[quote=FlyerInHi][quote=bearishgurl] Um, FIH, if people “spend” all their UBI on consumables, how are they going to live every month and eat? $10K doesn’t go very far, ESP in CA! What am I missing, here?[/quote]
UBI is the minimum security blanket. People can still work and earn more. When people feel secure, they spend more into the real economy.
China is trying to do that with health care, minimum wages, etc… Basically what we did with New Deal and Great Society. UBI would be going to the next level.
Granted, there is an optimal level. We need to experiment and find that level.[/quote]$833.33 month isn’t an “optimal level” to live in CA and never will be …. that is, unless someone else (parents/spouse/relative) is paying your bills. It’s extremely difficult for someone to live on $833.33 month in “flyover country.” Only if one is on Medicaid/Medicare and has heavily subsidized housing can it work … and even then, it doesn’t “work” very well.
A LOT of people in the country have SS benefits or SSI equivalent to $833.33 mo. In CA, they cannot live on this paltry sum and they certainly can’t live on it and also pay the property taxes, insurance and maintenance on a house, even if they “inherited it” free and clear! (I’ve seen multiple examples of this and it’s not pretty … at all :=0) The vast majority of these very low-income Californians who aren’t longtime homeowners (w/paid-off homes) and aren’t (fortunate) “heirs” of a CA home are forced to move into a run down mobile home in the interior of the state or forced to move in with relatives who pay their bills (in or out of state) for the rest of their lives.
