Even if you have a fairly narrow economic view of what it means to contribute to society, there is no question that retirees are making those contributions

How does their volunteering compare to the forty hour weeks they used to work, on average? How specialized is the work they do compared to what they used do do, on average?

When we remove the incentive for people to do something, they do it less.

Any early retiree is most likely a billionaire

My kid’s teacher retired at 55. So you think she was a billionaire?

so by definition they weren’t even contributing that much to begin with, probably just hoarding generational riches.

So rich people don’t contribute to society because they don’t have to work in order to live. However, people under a UBI will be very productive because they don’t have to work in order to live?

A pensioner is someone that by definition already contributed the most they could to the economy

Not really. There are plenty of healthy early retirees. Do they on average contribute more or less than before they retired?

As experience has it, plenty of pensioners continue to work even after retirement.

What percentage? How does that compare to what they did before?

There is a general problem in mass psychology where people sitting around a table or in their armchairs try to imagine the impact of a policy without conducting a study or looking at historical results.

Let me present some more historical results: retirees. Do pensioners contribute more or less to society than before they retired? Are they a net contributor or a net drag? A UBI turns everybody into a pensioner.

The two situations are not identical, but they give me pause.

But in general, people want to do cool things, even boring or simple things, as long as they feel they are contributing to something good.

Do people who retire contribute to society more or less than they did before retirement? Pensioners are the closest thing we have to a long-term UBI today.

Let’s not conflate income and wealth. With a living wage you may not be able to accumulate wealth, but at least you will have your daily essentials covered.

My concern with a universal income is that it discourages healthy people from working and thus contributing to our collective wellbeing. So while in principle it helps some people who currently fall through the cracks of our welfare system, it also reduces the pool of people contributing to it through their taxes. Is it a net win? I don’t know.