[malignblade]

Answering your literal question, how could it "possibly" be good:

Minimum wage probably doesn't work because it means a lot of people live in precarity while both emotionally and physically exhausting them. It might just be that minimum wage has stagnated while COL has skyrocketed. If the point of minimum wage is that it provides people with a guaranteed dignified life as long as they are employed, that needs to keep up with the cost of living a normal life in order to keep its effectiveness. That is one reason it might be "failing" although I don't know exactly what you mean by that.

> get us from the service economy to agency and self-actualization

This is the thing I think most people have a hard time connecting to "measurable utility" but will probably be the most sweeping effect of UBI or similar. Think about your typical gig worker, minimum wage worker in some high-turnover environment etc. This person probably does not have the financial safety net to pursue something meaningful, or to take the risk reskilling, or to otherwise improve their emotional and financial well-being.

You will probably always have free-riders or people who just want to consume without producing. But is it better to have a society of exhausted, frustrated, barely-hanging-on people, or a society of people with the _potential_ to to be creative, passionate, and exploratory?

Conversely to you, I find it hard to imagine that a society with surplus wealth would be more effective if it chose to subject its people to precarity and emotional strife instead of empowering as many of its people as possible.

Some references: https://www.epi.org/publication/charting-wage-stagnation/ https://www.statista.com/chart/25574/living-wage-vs-minimum-...

[jay_kyburz]

Why not just have unemployment benefits or new enterprise grants? Why do you need UBI?

Here in Australia there is quite a bit of money floating around for those people with passions and potential. I've received quite a bit over the years taking chances, some of it as grants, some as government investments.

I've been fortunate and never had to rely on unemployment benifits, but I always knew in the back of my mind it was available if I fail. Soon I'll be able to fall back on my aged care benefits :)

[jltsiren]

Unemployment benefits and other income-dependent benefits are a strong incentive against working, unless the job pays particularly well. It's common that the effective tax rate for low-paying jobs is 80-90%, if you count lost benefits in addition to taxes. Sometime the rate exceeds 100%. In order to get unemployed people back to work against their own interests, unemployment benefits often come with strict time limits, a lot of surveillance and bureaucracy, and a general loss of dignity.

The "basic" in UBI aims to solve that by changing benefits and taxes. Everyone from the homeless to the billionaires gets the same benefits, while income taxes will make sure that most people won't see any additional money. The differences are only seen by people with low incomes. While the benefits may be a little lower, taking a low-paying job makes much more sense, as your tax rate may be as low as 40%.

Many old-school unions oppose UBI because it makes low-paying jobs more viable. They consider it morally wrong. According to them, if you work full time, the employer should pay you enough that you don't need any government handouts for a dignified live.