I'm all in for UBI or UBI supplements. Some recipients may cheat but the majority would be helped through rough times. My thought has always been UBI would help those that need help and those that use BI would be stimulating their
demographic, very little of that money would leave their neighborhood and very little would leaving the country. So the government gets it all back eventually. If BI could replace some of the degrading and over stuffed bureaucratic assistant programs currently in place that would be a bonus.
As a retired pediatric nurse, I remember how difficult it was to get low-wage parents in for teaching when their child was diagnosed with a chronic illness. These teaching sessions could be very complex, and required many visits to the hospital. The parents had to choose between doing the best for their child vs less (or no) income that week. Brutal.
This may be the superior option, but it is administratively or politically feasible?
i) How will we define a "low income worker"? (how do we define the cutoff level)
ii) Is it politically feasible to implement a universal basic income for low income workers but no unemployed people?
iii) What is the impact on the labour market of applying a UBI only to those who are employed (or self declared to be employed)?
iv) Is this being proposed as a COVID recovery measure, or as a permanent measure? Either way, I don't think that framing this as a collective societal "thank you" is a good criteria for proposing policy with such far reaching effects.
I don't understand how something can be both a supplement and an alternative source of income. If it is a supplement, then people will naturally use it to increase their quality of life (yay), but that means that when sick, they will still choose between going in to work or taking a large (but no longer 100%) income cut. So a supplement is not an alternative source of income.
Probably the easiest way to mandate sick leave is to require all employers to offer a base level of benefits- medical drug sick leave etc. I would suspect that the majority of companies already offer this. My niece, for example, worked at Timmys and had some benefits. Mandating a minimum level would cost the government nothing and go along ways towards solving this issue
I'm all in for UBI or UBI supplements. Some recipients may cheat but the majority would be helped through rough times. My thought has always been UBI would help those that need help and those that use BI would be stimulating their
demographic, very little of that money would leave their neighborhood and very little would leaving the country. So the government gets it all back eventually. If BI could replace some of the degrading and over stuffed bureaucratic assistant programs currently in place that would be a bonus.
As a retired pediatric nurse, I remember how difficult it was to get low-wage parents in for teaching when their child was diagnosed with a chronic illness. These teaching sessions could be very complex, and required many visits to the hospital. The parents had to choose between doing the best for their child vs less (or no) income that week. Brutal.
This may be the superior option, but it is administratively or politically feasible?
i) How will we define a "low income worker"? (how do we define the cutoff level)
ii) Is it politically feasible to implement a universal basic income for low income workers but no unemployed people?
iii) What is the impact on the labour market of applying a UBI only to those who are employed (or self declared to be employed)?
iv) Is this being proposed as a COVID recovery measure, or as a permanent measure? Either way, I don't think that framing this as a collective societal "thank you" is a good criteria for proposing policy with such far reaching effects.
I don't understand how something can be both a supplement and an alternative source of income. If it is a supplement, then people will naturally use it to increase their quality of life (yay), but that means that when sick, they will still choose between going in to work or taking a large (but no longer 100%) income cut. So a supplement is not an alternative source of income.
This sounds amazing, but no mention of the cost or how it gets paid for. You can't make policy just based on feeling good.
Regarding sick leave my understanding is the Federal government already offers this.
Probably the easiest way to mandate sick leave is to require all employers to offer a base level of benefits- medical drug sick leave etc. I would suspect that the majority of companies already offer this. My niece, for example, worked at Timmys and had some benefits. Mandating a minimum level would cost the government nothing and go along ways towards solving this issue