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Why a Universal Basic Income Will Not Solve Poverty

nytimes.com

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Re: Why a Universal Basic Income Will Not Solve Poverty

#141

Post by Grishnakh »

arprocter wrote: post #118
cmurf wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. The income value I keep seeing floated is in the realm of US$8000 per year. This is not basic income, it's basically a large tax credit. I don't know why it's called basic income, there's nothing really basic about it when it can't completely pay for one basic thing like say rent or mortgage.

You mention rent. Something I'm confused about BI is that it doesn't seem to account for regional prices - 8k for housing goes a lot further in Newark than it does in Manhattan, and when you start comparing different regions the differences are probably even greater

Of course it doesn't, and it shouldn't. If it did, everyone would move to the high-cost locations because they'd get paid more, and then the BI would have to spiral upwards endlessly to pay for that. If someone demands to live in the most posh district of SanFran, for instance, why should society pay for that (esp. when it won't be just them, it'll be hordes of people wanting to move there)?

If someone wants to live in an expensive area, they need to earn their own money to pay for it. The whole point of BI is to make sure people aren't starving or homeless or in danger of that. If you can live comfortably on the BI in bumfuck, PA or KS, then that's enough for you: society has done its part in making sure you're provided for. Maybe it's not exactly where you want to live, but society has no obligation to provide for your whims. If you don't like it, get a job and make more money.

Re: Why a Universal Basic Income Will Not Solve Poverty

#142

Post by marxidad »

grahamburger wrote: post #134
sharemywin wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why not own part of one. of course I think the world will reorganize into 3 markets managed by blockchains/oracles: equipment rental, labor/services market, attention market.

Would owning a part of the 'robot' be intrinsically different that owning a part of the corporation that owns the robot? Ownership in the companies that we work for is nice, but for most of us it's not enough to live on. We could intentionally try to make automating more expensive so that companies just don't do it. The problem is automating is actually great for everyone else - as a consumer I'd rather buy a car tha…

Co-operative ownership of automated means of production could work.

Re: Why a Universal Basic Income Will Not Solve Poverty

#143

Post by Grishnakh »

dionidium wrote: post #66
funkysquid wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"He couldn't hold down a job and regularly missed appointments." I think this is part of the problem - right now in society, if you can't be on time and hold down a job, you'll go hungry and have no place to live. Basic income removes that harsh penalty, and lets people live regardless of whether they can make an appointment.

"Basic income removes that harsh penalty" The real challenge of a basic income isn't how to pay for it; it's how to convince regular people who get up every day and go work at jobs a lot shittier than most of us here have that that's a harsh penalty. There is enormous social momentum behind the idea that you should work if you can.

>The real challenge of a basic income isn't how to pay for it; it's how to convince regular people who get up every day and go work at jobs a lot shittier than most of us here have that that's a harsh penalty.

That's not a problem. If a job is shitty and ultra-low pay so that no one wants to do it now that they have a UBI to live on, then the business owner needs to either increase the pay enough to make someone want to do it, or he can just shut down the business or do it himself. UBI prevents people from having to toil at horrible jobs unless they choose to, rather than being forced to in order to survive. That can only be a good thing. It then means that true market forces can now set the wages for jobs.

Re: Why a Universal Basic Income Will Not Solve Poverty

#144

Post by drabiega »

mason240 wrote: post #123
vehementi wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Obviously. So the "cost of UBI" is clearly not $10k times (number of humans in the USA), but more like $10k times (number of eligible people making under $10k). The article omitting this pretty important thing basically discredits it and probably its parent site

>So the "cost of UBI" is clearly not $10k times (number of humans in the USA), but more like $10k times (number of eligible people making under $10k). It is "$10k times (number of humans in the USA)," because the "number of eligible people" IS the number of humans in the USA.

You left out the "making under $10k" part, which is the whole point.

Re: Why a Universal Basic Income Will Not Solve Poverty

#145

Post by refurb »

drabiega wrote: post #125
refurb wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, considering ~40% of Americans pay no income tax, I'd say the top is paying more than their fair share?

How is that relevant?

Incomes taxes (not including payroll taxes) make up ~47% of all federal dollars coming in. Payroll taxes (Medicare, SS), make up 34%, but half of that is paid by the employer, so it's really 18%.[1]

So income taxes represent almost 3x the income stream that payroll taxes do. So I'd say not paying income taxes is a pretty big break in my book.

[1]http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/what-are-source...

