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Stockton’s Basic-Income Experiment Pays Off (theatlantic.com)
35 points by rectang on March 4, 2021 | hide | past | favorite | 2 comments


> In the United States, poverty is used as a cudgel to get people to work.

This is such a bizarre statement. Poverty isn't something that is engineered, encourage, or utilized by "the system" to get people to work. Poverty is the natural result of not working.

Here's some data:[0]

For households in the bottom income quintile, *63% have ZERO income earners.* For households in the bottom income quintile, the mean household has .4 income earners.

For households in the middle income quintile, 15% have ZERO income earners. For households in the middle income quintile, the mean household has 1.4 income earners.

For households in the top income quintile, 4% have ZERO income earners. For households in the top income quintile, the mean household has 2.1 income earners.

[0] https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/explaining-us-income-inequali...


> Poverty is the natural result of not working.

Many things are the natural base state of living. Like disease, famine, short life span, etc.

It is a good thing to remember that we are humans. We don't accept freezing in winter: we build houses and heat them. We don't accept our children dying en mass: we vaccinate them.

We are humans. We strive for something much much better than "natural": we want what is good.




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