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Posted on 10/13/2026 1:11:24 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
This idea of the Universal Basic Income ( UBI ) has been talked about pretty extensively for years and there have been pilot programs in a number of cities, all of them attempting to build a case for a larger rollout of the idea.
One of the things that drives me crazy about this topic is the way that it's usually covered by the left-leaning media. UBI is supposed to result in an improved life for people who receive it but the real world results have been mixed at best. Often, progressives do their best to cloud the issue by promoting the few positive outcomes that can be measured, such as personal happiness.
I think it should be taken as a given that giving people free money will make them happy. If that's the best UBI can do then it's probably not worth the money being spent on it.
The NY Times sent a couple of reporters out to track the lives of three individuals who were selected for a UBI program in California. They would receive $1,300 a month for one year. Though of course we have no idea if these outcomes have been cherry-picked in some way the results are interesting.
From the Times:
Ms. Weeks was homeless in 2023, living in a tent with her boyfriend at the time while struggling with drug addiction. “I was waiting for something to save me or kill me,” she said.
Then it came — she became pregnant with her son, Sky...
The first trip she made after receiving the initial payment was to Target, where she filled her cart with organic banana baby snacks ($2.69) for Sky, then 14 months old, and a push bike ($61.99) to take him around the neighborhood. She loaded up on diapers that were softer for his sensitive skin than the ones she normally got for free at a food bank.
Her sister and mother were living in a house owned by her grandfather in Tennessee. When the grandfather died, the house was foreclosed on and the mother and sister agreed to relocate to California to live with Weeks.
By April 2025, they were all living together in Ms. Weeks’s two-bedroom apartment...
“It feels like I’ve been given a head start,” Ms. Weeks said to her mother. Her ultimate goal was to be financially independent so she could give Sky opportunities that she never had.
But, in a recurring theme, she didn't wind up saving as much of the money as she'd hoped. Instead, she wound up spending some of it on her mother and sister who were also living on assistance (but not UBI). She wound up fighting with her mother over parenting issues and as the program was ending she relapsed.
With one month to go until the payments ended, Ms. Weeks briefly relapsed into drugs. In November, sitting on her bed next to Sky’s giraffe stuffed animal, she told her mother that she needed to drop out of community college to focus on her health.
But after the program ended, she got a slightly better job at a hotel, re-enrolled in community college and moved out into her own apartment. Her life seems to have improved somewhat though it's not clear how much of that is the result of the money and how much would have happened anyway.
Another person whose account is told in the story is KaMesha Staples, who was working as a drug-addiction counselor in California when she was selected for the same UBI pilot program.
When she received the first $1,000 payment that month, she set a goal: Get a higher-paying job in education, a field she was passionate about. That September, with her daughters back in school and extra cushion from the payments, she enrolled in community college...
In October 2024, Ms. Staples joined her community college’s “job club,” which helped her make a new résumé and a LinkedIn profile and practice mock interviews. She applied for jobs to be a coordinator or teaching assistant at nearby schools. She also applied for Vera to attend nearby charter schools for middle school.
Again, Staples was not able to save as much as she hoped to during the year she received the free money and she misjudged the end of the program by a month which caused her to miss a car payment. She started driving for DoorDash to make up some of the missing money. But things did improve.
Just as things seemed to worsen, Ms. Staples got an offer in August 2025 to be an after-school coordinator making $30 an hour, $5 more than her last job. The same week, Vera was accepted to a charter school...
“Less helpless is how I feel now,” she said.
In this case, Staples at least tried to use the year of extra money to set longer term goals which did ultimately pay off and help improve her situation even after the money was cut off. So it seems like this story makes the case for the value of a temporary UBI to people who are living near the edge of poverty. But again, we don't know how common this was.
Did everyone in the program have the same motivation to improve their situation and use the temporary help to boost themselves into a better life? We don't know. Were there people who didn't make plans and just spent the money foolishly? We don't know.
UBI, as the name suggests, is universal. So if only 25 percent of the recipients did something smart with the money that's a good outcome for them but a bad use of money overall. On the other hand, if 75 percent of them made an effort like this which had some payoff in the long term, that would make a much better case for extending this to people in a similar situation.
I also think the nature of these pilot programs, lasting a year, is very different from a permanent grant of money. Knowing you have one year to take advantage of this is very different from knowing you'll get it for life. I imagine the response would be very different as well. In other words, I'm not sure this experiment, even if you wanted to cite it as a success, tells us anything about the kind of UBI which is just a permanent entitlement.
