SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
The idea of giving people free money is so radical, even some recipients think it's too good to be true.
Later this year, roughly 6,000 people in Kenya will receive regular monthly payments of about a dollar a day, no strings attached, as part of a policy experiment commonly known as basic income.
People will get to use the money for whatever they want: food, clothing, shelter, gambling, alcohol — anything — all in an effort to reduce poverty.
...
But instead of accepting the cash transfers with open arms, many Kenyans have recently been saying "No, thank you." It's a legitimate concern: As GiveDirectly moves into its larger basic income experiment, the last thing it wants is for people to turn down the money.
Basic Income is a concept often mentioned on SN, and this is an experiment to do exactly that. Many potential recipients of the basic income are skeptical about the goals of the experiment, though, and rumors have arisen that it's tied to a cult or devil worship.
Opponents of such wealth transfers argue they lead to indolence, while another school of thought believes they would reduce poverty and directly produce economic stimulus because the poor would immediately spend the money.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by theluggage on Monday September 12 2016, @04:26PM
I think most of that has to do with the fact that automation isn't quite there yet....
...and smaller shops that handle low volume which cant justify the cost of automation.
...and one factor in that is that there's no pressure to invest in automation - let alone do expensive R&D in automation - when the price of labour is kept artificially low by outsourcing it to low-wage economies and/or having a welfare system that enables below-living wages.
Basic Income could even speed up the move to automation if it makes people less willing to work for peanuts: that all comes down to the fine-tuning of the tax clawback rate (how much of the extra income do you get to keep?)