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Give People Money by Annie Lowrey
May. 23rd, 2020 10:14 amGive People Money: How a Universal Basic Income Would End Poverty, Revolutionize Work, And Remake the World
3/5. As usual, the subtitle of a nonfiction book does it absolutely no favors. This is an interesting, brisk overview of UBI, an old idea finding its way to trendy. Lowrey discusses the impacts on poverty (not necessarily as dramatic as many people think, though definitely worthwhile), gender equality, and social justice. I'm not an UBI skeptic, but I am kind of skeptical of a lot of the first order arguments trotted out. For one thing, this supposed technological future that wipes out most jobs has been 30 years away for about a century, if you trace the ideas back. I'm also deeply skeptical of the notion that the cost of a UBI could be underwritten by eliminating pretty much all existing social safety net programs except Medicaid/Medicare. That only makes sense if you think lifting millions of people up to teeter juuuuuust on the poverty line somehow eliminates the mass impacts of inequality. UBI folks in general seem really interested in not talking about inequality, actually, it's really remarkable once you notice it.
TBF part of my crankiness is that I was the recipient of an UBI (well, BI, there's no universal in SSI) and it was absolute hell and left me worse off than I was when it started. Granted that was because of horrific and dehumanizing administrative practices, but I am also skeptical of the idea that an UBI would be virtuous because it would eliminate all those administrative nightmares. Yeah, sure, you betcha. So just like the universally available unemployment insurance, huh? You know, where the governor of a state got on live television and shamed someone he said filed a fake claim because surely his name couldn't be real, and he definitely wasn't getting any money, so there. Spoiler: that was a real person entitled to benefits, oh and you'll never guess the racial valence of the name, so mysterious.
3/5. As usual, the subtitle of a nonfiction book does it absolutely no favors. This is an interesting, brisk overview of UBI, an old idea finding its way to trendy. Lowrey discusses the impacts on poverty (not necessarily as dramatic as many people think, though definitely worthwhile), gender equality, and social justice. I'm not an UBI skeptic, but I am kind of skeptical of a lot of the first order arguments trotted out. For one thing, this supposed technological future that wipes out most jobs has been 30 years away for about a century, if you trace the ideas back. I'm also deeply skeptical of the notion that the cost of a UBI could be underwritten by eliminating pretty much all existing social safety net programs except Medicaid/Medicare. That only makes sense if you think lifting millions of people up to teeter juuuuuust on the poverty line somehow eliminates the mass impacts of inequality. UBI folks in general seem really interested in not talking about inequality, actually, it's really remarkable once you notice it.
TBF part of my crankiness is that I was the recipient of an UBI (well, BI, there's no universal in SSI) and it was absolute hell and left me worse off than I was when it started. Granted that was because of horrific and dehumanizing administrative practices, but I am also skeptical of the idea that an UBI would be virtuous because it would eliminate all those administrative nightmares. Yeah, sure, you betcha. So just like the universally available unemployment insurance, huh? You know, where the governor of a state got on live television and shamed someone he said filed a fake claim because surely his name couldn't be real, and he definitely wasn't getting any money, so there. Spoiler: that was a real person entitled to benefits, oh and you'll never guess the racial valence of the name, so mysterious.
