Aff - Socialist UBI - Michigan 7 2023 CPSW

AFF---Socialist UBI---CPSW
Shoutout to Nathan, Arnav, Ava, Ethan H., and Isabella for their work on this file! This aff is almost entirely work specific to UBI. You’ll have to use a cap k or dedev file to defend the impact level of the cap debate. You may consider adding a more traditional sustainability card to the 1ac.
Solvency about creating a transition to socialism is actually A+.
Josh Clark is the GOAT
AFF
1AC
Inequality
Welfare to work requirements fail to reduce inequality and are inhumane - they force people to take jobs that are low-paying and demoralizing.
Mantouvalou 20 [Virginia Mantouvalou; University College London - Faculty of Law, ; 1-29-2020; Welfare-to-Work, Structural Injustice and Human Rights; SSRN; https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3973462; 7-20-2023; AA]
Against this background, Seikel and Spannagel examined the links between activation policies and in-work poverty. 39 They explained that research on activation often ignores employment conditions, such as whether the new job is full-time or part-time work, and the levels of remuneration. On the basis of empirical evidence from 18 European countries, they stressed that an increase in employment does not necessarily mean less poverty: ‘simply making the jobless work is no guarantee for a reduction of in-work poverty’.40 Activation policies, as they explained, force individuals to take up any job irrespective of how much it is paid, while cuts to benefits reduce the total income of the household. They argued that ‘activation can be seen as a driver of in-work poverty’ and found that ‘strict conditionality of welfare benefits and a high degree of commodification of labour seems to force unemployed persons to accept jobs regardless of the pay levels’.41 They also highlighted that the stricter a welfare conditionality system is, the more likely it is that participants will become part of the working poor. Activation policies that focus on upskilling can have a positive effect on household income, while strict conditionality systems force people to accept jobs irrespective of pay, which means that some schemes often turn the unemployed poor into working poor.42 The UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights, Philip Alston, produced a Report following a visit to the UK in 2018, which focused on the problems of Universal Credit and in-work poverty. 43 He said that ‘the philosophy underpinning the British welfare system has changed radically since 2010’, 44 extensively discussed welfare conditionality and its punitive effects on the worst off, and also referred to in-work poverty. He emphasised that in the UK there are 14 million people in poverty, that 60% of those who are in poverty are in families where someone works, and 2.8 million people in poverty are in families where all adults work full time.45 He also explained that even if both parents in a family work full time and earn the national minimum wage, they are still 11 per cent short of the income that is needed in order to raise one child.46 A Joseph Rowntree Foundation Report of 2018 found that there were four million workers in poverty, a rise of half a million in comparison to five years before.47 Since 2004-2005, the number of those in in-work poverty has been rising faster than the total number of people in employment.48 Alston emphasised that the denial of benefits has pushed certain categories of claimants into unsuitable work,49 and explained that people want to work, and take work that is badly paid and precarious in order to meet their basic needs.50 Having spoken with Universal Credit claimants, he said that not only did they have to ‘fill out pointless job applications for positions that did not match their qualifications’, but also that they had to ‘take inappropriate temporary work just to avoid debilitating sanctions’.51 To further corroborate the claim of Seikel and Spannagel, empirical research conducted in the UK on the effects of Universal Credit suggests that claimants are routinely forced to apply for and accept jobs that are precarious. It is crucial to underline here that claimants are expected to accept zero hour contracts, because these are viewed as valuable flexible arrangements.52 For those who accessed the Jobcentre, the experience of applying for many unsuitable and inappropriate jobs is reported to be ‘soul destroying’, in the words of a foodbank volunteer. 53 The duty to accept exploitative work accentuates the problem. Someone interviewed said:
Welfare-to-work is the root cause of punitive hardships – the threat of sanctions and release of personal information hurt the most vulnerable.
