A UBI increases the stigmatization of the poor – it labels them as second class citizens and undermines the dignity and self worth provided by work

DISADVANTAGES OF UBI Naval Ravikant, co-founder, chairman, and former CEO of AngelList outlines other reasons we should be avoiding Universal Basic Income. He believes that those who are down on their luck don’t want handouts. “The moment I start giving money to you, I’ve lowered your status. I’ve made you a second-class citizen.” Naval Ravikant Naval believes that it is better to help lower-income individuals gain meaningful lives through education and success. “You have to teach a man to fish, not basically throw your rod and leftover carcasses at him and tell him ‘here, eat the scraps,'” he continues. Others believe that there are better uses of government funds than the “handouts” of UBI. In a recent Financial Times article, Ian Goldin, a professor of globalization and development at the University of Oxford, claims that “Individuals gain not only income but also meaning, status, skills, networks, and friendships through work. Delinking income and work, while rewarding people for staying at home, is what lies behind social decay.” Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel laureate in economics, professor at the Columbia Business School, and Chief Economist at the Roosevelt Institute believes that people have a desire to work and gain dignity from doing so. This previous statements strike a chord with me. Self-sufficiency is an essential aspect of well-being. Steve Taylor, Ph.D., says, “Self-sufficiency is the quality of feeling secure and content with oneself, a deep-rooted sense of inner completeness and stability.” What would be the knockoff effects if we take this away from an entire populace? Will we see a drop in production? Would there be higher levels of unhappiness and self-worth?

A UBI will be too small to lift the poor out of poverty – it will only help people on the threshold

Zon, 2016 – Director of Policy and Research at Maytree Foundation [Noah, “Policy brief: Would a universal basic income reduce poverty?”, Maytree Foundation, August 16, 2016, https://medium.com/@maytree_canada/policy-brief-would-a-universal-basic-income-reduce-poverty-cd85fd64dbac. June 27, 2017] NJT

One of the main arguments for basic income is to respond to the problem of people not having enough money to meet their needs—in other words, addressing poverty. But the shortfall that people face in having enough to make ends meet looks different depending on who we are talking about. For people who are working and facing stagnating wages that leave them struggling to make ends meet, a modest amount of support to augment their incomes might bridge that gap. For people who rely on inadequate income support systems, it would take a much more significant boost to meet this goal. Social assistance programs typically leave people well short of the poverty line.∂ Basic income could theoretically send people enough money to bring them out of poverty. The question is whether a single universal program is the best way to do that. If basic income were to come at the expense of existing programs, this problem could be worse for many low-income people.