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Moving Forward on Basic Income

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Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income

#781

Post by thro1237 »

gpsx wrote: post #778

I think it is great to study basic income. While many people think it will work, many others are worried people will become unmotiviated and this will have bad consequences. An alternative thing to also study is a workfare program that gives jobs to everyone. As mentioned in other comments, the HN readers are very motivated people. Most people in general are not. Many people may not work and either become lazy (such…

This was tried in India. It is called MNREGA.

From Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Rural_Employment_Guar...

National Rural Employment Guarantee Act 2005 (or, NREGA No 42) was later renamed as the "Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act" (or, MGNREGA), is an Indian labour law and social security measure that aims to guarantee the 'right to work'. It aims to enhance livelihood security in rural areas by providing at least 100 days of wage employment in a financial year to every household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work.[1][2] Starting from 200 districts on 2 February 2006, the NREGA covered all the districts of India from 1 April 2008.[3] The statute is hailed by the government as "the largest and most ambitious social security and public works programme in the world".[4] In its World Development Report 2014, the World Bank termed it a "stellar example of rural development".[5]

Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income

#782

Post by phil248 »

exabrial wrote: post #760

If the "pro basic income" people gave 5 mins of their time to charity for every hour they talk about being an online social justice expert, we would have already solved these problems. BI fixes the symptoms, not the disease. The disease is that people think that they're being charitable by demanding social programs. Wrong. Being charitable means getting your hands dirty, helping people, educating them, physical prese…

I think you're missing the bigger point that we have been giving out food for generations and it has not helped reduce poverty. You're basically telling everyone to go do all the stuff people have always been doing that never works.

Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income

#783

Post by skeltoac »

danielweber wrote: post #726
softawre wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Too lazy to work? Or the economy can only support 100k jobs when we have 100 million people? Eventually the latter will be true.

There is plenty of work to be done. When people talk about only having a limited number of jobs, I hear "tremendous waste." Don't fix that TV, throw it away. Don't bother sorting out the recyclables, throw it all away. Don't clean that, throw it away.

That work is not done because it does not create enough economic value to provide a living. People can't afford to do low-paying work. BI makes low-paying work affordable, so more people will do it, which will benefit all.

Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income

#784

Post by fineIllregister »

xienze wrote: post #193
thoth wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> flat-out blows all their money and now can't afford rent and/or food? Well for starters I'd imagine a future BI system to handle something like rent via direct transfer to the landlord. Food handled the same way, some prepaid debit card that only works at grocery stores, etc. I don't envision a system where people pick up a stack of 20's with a post-it note on it that says "remember to pay your rent".

> Well for starters I'd imagine a future BI system to handle something like rent via direct transfer to the landlord. Food handled the same way, some prepaid debit card that only works at grocery stores, etc. In other words, exactly what I said originally. You'd be recreating the administrative overhead BI is intended to eliminate (section 8 for housing, food stamps for food).

This doesn't have to be a government function. I do case management, and many of my clients receive social assistance in the form of unconditional cash transfers. They often have poor credit and incidents in their rental histories, so they don't meet the standards required to rent. However, landlords/property managers will grant exceptions if the social assistance is sent directly to a third party with an agreement that rent and utilities are paid first. Since this isn't a complicated or difficult role to fill, it's a competitive space with low fees.

Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income

#785

Post by oldsj »

mason240 wrote: post #568
Spooky23 wrote: post #56

Why not look at folks who have some variant of basic income -- retirees. Especially public sector. There's lots of data there to look at. I have a friend who was a fireman who developed some health problems at 44 which made doing his job difficult without putting himself and others at risk. He's now retired at approximately half pay, with healthcare. He's now doing stuff that he is passionate about -- cooking BBQ for…

You can also retire from the US military after 20 years (so as young as 38), which would be a pretty large population to study.

True but almost no one actually does retire. You get about 1500-2000 a month as an enlisted retiree which most people would have to support a family with.

Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income

#786

Post by skeltoac »

dragonwriter wrote: post #84
tlholaday wrote: post #40

Are there any papers addressing the issue "basic income increases the returns to owners of scarce goods" issue? I don't know what the correct name is. Use case: A 250 square foot apartment in a building with twenty annual homicides rents for $350 per month before basic income. After basic income, the same apartment rents for $1350 per month, because the rent on all the apartments in safer buildings has gone up due to…

> Are there any papers addressing the issue "basic income increases the returns to owners of scarce goods" issue? I don't know what the correct name is. The correct name is "inflation", the effect to which this is effect is present for suppliers of any particular good is measured by "price elasticity" -- both price elasticity of demand and price elasticity of supply play a role (in a real tax-funded BI, which is redi…

> it is offset in part for many goods by the fact that increased money chasing the goods in one segment of the population is mirrored by reduced money chasing goods in another segment of the population

YCBI does not have this feature.

Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income

#787

Post by gpsx »

thro1237 wrote: post #781
gpsx wrote: post #778

I think it is great to study basic income. While many people think it will work, many others are worried people will become unmotiviated and this will have bad consequences. An alternative thing to also study is a workfare program that gives jobs to everyone. As mentioned in other comments, the HN readers are very motivated people. Most people in general are not. Many people may not work and either become lazy (such…

This was tried in India. It is called MNREGA. From Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Rural_Employment_Guar... National Rural Employment Guarantee Act 2005 (or, NREGA No 42) was later renamed as the "Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act" (or, MGNREGA), is an Indian labour law and social security measure that aims to guarantee the 'right to work'. It aims to enhance livelihood security…

That looks like it fared pretty well, though not perfectly. I think it could have non-manual labor opportunities can be added via computer.

Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income

#788

Post by fineIllregister »

nostrebored wrote: post #145
dragonwriter wrote: post #16

Honestly, I think any "Basic Income" research where the recipient classes aren't 100% of the members of some well-defined polity and where the policy is explicitly a close-ended pilot is researching something so fundamentally different from Basic Income (it is well-known that close-ended benefits have a different effect on behavior) that, while there may be some useful insights that have applicability to actual Basic…

The one thing that I never actually see any of the people who tout BI answer is why it won't just cause an increase in the price of low income goods. Why won't laundry detergent just cost x% more money, etc. I think that the effective spending power low income individuals have under BI would be practically around the same that they had pre-BI if it's used a supplement to our current programs, and lower if BI is used…

>Why won't laundry detergent just cost x% more money, etc.

Because when a company raises prices on laundry detergent, they will lose business to their competitors. Colluding in that market seems difficult.

Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income

#789

Post by brbsix »

donutz wrote: post #573
kilroy123 wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not just give them money? If someone is "too lazy" to work, they're not going to be productive in any job anyways. We already give these people substantial subsidies in the form of food stamps, housing assistance, etc. If someone wants to not work and live in a bad part of town. No offense, by why do you care? You'll live a much nicer life than them, working, and having more.

> If someone wants to not work and live in a bad part of town. No offense, by why do you care? Sounds like "basic income will cover rent in the bad part of town" means that safety isn't covered in "basic"?

I have a hard time understanding how BI is going to afford everyone the ability to live in a nicer part of town. "Nicer parts of town" are a scarce resource. As such, they're costly. If you increase the BI to a level that would presently afford everyone to live in nicer areas, then the prices would simply rise commensurately.

Also I'm not really sure what safety has to do with the BI. The whole point is that each person gets $n and they can spend it as they see fit. Maybe someone would like to spend 10% of their BI on secure rural accomodations. Maybe another person would like to spend 100% on a sketchy rat trap in the Tenderloin. That's their prerogative.

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