“The trial comes amid mounting evidence to suggest that giving money to those who need it is a surprisingly effective solution to poverty.”
IThe issue with trials like this. Is the fact the participants know they are temporary.
There is a big difference between the things you can do with a short term cash flow. And a long term one.
And homelessness is more often about a lack of consistant income then short term.
The difference and how people choose to use it. Often leads to false data.
The UK pilot will recruit 360 people in England and Wales. Half will continue to receive their current level of support, while the other half will receive extra financial assistance, albeit not directly. The charity Greater Change will hold and spend money on behalf of participants to ensure that their benefits payments are uninterrupted.
So the homeless person is not given cash. The charity is given a cash fund to spend on an individual.
This one fact diffuses most criticisms of this scheme, but it keeps getting reported with clickbait headlines.
Why not just do UBI for everyone?
Government provided/subsidized and well kept basic housing would also be extremely helpful in reducing poverty.
Everyone?
Because I don’t think Mick Jagger needs UBI anymore than he needs his winter fuel allowance.
UBI has to be funded by taxation on the rich. If you give Mick 2k/mo but tax him 5M/mo i think you’re coming out ahead, and you’re avoiding all the bureaucracy of deciding who does and doesn’t get the 2k… Which would be large, complex and prohibitive.
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I’d rather not set a precedent for it being means-gated. Some people who don’t need it getting free money is an acceptable tradeoff to ensure that everyone who needs it does get it.
Appreciated.
Don’t get me wrong, giving money directly to those who need it most is a good start, but in isolation it will not go far to resolve the issue - people need housing, a support network, empathetic and accessible healthcare, some fucking stability and security.
Also - knowing how bad, by design, our benefits and homelessness “support” systems are, how neoliberal our government is, and how much worse they’re already aiming to make them, I am extremely sceptical of this being applied without those it’s supposed to help having to jump through a million impossible hoops, and somehow, some rich person ending up with a multi million pound contract for something or other.
Here’s hoping it provides at least some real relief to a few people while it lasts, but yeah, I’m not pinning much long term hope on this.
somehow, some rich person ending up with a multi million pound contract for something or other.
Domestic terrorist spotted. Why do u hate sucess?
“At a time of severely strained public finances, we are keen to learn whether we can use money more effectively and more efficiently to tackle deep-rooted societal problems like homelessness,” said Michael Sanders, professor of public policy at King’s College London, which is leading the trial.
Every one of these economists should be made homeless, jobless and their assets frozen to see how they handle it.
Why is it that private finances are never talked about? Not corps but people, especially workers (and that includes involuntarily unemployed).
If you give them money why would normal people slave for daddy capital?
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Funny because the evidence seems to suggest as the article reported—it will help lift more people out of poverty than not doing it. That’s what this trial is intending to confirm.
What’s your evidence that they’re wrong?
So starve them then? Cannot buy food, cannot buy drugs. Cannot be a druggie if you starve to death.
Who is better to decide what will help a person than that person?
It’s weird that conservatism rejects this simple idea that is just one side of the invisible hand of the market.
also like, conservatives love to say “pull yourself up by your bootstraps”, and what can be more in line with that than giving people money to bootstrap themselves with?
it’s almost like that phrase actually just means “poor people should die so i don’t have to look at them”
