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

#171

Post by hibikir » Sat, Dec 17, 2016, 11:19 PM UTC

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #74

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…

The combination of a fixed-amount UBI and a fixed-rate tax does exactly what people want. The marginal tax rate is completely unwavering for everyone and the effective tax rate ((tax paid - UBI)/income)) follows a nice continuous progressive curve. > Even though you keep less of your next dollar of earnings the more you make, there's never a point at which earning the next dollar will leave you with less money after…

A fixed amount UBI and a fixed rate tax doesn't do exactly what people want, because it is a huge tax break at the top, and a huge tax increase in the middle if we want to be revenue neutral: The shape of the curve is very different from the current one, and there would be huge winners and losers. Nothing short of a 50% fixed rate will not be a huge tax break for us in the 1%.

I don't know about you, but I don't think that the problem in the US system is that a family with two senior developers pays too many taxes.

Therefore, on top of a UBI, the only thing that doesn't screw the middle class over is to maintain a progressive tax rate.

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

#172

Post by mrleinad » Sat, Dec 17, 2016, 11:19 PM UTC

lacampbell wrote: post #153

mrleinad wrote: post #149

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'…

I agree with you in principle. But I am extremely dubious of using the state to accomplish this. I would rather see a cultural shift where we all agree we don't need state coercion to get us to help one another. Anything the state does IMO will be inefficient and involve pay offs to a few select chosen corporations. Do we need force to do this? Do we need cronyism? Do we need corruption?

Corruption exists in corporations as well. Who do you think pays bribes to state officials?

The state can be efficient too, regardless of it being a monopoly. It just needs the same thing an efficient company does: overseers and the right push to be efficient (a.k.a. an informed and well educated population that knows when they're being scammed and demands better services for their taxes)

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

#173

Post by aninhumer » Sat, Dec 17, 2016, 11:19 PM UTC

omash wrote: post #117

rhapsodic wrote: post #15

I want to be on record here. Today, December 17, 2016, I predict that this will fail. And by "fail", I mean that this will not become a universal entitlement in Finland.

Of course this "test" will fail, they're giving it to a group of people who already have a specific state of employment. It won't be seen as a safety net to follow their ambition because of its temporary, non-universal nature. It might make sense for them to hoard the cash until the test is over or spend it lavishly as a temporary reprieve from poverty. I hope this won't create material to make a case against basic i…

While I'm not particularly optimistic, I could imagine it succeeding by temporarily eliminating poverty traps and providing stability for the beneficiaries, allowing them to gain experience or pursue training and end up in a much better position in two years time.

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

#174

Post by IgorPartola » Sat, Dec 17, 2016, 11:21 PM UTC

velodrome wrote: post #135

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…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_income_tax Negative income tax (more emphasis) + basic income (less emphasis) would be a better system. A negative income tax would encourage people to work. Basic income by itself may just remove some barriers to working but may not result in a change (basic income > costs).

If a society produces so much value that everyone can be provided with a basic income that is greater than cost of living, why is that a bad thing?

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

#175

Post by taeric » Sat, Dec 17, 2016, 11:22 PM UTC

nocman wrote: post #151

taeric wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most flat taxes do not land in the "you make more, you pay more" scheme. Instead, they are in the "you spend more, you pay more." Which, doesn't sound bad, necessarily. However, there are two problems that I see. I suspect there are more. First is that what you spend is only related to what you make. Specifically, it is relatively easy to find ways to not spend money if you have extra. What this means is that, at an…

'Most flat taxes do not land in the "you make more, you pay more" scheme': I think you are missing the point. If it is truly a flat tax, the number of dollars you are taxed goes up (in a directly proportional way to the number of dollars you make). So you DO pay more the more you make. It isn't even a logically arguable point. "a flat tax actually gives a very easy way for high income people to have a lower tax rate.…

The entire first point is on the assumption that you are pushing the flat sales tax that is very common. Is anyone pushing for a flat income tax?

If so, apologies. It is still easier for the wealthy to dodge. But not as easy. (Main way I can think of is that at that level you can often live off the company. I don't think this happens enough to care about. Could be wrong.)

This still doesn't address the cold start problem. If a region needs X dollars and that requires Y rate, how do you ensure that doesn't drown out the poor?

And again, I'm not pushing these problems as show stoppers. Just things that contribute to a complicated solution.

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

#176

Post by pgwhalen » Sat, Dec 17, 2016, 11:22 PM UTC

danharaj wrote: post #158

pgwhalen wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with your thinking is that it ignores that it takes "work" to get people those basic necessities you refer to. So there absolutely is a danger in disincentivizing people to work, if people contribute nothing, but consume even these basic needs. I'm not against basic income, but there absolutely is risk to society.

