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This post is a resonse to the question ["What are the pros and cons of the UBI?"] (@stonemasoner/week-12-questions-universal-basic-income) posed by @stonemasoner.

What Is Universal Basic Income?

In Steve Trost’s Lecture, he describes universal basic income as a dividend that would pay each United States citizen 9,000 dollars per year and 150 percent of 9,000 once citizens were considered elderly. The reason for more money once you are older is to help cover medical expenses. Universal basic income has many different pros and cons.

What Are The Pros?

One of the pros would be that this would allow people the opportunity to get out of a bad situation. They would now have the money to move. Another pro is that this would allow us to stop all other welfare programs. This would be our sole welfare program. In the perfect world, this would mean the defeat of poverty across the United States because everyone would at least get 9,000 dollars every year.

What Are The Cons?

I think the biggest negative impact this would have is on the job market. It has been shown throughout covid that if people are able to receive money from the government, they would rather stay home than work. That then hinders the economy because we do not have enough people to work. Another thing Dr. Trost brought up is that with a universal basic income, we could go without a minimum wage. I would be interested to see how this works out. I think without a minimum wage this would push even less people to work because everyone is so use to getting around eight dollars an hour or higher that if an employer offered them five in their mind, it would not be worth the time.

What Do I Think?

Overall, where we are at now with the economy in the United States, I do not think this is the way to go. The cons outweigh the pros currently. I believe this would be a great future plan when more factory or fast-food jobs are taken over by machines.