Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by tgv 1608 days ago
> There is a tremendous amount of overhead involved in current welfare programs

Take the salaries of the people involved, and divide that over the entire country. Will that suffice? I don't think so, because it isn't as if 25% of the population is involved in distributing welfare.

> If UBI could be implemented in around the same cost as the welfare programs it replaces, it would have a net zero effect on inflation.

Not necessarily. If the government gave everybody a minimum wage extra, landlords could raise their prices further, shops, restaurants, construction firms, etc. would have to increase salaries to maintain lowly paid staff and raise prices, etc. There's a distinct risk of inflation involved in handing out money.