Name: Basic Income
Uploaded: 2017-08-10T15:02:04.000Z
Duration: 7 min 33 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Basic income is a proposed alternative to social welfare which gives every citizen of

Basic passive voice

This amount is enough to cover the basic necessities in life and is given to all citizens, regardless

There is no means testing and consequently no stigma attached to it.

People who work will keep every cent of their basic income.

People could also choose not to work and rely entirely on their basic income.

The current system, at least in Australia, requires the individual to meet certain criteria.

You must have under a certain amount of liquid assets, that is, if you have millions of dollars

That is, if you earn too much, your welfare is slowly cut.

People with disabilities that prevent them from working are also eligible.

Elderly people who do not own too much are eligible for the aged-pension.

The major problem with our current system is that there is little incentive to work.

If I am receiving $400 a week from welfare and then I go out and get a job, for every

dollar I earn over a certain amount, my welfare is cut by a certain percentage.

It’s enough to cause many people to not bother getting a job.

Just say I go out and get a part-time job which pays $250 a week for 15 hours work,

but my welfare is reduced from $400 to $250, then my total earnings are only $500.

So, in effect, I’m working an extra 15 hours a week for only an extra $100.

Maybe in America, that’s a decent hourly rate, but here it’s a bit pitiful.

Furthermore, there’s a stigma associated with welfare recipients.

They are generally seen as lazy, or as we say in Australia – “bludgers” – people

However, some people I know who are on welfare simply cannot find a job.

Recently, lots of jobs are going because of things like technological unemployment, or

they’re going off shore due to lower wages in other countries.

Why pay an Australian $17 an hour to do something that a person in Asia is willing to do for

When I was working as a computer programmer in a large insurance company, they were in

the process of off-shoring many jobs, mainly to China and the Philippines.

And don’t think they just off-shored low-skill jobs, not at all.

Many of the programming jobs were going to workers in China with high levels of education

(masters or PhDs) who were willing to work for a lot less than we were.

A basic income allows everyone to live a life without fear of becoming homeless or jobless.

In our current system, if you lose your job and have a mortgage to repay, you’ll probably

Banks aren’t in the business of giving people free mortgages.

Under a basic income, even if somebody in your household lost their job, it wouldn’t

Workers would have much more power than they do now.

Currently, most people put up with their current employer knowing that if they lose their job,

they won’t be able to pay their mortgage.

Employers know this and often treat their workers with contempt.

That is, if you only wanted to work 15 hours a week, you would get to keep all of your

basic income, plus whatever money you earn at work.

There would be no such thing as the welfare trap that currently occurs.

In some real-life trials, it was found people were more likely to go out and find work under

Basic income is simple to manage and maintain.

Our current welfare system requires thousands of workers and resources just to function.

They’re constantly trying to hunt down “welfare cheats”, that is people who claim they are

Under a basic income, there is no such thing as a welfare cheat as everybody in society

The number of man-hours saved would be tremendous.

You could also forgo all other types of welfare such as pensions, unemployment, and disability.

Everybody would be receiving something, so there is no need to also have an aged-pension.

Creativity and innovation would flourish.

Currently, if somebody wants to write a novel, they either have to do it in their free-time

(which would take years), or quit their job and take a year off to write it (losing lots

Furthermore, there’s no guarantee that their novel will be a hit, so the risk of taking

time off work to write a novel is usually far too great for the average person.

This results in thousands of creative people simply not having the opportunity to explore

They end up working in dead-end jobs for the rest of their lives.

I’ve known a few people who could probably be very successful in a creative field, but

due to the current state of our society, they simply could not pursue their passion.

A basic income would allow these people to write that book, or design a board-game, or

learn Android and make an app, or paint a portrait, or learn the piano and compose the

Basic income will also allow people to pursue unpaid opportunities, such as volunteering

at the local food bank, or helping the elderly go to church, or offering free classes in

I know if I had access to a basic income, I would happily go to students houses and

give them free, or discounted maths and science tutoring.

I would volunteer at the local university and assist students with disabilities, currently

a paid position only provided to students who can meet the strict criteria.

Society would become much more caring and people would become less greedy.

For every dollar a person earns over their basic income, there would be a fixed tax rate.

Who knows what that tax rate would be, but it could be adjusted from time to time to

A basic income would replace all other welfare benefits, so there would be lots of savings.

Furthermore, because everyone would be receiving a basic income, people would be less likely

to worry about their financial future and more likely to spend, spurring on the economy.

Think about it, if you had a guaranteed $400 (or whatever) a week, you would probably be

more likely to buy that new jacket that you wouldn’t have bought otherwise.

Also, because there would be more people willing to take risks in business, for example, by

starting a new business, our economy will improve.

There will be more start-ups, more ideas, more people using their creativity and innovation

Sure, not everyone will be successful, but with the sheer number of people creating new

business ideas and models, there are bound to be a few truly magnificent ideas that change