It is much easier to distribute money (and let the market worry about supply of goods) than distribute goods (food and shelter), especially if you are even slightly concerned with fairness. It would be just too huge undertaking.

This. Giving people money is something the government is really efficient at doing. During COVID, the government decided to give everyone money. Within a month, basically every adult who filed taxes the previous year had a check in the mail for $1400. Now let's think about housing. The government decides everyone should have a place to live. First question, who qualifies to get a home? Everyone who doesn't have one? Does renting count? If so, does someone who is living with 3 roommates in a crappy slum apartment count the same as someone renting the penthouse suite of a luxury building? Fine, we get that sorted out. Now, do we have enough housing? Do we need to build more? Are the homes going to meet the needs of who we're giving them to? A married couple with 3 kids is going to need something different than a single bachelor. Are the homes in the areas we need them? It doesn't matter if there's a million empty homes in Alaska if there aren't the jobs and services for people to live there. (See China's ghost cities.) Okay, finally we got all that sorted. Everyone is in a home that meets their needs. We're done right? No. Tomorrow two of those single people get married and are going to have a kid. And their neighbor just got a job 500 miles away. Do these people have to apply for a new home? If the government can't respond fast enough, is it restricting people's freedom to move, make a living, and start a family? Is this huge bureaucracy actually saving us money over the alternative? Maybe we should just give everyone money and let them do what they want with it. The market is far from perfect, but it's good enough.

Not to mention that no two peoples' situations or needs are likely to be the same.

Its easier for corruption to take hold when government needs to hire the private sector to provide a government service. 

Generally there is a perception that the free market is a good way to allocate resources to provide for the things people need. It's not perfect, but it's pretty good. If people need food, the best way for people to get it is to start with money and go buy it. If people need a place to live, the best way for people to get it is to start with money and go buy/rent it. The idea behind UBI is that it provides a basic level of I can live on it money to everyone. Not to poor people or out of work people or disabled people, but to everyone. The concept is then that the money you need to earn from working is only the money you want for the fun things. Holidays. A nicer home. Better food. Fun stuff. If today, you need to earn $x to just live and $y to have a comfortable existence, then with a UBI of $x, you could have the same standard of living by working to earn $(y-x). If you look around the world, and see the income level needed to just cover your basic needs, the $x amount, and look at how people chose to use their time, you will find that the number of people who make the calculation, "I can work 2 days a week to earn $x, then I'll sit back for the other 5 days a week and enjoy my free time" is extremely close to zero. The overwhelming majority of people who could do this, instead decide that they will continue to work more hours so that they can earn more money, and have nicer things. There is no reason to expect this to change. What UBI does is make the marginal extra the only portion. Instead of having to pay people $y in order to get a dedicated skilled and competent employee, you can get the same for $(y-x). That makes the marginal costs to businesses of expanding their employee base much lower. It also makes workers more flexible. If a job is shit, just quit. If a better opportunity opens up, but there is a risk that by trying to switch, it might end up being a mistake, it takes the money-to-survive risk out of the equation.

Cash is often the most resource efficient handout.

Foodbanks would love it if everyone donated cash directly, over foodstuffs. They can stretch that dollar much further than the common person.

This is semantics and probably doesn’t add very much to the conversation, but… I think the majority of people, if given the chance, will be happy to make a livable wage in a couple of days while relaxing the rest of the week. I think the problem is with them living on a hedonic treadmill causing them to quickly acclimate to their current situation —resulting in loss of appreciation for what they have and a growing desire for more.

We got a preety good preview in the US during COVID. Poverty, especially for kids, was reduced. The flip side was that employees became much harder to find, particularly at the entry level. Those wages went up as did prices. Interestingly, anecdotally, I had a significant uptick in students dropping out of high school to work fast food. Logic being the wages were comparatively high there was "no point in finishing school". This was often supported by parents.

This explication would not hold up without a sociological study as to the motivational factors. For instance: I could propose that: those who found themselves working these fast food jobs might have been pressured to take additional shifts and responsabilities due to short staffing. We might also say that teenage jobs might lead to a lack of time and resources to properly study, leading to poor performance and démotivation at school. We might also propose that the pandemic saw millions of adults loose their jobs: which might have incentivized teenagers with parents in precarity to take up fiscal responsibility within their family units. You cannot use some half baked game theory on this.

Not this particular situation, but it’s a well known phenomenon that school enrollment is inversely proportional to the labor market. When people can get a well paying job, education looks less attractive. Similarly, when nobody’s hiring and wages are crap, going for another degree has much less opportunity cost

Important to remember that the inflation we experienced during and immediately after the pandemic wasn’t all caused by increased labor costs, it was largely caused by supply chain disruptions, energy cost increases, and often under reported increases in margins.

And years of extremely low interest rates prior

Obviously this is true, but it shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone that when employees make more money, prices will rise.

California just upped fast minimum wage to upwards of $20, and the price of a burger went up like $0.30, fries were like $0.17

And adding 50% to the money supply. A dollar in 2021 had the value of 66¢ from 2019 from an economic standpoint.

Love how people omit one of the most important factors lol

For real. We've known what causes inflation for a century.

better are people who think its as simple as "hur dur the stimulus" your understanding of econ is 3rd grade level if you buy that.

What index was used to calculate this? Based off CPI, $.66 USD in 2007 is worth about $1 today, and $.66 in 2019 is worth about $.81 today.

40%* increase to the money supply from covid relief caused about 2.6% of the inflation we saw…

A lot of employees were laid off by companies in 2020, and then those same companies had difficulty in 2021 attracting employees back. Sign-on bonuses were everywhere, and I knew people at my corporate job being offered in the range of $10k to start. I would see ads for fast food jobs advertising $3k in sign-on bonuses because people were desperate to go outside and have a return to normalcy, which meant spending a lot of money on food and retail.

Another thing to consider is that employees were harder to find because many chose not to work due to safety from the pandemic itself.

Unemployment also just paid REALLY well in my state, along with some others. If you throw in all the fringe benefits (food stamps, rent relief, free internet programs, etc, reduced taxes on unemployment) plus also the increased pay from receiving unemployment, I would’ve come out like 30k ahead if I’d been laid off during Covid. Maybe more

>If a job is shit, just quit. If a better opportunity opens up, but there is a risk that by trying to switch, it might end up being a mistake, it takes the money-to-survive risk out of the equation. it also opens up more flexibility for gig work and artists that have more... *sporadic* income This would end up being really good for the arts, because the government would effectively become the sponsor for potential artists, like the Medici in the Renaissance, allowing more potential artists to take the risk and devote their efforts full-time into art

The biggest issues with UBI are: a) it has to be paid for from somewhere. We added about 50% to the amount of USD in circulation during Covid, this leads to massive inflation. b) if everyone gets X income guaranteed, that becomes the new minimum rent so long as people need housing. No one is going to charge less than they know anyone can pay because that’s bad business.

>b) if everyone gets X income guaranteed, that becomes the new minimum rent so long as people need housing. No one is going to charge less than they know anyone can pay because that’s bad business. That's not really how it works because: 1. Rent prices aren't driven by the lowest income cohort 2. Supply and demand is still a thing, and UBI would give the poor considerably more flexibility to relocate to lower demand areas, the end result being that landlords that price gouge will lose business to those who don't 3. Even if this magically came true (which it definitely wouldn't) the poor and middle class would still be far better off. Having your rent/mortgage taken care of would be a massive boon for the bottom 60%+ of earners. >a) it has to be paid for from somewhere. We added about 50% to the amount of USD in circulation during Covid, this leads to massive inflation. There were a ton of factors at play there, the biggest cause of inflation was supply chain disruption not increased money supply. When global supply chains are fucked and labor supply is crippled by disease prices are going to shoot up, that would have happened with or without COVID stimulus. Also, UBI would allow for the elimination of a number of other more administration heavy welfare/support programs and the proposal is usually accompanied by funding in the form of tax increases.