The amount of work to produce our basic necessities has fallen decade after decade for over a century. We are wringing our hands over the perceived threat of "lazy" people when the cure for this alleged disease causes so much misery for so many people already. It's not a fear founded on empirical evidence.

The fear of lazy people is not founded on empirical evidence just as much as the idea that people can be encouraged to contribute nothing without detriment is founded on empirical evidence.

Once again, I'm not sure about how the reality would play out on a large scale, but obviously there is risk.

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

#177

Post by mrleinad » Sat, Dec 17, 2016, 11:25 PM UTC

marcofloriano wrote: post #169

mrleinad wrote: post #149

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'…

Let's back to basics. How do we cover the needs of one person? Better, how do we cover only the need for food? You need to produce rice, beans and meat. How do you produce all that? A lot of ways ... but you need to produce. And that word alone is the problem here. The moment someone stops producing, he is a burden. He must be carried on by someones else production. The government does not produce anything. The momen…

People out of work is not that way because they're lazy.

They're that way because the only jobs they can get are jobs that will have them work all day long for a pay that won't even cover their basic needs.

Human exploitation in several forms is all too real and happening right next to each one of us, and almost no one seems to recognize it.

Do you want to give them jobs? Fine. But don't provide minimum wage that will make them have to work 70 hours a week just to make ends meet, and want to kill themselves afterwards.

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

#178

Post by sonthonax » Sat, Dec 17, 2016, 11:29 PM UTC

velodrome wrote: post #135

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…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_income_tax Negative income tax (more emphasis) + basic income (less emphasis) would be a better system. A negative income tax would encourage people to work. Basic income by itself may just remove some barriers to working but may not result in a change (basic income > costs).

Negative income tax would be a blatant subsidisation of labour, which has it's own issues. In another sense, it's just welfare, but a highly regressive one. More income would go to those who are poor but in work, and less to those for what ever reason (like disability) unable to work.

If you were to further lower the costs of labour, you risk stymieing actual economic growth which comes from improvements in efficiency. For instance, why use a machine when you can just hire more people?

Also what would the effect on monetary policy be? If this was funded though an income tax, would the lower savings rates of the poor, put more money in circulation, thus increasing inflation? Could you account for the change in prices driven by an increase in demand from those who's labour isn't actually valuable enough to sustain their consumption.

I don't claim to have the answers to welfare, but I really think that we should aim for a solution that provides as little market distortion as possible. I sincerely think that a negative tax would be a huge unwelcome and ineffective distortion in the labour market.

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

#179

Post by rorykoehler » Sat, Dec 17, 2016, 11:30 PM UTC

dmurray wrote: post #63

sqrt wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm interested in hearing why it's a bad thing to disincentivize working more. Is it so bad for someone to not be working should they have enough money to live on? (I'm not sure if the benefits in this specific case are enough to live on, but I guess I'm thinking about the general principle.)

People working X hours a week are guaranteed to be spending those X hours producing something useful to society, or at least to their employer. People not working are not. Sure, some people who are not employed may be raising children or volunteering or doing something else beneficial to society,and encouraging them to work instead would be society's loss. But if we trust in the market economy, those people don't exi…

Not all people working are benefitting society. Many are actively leeching from it.

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

#180

Post by pandaman » Sat, Dec 17, 2016, 11:32 PM UTC

darpa_escapee wrote: post #129

jsmeaton wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not American, but do Dems really have no issue with illegal immigration? That seems like a slightly skewed perspective. To answer your real point. You can never have full employment. There are always going to be people that can't have a job, whether that's due to health, lack of job availability, or a number of other issues. What do you do with these people? They have to eat or die. The current system design is t…

> do Dems really have no issue with illegal immigration >How many people have been deported under Obama? >President Barack Obama has often been referred to by immigration groups as the "Deporter in Chief." >Between 2009 and 2015 his administration has removed more than 2.5 million people through immigration orders, which doesn’t include the number of people who "self-deported" or were turned away and/or returned to t…

>which doesn’t include the number of people who "self-deported"

But if you did include the number of people who "self-deported" then you'd find that the total number is not that great under Obama and in fact is lowest since 1970s.

Now, I don't know what these two numbers from DHS reports actually mean and the DHS does not tell me, but I find it peculiar that the number of "returns" under Obama decreased 10-fold, while the number of "removals" doubled. More peculiar that the "returns" had been pretty stable for the past 30 years too, the 2014's 162K returns only had been seen in 1968 before.

https://www.dhs.gov/immigration-statistics/yearbook/2014/tab...