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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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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