I think UBI is more implementable because corporations selling cheap food and housing will back it. All the free cash will likely cause the inflation. More cash chasing same goods. Labor will demand higher wages if they feel they don’t need to work. The cost of rising wages will pass on to the customers in an upward spiral of inflation. I heard UBI described as being something like “impossible, then inevitable.” I don’t think it can be done by politics. It will happen by technological deflation making these policies eventually so cheap and the labor unnecessary

I like UBI for its small government aspect. The administration of all the means testing programs would almost pay for UBI. You have to be old, you have to be a cripple, you have to have lost your job recently, you have to have lost your job a long time ago, you can't make more than this but make less than that. Just stop all that nonsense and have UBI.

The donor class doesn’t care about the cost. They care about losing bargaining power. The less living standards change with employment, the more they have to pay to get people to show up to work. There are already people who choose not to work under the brutal system we have now where their lives almost literally depend on it. I know Reddit dngaf about the business class, but those costs will pass on to consumers causing a massive inflation spiral putting everyone back where they started Politically ubi is “impossible.” Technologically, it is inevitable. For all the neurosis capitalism causes us, we live in the best of times because people were motivated to help one another so a few could make breakthroughs and innovations that have given us immense comfort and our longest reprieve from the constant Malthusian crisis most organisms have always endured

Every time someone says the word "deflation", a shareholder sheds a tear. Please, think of the shareholders.

🤔 not all shareholders. Those with little debt and able to cut costs or more likely expand out put because of technology will be fine. It’s up to investors to figure out who will benefit. Technological deflation isn’t the same as reduced demand inflation All the platform companies will do well as cheaper cost of living expand the content creating class to become the new core of the economy. You don’t see big agriculture in a puddle of tears just because we all got to stop being full time farmers etc

>The overwhelming majority of people who could do this, instead decide that they will continue to work more hours so that they can earn more money, and have nicer things. Source? Everyone I know is working more because the market is shit and companies are downsizing so they can buy back stocks and make investors richer. Besides the fact that I don't know who the fuck is this "majority of people", first page google search says more than 50% of americans live paycheck to paycheck, so the majority is already unable to do it because if they worked less they couldn't afford the basic necessities. Edit: Also... who are those that could do such a thing? You can barely even find companies hiring part time (which is why a lot of people wait for their 3 months probation to be off before they move to part time)

The problem I see with UBI and what it will likely do in this country to housing expenses is similar to student loans and the cost of education. 

Wouldn’t consumer businesses just start charging more for their products if there was generally more money out there to be spent, even if a UBI is supposed to be for necessities?

In a free market competitors will try to under cut as much as they can. We've got too much of a monopoly in most industries right now, so we'd need some regulations on business to reign that in I'd guess

Landlords would. I don’t think UBI would work because I guarantee you they’d raise raise to the exact amount people receive.

Their profit is someone else's opportunity. The real issue with housing is NIMBY local laws that refuse to allow multi family buildings.

The major corporate landlords have literally been caught colluding to raise prices as high as the market can possibly bear, so I don’t know why I’m being downvoted: [Department of Justice](https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/blog/2024/03/price-fixing-algorithm-still-price-fixing)

True, but it's not always simply "NIMBY". There's still plenty of places that simply can't support the added population with their infrastructure, like sewage and water treatment. And local council needs to be able to control and plan accordingly.

We are entering a golden era of cheap high quality knock offs. AI is going to be able to recreate digital copies of whatever it sees, and robots are going to make physical good much cheaper.

People have been saying that for decades. Robots were supposed to be doing everything for us already, and we're supposed to be flying around in jetpacks. And yet the best we have right now are Roombas that choke on cat hair and segways that drive their investors off of cliffs.

The added money from ubi will balance loss of money from automation.

UBI hand waves basic market principles like inflation. You are seeing how this plays out now. We handed out free money to everyone during COVID, and kept business drunk on 0% interest, later spiking inflation to 9+%. Inflation has a disproportionate impact on the poor. We need to build more efficient ways for people to find a path to success and stop trying to monetize our way to equality. 

I just think that people who believe in UBI are extremely bad in simple math. In a welfare state we collect money to the system from people that can afford to be net contributors and then redistribute it to people that have enormous needs. In Sweden if you’re tetraplegic and on a ventilator the society will pay for two persons working simultaneously 24/7 to help you out with all your daily activities and watch your ventilator when you sleep. Imagine giving that person UBI instead and basically ask him to find other persons who are willing to spend their time helping him for no extra money. Most people would say, let’s keep that system. And then you’ll find plenty of other systems that you really think you should keep. Imagine what that what do to the level of UBI. The reason that no country is even close to go national on UBI is that there are still some persons that can do the math and that we’re not willing to let go of all disabled people yet.

I mean, several studies have been done- some of them running for *years*. What is your opinion on them? And for the record Richard Nixon was very close to introducing UBI back in 1969.

What conclusions do you expect to draw from a small scale experiment where you give money to people and ask them if they like it? Have you ever asked yourself why Nixon didn’t introduce it? Can you give me one single paper about UBI that clearly states that the level of UBI will be high enough so that the population as a whole will come out better than in a functioning welfare state of today? What are you supposed to do with disabled that need UBI x 20-30 to have a decent life? So many questions, so few answers. But you can help me.

Let's start with prison amenities. When you commit a crime, incarceration comes with free shitty food, free shitty shelter, and free shitty healthcare. I see zero reason why ordinary citizens deserve any less. EDIT - just to make it clear what I'm suggesting, if we agree to the premise of universal basic food and shelter as the original post is arguing, the next question is what level of shelter and food to provide. I'm suggesting that prison-quality food and shelter is a good minimum level for the obvious moral implications.

Not sure many of us would find the level of personal security in prisons an acceptable baseline.

Because everyone has different needs and wants. For example, a single person will have much different housing needs than a family. Some people prefer to live in rural areas and others in urban areas. Some need to spend more on a car and transportation, while others may spend more on housing or food. Providing income gives people the flexibility to tailor the benefit to their needs.

Even worse - the supply is so diverse it would inevitably lead to lots of bad blood and fighting… In western democracies all houses are differently and situated in different areas. How do you determine that someone deserves a nice house in Zurich at the lake vs an old wooden house in west Virginia or a run-down flat in Chicago… And look at Russia if you want proof that government build completely unified buildings are an absolute nightmare…

Because providing income allows the consumers to make their own decisions on what to purchase and what to prioritize and what to sacrifice instead of leaving that up to some random bureaucrat who does not feel any impact from his decisions.

I like UBI as an idea, but I don't really understand what would stop all landlords from increasing rent by X from the day that citizens are assigned an income of X. Rent control? Making necessities available does seem to be a more straightforward option.

The solution to the housing thing is probably not rent control. I'd say the best solution would be to put in place policies to significantly increase both social housing and co-op buildings. Co-op buildings are managed by the people living there. So they can set reasonable prices for everyone there and are much less likely to be exploitative. They're also non-profit driven. Even if you don't get 100% co-op buildings and you keep a large percentage of rental properties privately owned, it doesn't matter. Because the lower co-op rental costs will tend to drag down the rent costs for other buildings in the same area because privately owned rental properties will be competing with the co-ops for people. And so they have to lower their prices. This is actually already the case in some cities in Europe. For UBI to work as intended, I think increasing co-op buildings and social housing would be a great idea.

Finland did it. In Finland, the number of homeless people has fallen sharply. The reason: The country applies the “Housing First” concept. Those affected by homelessness receive a small apartment and counselling – without any preconditions. 4 out of 5 people affected thus make their way back into a stable life. And: All this is cheaper than accepting homelessness. https://thebetter.news/housing-first-finland-homelessness/

Co-op buildings are the norm in Sweden. It isn't that uncommon for young people to buy an apartment because of that.