Mantouvalou 20 [Virginia Mantouvalou; University College London - Faculty of Law, ; 1-29-2020; Welfare-to-Work, Structural Injustice and Human Rights; SSRN; https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3973462; 7-20-2023; AA]
Even though work is an important good and people generally want to work, there are reasons of principle to question conditional systems of benefit. In 1998 Jonathan Wolff questioned whether they are compatible with equality, as they require the most disadvantaged in society to reveal information about their circumstances, while ‘the rich do not have to explain how they got rich’,11 but also because of what he calls ‘shameful revelation’.12 On this analysis, there are things that people do not want to reveal to anyone, including themselves. If someone is unemployed at a time of low unemployment, the failure to be employed is not perceived to be due to external circumstances, but due to lack of talent or aptitude for the jobs that are available. Welfare-to-work schemes in this case require that those who want welfare support to prove to themselves and to state authorities that they have failed to get a job despite the fact that there are few employment opportunities. They have to reveal facts that may be degrading, embarrassing or humiliating, in a manner that makes it impossible to think of themselves as equals in society. ‘This removes any last shred of dignity from those already in a very unfortunate position.’13 Wolff was concerned that egalitarian theories of distributive justice focus on individual responsibility for people’s condition in order to assess what is the fair distribution of resources, and argued that an egalitarian ethos is not only about fairness in distribution of resources, but also about respect.14 Wolff’s argument is an important normative argument involving the compatibility of these schemes with egalitarian values.15 In the UK welfare-to-work schemes and their underlying principles are not a new phenomenon, but have become especially punitive in recent years.16 They represent a shift away from social security as a way to prevent hardship to a way to get people into work, 17 and have been endorsed both by Labour and Conservative governments. The way that they have evolved helps illustrate how over the last two decades there has been a turn towards a particularly strict conditionality system. In 1995 the Jobseekers Act was enacted, which involved the assessment of jobseekers’ behaviour. Labour Governments (1997-2010) endorsed welfare-to-work as a key element of their policy that insisted that the unemployed should access paid work as quickly as possible, otherwise there would be stepped up sanctions, consisting in reduction of their welfare benefits. During this same period conditionality applied to more groups of welfare support claimants than before, including people with disabilities and single parents. In 2002, an agency called Jobcentre Plus was established, which was for all those who claimed benefits and were out of work. Personal advisers were introduced who would support claimants to find work, and a weekly plan (the ‘jobseeker’s agreement’) was put in place for everyone. The advisers would regularly monitor compliance with the agreement and refer claimants who had not met the conditions to the Department for Work and Pensions. Other tasks of the advisers were to issue a ‘jobseeker’s direction’ which gave specific guidance on how to look for a job, to receive training and improve their employability. Advisers also had the power to impose sanctions if the claimants did not meet the conditions imposed. One of the key aims of the regime was to support not only jobseekers, but also those with childcare responsibilities, the ill and disabled, to find work. The Welfare Reform Act 2007 introduced among other things a stricter test for disabled claimants, who were assigned personal advisers and would be sanctioned if they did not take part in the scheme. The Welfare Reform Act 2009 extended conditionality to other groups, such as single parents.
Poverty is systemic – racist roots of the social security net destroy any opportunity for wealth equality.
Hahn and Simms 21 [Heather Hahn, Associate vice president for management in the Center on Labor, Human Services, and Population at the Urban Institute; Margaret Simms, nonresident fellow at the Urban Institute; 2-16-2021; Poverty Results from Structural Barriers, Not Personal Choices. Safety Net Programs Should Reflect That Fact.; Urban Institute; https://www.urban.org/urban-wire/poverty-results-structural-barriers-not-personal-choices-safety-net-programs-should-reflect-fact; 7-20-2023; AA]
Yet many families—especially people of color, who have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic—were already facing severe economic challenges because of structural barriers preventing them from reaping the benefits of a strong economy. These families sometimes rely on federal safety net programs to access the resources they need to afford food, rent, and other necessities.
But the social safety net is fundamentally inequitable. The structure of programs like Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) ignore systemic barriers rooted in structural racism that disproportionately affect people of color, especially Black Americans. Instead, these programs are meager and punitive, designed to blame individual shortcomings—even though evidence debunks the myth that laziness or poor choices cause poverty.
The current economic crisis and its disproportionate impacts highlight the need to redesign safety net programs to rectify these inequities and ensure everyone can access the resources they need to provide for their families.
Structural barriers cause poverty, not individual choices
A focus on individual responsibility is rooted in the assumptions of the American dream, which promotes the idea that if someone works hard, follows social and moral rules, and takes personal responsibility, they will be financially successful. So, under this assumption, if they are struggling financially, they must have done something wrong or aren’t working hard enough. And too often, these expectations are seen through a racist lens, which perpetuates harmful stereotypes.
These ideas about who experiences poverty and why are flawed because they ignore the structural forces that contribute to poverty. Numerous interrelated systems and structures make it more difficult for some people to provide for their families. These structures drive disparities in access to transportation, education, child care, health care, high-quality jobs, and affordable housing near work, as well as in interaction with the justice system and mass incarceration.
Racial disparities and discrimination are embedded in each of these systems. Racial gaps in educational access and attainment, as well as Black workers’ overrepresentation in low-wage industries and occupations, contribute to a Black-white earnings gap. And even among people with comparable education, Black people receive lower wages than their white peers. These disparities are what contribute to economic insecurity and poverty.
Safety net programs perpetuate disparities by focusing on individual deservingness
Given these structural factors and their disproportionate impact on people of color in the US, it is clear that laziness and immorality are not the root causes of poverty. Yet, these flawed ideas still form the basis of the American safety net. For programs providing cash, nutrition assistance, and other supports, eligibility requirements are high, benefits are low, and sanctions are harsh, with the goal of ensuring only desperately needy people who take “personal responsibility” (PDF) can access assistance.
SNAP, which is available only to households with net incomes below the federal poverty level, helped one in nine people in the US access food in 2019. But in 99 percent of US counties, the maximum SNAP benefit per meal is not enough to cover low-income meal costs. In all but two states, families with earnings at the federal poverty level earn too much to qualify for cash assistance through TANF. For every 100 families experiencing poverty in 2019, only 23 received TANF cash assistance. On average, states provide a family of three with no more than $462 a month in TANF benefits. In Mississippi, the maximum TANF benefit for a family of three is $170 a month.
