Exactly. And honestly, I know you just used $10/hour as an example but it's good that you brought it up because I don't think people even realize how much we're talking about. $10/hour would be an insane amount to get in benefits in Finland as an example. If we go by a 40 hour work week, 52 weeks in a year since you don't take vacation from benefits, it would come down to $20800/year, or around $1733/month, which would be around 1554€/month. That'd be almost 1.5x what unemployed Finns get, for example, and we live in a pretty expensive country.
In truth, in Finland, the base benefits and welfare we get come down to something like 5-5.50€/hour (with cheap rent, as it depends on that), or $5.60-6.10/hour. So while the people in the US are having a row over a minimum wage of $15/hour, people in Finland are (already, and have been) getting benefits of around $6/hour, and when that's brought up, people go crazy and think it's nuts socialism and can't work, and that people would just simply live on that $6/hour (going by an 8 hour workday) benefit forever.
Nah, nobody would want to do that. It's just not enough to get by properly.
I mean, if the benefits were as high as $10/hour, it'd be almost double of what it is now, and high enough to equal some really low-paying jobs, so yeah, perhaps then. I think when people make the argument that people would just live on benefits or a "basic income", they've got way too high an amount in mind, and I think that's where that argument stems from.
I don't know how much $1/day really is in Kenya but I can't imagine it's enough for anyone.
Indeed, and it'd really have to be an exceptionally high basic income or benefits that people would seriously even consider not finding a job to get some actual cash.
Although, I do have to say that I keep bringing up Finland, but I'd claim that Finland is much closer to the US or European countries than Kenya is, so while this thread is about Kenya, it's good to have another perspective from a more "western" country where there already exists a type of basic income in the form of unemployment and housing benefits and welfare and such.