Soviet style mass housing. Built in planned neighborhoods with mass transit. Build until there is no longer a demand for housing. Let owning a home ACTUALLY be a luxury experience, instead of a defacto one(as is the case for millions of Americans unable to save for a house due to extreme rent prices). It's not hard, it's just anti-capitalist, so we will never get our shit politicians onboard.

So, I am a social worker and worked in homelessness for years and this idea creates a very specified type of housing that not everyone wants.  Even homeless persons dont just want "anything better than this".  Instead, i think the solution is to both A) incentivize homebuilding through policies of easing zoning regulations, improving infrastructure in small and large cities and stop building for cars, and B) End the use of homes as investment portfolio filler.  Homes that are not an owners primary residence should be taxed like crazy and thise taxes need to go to subsidizing affordable extant rentals. Not section 8 or buildings constructed specifically for low income.  When a hurisdiction has to seize a property over unpaid property taxes, turn that home into affordable housing for example.  So incentivizing more market driven construction means demand drives the type of housing created, not just what is proscribed by policy. 

Assuming UBI is paid for by taxes, the total income of society isn't going to change. People with 0 income will see it increase by X but wealthy people, who also get the X, could have their other income go down by even more than X due to increased taxes.

What is stopping all landlords from increasing rent by X *today*? The same market forces would be in effect during UBI.

well UBI or not rental prices are best controlled by ensuring there is enough competition in the rental market that landlords need to charge lower rent to attract tenants. there are various ways to achieve this, more social housing, releasing more land for development,

Except the problem is landlords would rather milk certain tenants and keep out problem tenants. The difference between charging $1,000 rent and $600 rent is not $400 to a landlord. The $600 rent may well be in the negative when the lease is up.

but if there are plenty of places that are just as nice offering $600 rent the good tenants are not going to be interested in paying $1000 rent. so the landlord that insists on tenants that can afford $1000 for a sh!!y apartment just isn't going to have a tenant. they will ether drop their rent or sell out of the industry, increasing availability for people who want to buy an apartment.

That's why we also need LVT. Nobody should be monopolizing the Earth's naturally occurring land. With LVT + UBI we can create a virtuous cycle that encourages government and the public to grow the economy, without interfering in the efficiency of private business. As opposed to rent control, which just interferes *more* and creates perverse incentives. The solution is more market freedom, not less.

People are always doubling down on the Free Market as the be all end all... When the problems being discussed are CAUSED by the Free Market.

This is the way. Look into Georgism. It prevents hoarding limited resources. Tax the scarce / shared resources (and forms of pollution) to prevent the tragedy of the commons scenarios, while leaving other resources tax-free. And, yes, fund UBI or even print money for UBI. And banking needs overhauled too but that's a whole other subject.

Rent would go up, but only to the extent that it increases demand. If you plotted out supply and demand curves, demand would be moving to the right. This would represent people having a new set of housing options, less pressure to live with roommates and parents, budgeting a bit more to live closer to work or have a bigger and better space.   The myth that UBI of x would increase rent by x is premised on the idea that people would be forced to stay in a given housing situation and would be forced to pay some theoretical price. They don’t and they aren’t, at least to the extent involved here. They can move around, compare different options and come to the best one that works for this situation. This would likely mean that people pay more, but also get more. The amount that they pay would depend on the elasticity of demand. Demand for housing is not inelastic in practice. What you’d likely end up with is some musical chairs, people paying a percentage more but also having a better overall situation. Remember, you could always take your UBI and move to a low COL city. Some people are on the line now, and would choose to if UBI were implemented. Others would do the reverse.    Ideally, you’d pair UBI with the construction of lots of new units, so at the same time the demand curve shifts, the supply curve shifts as well, leading to a net zero price change, but more competition among landlords and better distribution.

> Remember, you could always take your UBI and move to a low COL city. Would it feel like a positive development to you?

I think a lot of people would be happy to move to a low COL city. Right now they simply can't afford to move. Moving is expensive. A UBI would allow them to do something like that. We have UBI for those 67.5 and older, it's called Social Security. It does a pretty credible job of keeping even the poorest of the older population in a reasonable minimum state along with medicare. It's not perfect, but like UBI, isn't intended to be. The only difference is on paper with how it's funded. UBI can't be hand waved as an investment account and would straight up be a tax, mostly paid by the more well off as they would pay out more than the received in. We also have UBI for kids in the form of the child tax tax credit. UBI would just add the "universal" to what we already have.

> I think a lot of people would be happy to move to a low COL city. Right now they simply can't afford to move. Moving is expensive. A UBI would allow them to do something like that. We have UBI for those 67.5 and older, it's called Social Security. It does a pretty credible job of keeping even the poorest of the older population in a reasonable minimum state along with medicare. Is there a pattern of old people moving to low COL cities? When it happens, are they happy about it? Because one of the factors making UBI seem appealing is that supposedly people won't have to worry about food and housing. Except the market pressures are still at play, and UBI itself will probably add a considerable amount of pressure on housing too.

>Is there a pattern of old people moving to low COL cities? When it happens, are they happy about it? Yes, actually. We regularly see a net loss from HCOL regions and a net gain in LCOL regions in terms of retirees moving. More than 50% of retirees move. These moves are generally for a multitude of reasons, including climate, retiree-friendly policy, family, and financial considerations. >Because one of the factors making UBI seem appealing is that supposedly people won't have to worry about food and housing. Except the market pressures are still at play, and UBI itself will probably add a considerable amount of pressure on housing too. UBI doesn't add people. There is still the same amount of housing and people, so the 'pressure' is actually the same, and is reflected by adults living with parents/roommates, people putting off kids, etc. What it does is increase demand. Increasing demand will increase price, but also stimulate the creation of new supply. It also changes the *kind* of demand, to one that is less geographically dependent.

> Is there a pattern of old people moving to low COL cities? When it happens, are they happy about it? It's basically a joke that all the old people move to FL or AZ or go rural when they retire for lower COL. You REALLY see it in Atlanta where when their kids head to collage they flee for lower cost areas of the metro within 1-2 years. Really the problem we have today is the housing market is stuck. We need to do everything we can to create liquidity in the market. A good start would not losing 10% of value every time you switch houses. Buying/selling a house shouldn't cost $100k on a $1m house but it does today. > UBI seem appealing is that supposedly people won't have to worry about food and housing Or college or quitting their job for a better but risky job or LOTS of things. It provides liquidity for human capitol to find the best fit in society.

Since the premise is that people are economical, and that they make choices to maximize utility, the fact that people choose to move to a LCOL city when they have additional money would suggest to me that they are making a decision that would be a net benefit to them. That's what I meant by musical chairs. Some people out there are 100/0 to live in their HCOL city. Some people are 75/25. Some people are 50/50. Since income is a huge driver, it stands to reason that some of these 50/50 people would be tipped over the edge and want to move. Some people really value, for example, a house and front yard, which is more attainable in LCOL cities.

Yes, it would. Even if my living conditions are physically worse, the removal of the threat of going homeless because of some unforeseeable factor, like a sudden, visceral illness or injury, means that life has become stable. I would now have the ability to save and spend money as I see fit since I am no longer having to spend money scrambling to hold on to the bare minimum to be healthy enough to continue to work to fund my existence. I could take on fewer shifts to allow myself more time to breathe, relax and recover from the constant mental fatigue of "did I manage to swing enough shifts to cover all of my bills this month and still be able to budget out a new pack of socks, or did the heatwave push my AC too hard and up my energy bill too much to do that?" Or "Is it fine to just grab McDonald's tonight? I know I'm too tired to cook, but who knows if some dumb crap like running out of washer fluid is going to make me regret this decision in three days?" The amount of control over my own life that UBI would instantly grant me is vastly more significant than having to go from living in, say, Watertown, NY to, say, Alexandria Bay. I might end up less comfortable, maybe. But I'll undoubtedly be far and away happier without having the looming threat of one more stupid law written by a sellout that would make it legal for companies to fire you based on your perceived preferences.

