Easy? What quality and variety of food? what size shelter and in what location? What brand of clothing and how many outfits? What level of health care? Who decides these things?
> Grocery store quality, with the ability to follow the food pyramid.
Organic or not? Brand name or not?
> Somewhere. Probably shouldn't force them to move to a different city.
What if they live in a city with extremely high cost of living? It's likely UBI will not allow them to continue living there, so then do they get extra because they want to live in a trendy place?
> Generic brand, 5-10.
What is "Generic brand"? Don't the poor deserve to have the dignity of owning a few brand name outfits?
> Medicaid.
Expanding Medicaid to every single American is going to cost a lot of money, so now you've got two problems; how to pay for UBI and how to pay for expanded Medicaid.
> The exact number is not the important part, so don't fixate on how it's calculated.
But it is. Because as soon as a number is arrived at, there will be people who say it's discriminatory. They will rail against it because people on UBI will be "barely at the poverty line". There's no one-size fits all dollar amount we could ever possibly come up with.
Many brands are cheap, including most food brands, so buying some should not be a problem. I'm not sure what 'dignity' is involved in brand name clothes unless you're in high school.
They should be able to afford a room in 95% of cities or some similar number, but perhaps not in the trendiest trend city that's refusing to allow denser construction.
Isn't medicaid mostly already expanded?
Being barely at the poverty line is fine, because you can get a job on top of it.
People can and do complain about the details of every government policy ever. That they would complain about the details of this one is nothing special.
Now we've gotten past the definition of categories and into levels -- that's progress.
That's where Basic Income or something like it shines. You don't have to micromanage -- you look at averages for the area and give a lump sum and let the individual figure it out.
I don't see how that's progress. To me it further complicates the issue. You're suggesting that there would be different basic incomes based on where you live? Doesn't that seem the least bit discriminatory?
We went from a general question to discussing specifics...that is progress. It is a complicated issue so I am not surprised or dismayed that when getting to specifics things get a bit complicated.
And yes, there should be some flex based on where a person lives. It is not discriminatory (in the pejorative sense) it is pragmatic. And perhaps a useful policy tool.