In addition to the income limits, other restrictions on program participation are designed to test the deservingness of applicants or recipients, further reflecting flawed ideas about the causes of poverty.
Some states require costly drug tests, even though few people test positive. Both SNAP and TANF require adults to demonstrate they are working or engaged in allowable work activities as a condition of participation. Research shows work requirements neither address the root causes of poverty nor help people find and maintain stable, well-paying jobs that keep them out of poverty. And the red tape associated with work requirements can lead to people losing access to benefits even when they are employed or should be exempt.
Black Americans, in particular, often face greater scrutiny in safety net programs, leading to further disadvantages. This shows up in state policies for TANF cash assistance, a program for which states decide who gets assistance, how much, for how long, and under what conditions. Research shows Black Americans are disproportionately concentrated in states with less generous TANF benefits, more restrictive requirements, and shorter time limits. Racial differences in TANF have also been observed in sanctions, receipt of work support services like child care, and access to education and training.
Equity should drive changes in safety net programs
Fundamental solutions to the economic inequities facing people of color in the United States are needed to address the structures and narratives that force so many families to experience economic insecurity. To ensure solutions are moving in the right direction, policymakers can evaluate proposals through the equity lens the Biden administration and others have proposed.
Implementation of UBI alleviates poverty and expands welfare benefits---solves inequality and systemic racism
Sarmad Wali Khan 23, Sarmad Walie Khan is a writer at the Borgen Project"Universal Basic Income as a Solution to End Poverty," Borgen Project, https://borgenproject.org/solution-to-end-poverty//ethanh
Universal basic income (UBI) is a concept that has gained momentum as a promising solution to end poverty worldwide. UBI is a system that provides every citizen, “regardless of income or employment status,” with a regular cash payment from the government. The idea is to provide a safety net that ensures “everyone has enough money to meet their basic needs, such as food, housing and health care” and to give people the freedom to pursue work that is meaningful to them.
Potential Benefits of Universal Basic Income
In many countries, poverty is a complex issue that is influenced by a range of factors, including unemployment, low wages, inadequate social services and discrimination. UBI aims to address some of these underlying causes of poverty by providing people with a stable source of income to rely on.
According to the World Bank, as of March 2023, 659 million people across the world live in extreme poverty, which is defined as living on less than $2.15 per day. UBI aims to provide these people with a basic level of income that can help them meet their basic needs and improve their standards of living.
One of the key benefits of UBI is income inequality reduction. In many countries, there is a widening gap between the rich and poor and UBI can help to narrow this gap by providing everyone with a basic level of income.
Studies and Pilot Projects
Studies have shown that UBI can reduce poverty rates, particularly among vulnerable groups such as children and the elderly. Research shows that a UBI pilot project introduced in the 1970s in the Canadian town of Dauphin led to a reduction in poverty rates and improved health outcomes as hospitalization rates declined by 8.5% in four years, mental health improved and more students completed secondary school.
UBI can also stand as a solution to end poverty by stimulating the economy. When people have more money to spend, they are more likely to invest in local businesses and contribute to economic growth. A study conducted by the Roosevelt Institute found that implementing UBI in the United States could boost the country’s GDP by as much as $2.5 trillion by 2025 by introducing an annual $12,000 per person basic income and this would increase the labor force by 4.5 to 4.7 million people.
In Finland, a two-year basic income pilot project that ran in 2017 and 2018 noted positive benefits. Participants reported improved well-being and mental health but no distinct benefits in terms of employment and productivity. Researchers at Helsinki University concluded, “The basic income recipients were more satisfied with their lives and experienced less mental strain than the control group. They also had a more positive perception of their economic welfare.”
UBI Challenges
Critics of UBI argue that it is too expensive and would be a disincentive for people to work. However, many UBI proponents believe that it could actually encourage people to pursue more meaningful work rather than being trapped in low-paying, dead-end jobs. UBI could also provide a safety net for those who are unable to work, such as people with disabilities or caregivers.
One of the major challenges with implementing UBI is funding. Some UBI proponents suggest funding the program through a wealth tax or by redirecting funds from existing social welfare programs. Others suggest that governments could fund UBI through revenue generated by a robot tax, which would tax companies that use automation to replace human workers.
The concept of UBI is not without criticism and there are concerns about the impact it could have on government budgets and other social services. However, many UBI proponents argue that the potential benefits, including reduced poverty rates and improved economic growth, outweigh the costs. Proponents believe that UBI is a forward-thinking solution that could transform the way society addresses poverty and inequality.
Furthermore, UBI has the potential to reduce the stigma associated with receiving social welfare benefits. Currently, some people are reluctant to access social welfare programs due to the social stigma attached to receiving government assistance. UBI would dissolve this stigma as everyone would receive regular cash payments from the government. This could encourage more people to access social welfare programs, leading to better outcomes for vulnerable populations.
UBI solves inequality – devalues labor while providing economic security.
Center for Social Justice 18 [Center for Social Justice; socio-legal, Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) initiated by the Institute for Development Education and Learning ; 08-xx-2018; Universal Basic Income An Effective Policy for Poverty Reduction? ; The Center of Social Justice; https://www.centreforsocialjustice.org.uk/wp-conten

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