Deconstructing Misinformation: UBI

My local newspaper republished an editorial from the Orange County Register arguing against Universal Basic Income (UBI).  Let's deconstruct it to extract the basic arguments and see where it falls on the Misinformation scale.

"there will never be enough money to endlessly provide a financial boost to every American who can use one"
This is a straw man argument.  "Basic Income" is not "endlessly provide".  The fact that this argument exists suggest the authors are primarily interested in spreading misinformation rather than having a meaningful discussion.

"Supporters don’t suggest using the money to replace existing welfare payments, but to supplement them"
This is also a straw man argument.  There are lots of different supporters with lots of different proposals and beliefs.  Yang specifically proposes offering people a choice between the UBI or the welfare payments.  From the point of view of any single recipient, the welfare payments are either replaced, or they aren't supplemented.

"These “free money” programs only diminish the value of work, education and investment. Anyone would enjoy having an extra 500 bucks in their wallet every month, but the way to prosper is to learn new skills, work hard and invest"
Here we finally have a real argument.  There's no evidence to back up this statement, but a theory is presented that can be studied and evaluated.
For the middle and upper classes, the UBI wouldn't make much difference.  Basically, society will adapt to the UBI.  Employers will pay well paid and adequately paid employees a bit less.  For people having a hard time making ends meet, a UBI would give them an opportunity to learn new skills, and give some an opportunity to experience investing.  Education and investing would remain valuable.  Being a doctor would still earn far more than UBI would provide.

The real value of work is how it fulfills us.  We frequently find people volunteering their time, not because the unpaid work is providing a monetary value, but because the volunteer enjoys working on a project with other people.  The UBI provides a bit more leeway to choose between more fulfilling work, more education, or more investment.  The greater choice adds value.

Yang points out how UBI increases the value of work because welfare payments are reduced when one gets more money from work, decreasing the incentive to work harder.  But UBI payments don't go away just because someone works two jobs.

Yang links to the research.

"Instead of figuring out new ways to redistribute existing wealth, policy makers need to figure out ways to boost business investment and job opportunities"
This isn't actually an argument against UBI.  But redistributing existing wealth helps boost business investment.  Businesses will react to an increase in money that is more likely to be spent by investing to capture more of that cash flow.  Creating a larger middle class improves the ability of the middle class to invest and create new job opportunities.


So the one argument the Orange County Registrar provides lacks a lot of the relevant context.  The OCR states a conclusion without having educating themselves on the existing research.  So this is pretty much mis-information.