You may have noticed on social media calls for a universal basic income or UBI. Possibly it’s something to do with the wage subsidies etc the government is handing out; I don’t know. In any case, whatever the reasons, a UBI is a really bad idea.
Firstly, it needs to be remembered that the payout by the government is a one-off due to exceptional circumstances. The government isn’t going to hand out wage subsidies all year every year.
In order for a UBI to be affordable, those on welfare will need to be paid a lot less than what they currently get. I wonder if the likes of Marama Davidson will be so keen on a UBI once she sees the numbers?
Secondly, UBI sounds like a really cool idea from a libertarian perspective. It’s simple, minimal bureaucracy, and it replaces the bureaucratic mess known as our welfare system. Plus it’s all about personal responsibility. You can either spend the money or save it responsibly, or waste it. It’s up to you. What’s not to like?
The problem is that the real world doesn’t work that way. Shit, for example, happens. Even if you’re the most responsible person in the world shit may happen where you lose everything including all the UBI you put away for a rainy day.
As for personal responsibility just look at the useless or wasteful public spending on nice to have things by councils and such. If we can’t expect councils to be responsible with money how can we expect the average Joe Bloggs?
We can see a UBI won’t work by looking at ACC (which started as a kind of UBI for people who injured themselves).
ACC started as a universal, no exceptions, compensation scheme. Then the media came along and started doing stories about prisoners getting compensation after injuring themselves trying to escape. Basically the equivalent of John Campbell doing stories about people on high salaries like politicians or heads of businesses getting UBI even though they obviously don’t need it. Anyway, these stories got the public’s back up and before you knew it politicians were pushing through exceptions to ACC.
And of course with exceptions come bureaucracy which is why ACC is the bureaucratic monster it is now.
And the same thing will happen with a UBI, even without the media doing stories about Tongan families not being able to live on the pittance they get from the UBI while the rich give their UBI away. Politicians just can’t help themselves.
In theory, a UBI can work. But it’d need to be implemented in such a way that politicians couldn’t touch it. Also, the government of the day would have to know that, at least initially, people at the bottom would be much worse off while those at the top would be better off, which is a recipe for political suicide.
Whatever way you look at it a UBI is just a really bad idea.