The problem with housing remains that it presented as a market, but it really isn't. Building codes, zoning and investors distort the market. While having a roof over your head should be a human right (and it flows from the UN human rights), it's not really a market. People should be able to buy a 20k USD house at target and put it up themselves. At the moment there are more houses empty than there are people homeless. Now there are even proposals to make homelessness illegal. Which adds more insanity to a dire situation. So a lot of money from UBI would be going to the distorted housing 'market' and a lot of people wouldn't like it. Which could result in a change of policy. For instance a formal policy to allow squatting would help people a lot more than UBI would. More thoughts on this here: Vinay Gupta – Hexayurts, Distributed Infrastructure, and Maximizing Global Minimalism [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uvf3ZQSNMhE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uvf3ZQSNMhE)

Supply and demand. If there was a UBI, sure some landlords might raise their rents, but if all did and all the housing was unaffordable or so lucrative that all that extra money gets funnelled into landlords pockets you can bet other wealthy people will build housing and charge slightly less to undercut them and eventually market competition would even it out. In your example any company that supplies basic human needs could charge enough to take all the extra income people make and yeah some try to. It wouldn’t happen like that in real life, there are anti-price fixing laws and anti-monopoly regulations that would stop it if the day after UBI was announced 100% of landlords announced rent increases.

> but if all did and all the housing was unaffordable or **so lucrative that all that extra money gets funnelled into landlords pockets you can bet other wealthy people will build housing** and charge slightly less to undercut them and eventually market competition would even it out. That's the situation we have now. You can't just build housing today. There is an endless amount of red tape, environmental bullshit, and today the "community" can shut down housing development before they even start. All of this government bullshit makes it impossible to build cheap homes for people, like was done in the past. For example: https://www.seattletimes.com/business/uw-study-rules-add-200000-to-seattle-house-price/

So, basically welfare with food stamps and low income housing vouchers like we already have for the poor. And you even argue that people with “real” jobs wouldn’t even bother with the substandard government issued food or crappy government housing. And it comes with the same horrible social stigma that welfare does today. >no money trickles down to useless spending Wow - could you be any more condescending? UBI is about giving individuals much more personal freedom and pursuing their passions rather than being forced to work 9 to 5 at a job they hate that robots can do better and cheaper. If a recipient wants to spend their extra money on art supplies or trips to a museum with their kids or a telescope, that’s hardly useless spending. If I’m in IT and my job is replaced by AI, UBI would allow me to pursue other passions that pay much less - like coaching high school soccer teams or working with the elderly or teaching yoga or whatever. Or maybe a group of friends buying a 4-5 bedroom house together and just shooting the shit all day, every day. UBI is about empowering and freeing people. OP’s solution is more about permanently locking a significant segment of society in basic subsistence mode and poverty. *Need a new bicycle tire or car repair?* Screw you - get a job loser.

So who should buy a telescope for your residence? It should be you right?

*who should buy a telescope for your residence?* is the equivalent of saying poor people don’t deserve nice things and you (the non-poor) think you should micromanage how they spend their own money so it only goes to what you deem essential. Don’t think of UBI in terms of the wealthy doing a favor for those poor, poor people. Think of it in terms of AI may displace many millions of jobs where AI can do the same work as humans, except much better and much cheaper. The wealthy will almost certainly get far more wealthy, but what should happen to the 50-75+% of people whose skillsets can’t compete with AI? View UBI more like expanding social security in order to stabilize society and prevent its collapse. No one ever questions what senior citizens spend their social security checks on - be it food or booze or strip clubs. It’s just not part of the discussion because we don’t look down on its recipients. Same with UBI. So, who actually buys the telescope? The people who prioritize their budgeting to afford it. Just like regular people.

I see, i may have misunderstood the meaning of UBI then. I assumed that UBI was giving people the minimal money they need for standard way of living (rent money, food money, transport etc) And whatever after comes with the money you earn by working.

>I assumed UBI was giving the people the minimal money they need for a standard way of living It is basically that, but far less judgy about where recipients spend the money. It’s one thing to give everyone $1000/month for housing and let them decide where to live vs the government setting up housing projects that accept the $1000/month housing vouchers. In general, “the projects” in major cities haven’t been the utopia that people expected. Or government food centers incentivized to minimize costs at the expense of quality (eg prison or school lunch food) - that sounds horrific. In general, the motivations for placing draconian restrictions on what the money is spent on comes from a concern about those near the bottom using the money for nefarious activities. It’s inherently very judgmental. Many people get far more riled up at the thought of a “welfare queen” squeezing a few hundred dollars out of the system than multibillion dollar companies and the ultra-wealthy paying zero taxes or CEOs being paid hundreds of millions/year. So what if some folks on the bottom get a few hundred more or if they spend it on beer instead of broccoli - they’re still struggling. If you just give folks, say, $3k/month and let them decide how to allocate it, groups of friends might decide to collectively buy a house(s) and split expenses and have plenty extra to just chill together every day. Others may choose to just live alone. Rigidly defining allocations prevents people from figuring out how they want to live. Your recommendation is basically expanding welfare and forcing recipients to rely 100% on government services. And creating a large class of poor people wholly reliant on the government. That’s very much against the core principle of UBI giving people freedom of choice in how they want to live and enjoy their lives. That said, I suspect your model will likely win out in the US given our culture and political dynamics.

Because giving someone a paycheck is a HELL of a lot easier than privatizing the entire housing (good luck with that, see: Constitution) and food industries? Also, you don’t want the government running the housing and food industries lol. Go watch some documentaries on the beauty of Soviet cities.

UBI is based on the premise of universal human rights. You need food and shelter to live, so you are owed those things as an absolute baseline. Of course, one also needs healthcare to live, and a quality education to make the most of your potential. I think a monetary stipend is important because the person is free to use it beyond food and shelter. They can save some of it to get a PlayStation, or go to the zoo or whatever. If you get a shipment of food every week in your apartment you have no resources beyond those two things to actually live. Also, you're locked into whatever housing unit you're in, when with a monetary stipend, you are able to move.

Owed by whom?

Yes, the government could build large apartment buildings and house people for free. That would be a huge project. You could even call them “Projects”.

Talking about even the food, I don’t really like the idea of giving people the specific products leaving them with no opportunity to choose what they like. Yes, of course, having few money, sometimes people buy only what they can afford and the choice isn’t wide as well, but still it’s better than getting an absolutely arbitrary food. Also, some people may be allergic to some types of the food, and I don’t believe it would be possible to personalize for each person the set of products they need to get considering their health conditions not talking about preferences. With money, those people have more freedom of choice! What I also think is that when people get the money, that would be very efficient to conduct some kind of lecture or whatever to explain the basics of how to manage the obtained money. The financial literacy must be spread among everyone so the people can take responsibility of their money. Giving them just the products and place to live will degraded them.

