First of all, define “work”. Lots of people do unpaid labor, like parents raising children, or family members caring for the elderly. These are necessary functions for society, and if people didn’t do that labor for free, we would have to pay people to do it. Not compensating people for doing that labor is effectively taxing their labor at 100%. Childacre allowances, for example, aren’t a subsidy for having children, they’re compensation for the costs of having children, which is literally the only necessary requirement for furthering our species. The fact that these unpaid laborers don’t have employment for money doesn’t mean they aren’t actively adding value. This is basic “we live in a society” stuff.
There are also plenty of people who largely aren’t able or expected to work. Aside from the aforementioned unpaid careworkers, there are children, the elderly, the disabled, students, etc. Those people still need resources/services from society to support them. They aren’t lazy freeloaders, they’re mostly just in a different part of their lifecycle. Children eventually become working adults. We all eventually become old people who need to be able to retire as we become less able (and also people should get to stop working at some point as a matter of principle, but that’s a digression). Students need to study so they can become doctors and teachers and engineers. It’s in everyone’s best interest to support people throughout that lifecycle, for obvious reasons.
Further, even bAsIC eCoNOmiCs tells us that a 0% unemployment rate is not only practically impossible, but also inefficient. It actually makes more economic sense to have at least 4% of the working population unemployed at any given moment so that there’s a pool of labor that can fill gaps as the natural progression I mentioned above occurs. People change jobs, retire, go back to school, have kids, etc., and if everyone always had to have a job just to get enough income to survive, there wouldn’t be anyone to fill positions left vacant by the above. That’s why “full employment” in economics terms is usually pegged at around 4-6%. That means that it would be less efficient, and thus inevitably cost more tax dollars, to try and keep everyone employed instead of paying people a minimum income (plus various social services) even when unemployed.
At any given moment, only about half the population is actually “working” in the sense of being employed in some way, and that’s how it’s always been. You will likely spend only about 2/3 of your life working, and the fact that you’re paying taxes on your income now is just the price you pay for all that unproductive time across the rest of your life, past and future. There is and always will be a universal need for supporting people who “don’t work”. I, personally, think that a bare-minimum of compassion for humanity is more than enough reason for redirecting society’s resources to ensure a dignified existence for everyone, but even a misanthropic sociopath should be able to understand why their precious tax dollars should be spent on social infrastructure.
First of all, define “work”. Lots of people do unpaid labor, like parents raising children, or family members caring for the elderly. These are necessary functions for society, and if people didn’t do that labor for free, we would have to pay people to do it. Not compensating people for doing that labor is effectively taxing their labor at 100%. Childacre allowances, for example, aren’t a subsidy for having children, they’re compensation for the costs of having children, which is literally the only necessary requirement for furthering our species. The fact that these unpaid laborers don’t have employment for money doesn’t mean they aren’t actively adding value. This is basic “we live in a society” stuff.
There are also plenty of people who largely aren’t able or expected to work. Aside from the aforementioned unpaid careworkers, there are children, the elderly, the disabled, students, etc. Those people still need resources/services from society to support them. They aren’t lazy freeloaders, they’re mostly just in a different part of their lifecycle. Children eventually become working adults. We all eventually become old people who need to be able to retire as we become less able (and also people should get to stop working at some point as a matter of principle, but that’s a digression). Students need to study so they can become doctors and teachers and engineers. It’s in everyone’s best interest to support people throughout that lifecycle, for obvious reasons.
Further, even bAsIC eCoNOmiCs tells us that a 0% unemployment rate is not only practically impossible, but also inefficient. It actually makes more economic sense to have at least 4% of the working population unemployed at any given moment so that there’s a pool of labor that can fill gaps as the natural progression I mentioned above occurs. People change jobs, retire, go back to school, have kids, etc., and if everyone always had to have a job just to get enough income to survive, there wouldn’t be anyone to fill positions left vacant by the above. That’s why “full employment” in economics terms is usually pegged at around 4-6%. That means that it would be less efficient, and thus inevitably cost more tax dollars, to try and keep everyone employed instead of paying people a minimum income (plus various social services) even when unemployed.
At any given moment, only about half the population is actually “working” in the sense of being employed in some way, and that’s how it’s always been. You will likely spend only about 2/3 of your life working, and the fact that you’re paying taxes on your income now is just the price you pay for all that unproductive time across the rest of your life, past and future. There is and always will be a universal need for supporting people who “don’t work”. I, personally, think that a bare-minimum of compassion for humanity is more than enough reason for redirecting society’s resources to ensure a dignified existence for everyone, but even a misanthropic sociopath should be able to understand why their precious tax dollars should be spent on social infrastructure.