this post was submitted on 16 Oct 2023
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[–] [email protected] 137 points 1 year ago (12 children)

As an fella from that country right beneath Canada, I hope something like this works, would love to watch our neighbors in the north do something awesome while we fail to do it for decades and decades.

[–] [email protected] 36 points 1 year ago (2 children)

If Universal Basic Income becomes commonplace the United States will probably be the last country on earth to adapt.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (7 children)

nah there's always the Congo

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[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 year ago

As is tradition.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Your neighbors in the north have something like that already. Alaska redistributes income from oil companies to their people. IIRC it's only ~150$ per month, but that's pretty good nonetheless!

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (7 children)

$150 a month would cover several bills for us. Does each individual get it or is it per household? Because if it's per individual (presuming adults only), that's $300, which would cover some debt too. So yeah, pretty good!

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (2 children)

We legalized weed, which is cool af, but we made living otherwise impossibly prohibitively expensive.

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[–] [email protected] 126 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Small nuance compared to the title

The Senate’s national finance committee will study a bill on October 17 which would create a national framework for—but not actually implement—UBI, according to a press release

[–] [email protected] 149 points 1 year ago (7 children)

They’re considering thinking about talking about it.

[–] [email protected] 46 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Hey, any progress is progress. I'm not a fan of the liberal government right now but just the fact that they are talking about this and (hopefully) implementing some sort of structure for it is a big deal imo. I think UBI is a good idea but I would imagine implementing it successfully is going to be a very difficult task.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (4 children)

And its looking like conservicrooks are gong to get back in soon which means all talk of this plan will die the second that happens

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[–] [email protected] 53 points 1 year ago (7 children)

Canada doesn't even give people on disability enough to afford rent, let alone groceries, power bills, car insurance, etc.

Maybe start there. Help the disabled survive.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 year ago

And God forbid you're under 65 and disabled. Big load of "fuck you" from the government.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This is actually a big reason why there are so many opponents of the MAID law.

Too many people with disabilities are taking the euthanasia option simply because, they don't have any way to live.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago

Which is simply despicable euthanasia has to be chosen, a sign of a broken system all the way around.

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[–] [email protected] 45 points 1 year ago (11 children)

If you're a fellow Canuck, here's a petition to get this realised. It's not much, but it's something.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 year ago (6 children)

I'm not sure I want this to happen. I'll read the bill, but I'm not convinced they'll do it right. For example, UBI is supposed to replace other need-based social programs such as disability, welfare programs, government housing, etc. The entire point is that the money from those programs, which collectively have quite a lot of waste, goes into UBI so everyone can participate in society on a more fair level.

For example, I have a neighbour who is on some kind of government assistance. He gets very little money, and his rent for an entire house is $105/mo. With UBI, he'd get a full basic income, but his housing would no longer be subsidized, removing the need for a public housing corporation known for being awful and wasting money.

[–] [email protected] 41 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yes.

This is the thing people don't understand about a ubi.

I had a coworker who's wife was a... Case manager? For welfare. Her whole job was determining whether or not people were lying/exaggerating about various elements of their claim.

First of all, government union paper pushers make decent money. There was an entire office full of people that covered cases in their region only.

Second, it's a soul sucking job. Her primary assumption was that everyone was cheating and lying and she needed to minimize everyone's payout.

UBI solves both of those things and by plugging it directly into the tax system people can be free to try to earn a better living, which studies have shown most people want when they are given a UBI.

Increased productivity, increased employment, increased entrepreneurship, increased mental health outcomes, there is literally no downside except for needing to tax the rich.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago (4 children)

literally no downside except for needing to tax the rich

So literally no downside at all then?

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[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (5 children)

The housing crisis needs to be addressed separately. There is 7 times the amount of housing needed to house the homeless

There shouldn’t be homeless in Canada at all regardless the income. This Airbnb bullshit breaking cities needs to stop.

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[–] [email protected] 32 points 1 year ago (17 children)

How will I know now if Im better than someone else if they aren't homeless or begging? /s

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago (5 children)

I think the real problem will be, “how do we stop landlords from jacking up rent simply because everyone has some extra money now?”

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[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Please do this, and do it right, Canada, so your neighbors to the South can use you as an example in trying to push for the same.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (6 children)

This won't work in the US because we NEED some sort of national health care system first.

We'll be shoveling money into medical debt even with UBI.

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[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 year ago (3 children)

The hexbears would be very upset about this if they could read.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Because liberals can't beat Leninists to sustainable socialism

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I have no idea what you mean by that, but okay.

[–] [email protected] 37 points 1 year ago (2 children)

In plain English, people who support oppressive dictatorships do so a lot of times because they think that distributing economic output in a way that eliminates poverty is impossible in a democracy governed by the rule of law.

If Canada achieves the elimination of poverty without becoming autocratic, the dictatorical evils of the CCP or the USSR are shown to be unnecessary.

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This needs to happen and make it so some Conservative government can't come in and undo it willy nilly. These current Conservative fucks want to attack the CPP and aren't having much luck federally so they're using Alberta to do it. Fuck Conservatives, never vote for them. We need electoral reform ASAP as well so we can stop having our Conservatives get radicalized like the shit political system south of us.

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (7 children)

I keep seeing small scale UBI experiments 'proving' that recipients thrive more. But as I see it that's not the part that needs proving.

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm very curious to see how they roll this out. I'm a big advocate for UBI, so this is super uplifting news. I really think this will benefit a lot of people!

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Well this is just the very first little baby step and would outline how we'd approach UBI. It isn't necessarily going to lead to a usable widespread solution anytime soon... but hey, positive motion!

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago (13 children)

Are we going to tax the wealthy to pay for it?

Because otherwise this is basically corporate welfare at best, and inflationary at worst.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 year ago (9 children)

How would this be corporate welfare? It's been shown that a UBI is less expensive than what is wasted on the overhead of need-based welfare systems, and eliminates the poverty trap where making more money (such as from overtime or a small raise) disqualifies your household from a higher value of welfare benefits that you would otherwise qualify for.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago (2 children)

if the capitalist class isn't up in arms about all this then there's a very good, very profitable, reason.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (5 children)

I know this is just first small step but still excited to see it happening. Every wildfire needs a first spark, let's just hope it spreads,

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