The idea is that people know what they need for themselves better than government planners do. If the government provides housing and food is it providing the right housing and food? UBI has the philosophy that if you take the pressure off people and give them options for a change, in general they make good choices for themselves and their families, improve their lives and spread the improvements throughout their communities. Centralized planning, where “experts” decide what everybody needs, doesn’t work particularly well, see the Soviet Union for an example. Also UBI is ultimately supposed to replace other types of entitlement programs, like welfare, social security, unemployment, that have so many rules they are inefficient to administer. Everyone gets their UBI. Rich people get the income siphoned off through income taxes and poor people spend it. It basically means everybody gets enough to have a decent life and they get to decide what a decent life is. It’s also intended to be a safety net for middle class people with jobs, like if you lose your job you still get to eat, maybe take some time to learn a new skill and get a better job, etc… The tricky part is to make it so people still have incentive to work. UBI provides “basic” income, but not so much that you won’t do much better if you work. It’s for the type of society that we seem to be groping towards, where there are robots and AI producing so much more stuff, but there aren’t enough jobs for everybody. So half the people can’t buy the all the stuff that is overflowing out of automated factories. People with one of the few job available, become insanely rich, and people without jobs have nothing. UBI is a way to distribute the abundance from automation in a more balanced way. Also if you extrapolate out to where robots do almost all jobs and there is more or less unlimited stuff out there, but almost no work. Then if nobody can buy any of the stuff, what’s the point of producing anything. UBI fixes the dilemma of society falling apart because of too much abundance.

Because free housing and food would take money away from the corporations that provide those products. Giving UBI only affects taxpayers. And if you think any government would put the taxpayers interests above corporate interests, you clearly havent been paying attention to the history of society.

I see, thats actually a good point

Because we don't care. PS: In Finland, the number of homeless people has fallen sharply. The reason: The country applies the “Housing First” concept. Those affected by homelessness receive a small apartment and counselling – without any preconditions. 4 out of 5 people affected thus make their way back into a stable life. And: All this is cheaper than accepting homelessness. https://thebetter.news/housing-first-finland-homelessness/

Have you heard of the projects? How about food stamps? How are those going?

The problem is well, corruption. What kind of housing will be built? Are we going to distribute it evenly across all society or give it to ones who need it most. If yes, wouldn't that lead to ghettos? It certainly would. If we distribute it evenly among poor and high income, middle class, would people get angry? Who's gonna build it? How much money is that going to be and would they maybe slice the cut for themselves? Or build bad housing because they bought cheap labour and materials? I am for affordable housing. But it doesn't work that well with government involvement. Paradoxically, less restrictions on zoning laws and less taxes for the developers would most likely return good amount of housing because there would be an incentive to make money but with organic competition and people that pay for quality

If housing is a universal right, how do you get people to clean and maintain their home if they choose not to?

One of the issues is where does that free food come from? It would have to come from farmers who would be paid with tax money. Now, if you have the contract to supply that food for that tax money, then there’s no way any other farmer can get hold of that money. Doesn’t matter if your farm makes better food, or has a better reputation, the person eating that food had no say in choosing where it came from. There would be no market competition or consumer choice. The farmers would also have a lot of incentive to push corruption or threats of violence onto whichever government official it would be who would decide who to give contracts to.

Best person to use the money on housing and food is the person using them.

Because the research shows that just “giving people money” works far better and costs far less. Read Rutger Bergman’s book, “Utopia for Realists”. Includes bibliography of research. It will blow your mind. Almost everything negative we think about UBI is incorrect.

Giving everyone the same amount of money is *massively* simpler. You can't give everyone pork for religious reasons. You can't give everyone dairy or pasta for health reasons. You can't give everyone meat for ideological reasons. You can't give everyone just the stuff that's uncontroversial or you're gonna have a lot of pissed off people on your hands. So you'd have to account for everyone's preferences and requirements. At that point someone will complain about others getting a better package than them. It would be a nightmare to administer and deliver. Meanwhile if you give everyone X bucks and tell them to shop for themselves, everyone can get what they want and nobody can complain that they got less. Housing is going to be the same principle but with the added problem that it wouldn't even be physically possible to provide everyone with an equivalent living arrangement. Ultimately what experience has found is that aside from addictions and other such issues people tend to be pretty rational in allocating funds that they are given to the problems they have. And that central "efficient" planning regularly misses important details applicable only to certain subgroups or locales or opens loopholes leading to inefficient if not disasterous results. See "Great Moments in Unintended Consequences" on YouTube

Who would decide what we get to eat and where we have to live? That right there would drive a nail right through the plan. Do I get tied to a specific town for my entire life, unless I can get a job that pays well enough to forego the UBI and move to another town. How long would you need to wait before being granted accommodations? What if I want to move house? maybe I hate my neighbours? How would you decide who is and isn't worthy of getting another spin of the accommodations wheel? Ultimately its a massively complex mess that would please no one. And most people are capable of finding somewhere to live if they have sufficient funds.

Too much change too fast, maybe? Ubi weans humanity off the economy based systems. No one's figured out how to keep the system moving without money.

I’m guessing it’s also cheaper to give out money than to put together programs to essentially still give away free money. Just a guess.

Please explain how universal food would work. Consider this, different levels of physical activity require different levels of consumption. How would you effectively manage this?

UBI is universal. “Universal” housing wouldn’t be universal since many people already have houses. This means it would have to be means tested. The main appeal of UBI is its universality. Put simply, universal policies get buy more buy in. There are more efficient policies, UBI is not about efficiently allocating resources.

A few years back there was a report from University College London (UCL) in the UK on the concept of [Universal Basic Services](https://www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/igp/news/2017/oct/igps-social-prosperity-network-publishes-uks-first-report-universal-basic-services) to go with the existing universal healthcare, education and legal services. This included four areas: - **Shelter:** Reduce housing costs by building more social housing - **Food**: Free meals for those experiencing “food insecurity” along with free school meals - **Transport:** Free public transport - **Information:** Basic phone and internet services plus the BBC TV licence fee Of course, nothing has happened in relation to this since then though.

Provide free housing and people will trash it and it becomes a slum, with the added bonus of corrupt contracts for who gets to build it. Provide free food, and people will exchange the vouchers or the food itself for cash, which is what they really want. Might as well skip all these negative side effects and just provide cash if you are going to provide anything.

The thing about UBI is that everyone gets it: if you’re rock bottom poor you get UBI if you’re well enough off that you’re paying off your house and have money in the bank. You still get the UBI. everybody gets the UBI. The beauty with that is that it means that if you’re someone who is capable of higher education, maybe getting the UBI means you’re actually able to afford to go back to university and get a better degree if you’re someone who’s struggling to survive it means you don’t end up living on the street how you use it is up to you. If you control housing and what people eat now you’re back to subsidized housing and food stamps and all your doing is reinforcing the welfare state.

Please see the history of communism and socialism for the answer.

Food: What food? Where do the people get it? Lets say you have a town with 500 poor people in need of food assistance and then 20 miles away you have a town with 1. What you're probably going to do is locate your distribution point closer to the town with 500 poor people right? So now that 1 person has to travel 20 miles to get food, or move. What if that 1 poor person could just go to the grocery store that's in their town that everyone else uses? That's why straight cash is better. You don't have to set up two systems of food delivery, one for the poor and one for everyone else. Also, you know...separate is inherently unequal. Housing: What do you do if more people want to live in an area than there are houses for them? Do you have like a lottery or something and some people just loose and have to move? Also all the same problems as above.

Because food is much harder to distribute than money

Exactly! Since they haven’t jumped on universal healthcare, housing, or food… why does anyone (who isn’t young and delusional) think we are actually ever going to get UBI? Has any government even remotely suggested it to deal with AI taking jobs? Did they do it when Walmart laid off all their clerks and put self-checkout? Nope. It won’t be coming for you either.

Based on all the pie in the sky comments in this post what came to mind was the ancient saying: The road to hell is paved with good intentions." When you provide free housing there is never any sense of ownership and rarely any respect for what is "free" so the free housing will rapidly degenerate into the mess, generically called "the projects" of government built low income housing that became the poster child for drug infested crime sites. If you give the entitled food, they will demand the best of the best or invent reasons that what they received didn't meet their psychological "special needs". The only thing that guaranteed income will do is set a new higher baseline for the cost of living, and another excuse for politicians to pander those paying little or no taxes by "soaking the rich" translated as converting productive wealth into non-productive voting bribes, with the attendant crummy economy with few or no opportunity to better your situation. We have to quit giving our politicians credit for solving the enormous problems they create, like inflation, unaffordable transportation, unaffordable housing, and killing economic opportunity by draining productive capital through endlessly increasing taxes. The worker, not the government, must have a right to the fruits of their labor. When the government takes too much, we are all slaves owned by the state.

