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water  ·  3544 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: $11,000 for Every Household: Could Guaranteed Income Work for America?

I don't think Mincome though is the end-all-be-all to guaranteed income plans, just a place to start thinking of ideas.

There is a tremendous amount of waste in bureaucracy, giving cash directly to people allows them the ability to individually tailor plans to their own needs. You could even set something up of a transitionary period where recipients could chose between the current welfare system(food stamps, etc.) or guaranteed income.

We also have to consider that our current Welfare system in the US suffers from a phenomena known as the "Welfare Trap" where recipients are essentially penalized for trying to seek higher forms of income, as it puts them in danger of losing welfare benefits, resulting in a net loss of benefits received.

The Welfare Trap is a real thing that plagues our welfare system(as well a bureaucracy waste) and is a symptom of an engineered plan that doesn't effectively complete the objectives it was designed to fix.

So regardless if we switch to a guaranteed income system or not, our current Welfare system is something we should not settle for, as it has obvious areas that require improvement.