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Moving Forward on Basic Income

blog.ycombinator.com

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Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income

#131

Post by jimrandomh »

eanzenberg wrote: post #110
colinplamondon wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, I'd hope the system would absolutely tell them "tough shit". There's got to be a line where the safety net gives out, because someone is too expensive to help. That's where family and charity hopefully take over. At the same time, I think your instinct is right, and it's something I've never heard mentioned before. It's almost inevitably that there'll then be the "food security" fund, and the "housing gua…

"Tough shit" sucks when parents blow their handout on lottery tickets and drugs, leaving their children in perpetual poverty.

The US has a separate set of social services that deals with protecting children from abuse and neglect, which handles such cases. Basic income can't fully replace that because not all of what it does is about poverty, so don't expect them to go away if basic income is adopted.

Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income

#132

Post by Shivetya »

xienze wrote: post #60

So, a question for the BI fans: I've seen it said repeatedly that BI will save us money (or at least, not be so outrageously expensive) in part because we can eliminate existing welfare programs. "Just cut a single check, no more overhead from several agencies", they say. But riddle me this: what do you do when someone on BI has a financial emergency or, as will happen with some regularity, just flat-out blows all th…

The problem with most BI solutions is they just want to hand out money but not change how its used and where. There is certainly sufficient technology to track and even restrict the usage of BI funds.

So my idea is this, your restrictions on your BI lift as your income does to the point its just flat out money the ends up in your account. You could put forth some requirement that to receive BI you agree to have that portion of your income tracked.

So you get your BI. You are permitted to spend it at certified service and goods providers. A service provider could be your landlord, your mortgage company, or more, when it comes to residency. We already track food stamp usage so you lock down that too good healthy foods; no smokes, beer, or chips for you!.

With regards to medical. Catastrophic and preventative services are where government should look at for health care. Just play it out under similar rules to how most HSA based insurance plans work. You are subject to X amount per year and the rest is not your worry.

the danger of BI is that government fees which adversely impact the poor are just as likely to increase and worse knowing how many programs for the needy can work there are ample opportunities for fraud.

Oh, Canada's liberal party is thinking the BI solution http://winnipeg2016.liberal.ca/policy/poverty-reduction-mini...

Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income

#133

Post by haaen »

The YCR statement says:

"We think everyone should have enough money to meet their basic needs—no matter what, especially if there are enough resources to make it possible."

Why give free money to people who are too lazy to work?

Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income

#135

Post by kauffj »

audleman wrote: post #117
kauffj wrote: post #34

Unfortunately, the explanation most consistent with data on happiness/satisfaction is that the primary utility gain from wealth is derived from gains in zero-sum social status. We can tell this even from the language of the post itself: "everyone should have enough money to meet their basic needs." Basic needs? Everyone in America has their basic needs. Almost all of the _basic_ needs of a human, i.e. those that we r…

> Almost all of the _basic_ needs of a human, i.e. those that we received 50,000 years ago, could be provided for $1-$2k a year Can you explain this? Basic needs include shelter, clothing, and food, which together cost much more than $1-$2k.

A tent, a pair or two of clothing, and meals of rice/beans/vegetables can be provided for less than $2k/year. A life comparable to this, but requiring more work, has been and continues to be lived by hundreds of millions.

Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income

#136

Post by tdaltonc »

dclowd9901 wrote: post #17
tomp wrote: post #12

> In our pilot, the income will be unconditional; we’re going to give it to participants for the duration of the study, no matter what. This is omitting one crucial detail: for how long will the basic income last. At least for myself, my decisions would be completely different if I was to receive unconditional income for e.g. 10 years (or less), vs. for the rest of my life.

...aaaaand whether or not your children would be receiving it, right? We make many rather large financial decisions based on our choices to procreate or not. If I didn't know if my kids were taken care of, I would probably make different decisions than if I did. There really is no way to test basic income without simply implementing it.

Just because the government says it will be "forever" doesn't mean it will. When thinking about planing the multi-generational prosperity of your family (something few people do to any serious degree) you can't take the perpetual existence of this-or-that political institution as granted.

Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income

#137

Post by tomp »

mattkrisiloff wrote: post #25
siphor wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's 5 years. Outlined in the link below https://blog.ycombinator.com/basic-income

And pilot we're thinking 6 months to a year -- though still to be determined / could change.

What kind of results do you expect from this pilot? I imagine you could get some positive results (i.e. people change behaviour when they get unconditional income), but my expectation would be that not a lot would change. But the problem is that if the result is negative (the behaviour doesn't change), it will be invalid, but most likely misinterpreted by casual observers.

Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income

#138

Post by tomp »

alaskanloops wrote: post #43
xienze wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So in other words, a long enough time to make people think they can draw reasonable conclusions about the viability of BI, when in actuality it's not long enough. You have to study the generational effects of this sort of thing. People are going to behave very differently when they know this will be around for a very short time versus the rest of their lives, nevermind how people behave when they're second or third g…

Yes but it's a starting point. Conducting a generational study will take, well, generations, and that's too long. Unfortunately the longer term, multi generation study will have to be "done in production" so to speak. It may work, it may not. But what we're (the US) doing now isn't working.

You don't need a generation to study basic income. The effect of a life-long basic income should be visible pretty much immediately.

Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income

#139

Post by acgourley »

thecrow1213 wrote: post #81
xienze wrote: post #60

So, a question for the BI fans: I've seen it said repeatedly that BI will save us money (or at least, not be so outrageously expensive) in part because we can eliminate existing welfare programs. "Just cut a single check, no more overhead from several agencies", they say. But riddle me this: what do you do when someone on BI has a financial emergency or, as will happen with some regularity, just flat-out blows all th…

As a BI fan, this is a great question. While BI does simplify welfare distribution it does put more responsibility on the receiver. If we wanted to protect from misuse of funds we need a way to restrict how they spend their BI, like how food stamps work. BI should be spent on life necessities while earned income should be disposable and/or go into savings.

The whole point of BI is that it's unrestricted, so I would say you're not actually a BI fan but instead broadly in favor of well run social programs.
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