Pineapple For Everyone!

I read an interesting, though shallow, article this morning, and I remembered that our lewy had touched upon the "not enough jobs" thing a while back. Is a universal basic income the answer? Has the author of the article seen the movie Wall-E? Anyhoo, here's a taste:

The reality of this situation is chewing at the roots of American politics. The fundamental bargain of American society is that for anyone willing to hustle, there is a decent job to be found, or one that will at least prevent abject destitution. It underpins our national mythos as the land of opportunity and self-reliance. It has always been less true than anyone wanted to admit, but for an increasingly large fraction of the population — start with the 16 percent of Americans who regularly don't have enough to eat— it's a sick joke.

So, according to this premise, EVERYONE would get a check, every month. How much would it be? 2 grand? 3? 4? Whatever it would take to be comfortably above the poverty level?  So if we did that, we could lay off all welfare, food stamp, WIC, and other public workers that manage the business of gov't largesse. Sweet! They wouldn't need to work anyway. Sam will provide!

Also, if we did that, we would no longer need Medicaid (because everyone could afford "insurance"), we would no longer need Earned Income Credit and the plethora of other tax-time wealth transfers, we would no longer need social security for our oldsters, and we would no longer need to fund food pantry or soup kitchens. All of this should generate more than enough moola to fund giving the working 50% a big slice of the pie too (the non-working 50% already get theirs, just not in the form of one monthly check). What's not to love? Mmmm...pineapple!