dolanecon

Yes, it is, given our current society. But your question was, why should we do anything for the poor? What would happen if we ended all welfare, all social security, all healthcare, and so on? I don't think the danger of a violent reaction would be so small then.

You are right, though, people are not revolting violently against the current welfare system, with its built-in poverty traps and its micro-managing of the lives of the poor. More's the pity. People who are caught up in that system should be mad as hell about it, but most of them just take all the indignities of the welfare system as part of life as they know it.

Ooh, nice question. Maybe we need to move this to /r/philosophy/!

Short answers: (1) So that the poor don't rise up and burn them out of their homes, Russian style; and (2) Because charity toward the poor is in our genes (helped hunter-gatherer tribes survive the hard seasons) and in our religions (if we have one). Historically every society has had some mechanism for helping the poor. The problem is that ours is so unfair and inefficient.

Gosh, thanks for your support! I wish I could agree that "there really isn't another logical option" necessarily implies "this will eventually be implemented".

Seriously, though, I do see momentum building. Eventually if not sooner, as they say.

There are two parts to my answer:

(1) In this post on affordability, I treat the UBI as a federal program only, uniform for the whole country. However, I note that right now, about 1/4 of all income support programs are run by state and local governments. Those states and cities would probably want to reconfigure their efforts to dovetail with the federal UBI. The result would be that richer states and cities would have more available to supplement the federal UBI to take into account housing costs, etc.

(2) I don't think anyone has a "right" to live in San Francisco with its glorious economic and noneconomic benefits. If you couldn't find work in SF, and had to live on your UBI, maybe you should consider moving to Oklahoma City where the cost of living is a lot lower and your UBI would go farther.

An UBI would have to be indexed to the cost of living, but if it is financed in a way that is revenue-neutral (which I favor), it would not make the problem of inflation any worse than it is.