When talking to people who dislike UBI about UBI, they'll often say both that 'people need a purpose in life' and that 'nobody will work if they get free money'.

JackGreenEarth@lemm.ee to Showerthoughts@lemmy.world – 317 points –

Those seem incompatible to me.

(UBI means Universal Basic Income, giving everyone a basic income, for free)

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Ain’t that just welfare? I thought UBI means that you will get the money, even if you work.

TBH my perspective might be skewed cause I am qualified for disability income, but I choose to work anyway. So I naturally tend to assume that others would do the same.

No, the Canadian CERB payout was basically structured and set up just like a UBI. You could get it even if you were capable of working, I could have had it too, simply by stating I was uncomfortable keeping working under the circumstances (May have been less true for me personally, I was "essential service"). People on welfare just stayed on welfare.

But that’s exactly what they just said isn’t UBI, with UBI you’d get to keep the money while working if you wanted to. “Universal” means everyone gets it, not just people who “claim to be uncomfortable working”.

Every proposal for UBI test projects I have seen, sets UBI as a failsafe cutoff, a guaranteed income, not a provided income. This interpretation of how it would work is ridiculously worse for the economy than the idea I thought I was arguing against.

Well those proposals are mis-using the term. The U is for Universal which means there are no conditions to receiving the money.

well yknow, socialism in theory vs the actual logistics when the government gives it a spin.