Globally, as poverty, inequality, and social injustice become more widespread, we should focus on creating comprehensive and practical solutions to these multifaceted difficulties (United Nations). One issue of the many possible solutions that has been intensively discussed and debated is the Sure the lack of volunteers in disaster relief work can profoundly impact the community’s ability to respond to and recover from such disasters. The idea of UBI may be likened to a regular, unconditional payout offered to each individual within a certain locale, including those with/without steady jobs and earning not less than the others. This policy lacuna has opened up the way for UBI as a destination policy to adjust the social safety net and secure at least minimum income. Unconditional Basic Income (UBI) thus disentangles the vital needs of people’s survive from regular work, thereby allowing individuals to invest in themselves by pursuing education, health, and other productive avenues while significantly reducing inherent inequalities socially and economically. Although questions of its viability and justifying its advantages often arise, I argue that incorporating UBI into the economy of the 21st century is ethical and economically necessary.
Pros for UBI
The argument for implementing UBI policy as one of the most prominent and significant where it directly influencesincome and wealth equality is that it will reduce these inequalities substantially. The income inequality that entrenches many nations across the globe nowadays is the denotation of a gap that spreads to the heights between rich and poor that is essentially increasing. UBI, as such, can mend the gap between the richest and the poorest of society by creating an income floor for all citizens. Hence, UBI is a means by which many people will crawl out of the abyss of homelessness and prevent such poverty from being passed down to the next generation. Through such a mechanism, everyone is ensured of at least the minimum (basic needs) income level like food, accommodation, dress, and health. This can help minimize inequality at the absolute level as often the most disadvantaged people bear the heaviest economic cost of society. On the other hand, studies have proven that bridge programs combining UBI with policies improving public health, social mobility, and cohesion effectively narrow income gaps, improving health outcomes and community strength. The studies for research accomplished by various establishments also produced scientifically proven results that closely connect to poverty, financial insecurity, and unhealthy outcomes for mental and physical health.
The guarantee of a basic income will allow individuals and communities to overcome one of the most challenging obstacles in life – the lack of economic stability. Thus, it will become easier for them to afford healthier and safer food, proper housing, medical treatment, and the other key determinants of well-being (Ryu and Fan). The likelihood of a better quality of life is enhanced through achieving a status of no more poverties. Thus, the incidences of stress, anxiety, and desperation can be minimized. UBI, by this, can become a decisive financial backup to enable people to invest in the well-being and the health of their families, which may not be possible with the routine ticking of the illness paycheck-to-paycheck.
Moreover, poverty impacts on the lives of children are deep and often last for a lifetime as well as the next generation (Thomson et al.). Children who come from homes where they live in poverty are more likely to develop difficulties in the sphere of cognition, health, education, and career success; thereby, they sometimes repeat the cycle. Supplying families the opportunity to make ends meet without being pushed into extreme poverty in the first instance will help break this malicious circle and foster more economic mobility in the next generations.
Furthermore, with its universal basic income (UBI) approach, it becomes possible to simplify and contemporary the present welfare system and social protection programs. Present welfare programs can get very complicated for applicants to understand, they may have to learn new processes and may need to meet some strict means-testing thresholds to get the chance to receive a grant (Ward). This harsh procedure not only amplifies the societal views of the traditional poor person but also creates perverse effects, making poor people do not want to work and even the advancement, like the real one, can cause the ultimate situation in which people are living, which we call the “poverty trap.”
In contrast, UBI payments will remain truly universal and unconditional; this would stay away from the pitfalls created and at the same. Thus, via UBI’s dissociation of subsistence income from employment formalness, individuals might become too devoted to education or other productive activities such as entrepreneurship and training, which earlier seemed high and hopeless given the perpetual poverty. This adaptability, combined with the economic viability in a scenario where automation, artificial intelligence, and globalization render a high percentage of traditional jobs obsolete, is specifically relevant to the recent labor market evolution. A UBI can re-marginalize the workers to gain more independence in the workplace and greater bargaining power, whose efforts are not bound by the high probability of unemployment or their wages remaining the same.
Cons for UBI
Furthermore, the UBI also gives recognition and pays attention to unequivocally decisive but inestimable contributions done by homemakers, caretakers, volunteers, artists, and other invaluable workers whose huge work is mostly taken for granted or underestimated in traditional measures of the economy. While UBI shields those individuals by making it a societal right to provide them with basic income, it allows them to engage in activities determined by social usefulness but not by generating incomes through employment that is held conventionally. Ending up, UBI reflects revealed marasmus that workers are still in the economy in a world of widespreadwidespread joblessness, unemployment, or extreme income disparity. It is both an ethical and economic necessity. Lending people a moderate financial breathing space that is more humanized than risking them to unemployment could open up better chances for more people to exercise their enterprise, creativity, and civic potential and pursue meaningful careers that can deliver value to society in the non-financial bottom line.
Notwithstanding its usefulness, the idea of UBI comes with some justified criticisms worth considering. One common objection is that it is difficult to implement the Universal Basic Income, for it will be too cumbersome and costly, especially for countries whose finances are already chaotic. Thus, they are already pressed for their allocated annual budget and have a high debt burden (Development Impact Guest Blogger). Implementing a UBI program may be a source of much-needed stability in households. Still, the required costs are massive, specifically the funding requirement for a well-designed program that will transport people from poverty and give them a decent income floor.
