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Lawmakers float a nationwide basic income experiment that would cover the cost of a 2-bedroom apartment
(www.businessinsider.com)
this post was submitted on 27 Oct 2025
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Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I read somewhere a long while back that UBI is a non-solution to wealth inequality. IIRC if you don't also radically change the rest of the regressive tax structures then the supply of cash still gets funneled upward. Most of the hype is from PR and the inherent good vibes of getting a check in the mail.
In the sense that “poverty exists not because we cannot feed the poor, but because we cannot satisfy the rich,” you're correct that putting a floor on wealth can't solve the whole problem by itself. But that doesn't mean it can't help, especially when you consider:
What I don't get is the assumption that a fixed stipend of currency will provide for basic necessities.
If the society was committed to universal housing, food and healthcare access then just make that the stated goal and get those funds involved directly in housing/food/healthcare. Just giving someone $1000 doesn't stop their landlord from increasing rent by $900 to match; a government owned housing alternative does.
It doesn't need to; market forces do that. The supply and demand for housing don't actually change just because the buyers have more money in their budget (to divide among housing and other things) so it's not reasonable to expect prices to rise all that much either.
I admit, that's not a super-satisfactory answer, but it's a complicated and counterintuitive enough topic that nothing I could write succinctly enough for a Lemmy comment would address all possible counterarguments. As such, best I can do is cite some sources that explore it more fully:
https://widerquist.com/will-basic-income-cause-rent-to-increase/
https://ubiadvocates.org/will-universal-basic-income-increase-house-prices-and-rents/
https://ask.metafilter.com/367648/How-does-universal-basic-income-not-mean-rent-going-up-the-same-amount
https://www.givedirectly.org/how-do-cash-transfers-impact-neighbors/ [this is the "Kenya study" referenced by somebody in the Metafilter thread from the previous bullet point]
https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/justice-department-sues-realpage-algorithmic-pricing-scheme-harms-millions-american-renters
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I don't claim to be an economist but I'm doubtful that pulling indirect levers and letting the market regulate itself works. If it did we'd already be 45 years into a Reaganomic utopia.
Reformation of regressive tax structures is a must, and pricing controls broadly for everything from rent to utilities to groceries. They're all interconnected.
It's not a coincidence that you always seem to have "just barely enough to get by" and never a penny more. The system is currently balanced like a fine Swiss watch to make sure you are paying out exactly as much as you possibly can without either dying or starting a riot. We've spent decades watching them push the line back and forth until we got to this "sweet spot."
UBI is a great idea, but part of what makes it currently a far-off dream is how much restructuring would need to be done to guarantee it works. And it is NOT going to make the corporate donor-class happy so it will be attacked and sabotaged at every opportunity.
Sorry guys, we all hate work and the associated requirements that come with working within our shoddy system, but it's not going anywhere anytime soon.
No great socialist leader is going to topple the system. Super-intelligent AI is not going to overhaul our entire world. We're not retiring into a star-trek, post-scarcity future. In fact, shit is only going to get harder and harder. Save money, get a job and take it seriously whether or not it's fair, learn tradeskills AND have backup plans to do anything from Uber to selling doorstops on Etsy. We don't fix things if we don't survive so to you out there reading all this and despairing, yah... I know it sucks. Find something inside yourself to push through and survive.
There are MANY different theories for UBI.
But the concept of it isn't really about wealth inequality. It is about decoupling existence from labor. Can't find work or decide to take some time off to "work on yourself"? You can still eat and you aren't at risk of becoming unhoused.
But you also aren't going out for hookers and blow every night.
The model I like is that UBI is there to effectively provide minimal housing and food. Want to have money for luxuries like video games? Starbucks is still hiring and that will supllement your income (lowering wages drastically for companies). Want to move somewhere bigger and better? Go back to school and get an advanced degree. And so forth.
Because you can't address wealth inequality without wealth redistribution and... most online leftists rapidly realize they don't want that once it is pointed out they are "upper middle class". And... I would argue we don't actually want that (outside of closing loopholes so that rich fuckers actually pay their taxes) because it encourages people to strive.
If you're going to have the same quality of life whether you spend eight years working towards an advanced degree and then another decade to become a globally recognized expert in your field or you don't work and just edge yourself to orgasm all day? Which are you going to pick? And, yes, there are people who work because it is what they love but those people tend to never turn in anything actionable because they are just having too much fun constantly iterating. Let alone all the service industry jobs that fucking NOBODY wants to do (and with good reason) but that the world needs to function.
People don't need a reason to strive. They do it all on their own, and they'll have more energy for it without worrying about the baser logistics of life
There is a just a lot here that is based on some baked in internalized presumptions, some of which just straight up are contradicted by research that has been published in the last few decades. But the one thing I want to respond to is the assertion that most leftists are against the idea of wealth redistribution. There is a huge and growing cohort of people strongly in support of extreme marginal tax rates at the top brackets and wealth taxes and/or caps. These aren't fringe topics even remotely.
Which is not going to address wealth inequality.
If musk is capped to even a million dollars a year in take home? He is still making more money than the vast majority of the world can ever even dream of.
But also? The friend who has "a tech job" and is hitting six figures out of college is ridiculously rich compared to the friend who is making minimum wage.
People support wealth redistribution in the sense of "eat the rich". But once you think beyond a slogan that you append to your donation message to a leftist streamer in a mansion, it starts to get REALLY messy what "the rich" actually is. And that is where it tends to fall apart because "no. I am not rich. I just buy a new iphone every year. Don't eat me"
Which, again, is kinda the thing. UBI and even actually properly taxing the fucking millionaires (let alone billion and trillion) isn't about wealth inequality. It is about raising the floor so that the people on the bottom can fucking exist. There is still going to be vast inequality between even the high school janitor and the high school teacher, but they won't need to have 2-3 side hustles just to not get evicted this month.
No one is seriously talking about a 100% tax bracket at 1mil/yr. Moreover, wealth taxes and caps look at an entity's total value. Many of the super rich are not making the money they spend as traditional income, you have to go after actual wealth. Finally, those progressive taxes and caps are typically put forward as the primary method to finance something like UBI or wealth floors--literally a manner of redistribution.
I don't necessarily disagree with everything you've said, and what i do disagree with is more along the lines of thinking you're painting with an overly broad and ambiguous brush.
Then I honestly have no idea what you are arguing outside of MAYBE being overly pedantic and insisting that people like wealth redistribution just not in any capacity that addresses wealth inequality which... "distinction without difference".
Yes, we need to tax the rich. I specifically said as much
But beyond that? This goes back to the idea that UBI et al are specifically not about wealth inequality and are instead about survival. Specifically to reply to
Without easily accessible public transit that picks up every ten minutes, that is just cruel. No money for video games means no money for books and good luck finding anything outside of RW and evangelical propaganda at the library. Btw, what self-enrichment schemes are in place for disabled or differently abled?
Some upper middle class I know and poor people are willing to share, so by "most" do you mean you personally?
UBI has always been a scheme developed by billionaires to lower the tax burden. Seriously, just look at any politician or think tank associated with it, and it will usually be funded by a billionaire.
UBI is meant to keep the status quo, or to even roll back social safety programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and social security. Billionaires would rather pay people a static couple a thousand bucks a month than pay for the inflating cost of healthcare, education, and affordable housing.
Almost all serious attempts to pass a UBI bill have been made as a response to things like Medicare for all, or to programs like rent freezing.