that is becoming harder to achieve there as well. [https://www.fastcoexist.com/3066370/income-inequality-keeps-growing-and-its-worse-than-we-thought](https://www.fastcoexist.com/3066370/income-inequality-keeps-growing-and-its-worse-than-we-thought) To me a UBI is not just a tool of subsistence welfare, it is a tool to promote the general welfare. It will naturally redistribute income from those that make more to people that make less, that money will circulate into businesses at a FAR higher rate because it will not be stored in currencies or commodities or realestate or stocks at the same rate, it will be put into a heavier mix of paying down personal debt, paying bills and general expenses, paying for housing, allowing more personal investment in things like a car or an apartment that would have been totally out of reach before. Hosing subsidies alone are not useful, what if a person is living with parents and needs reliable transportation? A UBI being a cash transfer is flexible enough to morph into whatever a person needs on an individual level. It bolsters the ONE type of freedom too many conservatives have forgotten about and near abandoned. Not the Freedom FROM tyranny or higher tax rates or regulations, the freedom TO live and prosper and thrive. The freedom TO have a mother spend a few extra months at home taking care of kids, the freedom TO quit a subsistence entry level job to go back to school to study a trade, the freedom TO move out of home and get your own apartment, the freedom TO get personal debts under control. Now we certainly have the opportunity to have all of those freedoms, but the UBI is the ONLY plausible modern policy tool to bolster the second type of freedom that is so lacking for MILLIONS of human beings in the nation. The freedom to thrive and not merely survive. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2016, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-give-them-the-money-the-argument-for-basic-income/714704/276 "2016-12-21T19:41:12Z")
> [@Salvor](#): > > Incentivise the very people LEAST able to take care of their own kids financially to have more? > > Answer this Septimus, I need an answer here, why is that a good idea? Compassion is not enough. It is _ **precisely to avoid** _ an incentive to have children for the welfare benefit that I advocate providing the child’s UBI “income” in the form of services like healthcare and childcare, rather than cash that can be used at the parent’s discretion. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2016, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-give-them-the-money-the-argument-for-basic-income/714704/277 "2016-12-21T19:48:48Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > I think you overestimate how many friends the sort of person I’m talking about has. > > One of the challenges of UBI-style cash payments (as opposed to septimus-style free stuff) is that some of the recipients misuse the cash, badly, and end up without a way to pay for life’s necessities. > > There are various proposals floating around this thread, but a more common one is to replace all / much of the current welfare state with UBI. If that were the case, a foolish UBI recipient that wastes their money instead of paying for life’s necessities might end up without a homeless shelter to sleep in or a soup line to eat from. > > As a cold-hearted conservative, I’m not opposed to letting such foolish people die in the streets, but I’d like to avoid having to pay for both the current welfare state _and_ a UBI because my countrymen who aren’t as pragmatic as me, at the sight of widows and orphans begging for food might lose their nerve and become convinced that we might actually need programs like SNAP and WIC instead of just giving everyone cash. > > Also, I would hope that any sort of welfare program we undertake would result in fewer people begging for food and sleeping in the streets. Your response does not convince me that would be the case if we implemented UBI, at least if it was done in conjunction with repealing other government assistance programs. I think that you are talking about marginal cases here. Where 95% of people would be made much better off by a UBI, you are concentrating on the 5% or so that would still have problems under such a system. Guess what, they have problems now too. There are private charities that can help out the marginal cases that fall through the cracks. If most people are no longer looking to private charity to help them, the charities can help the few left over more easily. And if someone spends a few days without food, or a few nights on the streets because of some poor decisions, there is a good chance that they will learn to make better decisions in the future, as opposed to the current situation, where if someone makes a bad decision, they are likely to have to suffer the consequences of that decision the rest of their life, long, long after the would have learned their lesson not to make that decision again. ---
**Author:** ![DrCube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a3d4f5/32.png) [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2016, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-give-them-the-money-the-argument-for-basic-income/714704/278 "2016-12-21T20:11:03Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > It is _ **precisely to avoid** _ an incentive to have children for the welfare benefit that I advocate providing the child’s UBI “income” in the form of services like healthcare and childcare, rather than cash that can be used at the parent’s discretion. I think you’re using a jackhammer on that penny nail there. The whole point of UBI is the various benefits that come from cash payments to the poor. For one thing, there is a huge and expensive bureaucracy that goes along with the subsidized and means-tested version of welfare. But cutting checks is basically free, beyond the value of the checks themselves. Furthermore, I don’t know if you’ve heard, but the free market is pretty universally agreed to be the best way to allocate resources and set prices. “Free” and “whatever the government thinks you deserve” was tried and dismally failed in Russia last century. Whatever the parents think their kid needs is far more likely to _actually be_ what their kid needs than whatever you or Uncle Sam have decided in your limited experience. If somebody neglects their kids while blowing their grocery money on crank, well, that’s what DCFS and the foster system are for. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2016, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-give-them-the-money-the-argument-for-basic-income/714704/279 "2016-12-21T20:18:35Z")
I had not thought of **Septimus** idea before but I think it has some merit, besides child care, since as others have noted the UBI is meant to provide for you even if you are not working. The reason being is that I suspect that the amount of money per child needed to provide just a barely adequate living is large enough that some people would have children and neglect them because it’s cheaper. I am sort of swayed to giving food vouchers, clothes, and free(er) healthcare to them, along with maybe $1000 a year for various other expenses. ETA: I think the actual cost of a healthy kid in the household, at least $5000 a year, would be high enough that some people would be having children for the cash. ---
**Author:** ![Salvor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Salvor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Salvor)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2016, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-give-them-the-money-the-argument-for-basic-income/714704/280 "2016-12-21T22:45:39Z")
> [@Ludovic](#): > > I had not thought of **Septimus** idea before but I think it has some merit, besides child care, since as others have noted the UBI is meant to provide for you even if you are not working. > > The reason being is that I suspect that the amount of money per child needed to provide just a barely adequate living is large enough that some people would have children and neglect them because it’s cheaper. I am sort of swayed to giving food vouchers, clothes, and free(er) healthcare to them, along with maybe $1000 a year for various other expenses. > > ETA: I think the actual cost of a healthy kid in the household, at least $5000 a year, would be high enough that some people would be having children for the cash. Those estimates always seemed suspect to me, 5k a year? Really? How much does a kid cost in food per month? utilities used? Expenses related to schooling over a year? The money we pay for schools does not count, talking about the parental burden. I don’t think it is anywhere near that high, clothes do not need to cost that much. I think the people creating those estimates were buying clothes at boutique stores and relying on daycare or nannies or something to get to those inflated costs. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-give-them-the-money-the-argument-for-basic-income/714704.md?page=13) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-give-them-the-money-the-argument-for-basic-income/714704.md?page=15)