Quote:
Originally Posted by jonny24
I agree with a lot of what you said, but you can't be serious about $2000 a month being a living wage.
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It's not really a living wage but it's enough to encourage parts of the population to work less. If you're a 20-something paying 800 a month in rent with roommates it looks pretty good.
Usually when I've heard UBI proposals, part of the idea was to cut back on other entitlements and save some money through lower administration costs. And everyone was supposed to get it, even high income earners, adding more sense of fairness and evening out the level of redistribution. CERB wasn't like this at all. It was a new program, the old programs didn't go away, and it was selectively paid out. I guess maybe this means it should discredit UBI less in the abstract, but it made me skeptical of our current government's ability to handle UBI, and inflation was worse than I expected (though there are other factors like covid-era supply chain issues).
The carbon tax is similar around here. It was supposed to induce people to lower their carbon footprint by paying them. But it doesn't pay out to everyone here in BC. In fact it doesn't pay out even if the largest consumers cut back 100% of their footprint! It was an economically sound policy in principle that in practice was distorted in a way that undermined its usefulness. Oh and we still have $$$$ for rich people buying EVs but the new SkyTrain line will stop partway to UBC and many of those riders will transfer onto diesel buses!