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John Sexton feel free to give them some of your money and gather like-minded friends to do the same. No one will stop you.
Having followed the rules and worked hard my whole life, I don’t want you to take my money and give it to people who didn’t.
Some will work, some will get money without working. Eventually the workers get tired of working for the lazy ones and this falls apart.
Some will work, some will get money without working. Eventually the workers get tired of working for the lazy ones and this falls apart.
Capital replaces labor. After decades of “free capital” from the Fed, and with endless labor flooding over the border, indentured constiuency would seem the natural end of that metality.
I am not a socialist by any stretch and I have become a fan of UBI. Right now we have thousands of NGO’s the government throws cash at and nobody really knows where the money goes. Why not give the funds directly to people instead of an NGO that passes out phones, one that provides rent, one that provides healthcare, one that provides school supplies, one that supplies daycare, one that supplies... on and on.
Why not give the money directly? Cut out the grifting middlemen and I am sure we can get more money to more people and spend less.
Standard state-and-leftist-permanent-political-bloc-building propaganda from the NY Times.
America’s been through this for every program since the progressives first appeared on the scene. Rinse, wash, repeat.
Only now we are much closer to bankrupting the nation, sparking permanent high-levels of inflation, and permanently entering south-American style politics than we were 100 or 50 years ago.
the author from “hotair” is being far too polite
Best we demand that the grifting NGO and FEDGOV/STATEGOV/LOCALGOV middlemen be eliminated and we get to keep OUR money?
Let us elect politicians who promise to disestablish the NGOs and FIRE their money sucking administrators!
Let us elect politicians who promise “No FRee STUFF!”
UBI is not money
Money is a measure of ones labor.
In order for UBI to work, flat tax and social credit scores need to exist.
A flat tax is not voluntary. Our current federal income tax law is voluntary.
Yes it is. If you’ve followed me, you know my stance on this.
That’s why YOU have to do your taxes. The IRS has the information to process it but the law says it’s voluntary so YOU have to do it. (State is different.. they didn’t make that mistake with state taxes)
SCOTUS can NEVER approve flat tax.
Technically when you print money to pay people...you are making everyone pay via inflation.
I was shocked once to see none other than Milton Friedman suggest a “universal basic income” idea in the form of a negative income tax. It made me reassess my opinions of him.
The Left is such a joke.
Here’s your wheelbarrow of dollars. Better get to the store fast while it’s still worth half a loaf of breat.
I’ve lived in the spheres of the poor for a good part of my life and one truth I’ve realized is that the vast majority of them are poor solely due to habitual making horrible decisions, many of them very simple decisions.
They’ll keep making these horrible decisions with money and other resource no matter how much you give them. It will NEVER be enough, and they’ll come scrounging for more.
The truth is that most people would use the UBI on drink, drugs, pot and porn.
For folks who think this is a good idea, the best way would be to work this on a community level. 200 people kick in 50 a month and give it to the most worthy applicant. Track success…..and failure.
The idea the government should solve problems isn’t right, it isn’t Christ-like and is hurtful in many ways. The story of the Good Samaritan not only defines who your brother is, but also demonstrates how you should help others…..directly. Don’t expect Rome to do it. Don’t expect the pharasies to do it.
Just like they use the current “welfare” system!
FAIRtax is a better solution!
It’s a terrible idea today...plus it kills a human spirit.
Having said that...eventually in the far future something like this may be used and make sense. Once technology advances to be able to take care of everyone and work no longer required it will be ok.
“Why not give the money directly? “
The problem goes back to why the homeless are homeless. If you’ve ever dealt with them, you learn they are 100% unreliable liars. They’re either mentally disturbed alcoholics or drug users or literally living in their own alternate reality. No amount of money will help. What it does is enable those who would otherwise hit bottom and crawl out of their old lifestyle to remain in that lifestyle as long as other people’s money lasts. Giving them stuff is not doing them any favors.
A cop told me about the guy with the sign, “Will work for food” often has a black eye because he beat up somebody to get the good corner. If you see a woman, she’s collecting for her pimp who has her addicted to drugs.
The problem is the do-gooders who provide a place for them to stay at night where they predate on one another. Tallahassee moved their shelter from downtown because the businesses threatened to all close-up shop. To keep that from happening they moved the shelter next to a Junor college. Now the homeless have taken over student center and the college has hired cops to protect the students who are regularly predated on.
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