Contriving

Dylan Matthews says the two biggest critiques of universal basic income are wrong. Those two critiques:

Making the case for universal basic income (UBI) has always required advocates to address two criticisms of the idea:

1. Giving people cash will cause them to work less, hurt the economy, and deprive them of the meaning that work provides in life.
2. Providing an income floor set at a reasonable level for everyone is unaffordable.

Call these the work critique and the cost critique. These are attractive arguments to liberals and conservatives alike. Conservatives have worried about the work disincentive effects of welfare programs for decades, of course, but some liberals, like Center for American Progress leader Neera Tanden, have attacked UBI on similar grounds, arguing that by discouraging work it separates ordinary people from a powerful source of meaning in life. Of course, that’s only true if UBI does, in fact, cause people to stop working en masse