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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

#161
post #138
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?

Because total tax expenditures are far from just income tax. There's property taxes, vehicle taxes, gas taxes, "christian sin" taxes, lottery (which is a tax on stupid people), social security tax, medicare tax, sales tax, specific item/service sales tax, city taxes, county option taxes. And that's not even remotely the amount of taxes on businesses that raise the price of goods secretly to compensate the taxes hidde…

Income taxes still make up a near 50% of total tax dollars, right?

So the only response to that 'fair share' argument is still only "take more from those that have/work and give to those that don't/can't".

I mean fine, but let's call it what it is.

Re: Why a Universal Basic Income Will Not Solve Poverty

#162
I'd be interested to hear more about the last part concerning "subsidizing wages".

Welfare for many in this country basically is a subsidy for their wage (cue memes of "walmart welfare").

Take for instance when the big layoffs started in the tech/housing sector, you would hear stories of people staying on unemployment because it paid MORE than a new job in the same field would pay. And we kept extending benefit timeframes which just resulted in a vicious cycle.

That's a pretty big incentive to not work.

Re: Why a Universal Basic Income Will Not Solve Poverty

#163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 r…

Sorry, I misunderstood. You're right: America absolutely has a Protestant work ethic instilled into its culture that will make UBI hard to get passed into law. The problem is, that like most religious concepts and ideals, it's completely obsolete: all the drudgework jobs are rapidly becoming automated, leaving many people unable to find decent-paying work to support themselves.

Re: Why a Universal Basic Income Will Not Solve Poverty

#164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

If a bunch of people move to the middle of nowhere, they will need goods and services, and thus jobs will be created as enterprising people move to provide them.

Re: Why a Universal Basic Income Will Not Solve Poverty

#165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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

In theory, no. A UBI is not a free pass for a luxurious lifestyle, it's a basic income. If you want more than that, you'll have to work. If you want to not work at all and sit on your ass, then sure, you can go move to Tornado Alley or frigid Minot or wherever and live cheap and make some extra cash doing odd jobs like shoveling snow maybe, and smoke pot most of the time. I don't think most people want to live that way; people are too greedy for that, and want a nicer standard of living than the bare minimum. So, people will strike a balance, like they already do: they'll look for places that are affordable, but where jobs are also located. But unlike now, they won't feel so much pressure to live where jobs are, and might take a chance moving somewhere cheaper. We'll probably see more movement to lower-cost, smaller cities, and maybe some revitalization of small towns, but overall I don't think it'll be all that huge. I would expect a lot of people to move out of the really high-rent places where they're being subsidized by government programs to stay there.

>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

Why not? If they can't pay the rent, they'll be evicted. Then they'll have nothing but the clothes on their backs, and their UBI check, so if they want to have a roof over their head, they'll get a bus ticket to someplace cheap. This is a good thing: they're not contributing productively to their current city of residence, and instead of draining it of taxpayer funds, and they're taking up space that could be used for more economically productive residents. If their labor is really needed there, then the business owners need to raise their wages to allow them to afford the rent there, otherwise the businesses can go under. If the place is so high-rent that all the businesses move out and all the service workers move out, no problem, it'll collapse under its own weight and then after the landlords all go bankrupt the rents will go back to sustainable levels. Trying to keep people like that in an area isn't doing anyone any favors, except those who are profiting from the situation.

Re: Why a Universal Basic Income Will Not Solve Poverty

#166

The biggest concern that I have with UBI is how do we avoid the Basic Income Trap? It's pretty widely accepted that we fell prey to the Two Income Trap [1]. If we institute UBI, how long will it be before a person needs their UBI and another job (or two, or three) just to scrape by? [1] http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2004/11/two-income-trap

If the UBI isn't set high enough to allow someone to survive, then it by definition is not a "basic income". It has to be set high enough for this.

This may require some kind of extra government programs and legislation to do things like 1) make sure enough low-cost housing is available, and maybe 2) help people learn to use it effectively, including maybe moving them to low-cost locations if necessary.

Re: Why a Universal Basic Income Will Not Solve Poverty

#167
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the operating word is "some," not all. We know that UBI will sometimes be misspent. Most if not all aid programs have this problem. That doesn't mean it isn't worth it for those who would put the money to good use.

It's a problem if the math behind UBI presumes savings from eliminating a ton of social programs and we later find that there are substantial numbers of people that still need those programs even with UBI for non-financial reasons. If we find that non-trivial numbers of parents blow all their UBI on XYZ, are we really going to let their kids starve? Or will we see that programs like SNAP need to remain in existence?

I think a good UBI program will eliminate the crappy social programs, and will keep some around to help transition people to the new society and also to help people who aren't helped just by having money to spend. For instance, child abuse: we have CPS for a reason, but giving everyone a monthly check isn't going to magically eliminate child abuse, so obviously we still need CPS for that. There's plenty of other places where we'll still need social workers to help people. But the savings we'll realize by not having armies of government workers making sure someone isn't "cheating" by getting a welfare check and then trying to supplement that with another source of income, along with various other benefits, will help pay for UBI. And eventually, by eliminating poverty and changing the culture (with both UBI and social workers), we won't need so many social workers.

Re: Why a Universal Basic Income Will Not Solve Poverty

#168

The biggest concern that I have with UBI is how do we avoid the Basic Income Trap? It's pretty widely accepted that we fell prey to the Two Income Trap [1]. If we institute UBI, how long will it be before a person needs their UBI and another job (or two, or three) just to scrape by? [1] http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2004/11/two-income-trap

If the UBI isn't set high enough to allow someone to survive, then it by definition is not a "basic income". It has to be set high enough for this. This may require some kind of extra government programs and legislation to do things like 1) make sure enough low-cost housing is available, and maybe 2) help people learn to use it effectively, including maybe moving them to low-cost locations if necessary.

It's not so much about setting it high enough as keeping it high enough. How do you convince the wealthy and powerful to keep giving up more and more of their income to keep up with inflation so that UBI continues to meet the definition of 'basic income'?

Re: Why a Universal Basic Income Will Not Solve Poverty

#169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm prepared to pay whatever is necessary, while also contributing to whatever tech is needed to drive costs down to reduce the monthly government-wide nut needed to pay for entitlements. Food too expensive? Robotics farming. More energy needed? Scale up solar, wind, and utility scale battery storage installations. Moar cheap transportation? Scale up bicycle and electric self-driving car manufacturing. It _can_ be do…

I can buy the tech side of things and if you think about this - just about everyone's standard of living today, including the poor, is way higher than in the past which can in part be attributed to technological advances. On the monetary side of things - it's very easy to 'proclaim' that you're willing to sacrifice your standard of living for the benefit of the others. When it comes to concrete implementations howeve…

Point taken.

Re: Why a Universal Basic Income Will Not Solve Poverty

#170
> Almost a quarter of American households make less than $25,000. It would be hardly surprising if a $10,000 check each for Mom and Dad sapped their desire to work.

Ah, but a transfer payment which targets the poor is worse in this regard. A $10,000 check that you lose if you work saps your desire to work more than a $10,000 check that augments your income.

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