Finland will hand out cash to 2000 jobless people to test universal basic income • Hacker News Board

Re: Finland will hand out cash to 2000 jobless people to test universal basic income

#141

Post by Eyght » Sat, Dec 17, 2016, 10:43 PM UTC

INTPenis wrote: post #100

ScottBurson wrote: post #5

Jobless people generally cannot earn additional income while collecting unemployment benefits or they risk losing that assistance. Worst. Idea. Ever. I know -- it's a common feature of income support systems, including here in the US. I don't know whether UBI is going to prove workable or not. But even if it doesn't, if we could just redesign the systems we do have so they never give recipients a disincentive to work…

Important to note too is that in Sweden, and likely other scandinavian countries, you can find a part time job and get part time unecmployment benefits. As long as it's within the law, on paper. If you're taking undocumented work then you're also taking a risk where you might lose your benefits if found out. I think maybe there is a larger chance for undocumented work in countries like the US. I have an impression th…

I know that at least some municipalities in Sweden allows for earnings equal to ~25% of the social welfare payment, before it's reduced. So you can earn about $250 extra per month and get to keep it, instead of being stuck with the same income. Cheap way to provide extra incentive for people to actually get out and work. Even if it's only for a few hours a week.

Re: Finland will hand out cash to 2000 jobless people to test universal basic income

#142

Post by SCAQTony » Sat, Dec 17, 2016, 10:45 PM UTC

Finland's population is 5.439 million, It may work for 2000 people but will it be workable and scale up to 10-million, 50-million or 100-million people? I believe the "square cube law comes into play.

Square cube law: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square-cube_law

Re: Finland will hand out cash to 2000 jobless people to test universal basic income

#143

Post by omash » Sat, Dec 17, 2016, 10:48 PM UTC

conanbatt wrote: post #123

koolba wrote: post #91

What's stopping people from taking their universal income and moving to a different country with a lower cost of living. Do you you have to collect it in person? A UBI of $1-2K/month isn't that much in the western world but you could live like a king[1] in the third world. [1]: Okay maybe not a very rich king but but you'd definitely be doing more than fine.

Assuming that recipients are also taxed on their world income there is little difference between someone not working and living somewhere else or or not doing it without the country. It might be something unfair but i cant fathom it being significant at scale. The problem is the people coming in: how do you stop high levels of immigration from people that would not be as productive as finnish people and hence would q…

Don't give it to the people coming in?

Re: Finland will hand out cash to 2000 jobless people to test universal basic income

#144

Post by sixdimensional » Sat, Dec 17, 2016, 10:52 PM UTC

tgb wrote: post #93

exstudent2 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't even have to be raising children or volunteering to benefit society. As long as they spend the money that's given to them, the market benefits.

This argument doesn't add up. Scenario 0) I do nothing, get nothing. Scenario 1) The government gives me $1000 and I buy $1000 dollars worth of goods and services, so now the economy is better by the net gain of $1000 worth of transactions - i.e. the mutual benefits of trade. Scenario 2) I have a job, do my job and my employer pays me $1000 dollars. Then I spend that on $1000 worth of goods and services. Now the econ…

What about the case where you have people whose paid job does not actually fundamentally add to any significant measurable net good? In that case, these people are also consuming the resources of the organization by taking a paycheck, taking up space, etc.

Perhaps corporate profits would not have to be so huge and prices could be lowered if the pay for work done was more closely related to the value added.

For that matter, how about all the jobs that nobody necessarily "wants" to do, are low paid, and yet critical to the functioning of societies?

Re: Finland will hand out cash to 2000 jobless people to test universal basic income

#145

Post by thwarted » Sat, Dec 17, 2016, 10:53 PM UTC

readittwice wrote: post #138

thwarted wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't give them the money just for two years, but guarantee them the money over their whole life and you will see vastly different results. Since people born into wealth are "guaranteed money over their whole life", can't we study what they do with their life compared to what people who are not born into money do with their life? How or how not would this kind of study produce meaningful, legitimate results? Another…

That study wants to shed some light on whether UBI is viable or not, but limits UBI for two years. I suppose people are then less inclined to change anything in there life and just see UBI as a nice, not-life-changing win in the lottery. People are not behaving as with a "real" UBI. Can we agree on that? There is some aspect of this kind of experiment/study to find out how individuals would perform if they didn't hav…

IIUC you are arguing that people that grew up with UBI would behave differently compared to people that just switched to UBI? To be honest I don't feel this particular convincing, why should this be the case? There probably isn't any data on it either.

No, I'm saying that this is worth studying, exactly because (I agree) there isn't any data on it.

