Afternoon Must-Read: Brink Lindsey: Why Living on the Dole is Bad for You

Brink Lindsey: Why Living on the Dole is Bad for You: “I worry that a U[niversal ]B[asic ]I[ncome] would further encourage mass idleness…

…a serious and worsening social blight among the less educated and less skilled, I favor instead social policies that promote engagement in the work force… through wage subsidies for low-skill work. Flanigan says this makes me a paternalist…. I don’t think the paternalism charge really gets us anywhere…. The purpose of both a UBI and wage subsidies is to help people…. In one sense, then, both policies are paternalistic…. Viewed from another angle, though, neither policy is properly considered paternalistic. Paternalism, after all, is about reducing people’s choices for their own good. But either a UBI or wage subsidies would expand the choices…. The great virtue of a UBI is its directness and simplicity… more helpful to the disadvantaged than the patchwork of frequently intrusive, infantilizing, bureaucratic, and wasteful means-tested programs…. If I could wave a magic wand and replace the policy status quo with a UBI, I would do so. That said, my reading of the available evidence convinces me that a social policy that channels benefits through work and thereby encourages paid employment has important advantages…