Universal Basic Income. It's a concept that I never even heard of until recently in class. But is now a subject that I have great interest in. Now I definitely am not fully educated on Basic Income or know if it's even possible. I have a basic knowledge from what I listened to in class, talked to among my peers, looked up onine and talked about to my dad who I have always that had great business sense.
I'm gonna feed you some information about my personal earnings and expenses as it is important to mention to humanise this subject.
What it is in simple/Irish terms is that normally if you are unemployed, you get the dole. If you are over 21, like myself, you could get roughly €160. That is your basic living wage. However, you can give up your dole and get a job. Once you work roughly 17 hours, that will equal to the basic living wage that you would get from being unemployed. Then everything after 17 hours of work, is for you.
What Basic income is, is that you would be able to get the same money from the dole, while working. So your living expenses are covered automatically, and every hour you work, is for extra cash that is there to benefit you. Basic Income is seen as a standard human right and that we shouldn't have to work to survive. That we should work because it fulfills us in many other ways.
It might be seen as we are just being lazy. But here is where it would benefit me. I pay €100 a week to cover my rent. I get on average €120 from working over the weekends. So I get only €20 for myself for working over the weekends when I should be free to do my college work. That being said, I might not even get that much. Plenty of weeks have gone by where I only get €90 because there are just not enough hours in my workplace. Leaving me unbearably tight for money.
But what about the grant? Well I get a very low grant since I have 2 parents and home is close to college. But in fact, I am a son of a divorced family and my father doesn't support me financially and my mom is unable to either. I also don't live with my family, I live separate to them and pay for my own rent, food, etc. So I get less than €35 a week. That is to cover ALL my expenses, (food, class materials, repairs, school tour transport, medical expenses. etc.) Which, by the way, is not nearly enough. I can't tell you how sick I am of eating 60 cent butter and bread for dinner. Forget about being social.
With basic income, I wouldn't have to worry about being unable to pay for rent every month. I could have my social life and not worry about how many hours in work I will get per week. I can decide to work the weekends or spend more time on assignments. I could decide if I want to work to purchase healthier food or pay for bike repairs. I would be no longer jealous of people that are unemployed, and aren't in college, that earn a lot more than I do.
The main issue with this is that taxes would increase significantly. As well as prices of items going up. People could decide not to work, halting production, security, safety, etc. As well as many other issues. However researchers believe that more people will decide to work, knowing that they'll benefit far more by doing so.
Also, speaking future tense, now that we are in an age of 10 or 100 employees being replaced by 1 machine, the difficulty to work and to earn a livable, healthy wage has increased significantly. It is now more important than even to introduce this system before it is too late.
No comments:
Post a Comment