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

nytimes.com

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

#281

Post by rascul »

aninhumer wrote: post #146
cmdrfred wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

A couple years ago I worked with someone who, if he worked too many overtime hours (which came around from time to time), would get into the next tax bracket and it wouldn't be worth it. Not sure how much he got paid or how many overtime hours were required for that to happen, though.

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

#282

Post by grigjd3 »

austinjp wrote: post #250

What's to stop UBI from "cancelling itself out" due to inflationary effects? Prior to UBI, the lowest possible income is zero. After UBI, the lowest income is X. The poorest people in the nation will have an income of X, so X becomes the new relative zero, the new baseline. Prices of everything (food, housing, whatever) will reset relative to X. So uni will become worthless shortly after it's introduced.... but only…

You're confusing the distribution of money with the supply of money. The distribution of money affects economic priorities. The supply of money (as total income per unit time) affects the overall inflation. While the priorities of an economy will certainly affect prices, it's that some prices will go up and others go down.

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

#283

Post by known »

austinjp wrote: post #250

What's to stop UBI from "cancelling itself out" due to inflationary effects? Prior to UBI, the lowest possible income is zero. After UBI, the lowest income is X. The poorest people in the nation will have an income of X, so X becomes the new relative zero, the new baseline. Prices of everything (food, housing, whatever) will reset relative to X. So uni will become worthless shortly after it's introduced.... but only…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window

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

#285

Post by DonaldFisk »

kahrkunne wrote: post #188

I hate being "that guy" but am I the only one who expects this particular brand of communism to not be any better than previous attempts? Somebody's going to have to pay for this...

It isn't a brand of communism. It doesn't involve any nationalization. Also, no communists have ever implemented basic income. It isn't even an exclusively left wing idea. Milton Friedman supported it, Charles Murray supports it.

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

#286

Post by qudat »

alexbecker wrote: post #263
austinjp wrote: post #250

What's to stop UBI from "cancelling itself out" due to inflationary effects? Prior to UBI, the lowest possible income is zero. After UBI, the lowest income is X. The poorest people in the nation will have an income of X, so X becomes the new relative zero, the new baseline. Prices of everything (food, housing, whatever) will reset relative to X. So uni will become worthless shortly after it's introduced.... but only…

This only true if there is no competition and demand for the good is completely inelastic. What stops grocery stores from doubling the price of food? The other stores will make a killing by undercutting them. I think food is pretty safe here. I am concerned about housing though. In some places, the supply is extremely inelastic, limiting competition, and the demand is also inelastic due to the difficulty of moving. A…

Won't the cost of hiring staff increase if no one is willing to work for low wages, thereby increasing the cost of any good or service that relies on those UBI adjusted wages?

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

#287

Post by NIL8 »

For a good idea of what this type of program can do to a society, take a look at the native Americans. The monthly allotment received by most only perpetuates very serious social problems. I know that most who will push for these types of programs have good intentions, but the outcome will probably prove to do more harm than good, generally speaking.

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

#288

Post by danharaj »

NIL8 wrote: post #287

For a good idea of what this type of program can do to a society, take a look at the native Americans. The monthly allotment received by most only perpetuates very serious social problems. I know that most who will push for these types of programs have good intentions, but the outcome will probably prove to do more harm than good, generally speaking.

Yeah there's definitely nothing else to explain why Native American nations are doing so poorly.

Edit: This was too snarky but also the parent comment is such a bold claim with no evidence justifying it. Counterclaim: Canada and the US have done plenty to destroy the fabric of native societies since their inception. As an example, the residential school system of Canada[1] which ended in 1996. History is so forgettable isn't it?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Indian_residential_sc...

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

#289

Post by pandaman »

sigmar wrote: post #220
pandaman wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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, whil…

>But if you did include the number of people who "self-deported" Obama does not initiate self-deportation though, so it's not really relevant to a discussion on the democrat's immigration policy >I don't know what these two numbers from DHS reports actually mean and the DHS does not tell me It tells you at the bottom of that link

There is no such thing as "self-deportation" in the statistics. There are just "removals" and "returns". All the DHS tells is that one is through force (presumably a court decision) and another is not. If someone is turned at the border without a court decision, is it a "self-deportaiton", "removal" or "return"? My guess it's a "return" in these stats.

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

#290

Post by andrewtbham »

NIL8 wrote: post #287

For a good idea of what this type of program can do to a society, take a look at the native Americans. The monthly allotment received by most only perpetuates very serious social problems. I know that most who will push for these types of programs have good intentions, but the outcome will probably prove to do more harm than good, generally speaking.

I don't know about the native americans... but I agree than UBI just doesn't seem to make sense.

What has always been more appealing to me than UBI is just the idea of sustainable living... i.e. people own their own houses and there is no property tax and they have very cheap renewable energy sources and maybe cheap robots to grow food. making really cheap stuff to survive just seems like a better long term plan to deal with technology than giving money away. that just devalues money causes inflation.. makes prices higher. seems to me.

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