Last time I checked, even very poor people in developed countries are given access to welfare for their physiological necessities; medical care, food, shelter, and some cash for clothes. They are also able to use many publicly provided services without paying taxes, such as public education for their children. Many cities and states provide much, much more – free public transportation, child care, and so on. If you’ve even done social work in a trailer park, you’ll notice that many of our bottom percentiles have subsidized lifestyles that would have been near what the median wage-earner could achieve a century ago.

I’m not saying that existence is nice and comfortable; it’s obviously not. But it is economically secure. We have millions of people who produce next to no economic output, but they are not desperate in terms of being at the very edge of dying of starvation, exposure to the elements, etc.

So the question is, how far above the current level do we need to go to provide people with ‘economic security’. The devil’s in the details. It’s a nice term, but I think you’ve got to admit, it’s pretty hazy.

But if the low income are continually out-bid by machines, and the fecund womb of the desperate from elsewhere, can we really expect better in the long run?