Re: Why a Universal Basic Income Will Not Solve Poverty

#146

Post by drabiega »

newacct23 wrote: post #93
mempko wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Notice that people do undesirable jobs because they probably don't have many other options. UBI gives them another option. This would either make pay for undesirable jobs increase, OR people would be forced to automate them. Seems like a win win.

>OR people would be forced to automate them as if it were that easy. Why don't we worry about UBI once we actually reach the post scarcity economy?

Because it's not the post-scarcity part that's the driver, it's the post-jobs part, which is a very real problem for a small but growing part of the population.

Re: Why a Universal Basic Income Will Not Solve Poverty

#147

Post by dionidium »

Grishnakh wrote: post #143
dionidium wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Basic income removes that harsh penalty" The real challenge of a basic income isn't how to pay for it; it's how to convince regular people who get up every day and go work at jobs a lot shittier than most of us here have that that's a harsh penalty. There is enormous social momentum behind the idea that you should work if you can.

>The real challenge of a basic income isn't how to pay for it; it's how to convince regular people who get up every day and go work at jobs a lot shittier than most of us here have that that's a harsh penalty. That's not a problem. If a job is shitty and ultra-low pay so that no one wants to do it now that they have a UBI to live on, then the business owner needs to either increase the pay enough to make someone want…

UBI prevents people from having to toil at horrible jobs unless they choose to, rather than being forced to in order to survive. That can only be a good thing.

I agree with you. My whole point was that most people do not agree with you. There is enormous support for the idea that you are supposed to work for what you earn. Full stop. End of story. Anything less is charity that should, at best, be accepted as a last resort.

Re: Why a Universal Basic Income Will Not Solve Poverty

#148

Post by drabiega »

dionidium wrote: post #84
Jtsummers wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Poverty is an issue long solved in the USA. When? How? EDIT: While I disagree with the parent poster, primarily because I've seen plenty of homeless, underemployed, malnourished individuals in my travels around the US my entire life, and no significant decline in the past several years, my questions were not meant entirely sarcastically. If poverty is solved, explain how or by what measure you consider it to be sol…

The grandparent's POV is a pretty common one. Just about anybody can get a job making minimum wage, which will bring home at least (7.25 × 40) × 4 = $1,160 each month (more in some places). That is enough money in most places to rent a basic apartment and buy plenty of food to eat. Plenty of people in that bracket also have cable TV and a car and a smart phone. It's not easy and it's not all that much fun , but you'r…

> Just about anybody can get a job making minimum wage

It can be hard to see because the problem is so unevenly distributed through the social fabric, but this is just objectively not true.

Re: Why a Universal Basic Income Will Not Solve Poverty

#149

Post by andyzweb »

ScottBurson wrote: post #126
kefka wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm unsure about the German system... I've been on welfare here in the USA. The way it works is dependant on your income. The more you make by hard work, the less assistance you receive. That sounds fair... Until you realize that section 8 (housing) is the same way. Food stamps are the same way. At the time, there was a cutoff for the free clinic (which counted benefits as income).. I made $100 too much. When doing w…

This is clearly the worst aspect of our system and shows that it was designed by the mathematically uneducated. It needs to be done in such a way that the total-income curve is monotonically increasing, so recipients never have a disincentive to make a little more money in their job. This should be fundamental and obvious, but because doing it requires just the tiniest bit of linear algebra, our elected representativ…

The system is this way by design. The people who drafted, voted on, and passed these programs did so with disincentivizing its recipients from making more money being one of the goals.

Re: Why a Universal Basic Income Will Not Solve Poverty

#150

Post by arprocter »

Grishnakh wrote: post #141
arprocter wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mention rent. Something I'm confused about BI is that it doesn't seem to account for regional prices - 8k for housing goes a lot further in Newark than it does in Manhattan, and when you start comparing different regions the differences are probably even greater

Of course it doesn't, and it shouldn't. If it did, everyone would move to the high-cost locations because they'd get paid more, and then the BI would have to spiral upwards endlessly to pay for that. If someone demands to live in the most posh district of SanFran, for instance, why should society pay for that (esp. when it won't be just them, it'll be hordes of people wanting to move there)? If someone wants to live…

But wouldn't that lead to people living in the middle of nowhere where there aren't many jobs?

Edit: also what happens to all the people living in projects in what would otherwise be expensive areas? Ship them off to a sparsely populated non desirable area? Good luck with that

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