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A Basic Income Is Smarter Than a Minimum Wage

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141–150 of 498 posts

Re: A Basic Income Is Smarter Than a Minimum Wage

#141

Negative income tax makes more sense to me. (NIT is a system where you either get or give money from/to the governement, depending on your income.) First it's both a simple welfare and tax system in one package. Basic income as typically understood is only half of the story. It's also easier to reason about, the money flows are way more obvious, it's immediately clear whether you are a net contributor or receiver and…

NIC is analogous to basic income. At a certain point, the taxes you pay in a basic income scheme are equal to the basic income you earn. Those who earn less than you are earning a NIC, those above are paying income tax.

It is the same thing.

Re: A Basic Income Is Smarter Than a Minimum Wage

#142
post #120
post #29

> No one wants to hire them at a high minimum wage, especially when locals are readily available The main drawback to a minimum wage is that it artificially increases the cost of labor, to the point where it's no longer worth it to an employer to hire a low-output employee. I think we'd all agree that increasing employment is a good goal, but an increased minimum wage actually hinders progress on that front. As the m…

> it artificially increases the cost of labor That's the point. A floor. Through which people should not have to work below at.

Whereas universal income means that everyone in society can tell terrible bosses that they can take their shitty job and shove it, and still live with dignity, a greater dignity than having to work at the absolute minimum of pay, regardless of whether 51% of politicians choose to call it a "living wage."

Re: A Basic Income Is Smarter Than a Minimum Wage

#143

But what about existing entitlement sending, which keeps growing? A UBI without preconditions will only compound that problem, because what is to stop people from wasting their basic income on frivolities while also drawing from existing welfare programs. Many people may agree to work for less than the current minimum wage, and on more flexible terms, if they're supplementing a guaranteed income, not scrambling to av…

Most of the UBI programs I've seen suggested drastically cut entitlement spending. The UBI _becomes_ the social safety net.

Things you couldn't cut: (1) Medicaid and Medicare spending and (2) all social security payments greater than $10K per year [of which there is a lot].

Re: A Basic Income Is Smarter Than a Minimum Wage

#144
post #8

It makes sense if-and-only-if that basic income isn't being doled out by the same organization which also runs the military-industrial or prison-industrial worlds. As an American, I think it's safe to say our federal government can't be trusted to not turn into a tyranny if it's everyone's primary employer. We would get even more massive corruption almost instantly. For example, some people would lobby to get those t…

Unfortunately, in the US the alternative to government power is corporate power.

[deleted]

Re: A Basic Income Is Smarter Than a Minimum Wage

#145

Negative income tax makes more sense to me. (NIT is a system where you either get or give money from/to the governement, depending on your income.) First it's both a simple welfare and tax system in one package. Basic income as typically understood is only half of the story. It's also easier to reason about, the money flows are way more obvious, it's immediately clear whether you are a net contributor or receiver and…

Plus, everyone doesn't need the income and we cannot afford it anyway. I'm partial to trying pro-rated guaranteed minimum income paid weekly or nightly (one can dream). I have seen several proposals that include a clause affecting voting rights of the receivers.

Re: A Basic Income Is Smarter Than a Minimum Wage

#146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The advocates for such policy do keep this in mind. They require tax increases on business. If you make money, you have to pay. The idea is to help reallocate wealth because the market has moved beyond certain segments of labor. For example, when McDonald's can automate half its staff, the other half can't provide labor at the minimum price to be worth while. UBI says give these people, those displaced from the labor…

Won't higher taxes here in the US drive more and more business overseas (specifically to China) and further exacerbate the problem of income inequality? We already see corporations keeping massive amounts of capital overseas because of high tax rates. That money should and could be here in the USA.

I agree, but the theory goes that eventually tax havens will disappear. Europe would probably adopt UBI along with us. So those lower rates would go away. China would do something similar or would be too scary for westerners to fully flee to. Right now many companies are fleeing to Europe for better corporate rates while their C level employees benefit from lower personal tax rates in the US.

Re: A Basic Income Is Smarter Than a Minimum Wage

#147
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would completely remove the necessity to be productive. That can't turn out well. What's preventing me from having as many babies as I can knowing that they too will not have to work or find a job to be supported? I know this won't work at scale, because I understand math.

