[analogwzrd]

My pessimistic take on the world at the moment is that at least 50% of jobs in the US fall into Graeber's BS jobs category. I saw a map a few years ago that labelled the largest employer in each state. In every state except Arkansas (Walmart), the largest employer was a university or a healthcare company. Education and healthcare policies are controversial because everyone wants those things to be as good as possible, but also because a huge majority of Americans are employed in those industries and our governments pump massive amounts of funding into these bureaucratic structures.

We already have UBI, it's just the overblown bureaucracies housed by American corporate structures.

[trashface]

Its not actually UBI. Its a basic jobs program, which is different. Its only UBI if anyone can sign up for those jobs, and if you get paid if you stop working. But there is still (a lot) of gatekeeping on who gets jobs in those industries, and in any industry.

[badpun]

Largest employers don't neccessarily translate into their segment being largest in the job market. For example, fast food restaurants in the US employ 4.7 million people, while higher ed institutions hire 3 million.

[JSavageOne]

> "We already have UBI, it's just the overblown bureaucracies housed by American corporate structures."

Don't forget disability insurance, which is massively abused, functions like a UBI

[vinnyvichy]

The irony is that actual UBI (because funded by taxes) might be less inflationary compared to the current H+U scheme..

[jokoon]

Yes, reading this article gave me antiwork vibes.

I live in the EU, I have savings from previous jobs, and currently I am fine living on welfare, it's not confortable but it's not so bad either, so to me, I already have one form of UBI.

Recently I became a bit skeptical about antiwork because it can diverge into some form of sabotage which is a bit dishonest, but climate change is also another problem so I don't really know anymore.

[nikolayasdf123]

true. UBI is there, but it is not evenly distributed. political gatekeeping access to UBI becomes ever bigger focus for everyone