My issue with a UBI is very simple. If we cut the food stamp, WIC, Section 8, earned income credits, dependent credits, head start, school lunches, and most of not all of the redundant programs and funds and trusts that help poor people, and replace then withe the UBI? I'm all for it. Simplify the means of helping poor people get back on their feet, help the dependent poor not starve and turn to crime and you save the taxpayer money, actually help out those in need and take some the stigma from anti-poverty programs.

The problem is that every one of those programs has a lobbying group and as soon as you start striking at sacred cows you will be labeled worse than Trump who wants poor people to die in the streets and wants people to resort to cannibalism etc. When all you are doing is handing out checks to people who meet certain income levels, no need for a whole class of people who do nothing but campaign for more programs. The author even makes the case that a UBI will eliminate minimum wage laws, which I have also seen argued. So much for Union support.

Robots are taking jobs away. As has been said elsewhere on Hubski, it is not the Chinese and Mexicans that 'took er jerbs' it is technology and robotics. What are we going to do with 200 million people who do not have any work outlet to earn a living because the jobs are redundant? What is going to happen when you have millions of very idle people living handout to handout, not because they are lazy but because the other pursuits of life that took all their time are gone? There are only so many waitresses, Walmart greeters and line cooks after all. And even those jobs are going to be radically altered by technology. Oh, and you think we have wealth inequality now just wait until only 10% of the country is earning 80% of the income.

Like you, calling it SSI like my parents have, or a pension like my grandparents, and we are all fine with it. The next step for guys like us who have that need to work is why is it different?