>It would completely remove the necessity to be productive. That can't turn out well. As seen in welfare states in Scandinavia or Germany, where almost no one works because of the unemployment benefits.

Of course not, but the stability of such a state is becoming a concern with the current migration situation.

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/02/wel...

Re: A Basic Income Is Smarter Than a Minimum Wage

#148
post #95

A Basic Income from Govt comes at a huge price of loss of individual liberty. If someone gives you free stuff, they will expect controls like where you are allowed to spend your money and time. This model of taking from the productive sources and rewarding everyone else will have to break at a certain point. how come you get rewarded for enjoying the gossip column and I spend extra effort doing something else which i…

I hope you can see how other people see it very differently. First, basic income can be implemented different ways, including a base that everyone gets regardless of income, fair in the same way that everyone gets equal access to the roads regardless of income. Anyone can get to where they're going, but how enjoyable that trip will be depends on what kind of car you can afford. There are still huge advantages to being wealthy.

Second, there are a lot of indications that the way to make money in modern capitalistic society is not to add value to society but to extract value from it. The more surefire way is to game the financial system, and you see huge firms that nearly crash the worldwide economy making billions. There's also a ton of money in gaming the legal system, which is why patent trolling is such big business. And that's just the beginning. Look at the Panama Papers! When you look at the worldwide economy, corruption is everywhere, and the most corrupt make the most profit.

You may disagree, and I hope I'm wrong and your right, but to a lot of people the viewpoint that the economy is essentialy fair and beneficial to society looks naive. When you get into the messy details, it begins to look to a lot of people like the more damage you do to society, the more money you make.

I sincerely hope that there's something I'm missing that says that corruption is just a small problem, the wealthy are getting what they deserve, and that the system is working. I'm still open to the idea.

Re: A Basic Income Is Smarter Than a Minimum Wage

#149
post #43
post #29

> No one wants to hire them at a high minimum wage, especially when locals are readily available The main drawback to a minimum wage is that it artificially increases the cost of labor, to the point where it's no longer worth it to an employer to hire a low-output employee. I think we'd all agree that increasing employment is a good goal, but an increased minimum wage actually hinders progress on that front. As the m…

> The main drawback to a minimum wage is that it artificially increases the cost of labor, And? Why is that artificial increase a problem. Every law on the books is an artificial act. I don't see many people wringing their hands over the mortgage interest deduction, another of those artificial changes to the economy.

And borders are just imaginary lines. They are however a based around the underlying reality of geographical, cultural, and political factors. We could make a law that all airplanes must slow down to 50 miles per hour over crowed areas but that doesn't matter if most planes can't fly any slower than 120mph without falling out of the sky.

Laws do have to take into account things like physics and economics. The latter is the study of scarce resources that have alternative uses and specifically addresses things like the cost of labor and the affect of artificially manipulating it.

Re: A Basic Income Is Smarter Than a Minimum Wage

#150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The advocates for such policy do keep this in mind. They require tax increases on business. If you make money, you have to pay. The idea is to help reallocate wealth because the market has moved beyond certain segments of labor. For example, when McDonald's can automate half its staff, the other half can't provide labor at the minimum price to be worth while. UBI says give these people, those displaced from the labor…

Playing devil's advocate, what happens to businesses in the presence of an even higher regulatory and tax environment and what will the impact of increased taxes be on employment and business viability as well as the cost of living? For the sake of argument, think about businesses with razor thin margins like restaurants. In the presence of increased taxes, their margins significantly diminish, if not vanish, and it…

> For the sake of argument, think about businesses with razor thin margins like restaurants. In the presence of increased taxes, their margins significantly diminish, if not vanish, and it becomes increasingly unviable for the business to stay in business. Once they shutter their doors, the tax base and employment decreases.

That's a big assumption. As long as there is demand in a free market, they will stay in business and prices will adjust accordingly.

Or not, since they might get more business from all these people who now have a minimum income. Also consider that the trend is for operational costs to go down with continued automation of the whole production chain.

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