Why a Universal Basic Income Will Not Solve Poverty • Hacker News Board

Re: Why a Universal Basic Income Will Not Solve Poverty

#221

Post by Grishnakh » Wed, Jun 01, 2016, 2:28 PM UTC

prostoalex wrote: post #199

Grishnakh wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 plac…

Is over-hiring of social workers in welfare sector a problem in this country? It seems that applications for something like SNAP are handled online, distributions are done directly to debit cards, and a bunch of enforcement and fraud prevention work is offloaded to agencies like SSA and IRS.

I don't have any numbers handy, however I think it should be fairly obvious that even with some stuff handled online, there's still a lot of federal workers behind the scenes. Anyone who's worked in the federal government knows there's a ton of federal workers who really don't do much all day long, and get paid a lot for it.

If the SSA and IRS don't have to do so much enforcement work for entitlements, that's a bunch of people there who can be laid off to save taxpayer money.

Re: Why a Universal Basic Income Will Not Solve Poverty

#222

Post by Grishnakh » Wed, Jun 01, 2016, 2:33 PM UTC

grahamburger wrote: post #168

Grishnakh wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'?

If there's inflation, the wealthy are going to earn more money in absolute dollars (if they don't, that means they're getting poorer). The same tax rate will automatically bring in more money from these people. I don't see the problem. You're making the common mistake of thinking that a given tax rate (as a percentage) equals a fixed amount of revenue, which is just plain wrong. A fixed percentage of a rising amount of income will result in a rising amount of tax revenue.

Re: Why a Universal Basic Income Will Not Solve Poverty

#223

Post by geon » Wed, Jun 01, 2016, 2:35 PM UTC

ck425 wrote: post #211

gremlinsinc wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

6 weeks vacation is considered lazy? I don't disagree with your point btw just shocked that that's considered lazy.

Yay for living in Sweden!

Re: Why a Universal Basic Income Will Not Solve Poverty

#224

Post by Grishnakh » Wed, Jun 01, 2016, 2:45 PM UTC

chillacy wrote: post #180

Grishnakh wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 the…

There's two things that can be done here:

1) We could definitely use better education in this country. Kids should be taught in grade/high school how to handle money, personal finance, etc. They used to have something called "home economics" when I was a kid, but it was only for girls and probably concentrated more on doing dishes or something.

2) We need to stop electing Democrats like Hillary Clinton and DWS who are big backers of the payday-loan industry, and enact legislation which severely clamps down on these practices. Interest rates over some decent number (say, 15%) simply shouldn't be allowed, as they're usurious.

There's really no reason someone on UBI should ever need a large sum of money. They're not in danger of losing it: that's the whole point of UBI. What would they need a lot of money for, beyond what their monthly (or biweekly, or whatever) UBI check gives them? Maybe a deposit for rent, that's the only thing I can think of. There can probably be some kind of laws or programs set up to handle this kind of thing without letting payday-loan vulture exploit these people. If Democrats actually cared about poor people, they'd already be working on ways of helping them with things like this rather than taking "campaign contributions" from the payday-loan vultures.

Re: Why a Universal Basic Income Will Not Solve Poverty

#225

Post by Grishnakh » Wed, Jun 01, 2016, 2:54 PM UTC

ENGNR wrote: post #212

gremlinsinc wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

And yet many people knows of at least one family of super lazy people who would happily live on basic income. The trouble is convincing them that these people will never ever do anything productive anyway so the best we can do is loss minimisation by ensuring they don't turn to crime and fix basic medical issues early. And that they're not worth a single second more worth of attention compared to the other 99% of soc…

Exactly. And what's more, they are productive, even if they just subsist on UBI alone. They're getting their UBI mostly from extremely wealthy people, who would otherwise hoard it mostly. By redistributing it to poor people, it's going to be spread around in the economy more, creating economic gains. These people are going to spend it on rent, food, clothes, maybe a car, and various other stuff. They might not be creating any wealth, but they're advancing the economy, which will create wealth elsewhere (such as when someone comes up with a new business to provide a useful service to these UBI "leaches"). And more tax revenue will be generated from their economic activity too. This is why wealth concentration at the top is so bad: the wealth stagnates and does nothing for the economy when it's just held in offshore bank accounts; when it's spent, even on booze, it has many consequential effects: paying for bartenders, janitors at the pub, delivery drivers (maybe not with robo-trucks...), brewery employees, etc.

Finally, you never know what these "lazy" people will spawn: one of their kids could become a great author or scientist or something.

Re: Why a Universal Basic Income Will Not Solve Poverty

#226

Post by Grishnakh » Wed, Jun 01, 2016, 2:56 PM UTC

ascagnel_ wrote: post #193

technofire wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But those customers don't have money to spend -- why would anything but the most predatory business (rent-to-own/layaway firms, payday loans, etc) move to service them?

