Before introducing any poverty alleviation program, it is an absolute necessity for the government to do a feasibility study of that program. Unfortunately, those who believe that #UniversalBasicIncome (UBI) will solve all the poverty are in denial of some facts. In reality, any program which promotes #socialism in today’s society of extensive capitalism is bound to fail and will be of no use. If implemented, UBI will be such a mess that it can be detrimental to the whole economic system of the United States, making the idea of UBI infeasible.
The capitalist economy is mostly driven by the average workers who put all of their efforts into earning a living. With UBI, everyone will get a share without putting in hard work, which will give them enough reason not to work as hard as they do today. This is also the primary concept of capitalism, which was also advocated by the father of capitalism, Karl Marx. He believed that without the motivation to work, the economy will take a nosedive. A considerable workforce in the United States consists of students who work part-time to manage their expenses. With UBI in action, they too will never work, leaving the economy to fail. With economic troubles, the tax collection of the government will significantly reduce, making the very existence of the UBI questionable. Similarly, more taxes on the rich will also demotivate them to invest more in business, which will again push the UBI into a dead-end tunnel. So, economically the very nature of the program suggests that it is not feasible at all.
In the 21st century, social mobility is mostly due to the shifting nature of jobs. For instance, compared to the last century, where most jobs were done manually, automation and technology have been introduced in jobs these days due to surging development. Now, if UBI is introduced and people leave their jobs, once again, the United States will go back to the stone age, as there will be lesser people to contribute to the technological infrastructure, which will be an existential threat to the technology that is a reality today after the untiring efforts of the past.
UBI has never been implemented on a large scale, and anyone who has tried this in the past resulted in revoking the program. For instance, Finland tried this for just 2000 people. However, it was still a failure, and the government decided to go with alternative plans, which raises many questions on the feasibility of UBI.
Implementing UBI would be very hard on the economy. Even if the government decides to give $12000 annually for people above 25 years of age, it will cost nearly $2 trillion to the United States. Speaking realistically, collecting this much additional revenue is impossible, which makes the UBI infeasible. The system of the UBI is ambitious. However, with so much infeasibility, it is bound to fail, and trying it will be one of the biggest blunders of the recent times.
