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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

#171

Post by kazinator »

jbob2000 wrote: post #28

Something that is missing from the basic income/poverty debate is the notion of "learned helplessness"; after a long time in poverty, people get used to the lifestyle and have difficulty adjusting to "regular" life. For example, if you've been homeless your entire life, you've never had to lock your apartment door or carry a key around. My partner (a social worker) had a client who's apartment was always getting robb…

That is surprising. If you have been homeless all your life, you probably have had more than one experience in which your stuff was taken or you were even attacked, for instance when sleeping at night. You would think that a key to door that you can lock to protect Your Stuff would be like a magic talisman to you.

Re: Why a Universal Basic Income Will Not Solve Poverty

#172

Post by kazinator »

cmurf wrote: post #100
maxxxxx wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was in my teens I worked summer jobs in a German social welfare agency (Sozialamt). There were many families that had been on welfare for generations and it was noticeable that their kids had no idea how to make progress in school or how to hold a job. They simply didn't know and had nobody who could tell them. They also had no role models. I think with basic income there is a risk that a lot of people will fo…

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.

Something that you can get if you have no income can't be a "tax credit". Tax credits are usually non-refundable: they reduce your tax, but not below zero.

Re: Why a Universal Basic Income Will Not Solve Poverty

#173

Post by kazinator »

cmurf wrote: post #122
drabiega wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, under some models $8000 could be enough. A job paying that much locks you down, but if you got that much in basic income you could move somewhere for which that is enough to leave, albeit cheaply. I know there are places in rural Pennsylvania where you could get by on that. Those places don't have much for jobs to go around, but population influxes of people with lots of free time and a willingness to work…

Well, enabling nomadism in a modern society very well may have positives for individuals and local economies alike for all the same sorts of reasons why nomadism is a successful and very efficient strategy of survival. The ecological era "farmer" gene required a disposition in humans to feel compelled (or at least comfortable) staying put. And that gene just so happens to be common today in developed nations. But it'…

Indeed; if people feel more secure, they can ditch their job and find a better one, perhaps while improving their skills. A basic income could be a lubricant for people to improve their lives.

Re: Why a Universal Basic Income Will Not Solve Poverty

#174

Post by gnoway »

andyzweb wrote: post #149
ScottBurson wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I disagree. I think it's more likely that we're still using programs designed for a different era.

For example, food stamps (SNAP) were made permanent in 1964 as one of the great society programs. WIC came a few years later. I suspect - but have not researched - that you will find this is true for a lot of current welfare programs.

There may be people in power making bad decisions about administering these programs, but I don't believe they were designed to ensnare.

Re: Why a Universal Basic Income Will Not Solve Poverty

#175

Post by kazinator »

funkysquid wrote: post #48
jbob2000 wrote: post #28

Something that is missing from the basic income/poverty debate is the notion of "learned helplessness"; after a long time in poverty, people get used to the lifestyle and have difficulty adjusting to "regular" life. For example, if you've been homeless your entire life, you've never had to lock your apartment door or carry a key around. My partner (a social worker) had a client who's apartment was always getting robb…

"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.

Though it lets people live whether or not they can make an appointment, it doesn't let them live as well as they could and could leave them a bit of a buffer so that they can re-evaluate what they are doing.

For some people, the fact that they desperately have to make that appointment on time removes the motivation.

You and I enjoy our jobs because we don't desperately have to be on time. If I had to punch a time card, I'd be fucking out of here faster than you can type "logout" and hit Enter.

People can probably fix their lives with greater ease and probability of success if they can calm down a little bit.

Re: Why a Universal Basic Income Will Not Solve Poverty

#176

Post by gozur88 »

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...

No, actually that's the real challenge, as the author of the article points out. We would have to raise taxes tremendously to give everyone a nontrivial amount (the numbers are in the article) even if we ended all current income redistribution programs.

And we'd have to raise taxes even more than you'd think at first glance, since a whole lot of people would stop working in response to higher taxes and UBI.

I probably would. Even without UBI I would probably retire early if my taxes were raised significantly, and I can't be the only one.

Re: Why a Universal Basic Income Will Not Solve Poverty

#177

Post by dragonwriter »

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…

> This is clearly the worst aspect of our system and shows that it was designed by the mathematically uneducated.

Actually, it mostly shows that the programs are not a system, and were designed separately from each other, with inadequate consideration of their interactions. The fact that they often have overlapping target populations and that benefit reductions due to means-testing are therefore sometimes much greater than 1:1 isn't due to problems with math, its due to the fact that the questions that were asked and which math was deployed to answer weren't even the right questions.

Re: Why a Universal Basic Income Will Not Solve Poverty

#178

Post by gremlinsinc »

dionidium wrote: post #147
Grishnakh wrote: post #143

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…

the rich claim that the poor and homeless are lazy and by not being lazy they could have all the riches... yet most rich people were born rich, and most rich families have been the richest families for centuries. Furthermore I know many homeless people who work very hard for the little they get, while I know many rich people who sit on their Yachts all day, or take 6 week vacations every year. -- The rich are just as lazy as anyone who isn't rich if not MORE lazy because they CAN be lazy -- especially those who got wealthy by luck of birth.

Re: Why a Universal Basic Income Will Not Solve Poverty

#179

Post by voxic11 »

jbob2000 wrote: post #28

Something that is missing from the basic income/poverty debate is the notion of "learned helplessness"; after a long time in poverty, people get used to the lifestyle and have difficulty adjusting to "regular" life. For example, if you've been homeless your entire life, you've never had to lock your apartment door or carry a key around. My partner (a social worker) had a client who's apartment was always getting robb…

It solves it by keeping people out of poverty in the first place.

Re: Why a Universal Basic Income Will Not Solve Poverty

#180

Post by chillacy »

Grishnakh wrote: post #166
grahamburger wrote: post #129

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.

There is an incredible amount of businesses set out to make money from those without steady pay, or who live paycheck to paycheck, which includes some UBI recipients (if they require a large sum today they may borrow money from a payday loan company, for instance, and the interest is insane). One challenge is going to be preventing this from becoming the new form of exploitation. That comes down to education, and there are a lot of americans in debt.
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