Minimum wages and universal basic income

[danbrotherston]

Effectively the CERB is a guaranteed basic income and I'm hoping that as the government expands eligibility they realize that this is a good idea and it becomes a permanent universal policy. GST was only supposed to be a temporary measure, after all.

If we were to move to a UBI, I suspect it would be much less generous than the CERB.  Probably similar to what people get under Ontario Works (you don't want to know, it's pretty grim).

This is probably the case.

I will make an argument for having OW and CERB different. Any long term benefit can sustain someone on a lower budget than a short term benefit. I can cut my costs if I need to, but first, that does take time, and second, that's not something we actually want people to do when we are just making a financing bridge over an economic recession.

When it comes to a basic income, that's a long term benefit, and being lower than a short term bridge does make sense.

In terms of the absolute amounts, obviously up for discussion, and I have no doubt that living on OW is extremely difficult.