One problem, as you point out, is the ongoing cost. Socialism works better when there is a capitalist system, externally, to set the prices and help determine demand. The Eloi need the Morlocks to provide for them. The monetary cost for any UBI experiment on individuals' actions is, by definition, being paid for by something outside that experiment. But that's fine, this experiment is meant to answer the question of how the recipients respond to it, not how/if it is or is not long term viable (however the results of this experiment would eventually need to feed into that). And my point is we can start to answer this experiment by examining what people who are born into money do. What kind of jobs do they take? How do they act when they have a guaranteed complete safety net? There is a lot of data available on this, and it is not time limited like a two year study would be.

Re: Finland will hand out cash to 2000 jobless people to test universal basic income

#146

Post by aninhumer » Sat, Dec 17, 2016, 10:54 PM UTC

cmdrfred wrote: post #137

aninhumer wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except no one gets to higher rate tax by working more hours. They get there by working approximately the same hours and being paid more for them. So they're not "taking a pay cut per hour", they're just not getting as much benefit from raising their rates as they would otherwise. No one is going to refuse a salary bump because it will increase their marginal tax rate.

If you made $32.05 dollars per hour for 30 hours a week (50K a year) and paid 10% tax on those dollars, you would earn an effective after tax hourly rate of $28.84. If all dollars earned after 50K were then taxed at 15%, your effective after tax hourly rate for working more than 30 hours would be $27.24. A one dollar and six cent reduction. I believe the purpose of time and a half overtime is partly to correct this p…

Sure you can imagine such a scenario, but how likely is it in reality that someone earning $32/hr is only working 30 hours a week?

And moreover, how likely is it that they can increase their hours, but be paid exactly the same hourly wage?

I believe such people are extremely rare and as such this hypothetical disincentive isn't particularly relevant.

Re: Finland will hand out cash to 2000 jobless people to test universal basic income

#147

Post by conanbatt » Sat, Dec 17, 2016, 10:56 PM UTC

omash wrote: post #143

conanbatt wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming that recipients are also taxed on their world income there is little difference between someone not working and living somewhere else or or not doing it without the country. It might be something unfair but i cant fathom it being significant at scale. The problem is the people coming in: how do you stop high levels of immigration from people that would not be as productive as finnish people and hence would q…

Don't give it to the people coming in?

Theres something uneasy about 2 people doing the same job at the same gross salary, but different net salaries.

Re: Finland will hand out cash to 2000 jobless people to test universal basic income

#148

Post by protomyth » Sat, Dec 17, 2016, 10:56 PM UTC

samatman wrote: post #109

protomyth wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I support a prorated version, but the common criticism is that it's more open to fraud and harder to implement. I still think a prorated[1], guaranteed minimum income is better than a basic income. 1) something like reducing that payment by $0.50 per $1 earned as an example.

It's just an unnecessary wrinkle. Taxing earned income is the same as doing what you propose, but incurs higher coordination costs. Also, using your example, it's regressive taxation unless the base rate is higher than 50%.

I don't think paying everyone is a good idea and will encourage inflation to make the program useless. I'm fine with regressive when talking money given to you.

Re: Finland will hand out cash to 2000 jobless people to test universal basic income

#149

Post by mrleinad » Sat, Dec 17, 2016, 10:58 PM UTC

Why don't we just cover everyone's basic needs and be done with it?

This is a pointless discussion. Just give everyone enough food, shelter, and free access to medicine. It'll create a society where we don't stress over losing a job because we don't know how we're going to get our food tomorrow.

The reason that some people think this "disincentiveces" people to work is that they'd have to pay higher wages and wouldn't be able to exploit human beings, as all capitalist systems do. That's it. That's their whole argument. The rest is just dressing it up with empty moral questions about "giving away the fish instead of teaching how to fish".

Re: Finland will hand out cash to 2000 jobless people to test universal basic income

#150

Post by CydeWeys » Sat, Dec 17, 2016, 11:01 PM UTC

briandear wrote: post #82

ScottBurson wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not necessarily opposed to means-testing; for example, progressive income tax rates can be seen as a form of means-testing, and I think they're a good thing. What I care about is that the function from income earned to income (including subsidy) received be monotonic . Again, the income tax system (at least in the US) is carefully designed to have this property: when you make enough more money to move into a high…

That's still a disincentive: my effectively hourly rate decreases the more hours I work. Not sure how that's fair. A flat tax is the only fair tax. You make more, you pay more, but you aren't taking an effective pay cut per hour based on simply working more.

Progressive taxation is more fair from the standpoint of society at large. You're being myopic in only considering it from your point of view. How is it "fair" to force someone who is barely making ends meet and struggles to sometimes put food on the table to pay the same exact tax rate as someone who is rich, and whose biggest economic struggle is wondering whether to upgrade to a bigger yacht this year or next year? That extra $1,000 you'd be forcing the poor person to pay in tax would feed their kid for a year, but the rich guy doesn't even notice paying that much extra. Money does not have constant utility across all people. Maximizing the total utility across society -- now that's fair.