They do have money to spend: their UBI check. Part of it will go to rent, but the rest will go to things like groceries/food, clothes, the local water and electric companies, the local Wawa/Sheetz, etc.

Layaway firms aren't that bad, it's the payday loan places that are bad. That can be fixed with legislation, if we stop electing crooks like Hillary and her buddy DWS who are in the pocket of the payday-loan industry.

Re: Why a Universal Basic Income Will Not Solve Poverty

#227

Post by prostoalex » Wed, Jun 01, 2016, 3:11 PM UTC

Grishnakh wrote: post #221

prostoalex wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is over-hiring of social workers in welfare sector a problem in this country? It seems that applications for something like SNAP are handled online, distributions are done directly to debit cards, and a bunch of enforcement and fraud prevention work is offloaded to agencies like SSA and IRS.

I don't have any numbers handy, however I think it should be fairly obvious that even with some stuff handled online, there's still a lot of federal workers behind the scenes. Anyone who's worked in the federal government knows there's a ton of federal workers who really don't do much all day long, and get paid a lot for it. If the SSA and IRS don't have to do so much enforcement work for entitlements, that's a bunch…

For SNAP they did the analysis of various policy steps that could result in administrative savings - https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/images/pubs... (it's a very wide image, so zoom in and scroll to the right until you hit "Policy Options").

Eliminating the asset test (the area where undoubtedly some government employees work full-time) would actually increase the program cost. Most of the savings are actually derived from juggling the numbers behind "the cost of a nutritious diet".

I am personally not opposed to going full-throttle on something like SNAP - just send a free card to anyone with a SSN who requests one (I am sure agricultural and retail lobby would concur), but I think the potential savings are overblown - Medicare, SS and SNAP are generally tightly administered.

Re: Why a Universal Basic Income Will Not Solve Poverty

#228

Post by otterley » Wed, Jun 01, 2016, 3:55 PM UTC

prostoalex wrote: post #202

otterley wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also: "A universal basic income has many undesirable features, starting with its nonnegligible disincentive to work." I can think of two responses to this: (1) Perhaps work that doesn't pay more than a UBI can provide is not work worth doing -- (2) Except for charity work, which is extremely valuable, and which would be greatly incentivized because having a UBI would free up people's time to work on it.

> Perhaps work that doesn't pay more than a UBI can provide is not work worth doing This is a frequent argument invoked in favor of a higher minimum wage, and the answer is maybe. But then you find out that some fairly useful work, such as running a convenience store or a corner bodega in a low-income neighborhood involves significantly lower margins than operating a Whole Foods or organic juicery in a ritzy resident…

Grocery stores in general, even large supermarket chains, have incredibly low margins (5%, typically). They survive on volume. So it's not about margin as much as it is about income.

At any rate, a UBI could possibly make these low-income operations sustainable by providing a helpful boost to the owner's income.

Re: Why a Universal Basic Income Will Not Solve Poverty

#229

Post by dragonwriter » Wed, Jun 01, 2016, 4:06 PM UTC

otterley wrote: post #23

nullsmack wrote: post #6

The very first argument in the article is flawed which leads me to wonder how much of it is or isn't flawed. It talks about a Universal Basic Income for everyone over 21.. then it complains that would cost 3 trillion dollars for all of the 300 million Americans. According to the Census Bureau as of 2015 there were 321 million Americans and 24% were under 18. No clue how many were under 21. But that still takes it dow…

Also: "A universal basic income has many undesirable features, starting with its nonnegligible disincentive to work." I can think of two responses to this: (1) Perhaps work that doesn't pay more than a UBI can provide is not work worth doing -- (2) Except for charity work, which is extremely valuable, and which would be greatly incentivized because having a UBI would free up people's time to work on it.

> Perhaps work that doesn't pay more than a UBI can provide is not work worth doing

Work doesn't have to pay more than a UBI provides to be worth doing in a system with a UBI -- the idea that it does is a failure to recognize the central difference between UBI and means-tested benefit programs. Because UBI doesn't get reduced for additional income (beyond the effect of regular income taxation), there is little to no disincentive for additional work; additionally, most UBI proponents favor UBI eventually eliminating minimum wage (though in an early-stage, not-yet-adequate-for-independent-support UBI, the UBI might merely reduce the minimum wage by some amount), so that UBI reduces the structural barriers for low-money-value work that remains mutually beneficial getting done.

Re: Why a Universal Basic Income Will Not Solve Poverty

#230

Post by dragonwriter » Wed, Jun 01, 2016, 4:12 PM UTC

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…

The issue you raise is an issue that exists without UBI and which a mature UBI, in the long-term, mitigates this by avoiding anyone having the experience of living "a long time in poverty".

That's not to say that transitional services to people who have previously had that experience aren't a good thing to have along with UBI, but it doesn't invalidate the concept of UBI.