You're free to correct me if I'm wrong here, but it doesn't sound like Cushman is advocating giving people the absolute bare minimum simply to avoid starvation. We already have that after a fashion, it's called food stamps, and you can indeed try boostrapping a company while supporting yourself with foodstamps- it's been done. It sounds more like Cushman is advocating a number such as "$30k".
You can't pay down a debt, you can't buy shoes for that interview, you can't get a phone number, move to a better job market, afford first month/lastmonth/security on an apartment on a bus route, etc. And what is and isn't allowed is a constant political issue.
The point is cash lets some one target their own pain points while cutting down the inefficiency of needing a bureaucracy to define the aid packages.
Also a years wage from some shit retail job isn't 30k, it's more like 15k.
Not saying food stamps rock, but my parent approaches the issue as if I/we have royally decreed the poor should continue to starve in ditches. I felt it appropriate to point out that the USA generally (GENERALLY) doesn't let people starve in ditches.
Maybe not that many are starving to death, but many people in the USA don't get the food that they need.
In 2010, 17.2 million households, 14.5 percent of households (approximately one in seven), were food insecure, the highest number ever recorded in the United States [1]
It is completely relevant. The ancestor post was making the argument that we already have a minimal support system in the USA that anyone can take advantage of a pursue their dreams. They just need to take food-stamps/etc. This doesn't seem to be working so instead, we need to give them $30k/year.
My point is that we aren't even providing minimal life support to everyone yet, so to say that it has failed is premature.
Show me a system where healthy food is accessible and free, and safe housing is also accessible, convenient and free where people are still struggling to invest and improve their situation and then I will believe that it doesn't work.
Yes, giving people the minimum to avoid starvation seems to make them dependent on that income. Giving people enough money to effectively take money off the table frees them to make intelligent decisions about how to invest not only that capital, but their remaining time and energy, greatly boosting their productivity.
To be clear, though, I advocate for evidence-based policy, and I've seen encouraging but not conclusive evidence. I've got a hunch on this one, and some notable economists seem to agree with me, but if we're wrong and it would hurt our society then... we shouldn't do that.
I was responding to the sentence, "If we just freely hand out a living wage to everybody, nobody will be working the crappy jobs and our world will fall apart."
I went with the "bare minimum" thing because a sub-living wage is a dying wage.
