It sort of mystifies me how many people are pushing back against any sort of proposed monthly UBI (Universal Basic Income) like “ZOMG lazy [poor] people won’t want to work!!!”
But as someone who has been fortunate enough to be receiving timely unemployment for being furloughed and has also been lucky enough not to have suffered the same negative physical/psychological/monetary effects as others I’ll say this.
I have “worked” harder in these last few weeks on getting my TEFL certification to teach English online, on finally being able to go back and do home health care which I loved, on writing, on actually getting real art done for my redbubble store, on learning to write sketches, learning improv to open up this whole new theater world I never knew existed, on baking for neighbors, on baking cookies to sell when the farmers market reopens, and actually working out the plan to do it.
I “work” more in one day now than I did in a week at my job where I was basically paid to stand around 8 hours a day (with the bonus of a 3 hour round trip commute) to pacify irrationally angry and entitled people in most instances and defend bad company policy in others. But somehow there’s this idea that I had more value surfing the internet while pasting pre-scripted responses into a chat window than I currently do now.
Like, I totally understand the anger at being stuck working an essential job and getting nothing but shit on and extra stress, but then what we should be directing that anger towards is the way our system is currently set up so that it’s actually working for everyone. And promoting this false idea that “people don’t want to work they just want to get free $” is only helping to set up a damaging false equivalency between “having a job” and “working”.
Lastly, I’m not trying to pat myself on the back for being productive during this really awful situation. Rather just to point out that I believe most people who are similarly privileged to be financially and physical secure with their emotional and mental well being in a place that allows for it, will absolutely be “working”, more than likely harder than they had at “jobs” they had to have just to keep food on the table.
