[Azrael3000]

Additionally i would argue that in every such programm there will be people that abuse the system. Just because gp knows one such person, does not mean that everybody will be doing that.

The article also mentions that overall the program had a positive impact.

[Griffinsauce]

There is generally a heavy bias to focusing on abuse instead of outcomes. Who cares that there are some false positives if there is a net benefit, it's just noise.

[waterhouse]

A general reason to focus on abuse instead of immediately visible outcomes: if the abuse is not dealt with properly, then that may lead to the abuse becoming increasingly widespread and blatant, which will affect future outcomes.

[plastic-enjoyer]

That is a fairly common argument, but I have yet to see any evidence to support it. In Germany, we are having a similar discussion about the Bürgergeld, i.e. unemployment benefit, which is about people abusing the Bürgergeld to the detriment of taxpayers. However, there is no actual data that show that there are a significant number of people who abuse unemployment benefits in any systematic way. The money that the state loses through tax evasion or the exploitation of tax loopholes is much higher than the money that the state loses through unjustified claims for unemployment benefits. Nevertheless, there are constant calls to further reduce unemployment benefits or make it harder to get and the argument is always something like: There is a thing that is good and benefits people but is abused by a minority, thus we should abolish the good thing.

[dontwannahearit]

In the UK since 2019–20, disability benefit spending has grown by 45% in real terms and incapacity benefit spending by 26%.

https://ifs.org.uk/publications/health-related-benefit-claim...

You can argue that nobody is systematically abusing the system but numbers go up. To those paying the taxes to support these benefits that sort of growth looks like abuse.

[plastic-enjoyer]

> You can argue that nobody is systematically abusing the system but numbers go up. > To those paying the taxes to support these benefits that sort of growth looks like abuse.

Yes, but for 'tax payers' everything looks like abuse until they benefit from the services for which they pay taxes. The favorite hobby of people whose identity is shaped by being a taxpayer is to complain about paying taxes.

[squigz]

What might have happened around 2020 that would result in more people not being able to work and requiring assistance?

[bobim]

Then make it an universal income, because deep down everyone is an artist waiting to be revealed.

[inglor_cz]

Every special interest will claim that "give more money to us" leads to better societal outcomes.

[joe_mamba]

This. I've never met anyone in any setting that complained about receiving too much money.

If you ask pensioners if they should get higher pensions, they'll say YES. If you ask students if they should get more subsidies, they'll say YES. If you ask unemployed people if they should raise unemployment benefits, they'll say YES. If you ask people on minimum wage if they should raise the minimum wage, they'll say YES.

Everyone is quick to be very generous when it's from other peoples' money without accounting for the second order effects of those decisions, which is especially a big problem of the extended welfare state, since everyone pays taxes and so then everyone wants more and more subsidies so they can feel they're getting their money's worth out of the system, or else they feel cheated.

[jasonkester]

I'm pretty sure I'm on record here on HN complaining about receiving covid relief checks that I don't need, and that I would much rather that money went to people who were actually struggling.

Personally, I want people on the high end of earnings (such as myself) to be taxed more so that a basic income scheme like this can be available for anybody who wants it. Charge me an extra $300/month and give it to some random 24 year old so that he can smoke weed and play his guitar. He'll get more use out of it than I will.

One day, that kid will decide that living in a crap shared apartment is getting a bit old and he'll grow some ambition, get a real job, and eventually start earning enough to help sponsor the next round of deadbeats.

[TheSpiceIsLife]

> One day, that kid will decide that living in a crap shared apartment is getting a bit old and he'll grow some ambition, get a real job, and eventually start earning enough to help sponsor the next round of deadbeats.

Wow! You’re optimistic!

The data shows that having at least one patent on welfare is a strong predictor that a child will grow up to spend their life on welfare. Having both parents on welfare almost guarantees it.

Having single young men on welfare is one of the worst things a society can do for young men. They’d be much better off spending four years in compulsory service and learning to be useful.

[jasonkester]

The idea is to give people enough of a safety net that they don't starve to death. But really, it's kinda crap to live in a shared apartment with a bunch of broke college students, living off giant bags of potatoes. Most of us have done that, and now that we can afford not to, we don't.

I'm sure there will be plenty of people with low enough ambition that they'll just stay there, subsisting. But I don't doubt they'd be doing that in their mom's basement without basic income, so I imagine that society will survive just fine.

[inglor_cz]

"anybody who wants it"

The extent of "anybody" is the detail that contains the devil.

Anybody who? Citizen? Asylum seeker? A person who obtained asylum or other forms of protection? A 'tolerated' person who was not deported? (Duldung in Germany.)

Europe is already politically ablaze, and one of the factors of this blaze is "too many foreigners from the Third World as recipients of welfare". If you introduce any basic income scheme that doesn't totally exclude non-citizens, you can expect the people smuggling gangs of Libya and Turkey to advertise it tomorrow as a next pull factor for their business.

[joe_mamba]

Illegal mass unskilled migration to EU, only for them to leech off welfare and be an overall net negative to society and the state's coffers, is intentional by calculated design.

Here's how it works: You take 1000 Euros in taxes from a productive German/West-EU citizen, and then redistribute that to 5 migrants giving them 200 Euro each, so you lose one angry voter but you gain 5 happy new ones.

The government is using your tax money to buy and replace your votes, this way the mainstream politicians cemented in the status quo parties, can keep making your life miserable with no accountability or repercussions for them and their careers, because your votes now become irrelevant.

And for good measure, in case the citizens vote for the so called "extremist" parties that promise to counter this obvious scam, you just slander them as nazis/$-FOBES/Putin-supporters with no proof, and form a 'cordon sanitaire' around them to take away their democratic representation, or just ban those parties altogether from elections so you can rule undisputed while masquerading as democracy.

[CalRobert]

“ One day, that kid will decide that living in a crap shared apartment is getting a bit old and he'll grow some ambition, get a real job, and eventually start earning enough to help sponsor the next round of deadbeats.”

In Ireland their best chance of having their own place is emigration or waiting for their parents to die.

[xienze]

> Personally, I want people on the high end of earnings (such as myself) to be taxed more so that a basic income scheme like this can be available for anybody who wants it. Charge me an extra $300/month and give it to some random 24 year old so that he can smoke weed and play his guitar. He'll get more use out of it than I will.

You know you CAN donate money to the government any time you want, right? Do you do that? Practice what you preach, don't hide behind "oh if only the government made me do it."

> One day, that kid will decide that living in a crap shared apartment is getting a bit old and he'll grow some ambition, get a real job, and eventually start earning enough to help sponsor the next round of deadbeats.

This is the critical problem you and others like you make: assuming that everyone is a reasonable, honest, ambitious person just like you are. Many people -- not all, but a big enough proportion to be a problem -- aren't. And when we make it possible to actually make "do drugs and play videogames all day" a viable lifestyle, there's loads of people who will take the government up on the offer. And remember, they can vote themselves UBI raises.

[jmye]

> You know you CAN donate money to the government any time you want, right? Do you do that? Practice what you preach, don't hide behind "oh if only the government made me do it."

You know we can also advocate for higher taxes, given that it's astronomically more meaningful for everyone to give ten cents than for me to give a few dollars, right? Or did you think this was an insightful, valuable addition to the discussion that no one has ever suggested before? Is this the comment section of a local newspaper? Good god.

> there's loads of people who will take the government up on the offer.

Prove it. How many are loads? What, specifically, do you think UBI actually amounts to?

[deaux]

Crabs in a bucket.