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In a departure from "covid-19 proves what I always thought": on how the pandemic has changed my thinking on UBI: https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/economy/2020/04/covid-19-universal-basic-income-benefits-welfare
While I wasn't *against it*, in practice, I've tended to feel that once you get beyond the abstract idea you end up with a policy that fails in one of three ways: https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/economy/2020/04/covid-19-universal-basic-income-benefits-welfare
1) Inadequacy. A surprising number of basic income proposals fall far short of what you'd actually need to live on. Easy to fix, you just increase the amount. The problem is that you tend to end up with problem 2... https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/economy/2020/04/covid-19-universal-basic-income-benefits-welfare
2) Inequity. A lot of the time the "people don't need it" argument doesn't matter all that much - the cost of, e.g. child benefit is life-changing for some people but if it isn't for you, you can't really entrench your advantages with £80. https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/economy/2020/04/covid-19-universal-basic-income-benefits-welfare
But if you actually have a decent UBI then you are handing people v large sums to entrench their advantage. Of course, you can fix that by clawing it back via tax. But that gives you problem 3... https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/economy/2020/04/covid-19-universal-basic-income-benefits-welfare
...which is that at this point, you've just created a more generous and less conditional welfare state, so why not simply start there? Well, there are some pandemic-relevant reasons: https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/economy/2020/04/covid-19-universal-basic-income-benefits-welfare
