[susan_hall]

I am hoping the slow expansion of Social Security and Disability will eventually bring Universal Basic Income to the USA. This is the only likely route for the USA to get UBI, since the political forces opposing UBI are very strong. But if we can push to expand the definition of "disability" and if we can lower the age of Social Security, then eventually we can get close to something like UBI. And hopefully, once we've passed some critical threshold (which might be 30% of the population or 50% or 80% or some other number) then the public will see the need to reorganize the way these programs are run, and hopefully when that reform is enacted, we will get a real UBI, implemented in a clear and concise way.

[pjc50]

> push to expand the definition of "disability"

I think this is very much the wrong way to do it - you're suggesting that we can leverage people's existing thinking that "disabled == deserving" to expand who is considered "deserving". Whereas it could well go the other way and leave the public thinking "disabled == skiving". Plus the fact that encouraging people to label themselves "disabled" is debilitating and demoralising.

The only way to get UBI is to break the negative associations of voluntarily not working.