Whoop Tee Doo! They heard my request. A charity is about to prove that the solution to poverty is money! It's a good day:
The advocates will tell you that a basic income is the most efficient form of social assistance: It neither introduces perverse incentives discouraging work nor does it mandate work to receive benefits; the system’s simplicity likely reduces the bureaucratic overhead of managing complicated social programs; and, better yet, it avoids the paternalism of many social programs. Others, including many members of the tech community, believe that such an overhaul of the social safety net will be required to deal with the increasing automation of work and the potential unemployment that may result. Still others, including Judith Shulevitz, see basic income as a means of “edging us to a more gender neutral world.” Skeptics, on the other hand, raise many of the typical concerns surrounding cash handouts: Most commonly, they argue that the poor can’t be trusted not to waste the money. More sophisticated critics will raise questions about the affordability of a basic income, or ask whether it wouldn’t be more efficient to simply provide all the capital up front to the beneficiaries. But fundamentally, the question should be an empirical one: What are the impacts of a universal basic income? And how do they compare with other forms of assistance?
We’re planning to find out. To do so...