Universal basic income would cause a massive economic boom as people who could previously barely get by decide to buy things like cars and houses and dishwashers and new clothes and employ the services of repair techs at need instead of putting it off indefinitely.
When I started getting $525 a week in extra unemployment at the start of the pandemic, I spent so much money just replacing everything in my apartment that was either irreparably broken or had been driving me crazy for years.
srsly, most poorer or even middle income ppl spend all they get.
Give more money to bezos & co and they’ll just tuck it away in a tax haven or do stock buybacks.
yet unemployment money and welfare are controversial (let alone UBI) while corporare bailouts aren’t, all because of irrational stereotypes.
I work at a hardware store that was considered "Essential". Those first couple of stimulus check where a very hectic time for us because so many people where all coming in at the same time to get supplies for the projects they had never been able to do before but suddenly had the money to finally take care of.
April 18th 2020 will forever be burned into my brain because that was the day we had so many people come in for those projects that the parking overflowed the lot into the main road almost to the nearest interstate, and the line stayed all the way to the back of the store for all 8 and a half (the appliances manager hopped on the pro-service desk register but that can only take card not cash) from noon till an hour and a half before closing
And it wasn't just our local store, hardware stores everywhere were apparently so inundated by the wave of people doing saved up projects by the grace of Covid Money that it caused a chain wide national glitch in our system that messed with the card readers, forcing us to hand type every credit and bank card for 5 hours
While that day was mildly traumatizing for me I can say that I've born witness to what happens when people are finally given the means to help themselves. They buy the things you want them to buy and they do the work to better their situation.
