Dan Nidess has written an article in The Wall Street Journal, ‘Why a Universal Basic Income would be a calamity’: (£)
Leading voices in the tech industry — from Mark Zuckerberg to Sam Altman — are warning that increased automation risks leaving an unprecedented number of Americans permanently unemployed. In response, many concerned Silicon Valley luminaries have called for a universal basic income, or UBI. Guaranteed income from the government may seem like the easiest way to address long-term unemployment, but UBI fixes only the narrowest and most quantifiable problem joblessness causes: lack of a reliable income. It completely ignores, and may exacerbate, the larger complications of mass unemployment. …
An alternative possibility is that a Citizen’s Basic Income would positively encourage employment, self-employment, new businesses, and the acquisition of new skills. Recent research has shown that even a small Citizen’s Basic Income could significantly enhance employment incentives and therefore incentives to gain new skills and to create new jobs.