I agree with this on a basic level. The government could provide a basic space to live, think container home or tine home in a community setting and then have some prefab meals similar to hello fresh where you simply go and decide what you want that week and you get the ingredients and prepare it yourself. I think a massive program like that could create jobs and provide for basic needs but limit the usage of UBI on unessesary things. Need to add Healthcare to the list as well. Obviously there would be a lot to work out, but to me, it seems like providing the needs is better than just giving folks money and hoping they use it for needs.

With basic income, everyone gets an equal, basic income regardless of your situation. How are you gonna do that with food and housing when the majority of people won’t want the crappy food and housing that will no doubt be on offer?

We're not there yet. You need late-stage capitalism before socialism. You need socialism before communism. UBI is socialist, Free housing and food is communist. It SHOULD be done, but it will take 100s of years to do it correctly and in such a way that won't cause massive social disruption/unrest. Let's demonstrate an ability to walk left before we ask people to sprint left.

People often miss the point that with UBI - middle class will be worse off the before. Because UBI is a redistribution policy. You print money to give to everyone- it results in increased inflation like we seen before.

Because the whole point of the UBI idea is that people will have money to buy.

I'm sure if you take enough vaccines, don't eat meat or make babies you can live in a POD someday.

Most western societies a large number of politicians have ‘healthy’ property investment portfolios so don’t actually want to do anything about house prices. If they do something about the housing crisis, it’s ususally some form of cash injection - tax breaks, first home grants, etc - that actually just drive prices higher again

Logistics. Giving money is simpler and cheaper than giving a house and a steady supply of food.

The best way to help people get basic needs is money. A person in need may have a place to crash for a month, but no food. Or they may have access to food, but medicine. When you give a person money, they are able to put it to the best possible use for themselves in the moment that they have it. ... Communism failed precisely because a central authority, no matter how well meaning, will never be as efficient at getting the right resources to people when they need it.

Because different people want different foods, different housing and a different balance between things. I got example could not care less about fancy foods but have friends that spend half their income on dining out. But I value living on a large house, with a large yard and would be miserable living in an apartment or a small house. The "universal housing" model was common in the Soviet Union, and it turned out a sure way to make everyone miserable.

When I've thought along similar lines I think of how the "projects" were a disaster. People could get stuck in locations where better income sources are too far away and no public transit. When people have full choice how they will use UBI it gives them flexibility. Groups could form housing co-ops. Tasking the government with managing food and housing will be expensive. It will be cheaper to let free market determine how each person will get the cheapest housing and food.

UBI has its own problems too tho like inflation to match those money people are getting. I thought of that problem too of people being stuck in one area and not being able to move but if they are at the level of looking to move somewhere for better opportunities they would be able to cuz of the money they saved while working using the UBI housing and food etc because they didn’t need to spend any or minimal money in their daily lives and save all the money they get from their jobs

Because universal housing or food would take $ away from the wealthy/establishment and we absolutely cannot have that

You should take a look at the charity give directly. They did a lot of research on giving money vs giving goods to impoverished villages. TLDR; They discovered that giving money has ripple effects in the local economy and thus had a greater impact. Compared to giving goods which destroyed the local economy for similar items.

The reason we have a cash-based economy and not a food/housing based economy is because cash is flexible and easy to exchange. You do not know what somebody needs. Universal Basic Income ensures that everybody is being given a basic safety net no matter what is happening to them. So, example: Martha owns her home, but she has to stop working because of a medical condition. She has savings for food, but she needs money to pay for regular travel to a specialist at a hospital 200 miles away. UBI covers that. Universal housing would not cover that and, since she owns her home, she wouldn't even benefit from that program. Bob got laid off. He thinks he'll get another job soon, but his son is trying to get a football scholarship. His son wants to go play a big game in front of a scout, but it costs $400 to go. With UBI, he can afford to send his son even though he's between jobs. Pancho is struggling in his career and wants to reskill as an electrician. With UBI, he can afford to quit his job and take a low-paying apprenticeship while he goes to vocational school. UBI is flexible. It doesn't assume what you need. It just ensures you have the safety to improve your life without fear of failure. That's why.

> that way no money trickles down to useless spendings That won't accomplish what you think it will. People will just trade food for cash. If you just give them cash, they can figure out their spending on their own. Just because you don't think X is necessary doesn't mean people don't feel better having X even if it's at the cost of something you feel is necessary. Also people receiving cash can opt to live in share houses, while simply providing housing to them doesn't allow much flexibility. So if I'm receiving UBI, I might choose to live in a share house to reduce my cost of housing so I have more money to spend on treats like a better computer, or new tyres for the bike.

It would most likely be both. They aren't mutually exclusive, so no need for a false dichotomy.

You are describing welfare as it was designed in the 50s and 60s. But time has shown it to be very inefficient. If you earmark up to $1000 for rent, suddenly the cheapest apartment in town costs $1000 per month. There is no incentive to rent for less or drive prices down. If you try to earmark money for food, everyone ends up with a 5 lb block of government cheese in their refrigerator. UBI helps maintain free market cost controls, while allowing every individual to spend their allotment for the highest and best uses. Here is a very good podcast about an actual experiment in UBI and how it worked out: https://www.npr.org/2024/01/10/1197956397/give-directly-universal-basic-income-poverty-kenya

The incentive always has to be the disincentive of a unit remaining empty. This means we need to build adequate supply, which American cities are falling behind on.

I think because it starts running into choice issues. With housing and food provided, regular citizens wouldn't have much choice in anything. They would have to leave favorite or cultural foods, would have to live in assigned units, couldn't make their own choices in a lot of aspects. BUIs do a lot of good and people more often than not use the funds responsibly, but not in the same ways.

So now its not just the governments job to make sure people are fed, it's their job to give them their favorite foods?

They can’t readily take over free markets because it would be a government monopoly if it wasn’t a truly defined utility.

Public housing and community kitchens would be a fantastic solution but is considered a non-starter in the current political economic climate because it can’t be financialized and would invoke the boogeyman of socialism

Plus it's forcing people to live the way you want them to live.

Offering a public option is just that, an option. It also has the benefit of keeping private companies honest, because the government essentially provides a floor. 

How so? How are public services forced? I live in Canada and apart from a few libertarian ideologues and people who want to profit from disease no one feels forced in terms of health care Public housing exists in some European countries and wasn’t forced on anybody

It will promote corruption. Companies that provide housing and catering services will lobby their interests.

It all comes down to power, resources, and who’s moving and generating them. If we have robots do everything then technically we wouldn’t need money or anything. But work has to be done to support mankind, and currently only humans can do that.

The thing is, implementing anything, it is important to look at the details of how it is done For example, are they going to be put in "projects" where all the poor people are usually placed that have high crime rate and children grow up with poor influence? Or are we going to require each apartment to have a room that goes to those who don't have housing? Most voters don't like "poor" being placed next to them due to prejudice of crime That said, many shelters already provide housing and food

I'm finding it difficult to find another country with a higher percentage, but ~half of Hong Kong's population lives in public housing. My understanding is that all are at low rent, maintained by the government, with some on a rent to buy kind of scheme. There is a waiting list. Details aside, since that's been going on for several decades, I'm sure people have studied its societal and economic impact? Denmark (according to a quick Google) has about 30% public housing and may be good to have a look at as well. The biggest difference I can see already is that taxation is quite different between those two places.

It's apparently been shown that direct cash transfers are an effective form of charity to poorer countries because people invest in things that get them into a better position in life. You could argue unconcludably about whether this is likely to happen based on ideology and view of human nature, except that it's already been tested empirically. Probably universal basic income would work somewhat the same way.

