Powerful Political Forces Are Aligning Behind Minimum Income
A rarely discussed benefit to minimum income: The higher the social benefits, then I think the greater the labor market liquidity, for both employers and workers.<p>Currently everything else depends on your job: Either you have one, and you have income, benefits, and all that goes with them in a society where everything costs money; or you don&#x27;t and you have nothing (or very little). But if you don&#x27;t lose you house, still can afford decent healthcare, and your kids still eat and go to college, etc., then employees can be more flexible:<p>Firings and layoffs are less of a crisis; when everything doesn&#x27;t depend on having that job then I expect there will be fewer lawsuits. Protections for jobs in law and regulations can be reduced.<p>Also, workers, especially those with mortgages and kids, would be less desparate to keep their jobs. I think that is a healthy thing; they can take more chances and invest more in training and skill acquisition. Also, they are not compelled to do odious or unethical things (such as working off the clock, tolerating abusive environments, particpating in and&#x2F;or not reporting illegal activities, etc.) due to a sort of employment extortion. It probably would be better for managers to get more honest feedback too (though some would have to learn ways to motivate people besides abusing them!).<p>Some of that is speculative but I believe a European country, I think Denmark, worked out a compromise of high and long-term unemployment benefits in return for making workers easy to terminate.<p>In part it&#x27;s also a political solution to the concentration of wealth: If you are going to accumulate so much of the wealth due to the way the economy is structured, then in return pay for these social benefits and we all can retain labor market liquidity and maintain political harmony. U.S. workers have less to bargain with: They gave away many of their labor market protections and lost negotiating power by weakening their unions.