One of the things about UBI is that these pilot programs aren't UBI, because they aren't universal. Giving a segment of the population free money is going to benefit that segment, no question. Welfare and Quantitative Easing are both examples of that. But when you make it universal, my economics intuition says that the effect will be washed out by a commensurate rise in prices.<p>Or put another way, you can subsidize the few at the expense of the many, but you can't subsidize the many at their own expense and have it result in a positive effect.
I wish there was less focus on distributing money and more focus on free water, food and shelter for everyone<p>It's crazy to me in the UK that we have free healthcare, where you can get free water food and shelter if you're ill but if you're healthy you can go back on the street with potentially no food water shelter
Increasingly my thought is that UBI or a minimum living wage (enforced perhaps through an employer of last resort who sets an effective wage floor) <i>must</i> be balanced by a tax on economic rents, else the gains simply flow to rentiers.<p>This is a "land tax", but writ large and applying across all (or most) rent-seeking goods, including especially productive (as distinguished from strictly financial) asset classes.<p>In the case of Stockton, and most other West Coast cities, this would mean land taxes to incentivise further development and housing supply, as well as updating zoning and building codes to allow denser and mixed-use development.<p>The wildfire situation in the <i>already</i> housing-constrained SF North Bay strikes me as a tremendous opportunity to reconsider housing, rents, asset taxes, and zoning.
The problem with UBI is that it doesn't promote social behavior. In fact it promotes anti-social behavior, since a UBI recipient need not provide any value to his community as a condition of this benefit.<p>Charity is not a legitimate role for government.