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by undersuit 3805 days ago
My ideas of basic income always end up with the first implementation of basic income to be an amount of money just barely above what is needed to keep an individual above poverty. We have to ease society into this transition, and just like we shouldn't give the BI in one lump yearly sum(especially since most basic income proposals include almost completely gutting other safety nets) we shouldn't make perverse incentives to collect additional BI by neglecting their children.

Maybe for the first 20 years of the program every child affords a parent some additional BI based on the child's age. Raising a child when health care is inexpensive(my vision of BI does include pretty much free health care), job's are optional, and schooling is free makes the most expensive times to be early in the child's life when they are constantly outgrowing their clothing and beds and using up diapers at an impressive rate.

Eventually the amount of BI awarded becomes sufficient for most family situations(Star Trek post-scarcity style) or other factors like perfect birth control allow us to remove the child BI bonus.