
San Francisco Working on Pilot Basic Income Program - sethbannon
http://hoodline.com/2017/01/san-francisco-to-launch-pilot-basic-income-program
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nickthemagicman
This is going to go badly without education, mental health, and other services
being govt subsidized as well. You need to not only take care of basic
survival but also provide resources for self actualization. Otherwise people
will just sit around.

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dragonwriter
Education, Mental Health, and other services are already government
subsidized.

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nickthemagicman
Not enough. Even a person on AVERAGE income struggles to pay for those
services. They would be completely out of reach to someone on Basic Income.

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dragonwriter
First, with UBI, _everyone_ would be on Basic Income, so "someone on Basic
Income" doesn't define an income level.

Second, currently, those services -- other than K-12 which is universal and
free -- are provided through means-tested non-cash programs. While many
proponents of UBI favor it eventually replacing all means tested programs, the
San Francisco pilot won't (and can't, because SF can't trump state programs.)
So low-income people get support for those not available to average income
folks.

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nickthemagicman
I agree with everything you said. I feel like my point still stands. Without
additional services freely or cheaply available that allow people to achieve
more than just 'survive' I can't imagine any BI experimentations accomplishing
anything more than just subsidizing people to sit around.

