As far as the low-income side of things, the safety nets you mention definitely help many people, but in the US at least there are still many other people who do not qualify for existing programs, but are still very much in need:
- Long-term unemployment - unemployment pay, even with the recent extensions, is limited in duration. A portion of such people might qualify just fine for disability (SSDI, SSI), but many long-term unemployed do not. To qualify a person can't just prove they haven't been able to find any available jobs they're capable of doing, but prove that there isn't any possible job at all they could do, regardless of openings or likelihood of being hired.
There is disability fraud that goes on (cases that don't meet the legal definition, but are misrepresented and approved), especially for areas with very high unemployment, but this is illegal and not supposed to happen, and efforts are constantly underway to crack down, often to the detriment of many unequivocally legitimate (by legal definition) disability recipients.
- For food assistance, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), provides usually $100-$300 per person in monthly supplemental assistance for purchasing groceries. But for those people without additional income to put towards food, it is often not enough and seeking out additional non-governmental help is necessary to not go hungry. In many states long-term unemployed people, regardless of need, do not even qualify (assistance is time-limited).
- Except in the case of low-income parents, cash assistance is very rare or nonexistent most places in the US.
- Health care - the Affordable Care Act (ACA) improved the situation for a large portion of uninsured Americans, mostly by providing variable subsidies for a wide range of incomes, and disallowing insurance companies from denying or cancelling coverage for medical reasons.
Even now though, in some states many low income-people still cannot obtain insurance; some State governments (like Texas, Florida and others) chose not to expand their Medicaid programs to cover all adults below the poverty level, as was expected. In those states non-disabled adults below the poverty level do not qualify for Medicaid, or even for the same subsidies provided to those in higher income brackets.
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A basic income would ease a lot of pains for low-income individuals who do not qualify for current aid programs, or qualify but do not receive benefits for various other reasons: like not knowing it's available, daunting paperwork and proof of identity/need requirements, stigma, etc. The bureaucratic overhead of processing applications and managing current cases for a range of programs would be greatly reduced too.
- Long-term unemployment - unemployment pay, even with the recent extensions, is limited in duration. A portion of such people might qualify just fine for disability (SSDI, SSI), but many long-term unemployed do not. To qualify a person can't just prove they haven't been able to find any available jobs they're capable of doing, but prove that there isn't any possible job at all they could do, regardless of openings or likelihood of being hired.
There is disability fraud that goes on (cases that don't meet the legal definition, but are misrepresented and approved), especially for areas with very high unemployment, but this is illegal and not supposed to happen, and efforts are constantly underway to crack down, often to the detriment of many unequivocally legitimate (by legal definition) disability recipients.
- For food assistance, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), provides usually $100-$300 per person in monthly supplemental assistance for purchasing groceries. But for those people without additional income to put towards food, it is often not enough and seeking out additional non-governmental help is necessary to not go hungry. In many states long-term unemployed people, regardless of need, do not even qualify (assistance is time-limited).
- Except in the case of low-income parents, cash assistance is very rare or nonexistent most places in the US.
- Health care - the Affordable Care Act (ACA) improved the situation for a large portion of uninsured Americans, mostly by providing variable subsidies for a wide range of incomes, and disallowing insurance companies from denying or cancelling coverage for medical reasons.
Even now though, in some states many low income-people still cannot obtain insurance; some State governments (like Texas, Florida and others) chose not to expand their Medicaid programs to cover all adults below the poverty level, as was expected. In those states non-disabled adults below the poverty level do not qualify for Medicaid, or even for the same subsidies provided to those in higher income brackets.
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A basic income would ease a lot of pains for low-income individuals who do not qualify for current aid programs, or qualify but do not receive benefits for various other reasons: like not knowing it's available, daunting paperwork and proof of identity/need requirements, stigma, etc. The bureaucratic overhead of processing applications and managing current cases for a range of programs would be greatly reduced too.