[benihana]

>Combined with some progressive taxation this works out to be massively more efficient and helpful than most other forms of welfare.

Is this empirically proven somewhere? Or is that what its proponents are saying? Forgive me if I'm a little cynical when someone tells me an idea they support is a much better form of welfare than what we currently have but doesn't back it up with proof.

[dragonwriter]

"Efficiency" is ambiguous. In terms of (benefit dollars delivered)/(benefit dollars delivered + administrative costs) its almost true-by-definition, since the absence of means testing removes most of the source of administrative requirements in traditional welfare programs.

In terms of effectiveness at achieving the goals of welfare programs, it is far less clear, though there are pretty clear arguments that certain features of basic income -- particularly the lack of disincentives to outside income -- are beneficial in that regard. OTOH, there are also pretty clear arguments that the lack of need-based focus -- which is intimately tied to the lack of disincentives -- are potentially negative, especially when replacing welfare programs whose existing qualifications are based around special needs (e.g., programs qualified by particular disabilities) that increase costs rather than simple lack of resources (e.g., income/asset-qualified poverty support programs.)

[MarcusVorenus]

How would you go about getting supporting evidence for something that hasn't been tried yet? At the very least we would save a ton of money on bureaucracy and corruption.

[dragonwriter]

> How would you go about getting supporting evidence for something that hasn't been tried yet?

You would get supporting evidence for each of a set of propositions, from which the efficiency (however that is operationalized in context) of the particular plan being proposed follows.

The whole point of the scientific method is that it allows us to have justifiable (even if not certain) evidence-based predictions of things that haven't been tried yet.

[JackFr]

Why? Do you think the hundreds of thousands of people who work in the social services industry would sit idly by while their jobs are eliminated? Of course not. And that is the real reason it will never be implemented. For this to be palatable to the right, it's got to credibly eliminate a large existing bureaucracy -- something which might be palatable to the left, but for the specific interest of that bureaucracy.