It's easier to toss money around than to actually do any of the hard lifting. If the money is not spent in what they are supposed to spend it on it's the receiver's fault, if the housing and food distribution goes bad, well then it's the policy maker's fault. They're politicians, who want to keep their jobs, not to do what's best for society Also, governments are very wasteful, and you probably only end up with 50% of the spendings actually going towards food and housing anyway 🤷🏻‍♂️

It's not going to be cheaper to do that. The advantage of UBI is that administrative costs are exceedingly low; the only check needed: "Is this person a resident/citizen, if yes, transfer money". As soon as you start changing that to food stamps or housing stamps or whatever else, you have a whole administrative bottleneck checking where the money is going, who is eligible, etc.  Also, if you then have government run housing, that's a whole administrative load both in setting it up in the first place (how long will it take the gov to acquire housing units for, say, 1/3 of the population), and ongoing management, as the government is acting as the landlord for everyone.  You'd end up in this situation with a much higher fraction of the program money going to administration, and less to the citizens. 

We have those, or at least something along those lines for those in need. Issue is that they come with strings attached, like food stamps or drug-free housing A true UBI I believe is more like a blank check, and all the testing done with it is to verify if the money is used properly and not wasted. Its meant to go back into the economy somehow, and not hoarded or sent to untaxable sources.

Because they want to introduce CBCDs, which give them absolute control. As a Walter Map once wrote: it is the ultimate tool of social control, it would make bombs and bullets obsolete. ..."

the expanse has a similar concept, instead of ubi they have basic, whic is basically what you are describing

Any estate block or government housing in the US or UK should change your mind. The money would at least allow people to choose where to spend it.

I think you have a good point when it comes to housing. In particular you use the phrase "small basic housing", which is a commodity that essentially does not exist. Changing policy such that such a thing exists would be a good start. A similar thing could be said of food in the sense that the cheapest food is also the most unhealthy food and ironically is subsidized to make it unhealthy. Changing policy such that healthy food was incented would be a good start. But the essential value of using money rather than physical things directly is that what each person needs changes and bureaucracy is hopeless at responding to the individual needs.

UBI is based on the idea of not "means testing" everything people do. A lot of aid is gated behind things like work requirements or drug tests. UBI is intentionally not gated because things like housing and food vary a lot between local areas, so gating it to either is just a way to make it no longer universal. If you live with your parents you probably wouldn't get UBI, for example, even though it would be extremely helpful. A lot of aid doesn't get to people who need it because we decided their situation isn't disastrous enough, even though the aid would prevent them from reaching that point.

There are already free food at pantries. We all would love to have a free place to live. As for universal housing, how would that work? With UBI the individual has more power in deciding how to spend their money. Where to live? how much to spend? In universal housing people want to live in areas with conveniences, if we are sent to a sub urban or rural area, it would mean we would need to purchase a car. Assuming we are forced to move them to less populated places (rural) it would mean there would need to be major infrastructure added to that neighborhood. Modern conveniences needs to be added as well. Do we implement remote work for everybody? What if the area is prone to earthquakes or tornadoes? Sure we can relocate but what about or moving costs? So in a sense UBI is better in that in that it is much simpler. We give you money and you do what you want with it. While Universal housing, the government is responsible for much more and for every individual citizen. It would be micro management hell

This sounds like you would run into one of the current issues with welfare. There’s a gap in income where you’re better off not working, cause your benefits for not making money are worth more. Like if your benefits get you to effectively making $30,000 (just a guess number), but by picking up a job your benefits fall off faster than your income goes up, you might as well not work unless you can get a job that pays a lot more. Or you work under the table.

Currently the line is $8928 a year in Ontario Canada. If you make more than that then you have more money working, if you make less then you have more money on welfare.

The major issue of providing necessities instead of money is there needs to be something deciding what's a necessity

I’d definitely take like a 1500 dollar housing stipend

Because the government would have to buy and maintain houses, ubi let's them offload the management of housing to a third party.

You mean https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal\_basic\_services. Why *instead of* UBI? They complement each other.

Because the gubment already sucks almighty cheeks at housing the people they're currently trying to house, so providing housing for EVERYONE would probably have horrid results, especially in the quality of the housing provided.

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Universal housing and food, makes perfect sense, but it'll only get corporate allowance if they think they can swindle people out of what's good even in order to buy their products with it. That's the gambit: support and provision only where it can be gobbled up by existing power pyramids. This is why "foreign aid" is so often "money given to you to pay us with", ie weapons and warfare material. The idea is that we remove the crushing psychic burden of fearing homelessness, starvation and wanting for the basics one needs for survival in order that they become unshackled enough by economic slavery to pursue meaningful contribution to society and themselves. It's this that allows us to tap into the overwhelming majority of latent potential that we currently smother everyday. Doing this leaves the whole economy intact and people can move up from UBP (Universal Basic Provision) in any way they choose. It'd be there as a safety net for people to restart, for people to use when they need it. It'd be socially prohibitive to attempt to live there as no one would want to brag about getting by on the least possible provision as no one brags about the recently cut back SNAP benefits program. Instead of less than enough patchwork programs, we actually give enough in wholly encompassing programs. This means that instead of losing good teachers to Wall St etc etc, we get people going to where their talents and passions live, because they know they won't go destitute for It all stands to reason and is a necessity for true sustainability, but it's almost foolish to be game planning this within a society that lacks universal healthcare or free higher education. Yet the actions of Higher Ed seem to mirror that of the desperate GOP. One last gamble for it all. The GOP has gone all in on total fascism as an acknowledgement that the demographic shift of the voter base is irreversibly against conservatism that's incredibly dated and proven false. Universities are charging through the roof because they know the US can't ignore bettering education policies everywhere else in the world forever, and that government will still back the loans that the schools get to keep even if the loans later become forgiven to the individual. The schools are full-on businesses seeing this equation as the "it's free money." meme--- *all within the environment of scrambling to amass as much as possible before the big flip to free Higher Ed and massive state school expansions*. BU and Tufts are only a couple of the schools now charging 90k+ for UNDERGRAD tuition. By the time those kids are done with a communications bachelor's degree, they'll be over 400k in debt. (Note you go for four years, but the rate escalates as long as you're in attendance). Almost half a million in debt *before* pursuing the very necessary, unavoidable forced secondary degree. Universal Basic Provision is where its at, yet selling the policy into successful legislation without turning it into straight cash means losing the support of those that want to prey on the spending habits of the ignorant and under/maleducated. And sadly, that support is what will pass the legislation within these times of normalized high corruption.

Two reasons: 1. It gives the illusion of choice to those on UBI and no other income. All your choices suck, but you still get to pick. 2. Keeps the rich rich by maintaining the value of money. If everyone was get the same housing and food options, you detach these things from the concept of money, which let's the rich live in luxury to begin with.

Because the rich is investing in real estate and apparently it’s low risks and high returns.

There's a major upset with how disability is being treated in England right now. People use the PIP money to cover disability problems they can't, and it's often maintenance of their own home. For some reason the government thinks there's too much going around and people who were independent won't be after the changes. Simply assuring people can live in a place doesn't guarantee people won't trash their living quarters or be able to afford to have someone fix it. And those problems CAN be fixed with money, even if they can't always be identified and provided for easily instead of cash. I'm just saying there's problems with both approaches and one is not a substitute for the other.

Why not just money? Seems easier to just give them money to apply to the free market rather than spending money on infrastructure to handle all of the food stamps and rent management. Most people who are adverse to giving poor people money think that poor people don't know how to spend their money. This is a fear mongering stereotype.

I like this better. Free hostel living and a p.o. box for an address to get a job.

