A Basic Income Is Smarter Than a Minimum Wage
I&#x27;m never quite sure what to think about articles (or ideas) like this. I think of my grandfather who served in the air force for 20 years. When he needed more money, what did he do? He picked up a paper route early in the morning. What did he do when the paper route + air force income still wasn&#x27;t enough? He started driving a taxi during evening hours. And when those three jobs weren&#x27;t enough? He opened up a service station&#x2F;gas shop to serve the other taxi drivers, which eventually morphed into a full blown auto service shop which allowed him to quite all his other jobs.<p>As a software developer I am doing ok. I crawled my way up the ladder though from blue collar work. But I still have plenty of friends that never really went anywhere after high school. Some work fast food, some general labor, but they all make less than $8&#x2F;hr. What do they do when then need money? Get a second job? No. They get on facebook and whine about it or make a gofundme account. One of my friend&#x27;s even works at a warehouse 10 hours a day only 4 days a week. On those 3 days off he has does he work another job? No. He just plays video games all day, as does everyone else I mentioned.<p>It seems that people nowadays seem to think they only need to work one job, and if that job doesn&#x27;t pay enough, it is the job&#x27;s fault.<p>Granted, I know working 70+ hours a week at $6hr won&#x27;t get you any where... But we all have to learn the climb the ladder. The complete lack of work ethic and skill sets I see today I don&#x27;t think we can blame on the public schooling or government policies. I&#x27;d like to think it is the fault of the parents who never taught their own children to work. Perhaps they don&#x27;t know how to work either. Yet I go back to thinking about my Grandfather. He lived out in the sticks and didn&#x27;t really go to school. The family spent the money his dad made (at a brick factory) on buying supplies for gardening so they could have food. For meat they only had chickens and wild rabbits (both of which he refuses to eat to this day). So perhaps formal education isn&#x27;t the magic bullet either. But something is amiss in our world today.