Good. I cannot see why the state should subsidise an age group which in general is relatively well off and certainly better off than young people.
Completely agree. The same people who think they should get it without qualifying wouldn’t be in favour of UBI, would they?
Surely if you’re eligible, you can still get it?
People want it without being eligible. And they don’t want the government to means test them. That’s the bottom line.
On a related point I never understood the argument that means testing automatically must be ruled out on expense grounds. The old rebuttal is “means testing costs money and it would be cheaper not to means test and just pay everyone”. But I don’t understand why you can’t build a means testing service / system once and reuse it for all such benefits like this. Surely as a government you can be competent enough to quickly and efficiently prove that someone is or isn’t eligible and make this decision cheaply. Apparently not 😕.
Often as different benefits have different qualifying conditions. But the larger point against means testing (IMO) is that universal benefits are far less likely to be attacked and devalued over time. If something is just given to a small section of society, often a relatively powerless one, it is easy for politicians on the right to scrap that benefit or daemonize those who receive it. On the other hand universal benefits (like this one) see huge pushback when politicians try to take them away.
The better path forward is to make benefits universal, but make them taxable income and raise higher rates of income tax, that way most of the money given to higher earners naturally flows back to the treasury.
