Poor parents receiving universal payments increase spending on kids
I&#x27;m a little ambivalent on the entire concept of UBI, specifically in regards using it <i>instead</i> of other social safety nets (e.g. food stamps).<p>I believe this study, and I believe that a vast majority of poor people <i>would</i> spend the money reasonably, but I do think there is a small subset of poor people who will be &quot;perpetually poor.&quot; They have little&#x2F;no financial literacy, they&#x27;ll spend the money in a fairly frivolous way, and I think giving them raw cash instead of something more or less boxed-in like food stamps can lead to a lot of issues.<p>I think a lot of people see the majority of poor people acting extremely responsibly and just assume that irresponsible people don&#x27;t exist.  The problem is that they do, even if they are a minority, and we <i>do</i> need to help them too.<p>I am much more open to a UBI if we have it <i>in addition</i> to our current welfare programs, a lot of people would definitely benefit from having a guaranteed safety net, but I think we shouldn&#x27;t forget that &quot;the majority&quot; doesn&#x27;t mean &quot;everyone&quot;.<p>----<p>EDIT: It appears that I didn&#x27;t explain myself very well.  I&#x27;m not trying to give a Reagan-esque welfare-queen thing, specifically because I actually would prefer we <i>increase</i> welfare&#x2F;safety-net spending instead of reducing it.<p>I&#x27;m not trying to shift a burden of blame on anyone, I&#x27;m sure there are socioeconomic reasons to why some people lack financial literacy.<p>I guess what I&#x27;m trying to say (and this may come off as hyperbolic) is that I get a little bit of a social-darwinism vibe when people act like people mismanaging money don&#x27;t need to be addressed in topics of UBI.<p>Obviously not everyone says this, but there is at least a subset of people who pretend that nearly everyone, given enough money, is this hyper-rational actor who always spends their money efficiently and that we shouldn&#x27;t worry about the 1% of people who aren&#x27;t.<p>Even if it is just 1%, these are still humans, these are still people we should take care of, and these are people that depend on the current level of social safety nets.