[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by SebC

I shouldn't really have to, because it's basically the conclusion of the rest of my post, but I will anyways.

Well I appreciate your response because it’s made it pretty clear where our difference of opinion is rooted.

UBI increases worker leverage. You disagree, for reasons I don't understand, because it seems self-evident to me that it's easier to quit/threaten to quit your job when you have a guaranteed income to fall back on, and that gives you power.

The ability to quit your job does not significantly increase your leverage as an employee to negotiate better conditions, at least not as an individual. If it did teenagers who live with their parents would earn more at their jobs than adults working the same job who do not have the same safety net. IMO overall UBI would most likely be used by employers to justify maintaining lower wages, the same as they use lower costs of living to justify paying a lower wage to youth workers. While an argument could be made that if UBI created a large enough labour shortage it would lead to a temporary bump in wages, I think it’s highly unlikely enough people would stop working altogether to make it a very significant one because most people want to make as much money as they can and therefore won’t stop working all together even if they can afford to live off just UBI.

I think you believe that increased leverage benefits workers, because you've essentially stated as much in your valuation of unions, and that you value that leverage highly.

I do, however I see UBI as nothing more than a “circuit breaker” for lack of a better term that may temporarily result in an increase in wages, as some are claiming the CERB has done to some extent. But once the market has made that correction, lower wage workers will again be stuck in the same position of having little to no economic mobility without government intervention.

Therefore, I'd expect you to support UBI because it's logical based on what I think I know about you. Perhaps if you think of UBI as a form of strike pay, you'll see what I mean.

Without the collective action of going on strike, strike pay is essentially the same concept as EI and I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone suggest EI gives workers leverage to negotiate better wages.

Anecdotally, I also don’t think I’ve ever met a person who went on strike because they would get strike pay but that’s beside the point.

Economic mobility to me is the ability an individual has to not only improve but also continue to improve their quality of life going forward, and I don’t believe a one time bump achieves that. Perhaps it could if some of the other systemic issues that lead us to this point were also addressed, but I think if you addressed the issues that currently allow for workers to be exploited you wouldn’t even need to consider a UBI.