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I see comments about universal basic income all the time, but rarely any specifics.
What kind of program, exactly, would you propose?
How would it deal with the obvious problem cases that never seem to get discussed?
@cazabon UBI Works actually did some great work on answering those questions. Can find their information here: https://www.ubiworks.ca/groweconomy#:~:text=Basic%20Income%20could%20grow%20our,900%2C000%20jobs%20in%2025%20years.
Basic Income Canada also did their own report on Basic Income: https://basicincomecanada.org/policy_options/
There are a few different ways to go on Basic Income but it's certainly doable and would be beneficial to have such a national income support program.
Actually, they don't appear to have addressed them at all - which is what I usually find when I look into these proposals. Now, I may have missed something, because I only skimmed the 96-page economic report from ubiworks.ca, and the 63-page policy options document from basicincomecanda.org, but I saw no reference to, or even any indication they were even aware of, the basic problem of the moral hazard.
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Under any UBI scheme, some people will choose not to work - not even doing useful community service. I don't know what the exact percentage of people who choose this will be, but I know for certain it will not be zero.
So how does a UBI proposal like these deal with that problem?
Is the answer "We'll just ignore it, and the people paying net taxes will just have to eat the cost of those people remaining voluntarily idle"?
What is proposed to deal with it?
@cazabon Real world example seen in Alaska (where they have their own program that's like basic income) that it hasn't caused a massive downshift in people working. Part time work actually increased by 17 percent: https://futurism.com/basic-income-part-time-work
Stockton, California a similar impact with an increased number of people working with their basic income experiment: https://www.npr.org/2021/03/04/973653719/california-program-giving-500-no-strings-attached-stipends-pays-off-study-finds
Two examples but similarly elsewhere having basic income style programs also hasn't caused massive unemployment.
@cazabon As for the argument against it hurting the work ethic there are good arguments to be found that counter that: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/7/20/15821560/basic-income-critiques-cost-work-negative-income-tax
Regarding the work ethic and that vox.com article...
That is certainly ... a way to look at it. "People won't choose to not work" is nice to think, but it appears to be a theory that is utterly uncontaminated by exposure to actual human behaviour.
Western societies have people choosing to not work right now, which would appear to disprove the theory that they won't choose it.