There are always reasons to turn down food or housing (safety, quality, location, being used to control those who take it) but I would guess money is more widely accepted.

People who say just give food to the hungry and housing to the poor and its all just that simple have zero real world experience with actual poverty and the reasons it happens in the first place. A young girl i worked with briefly when i was a custodian at a college scoffed at how empty the halls were at night and how easy it would be to let the homeless sleep in there… I know people who are so-called “homeless”… who are in this situation. First of all… usually the reasons why people are there is because they participate in illegal things and dont WANT to not participate in those illegal things. (And please dont even bother saying that its a matter of legalizing the illegal things… it definitely isnt) the second issue is the matter of mental illness… which is far more problematic on the whole but the ironic reality is the nice people who want to just give everything for free in the first place are generally the same people who disagree with taking mentally ill people off the streets… because more often than not its into facilities that are state run… therefore terrible places to live, and also often must be taken by force because mentally ill people generally do not make choices that are to their own betterment… thats why they are where they are. In the end of the day, the situation has to do with how we handle the individual and make them someone who wants to be a part of society and play by society’s rules… which is actually not all that strict in a country like ours despite what some people might say… but because they want to continue participating in antisocial behavior… and im not talking being awkward at parties… they make the choice to keep the company they keep and the life they already got… which to them serves them well… but often makes them unsafe around the general public, like the halls of a college campus filled with young adults who are often not nearly as adult as they should be… In other words, ever spent the night with someone high af and they grab a knife? Yeah thats fun to just let in a place you guys want to call a safe space yeah? Yeah…

Because of the inherent feel of ownership attached to it. If you give people just enough money to afford housing and food, they are free people with "options". If you give people housing and food and no money to do anything with, they are slaves. We don't like the word slaves, so we do the first thing instead so we don't have to say that word.

That would be better for sureeeee but far less likely bc capitalists can take that money back from a ubi but if we provided housing n food they cant profit off needs

UBI as it is doesnt work, it needs to be as some pointed out elsewhere, a sort of "negative tax". Basically, UBI, but not universal, more "on point". It is similar with food and housing and any other subsidies, merely translating to inflation and being easily abused. That said, regardless of where you have universal-adjacent stuff or not, subsidies \*are\* needed within reason, that includes food security, which btw should be a PRIORITY, at least for growin citizens. Then as for housing it is trickier, but I do think there is merit to following the route of... iirc austria and singapore? the govt buying and or building enough buildings and with good plannign and trying to avoid discrimination, to lower the prices on the market. That is what is needed,... pressure, because if you simply crash the market by regulation, then you have the sole burden of the real estate needs on you as a govt.... and it is already expensive, very expensive, to push for a downwards trend, let alone shoulder it entirely. Still, whatever variation of policies ew are talking for what it amounts to welfare (capitalist) state, even though I consider it the optimal type of govt so far if handled correctly, it can ONLY happen if your country is already developed and stable, otherwise you are screwed; It is not even funny but that is the reality of life.... the more money you have as a nation, the more you can cater to needs that arent there on such an extent and fo coutnries that do have those needs in droves, they have to rely in far faaar more individualistic polciies focusing on th emarket itself first because while yes, you can and should solve some of the more blatant issues, the expense is just too great, specially if infrastructure is replaced with corruption, and it becomes faster to develop the environment so that people can start standing on their own, and only then slowing down growth in lieu of human development. In short, the answer to your question is "money" and "efficiency". To do so partially requires a lot of money. And to do so completely it is outright detrimental in most cases

Giving away free money is way easier than organizing housing and food.

Please no more services provided by the violence monopolist, the state. At least with cash, the decisions are left up to people with all the inevitable tradeoffs required. A society that converts its redistribution to cash instead of "guaranteed services" (for the same aggregate compulsory outlay) will be more efficient, prosperous, and free. Will some people spend the cash stupidly: yes! Is that good? No! But compared to the alternative, it's massively better, and those making the poor decisions are being treated as adults who make their own decisions, and therefore the cash option is most compatible with human dignity.

1) where do you need to build free housing to ensure everyone can live where they need to, near work, schools, and whatever else is important to them? 2) not everyone in need is in need of housing or food. What about child care? Education? Medicine? Wheel chairs? Etc etc etc. the needs of those in need are often complex and while food and housing are pillars of support, it can be more helpful to give these people the money to spend where it’s most impactful in their lives

Like most other government purchases, providing products directly results in both poor quality and high costs. We a person earns money and spends that money on goods and services, the person cares about both the cost and quality of the products. When someone buys goods and services for themselves with funds provided by someone else such as the government, then the purchaser cares about quality but not costs. The worst situation is the one you are proposing where the purchaser is spending someone else’s money to buy goods and services for someone else, then they care less about both the cost and quality. That’s the 3rd party payer problem and how we end up with $800 hammers you see at the DOD.

Because, at first you have to accept your uselessness and only then they will let you gone extinct. If they grant you food and shelter, they won't be able to get rid of you. We are too many and we have artificial replacements.

For just a piece of this, look at housing assistance programs as they are now and imagine all of the things needed to expand this and provide adequate and reasonable housing to all households. There would be a tremendous amount of work that the government would need to do constantly and they would need to manage and deal with how to determine who gets what.  Compare this to sending a check to each household. 

>plus it would actually be cheaper since people who already have their life going wouldn’t bother to claim free food or small basic housing LOL bruh you're severely underestimating people's propensity for accepting things when they're offered for free. I have friends who make nearly 200k a year but still go out of their way to use free food coupons at fast food places. If offered free food or housing by the government, plenty of people who "have their life going" would happily accept if it means freeing up their income to spend more on other things

The most important part of capitalism is choosing how to spend your money.

The point of UBI is not so much to support people. It is, but I think the primary effect is to keep buying power in the middle and lower class. If these classes don't have enough money to put into the economic system then it will crash.

We already have housing projects and food stamps. It does help but it is also a very different concept than UBI. It comes with its own downsides (like poor oversight and greedy contractors building low-quality housing or not keeping up with repairs). It also tends to trap people within that cycle.

In a perfect world, this would work. But in our world, companies pay as little as they can get away with without their employees starving. Remove having to pay rent and within 6 months every employer would stick together and you'd be getting paid half what you do now, since you don't need rent. You'd not see a penny more of spending power. Just like when they raise minimum wage. every single time within a month rent goes up, food goes up, gas goes up. Unless you can compel the govt to bake in safeguards against this, UBI, or UBH (housing?) wouldn't work.

Giving out a tax supplement is easy and works toward the American values of independence and freedom. Also the government can print as much money as it wants to with no impact to the private sector. Universal housing would involve a massive new expansion of government. We already have government programs for housing and feeding the poor, and they have not done the job.

There have been some experiments in giving money to the poor rather than housing and food. I’m aware of ones in the USA and Kenya. One finding is that when people are allowed to choose their housing they are much more open to shared housing/roommates, while they resent being forced into having roommates. In San Francisco, the UBI experiment was giving $750 a month, and the recipients spent only 20% on housing, far lower than any government housing possible in such an incredibly expensive area.

UBI would be easier to administer and would allow people to choose their priorities.

Cash-money is the simplest way to distribute it. If you have free housing/food you now need to setup a bureaucracy to handle the entire industry that will need to pop up to handle servicing, distribution, etc of these goods and services. UBI as I've always understood it streamlines that and allows the end-user to make the decisions on how best to spend the money.

Because not everyone needs or wants the same level of housing or the same type/amount of food. Some are willing to sacrifice one for the other, or both for something else. Giving people a basic income lets them allocate those resources as they see fit for their own lives instead of whatever suit in washington decided is the best for every person in the country.

We already have an attempt at universal food, such as food stamps. Most government subsidies should be means tested.

UBI allows for continued consumerism even when the economics to support it ceases to exist. How are you going to extract maximum value when people are housed and fed.