Scott Alexander has a great, long post on why he likes Basic Income more than any jobs program. Basic Income not Basic Jobs
There is also a link to the NPR note on guaranteed jobs, programs from politicians
And a good Medium note on Basic Income problems by Simon Sarris After Basic Income, the flood What if we implement UBI and it makes everything worse?
Simon offers an UBI alternative of Basic Agriculture Jobs to minimize the UBI problems.
Scott Alexander’s above post to support UBI rather than Basic Jobs covers many points.
Scott has a follow on Highlights post with many comments from the first post, for UBI or for Basic Jobs, including the note that there’s a longer history on this issue from the Levy Institute, Job Guarantee.
I’ll have to read more — but I’m hugely biased in favor of jobs & job guarantees over basic income. Here’s a good One Pager on the Job Guarantee – or Guaranteed Jobs (which is a better term.)
However, in both cases I favor a Food Debit card, which gives folks the ability to buy food every day, as well as tracking what they buy and limiting the amount they can buy. Similarly Housing Voucher debt card payments to landlords, more paper trail/ audit trail feasible.
A great Civilization Benefit is that nobody starves, nor even fears starving. That’s not the same as choosing badly and then having less than desired.