Another issue is that a basic income without work may lead people to a dependency, which, in turn, would end the desire to be productive workers, which would be a misuse of the economic potential of society. Some are seen to believe that humans as a race, are more motivated in that they require paying a price for rewards offered through work and success, rather than receiving free cash without any conditions attached to it. Critics worry that UBI acts as a cover for employers to scale down job conditions or lower wages if employees have an option of joblessness or switching due to reduced economic pressure to retain their jobs. The lack of very cautious and strong design and implementation can break and not serve instead the same aim, which is the purpose of the UBI program.
Nevertheless, despite the concerns expressed about UBI’s impact on the labor market, automation, poverty alleviation, unintended consequences, implementation complexities, and the welfare trap, the bulk of evidence generated from existing UBI pilot programs and studies shows that most of these fears might be exaggerated or erroneous. For instance, a two-year randomized control trial underlined that a UBI program in Finland did not significantly impact employment status. On the contrary, the group enrolled in the UBI program showed improved motivation and higher than the random possibility of re-employment. For the same, there were trials across the length of the timeframe of basic income in India, and no detrimental effect was found on the labor force participation rates; at the same time, these trials showed satisfaction in life scores, as well as health outcomes among recipients of baseline income In contrast to just being kept dependent, UBI allows people and families have own financial protection means that allows them to consider skills building, looking for new options in life or setting up a business, without always feeling quite desperate in the absence of wealth. However, instead of being overwhelming or unrelated to the nitty-gritty, the findings of existing data should show that these concerns should be more manageable and can be eliminated through well-thought-out policy design.
My Stance
However, after thoroughly analyzing its impact on society and hearing people like poverty and inequality, I support the introduction of universal basic income (UBI), a measure to move a lot forward. UBI is an effective mechanism to facilitate economic equality at the personal level by ensuring all people can meet their basic needs without having a job or high income may be guaranteed. By overcoming the rich and the poor economic divides, UBI can pull people out of the poverty trap, improve public health outcomes, and enhance chances for upward social mobility for the next generations. Also, UBI revolutionizes antiquated welfare systems, and these individuals may study, open their own businesses, or follow their desires without wishing to receive the benefit of money. Although the implication of UBI may be a cause for reflection, the results of the already conducted trials show the change-making power of this program and, therefore, its ability to recreate a more fair and just society. By discovering the chances that come from the UBI, we welcome the inevitable future in which no one is left without the opportunity to progress.
Conclusion
Conclusively, UBI is an idea whose time has come, minding through the realistic options of its realization. Through UBI provision as a universal about human dignity, it could make sure that all people make MODICUM of income security as well as it could reduce inequality, poverty, and economic insecurity. At the same time, people could invest in their work, families, and communities by themselves. On the contrary, UBI may stir hope for a more prosperous and self-sufficient future by releasing the unimaginable number of humans who now endure the effects of endless poverty and insufficient opportunities. The era of rising automation and record-high technological unemployment is an example that should be used, which allows strategic deployment of gains from technological progress and, therefore, the creation of equitability at a wide scale and broadly shared prosperity.
Works Cited
Development Impact Guest Blogger. “UBI Financing and Its Long-Term Impacts in Economies with a Large Informal Sector: Guest Post by Kuldeep Singh.” World Bank Blogs, 2023, blogs.worldbank.org/en/impactevaluations/ubi-financing-and-its-long-term-impacts-economies-large-informal-sector-guest.
Khosla, Saksham. S a K S H a M K H O S L A. 2018, carnegieendowment.org/files/CEIP_Khosla_Report_FNL_w_covers.pdf.
Ryu, Soomin, and Lu Fan. “The Relationship between Financial Worries and Psychological Distress among U.S. Adults.” Journal of Family and Economic Issues, vol. 44, no. 1, Feb. 2022, pp. 16–33, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10834-022-09820-9.
Thomson, Rachel M., et al. “Short-Term Impacts of Universal Basic Income on Population Mental Health Inequalities in the U.K.: A Microsimulation Modelling Study.” PLOS Medicine, vol. 21, no. 3, Public Library of Science, Mar. 2024, pp. e1004358–58, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1004358.
United Nations. The International Forum for Social Development United Nations. 2006, www.un.org/esa/socdev/documents/ifsd/SocialJustice.pdf.
Van Parijs, Philippe. “A Basic Income for All.” Boston Review, 16 Apr. 2000, www.bostonreview.net/forum/ubi-van-parijs/.
Ward, Logan. “The Pros and Cons of Universal Basic Income.” UNC College of Arts & Sciences, 10 Mar. 2021, college.unc.edu/2021/03/universal-basic-income/.
Wignaraja, Kanni, and Balazs Horvath. “Universal Basic Income Is the Answer to the Inequalities Exposed by COVID-19.” World Economic Forum, 17 Apr. 2020, www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/04/covid-19-universal-basic-income-social-inequality/.
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