How South Korea Experiments With Universal Basic Income | WSJ

To stimulate its pandemic-hit economy, a province in South Korea has been experimenting with universal basic income programs by regularly giving out cash, no questions asked. Now, some politicians want to go national with the concept. Illustration: Crystal Tai/WSJ

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#WSJ #SouthKorea #UBI

[QuestionEverythingButWHY]

"Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor"
--James Baldwin

[avatareyes]

The key point is that the money must be spent *locally

[picnicjournal]

I am an Australian living in Gyeonggi province and I received this local stimulus during the pandemic. It forced us to spend our money at local restaurants and businesses instead of going to big grocery stores and food chains! We still spend our money at those businesses, using our own money, because we were able to discover new places in our neighborhood! Such a great program.

[samuelahn]

Two key ideas among others are "locally spent" and "must be spent by a given time",

[zhangir]

The funny thing is that Andrew Yang (presidental candidate in America) was talking about this (universal basic income that will come from taxing IT companies, like Amazon and Facebook, that pay zero taxes), but people didn't take him seriously and media simply ignored him. I guess its time to look back and take his word seriously rather be involved in presidental nonsense that's happening in the White House.
(I understand that Yang's idea was raw, but the experimentation in South Korea showed its plausible to introduce it. Therefore, it could be adapted).

[tinkerbrittany]

This is an amazing way to build community. Most people go to chains because it’s well known and has become comfortable. By limiting where it’s available, you can learn your community and locals, something we’ve lost with modernization.

[famousamos]

No joke, I’d be able to eat out more at local restaurants if I had the extra basic income.

[snoeleppard]

This is absolutely fascinating to me. I loved how it mentioned how the student was able to let go of several part time jobs and focus on getting her bachelors degree. As someone who is somewhat in that stage of life, I feel like a program like this could seriously curb the stress of trying to start a life.

[robbertorizalino]

This should be done in the US, instead of people buying things from Amazon, let them buy thing from their community to help it survive.

[SoCalFreelance]

Smart policy decision in making the money only usable for local small business consumption. Thriving small shopping enclaves in your neighborhood is the experience everybody wants.

[dextrian]

I love the maturity speak of "we will also include high taxpayers because it´s an Economy policy, not a Social Policy", the level of understanding the differences between the 2 types of policies has a huge impact on what you are doing... just wish the politics from my country understand the difference

[rololoy]

Of course, the “American” professor can only see the negative side of it .

[nikhilb]

That's brilliant. Spending locally on important things and not on unnecessary things like in McDonald's is very good idea to regulate that money

[tchaffman]

Fairly ethnocentric assumptions on the professor’s part tying South Korean basic income to privacy concerns. I’d appreciate the chance to hear her case more in detail, but it seems more like she’s applying an American lack of trust in institutions to the South Korean population and its government, rather than analyzing and rationalizing the policy from the South Korean perspective. After seeing how the Koreans willingly and effectively responded to COVID, it seems like they’re willing to give up small freedoms in exchange for effective institutions and programs that have tangible benefits.

[michaels]

"Trickle down" you say? This would be the "trickle up" economy.

[KiaraLeeOfficial]

Some people in the comment section saying 'Nobody will work anymore'. But dude.. it's $400 .. not $4000 lol. Who would STOP working because they have 400 dollars in their pocket that can be used only for certain local shops. They can't even pay for the monthly rent with that $400 LOL

[gunjanshrivastava]

So South Koreans give taxes to the government
The government gives it to people
The people spent it on shopping
The shop owners give taxes
And the whole cycle continues

[xBrainZy]

4:00 Sorry to break it for you :
We are already being TRACKED without UBI, did you forget that credit cards exist?

[matttyler]

I remember hearing that Myung was reading Andrew Yang’s book “The War On Normal People” last year. I guess it had a big influence on him.

[dnwzsiw]

This "experiment" has seen a huge success in Korea. This was a fantastic idea