[gwright]

There are people today not returning to work because unemployment plus the $600 extra/week from the COVID-19 program means that it makes more sense to just be unemployed.

I'm not saying this is directly analogous to what might happen with a UBI program but it certainly demonstrates that there is a price point where some people will choose not to work.

I feel like this is one of the major weaknesses of the UBI concept. When people believe the safety net is designed to help people who find themselves in unfortunate circumstances beyond their control, then they can support the idea of taxes to fund the safety net. If on the other hand there are significant number of people who choose not to work, then it is very difficult for those who are working to accept that they should be funding that choice.

[samatman]

On the contrary, this demonstrates the major strength of the UBI concept.

Unemployment is means-tested. If you are paid more to not work than to work, it's economically rational to not work.

It's also against the rules of unemployment to keep collecting it when you've been offered a job, but this is difficult to enforce.

With UBI, this isn't a problem: a temporary bump in UBI in response to some future pandemic crisis would be in addition to any work someone could or couldn't get.

Andrew Yang's proposal of $1000 a month should be enough to survive on... maybe. But if someone could make another $500 on top of it, that's going to be a much higher quality of life. I'm confident most people would take that job if they could get it.