While I agree with you totally about the experiments -- am I the only person that thinks it's crazy that we're going to give $80K a year to the most useless people in our society when the median household income is like 33% less than that!?
It'd be great to, you know, not have the homeless problem. But when it's going to cost substantially more per person than the average person earns in a year, that just doesn't seem fair...
Not only that, but you are basically incentivizing people to quit their jobs and and live their lives on taxpayer dollars getting high 24/7 and some of those drugs have extreme effects on their futures like heroin and meth. This is WALL-E to the extreme.
I feel the same way about public housing. Why even have a job? I make $200k per year, and I don't want to spend $600K on a house -- yet that's what the average public housing unit costs in LA. If you win the poverty lottery, you get to live there for free. Well, what about EVERYONE else I know my age that doesn't work in tech and -- at current prices -- won't ever be able to buy a house? They've gotta work all day and live 6 adults to a house. But if you're poor, and you get the golden ticket, it's all gravy. Doesn't seem fair.
Again, it'd be great if everyone, you know, everyone could have a roof over their head. But how come if you work an average job you have to share an apartment with 2 other adults. And if you're poor and lucky, we just give you a brand new unit for free? And what about all the poor people that aren't lucky? They just get nothing, while someone else lives like a poor king.
Completely agree that the numbers are frustrating, but if you genuinely think people in public housing are living like kings and "it's all gravy", I recommend spending some time around a public housing development. These places are not all-inclusive resorts with luxurious lodging. The poor conditions in a lot of developments make the cost per unit even more frustrating, but there's not some colony of poor people who won the lottery and dance around all day laughing at what a fool you are for working for a living.
Spending per currently-homeless individual isn't necessarily a reliable metric, as people who are helped into homes are no longer counted in the denominator.
It'd be great to, you know, not have the homeless problem. But when it's going to cost substantially more per person than the average person earns in a year, that just doesn't seem fair...