VIDEO | Universal basic income: the scam by PSC, ERC, and CUP

In the video you'll find at the top of this news story, I debunk the scam that is Universal Basic Income, the flagship proposal from CUP, Esquerra, and PSC to apparently end poverty in Catalonia.

Universal Basic Income is a proposal that originates from CUP, which the previous Esquerra-led government bought into and which Salvador Illa's government has also ended up adopting. It consists of giving, with no strings attached, 800 euros per month to every adult and 300 euros per month to every minor living in Catalonia. Sounds great, right? Who wouldn't want to get free money for nothing?

But what woke leftists and their friendly press won't tell you is that we're facing a fraud.

First, because distributing that money among everyone living in Catalonia means spending about 70 billion euros per year. That's much more than[foto]the 45 billion euros that the Generalitat has as its annual budget. In other words, it's an economically unfeasible measure. 

What they also won't explain is that several studies show that giving money to the population with nothing in return is counterproductive.[foto]Because both a study conducted in Barcelona and another based on the Minimum Vital Income distributed by the Spanish government show that people who receive a payment with no strings attached end up working less.[fi foto]Who would've thought, right?

So, why do PSC, Esquerra, and CUP push for this measure? Well, for two reasons.

One, for populism. It sounds very nice to tell people you'll give them a payment of 800€ for doing nothing. That way, maybe you'll scrape up a few votes, of course. If, in the process, you have a segment of the population that depends on state money, all the better for these parties, since that way they keep these voters economically hostage.

Two, because for the past 5 years there has been the Office of the Universal Basic Income Pilot Plan. 

This office has an advisory council, a scientific committee, and an external ethics committee. In 2022, it had a budget of 4 million euros, and everything is coordinated by a director who has a salary of more than 85,000 euros per year. 

In other words, they pretend to care a lot about something, but in reality, all they do is create structures and public positions so they can live very well at the expense of a tragedy and at the expense of our taxes while they don't solve any problem. We see this with Universal Basic Income, but we've also seen it with DGAIA and other similar issues. This is how woke leftists scam us and lie to us and, on top of that, they do it from a supposed moral superiority.