I see arguments against UBI, that it's just the ruling class trying to remain in power, that your landlord will just raise rent by that much. Couldn't the same arguments be used against raising min wage? See, here's my thing, I think UBI would just be the capitalists desperately putting the system on life support but why are leftists so against UBI but not against raising min wage? You're not a liberal, you know better that you can't vote for or against either one. If those in power conclude that's what they need to do they'll do it. It won't matter if you agree or disagree or who's in office. To me that seems like one of those societal contradictions like Mao talks about. Under fuedalism those in power were naturally the only ones with the power to change society, but they had no incentive to so they did what they could to remain in power as long as possible, but ironically the way they solved those contradictions either changed society or set the stage for societal change.
I just can't get worked up about UBI one way or the other, that's not a materialist way of viewing it. A materialist way of looking at it would be to figure out, is this going to be what the ruling class conclude to be the way they stay in power? If so, what effects will that have on society?
Rents did on average go up across 2020, faster than inflation.
The problem here is that we're defining poverty as a certain arbitrary number, and solving it the way the World Bank does, i.e. letting the number go out of date or otherwise completely decoupled from the costs of living. Every time you want to update it, that's another parliamentary battle.
Free money is good but $1k a month on its own comes out to like 21% of GDP. We'd be better off struggling for other things, especially things that have use-value.