UBI should be funded by tax increases alongside social welfare

The argument

UBI payments given in addition to other welfare benefits will give workers more power to negotiate their income with employers, remove people from the poverty trap, and allow them to find more meaningful employment. The additional income it provides will allow true economic freedom. All of these advantages only apply if UBI is used in addition to other forms of social security. Some right-wing commentators would like to use UBI to dismantle the welfare state. If wages are not protected, healthcare dismantled, or pensions removed, the cost to most people will outweigh the benefits. It will amount to a regressive measure, not a progressive one. The implementation of UBI in addition to other welfare measures and a sensible minimum wage will give workers more power over their employment conditions and reduce exploitation. People will not need to work as much as before and will be able to make more demands. Some welfare programs may need replacement, but the entire welfare state does not need dismantling. A blend of streamlined reforms is by far the most sensible model. With progressive taxes in place, no cuts to public services are required. These taxes should be on the richest in society. Essential payments, such as disability benefits or housing benefits, should continue. The top 20% will lose out, to the bottom 80% who will gain from having a basic income. Only the richest will lose out if taxes fund UBI. Progressive forms of UBI will empower workers.

Premises

Counter-arguments

A significant issue for workers is that companies want cheap labor. They profit off of people not knowing their worth or needing money no matter how low the pay. This poverty trap continues to increase as the rich get richer, but the poorest in society gains nothing. As things are, UBI is not practical, with or without other welfare programs. Being a welfare program itself, the main problem with implementing it is that most assume the rich will be taxed to pay for it. In reality, it would replace welfare programs people already have in place. It cannot completely replace all welfare, and even only replacing a few welfare programs complicates things. Welfare does not provide economic freedom; it provides economic aid. If implemented, the welfare structures it replaces benefit programs and deductions, including the ability to write off medical expenses and business loses. With large companies, this shouldn’t be a problem, but for small businesses, the cost increases exponentially. To work together with welfare would change the game, but it’s important to know what would stay and what would go.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] 'Empower everyone and prevent exploitation' is asserted. An unconditional payment on top of existing benefits does raise the wage at which work becomes worth accepting, which is the mechanism claimed, but the size of that effect depends entirely on the level of the payment — and the premise names none. [Rejecting P2] Affordability is treated as a question of whether the wealthy could in principle pay. A universal payment is expensive precisely because it goes to everyone, and taxes on top incomes do not obviously raise sums of that order; the premise substitutes an appeal to capacity for a costing. [Rejecting C] The conclusion concedes the position's own framing. If the benefits depend on the payment sitting alongside a protected welfare state, a minimum wage and public healthcare, then much of the empowerment is being done by those other measures — which is an argument for defending them rather than for adding this.