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Study: A universal basic income would grow the economy

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Re: Study: A universal basic income would grow the economy

#81

Post by IanCal »

xienze wrote: post #36
IanCal wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I just don't see how that's possible, because inevitably there are going to be a lot of people with real or self-imposed crises crying about how they don't have enough money to pay rent or buy food, and what is the government going to do, tell them "tough shit, you should've managed your UBI better"? In the UK, many welfare payments go directly to the person, so this wouldn't be a new issue. Many of them are design…

> In the UK, many welfare payments go directly to the person, so this wouldn't be a new issue. Not sure what you mean by this. The issue is that currently welfare payments are earmarked: this money can only be used for rent, this money can only be used for food, etc. By eliminating our existing welfare programs, as is the case with every UBI proposal, we would instead be giving a single check and saying "manage this…

> Not sure what you mean by this. The issue is that currently welfare payments are earmarked: this money can only be used for rent, this money can only be used for food, etc.

I mean this is often not the case in the UK. We don't have food stamps and housing benefit is afaik generally paid directly to the person, not the landlord.

Re: Study: A universal basic income would grow the economy

#82

Post by ensignavenger »

phkahler wrote: post #62
lg wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is the perspective of someone who lives in a housing market in dire shortage. basic income might enable people, for the first time, to try living outside these places, where they are tied to their current job. in the rest of america, there is competition between landlords to attract tenants.

I know someone who live in subsidized housing. I understand this is not a common situation so it's not representative of a lot. Her rent is literally defined as a percentage of her income. She doesn't work, so income is in part child support payments and who knows what else. I believe the percentage is over 30, so if you handed her UBI over $300 would go straight to her rent. Prices are like that - hand people (actua…

The law that enacts basic income could easily exclude BI from the calculation of income for rent subsidies. Or it could change the formula for those subsidies, maybe by capping the rent (if it isn't already).

Re: Study: A universal basic income would grow the economy

#83

Post by rbanffy »

garrettdc wrote: post #21
tnzn wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You believe 12k a year basic income will make people work less ?

We are constantly told that 7.25/hr isn't enough to live on, but people find a way to do so at the moment. 7.25 $/hr * 2000 hrs/year = 14500 which isn't far off from 12000. If the choice was between working for that and not working, I think the choice is easy. Unless this program were to completely eliminate welfare spending, then you'd likely end up with people choosing not to work because they don't need to. This o…

> If the choice was between working for that and not working, I think the choice is easy.

You need to consider the humanitarian aspect of forcing someone to work multiple jobs and very long hours to avoiding starvation and sleeping on the streets.

If paying more taxes is the price to know no kid will sleep hungry and no family will have to live on the streets, I'll gladly do it. I don't care if they will or will not show up to work (I bet most will, because 12000+7000 is more than 12000).

Re: Study: A universal basic income would grow the economy

#84

Post by jpindar »

xienze wrote: post #36
IanCal wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I just don't see how that's possible, because inevitably there are going to be a lot of people with real or self-imposed crises crying about how they don't have enough money to pay rent or buy food, and what is the government going to do, tell them "tough shit, you should've managed your UBI better"? In the UK, many welfare payments go directly to the person, so this wouldn't be a new issue. Many of them are design…

> In the UK, many welfare payments go directly to the person, so this wouldn't be a new issue. Not sure what you mean by this. The issue is that currently welfare payments are earmarked: this money can only be used for rent, this money can only be used for food, etc. By eliminating our existing welfare programs, as is the case with every UBI proposal, we would instead be giving a single check and saying "manage this…

> Tell them tough shit? That's not what's going to happen.

That's what happens now, whether the person gets money from a job or from any kind of benefits. Why should it change? It's called 'Basic Income', not 'Basic Relax All Your Needs Will Be Met'.

Re: Study: A universal basic income would grow the economy

#85

Post by filoeleven »

garrettdc wrote: post #51
ubernostrum wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to eliminate the possibility of people who don't need to work choosing not to work, you should be in favor of a 100% estate tax before you should be against UBI. Make it impossible for children to inherit enough wealth to live without working, and get those lazy parasites into the workforce where they belong! (or you could look at what happens when people are actually presented with realistic options for…

People can choose to work or not. I just don't want to be stuck with the consequences of it. The word parasite means that they are increasing their well-being by reducing another individual's well-being. The number of children who are able to live off of their parents / grandparents money and don't work at all is so finite that it isn't really worth mentioning. Alongside that, they are a net gain for the economy. Thi…

> For the regular person - or even top 10% - all the 100% estate tax would mean is that dad's classic car that you restored together gets sold at auction instead being passed down

Regular people won't be affected, only a fraction of the richest 1%:

> a maximum amount, varying year by year, can be given by an individual, before and/or upon their death, without incurring federal gift or estate taxes:[2] $5,340,000 for estates of persons dying in 2014[3] and 2015,[4] $5,450,000 (effectively $10.90 million per married couple) for estates of persons dying in 2016.[5] Because of these exemptions, only the largest 0.2% of estates in the U.S. will pay the tax.[6]

Re: Study: A universal basic income would grow the economy

#87

Post by logicchains »

antisthenes wrote: post #80
logicchains wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did my bachelors in economics, and one of our textbooks taught that all other things being equal (ceteris paribus), more wealth equalisation (taking from the richer and giving to the poorer) means less wealth creation in the long term. Why? Wealth will naturally concentrate in the hands of those more capable of creating it: if Jo is making 2% per annum return and Jane is making 4% per annum return, and they both st…

Good thing our society doesn't optimize for maximum absolute wealth growth in a vacuum, else we'd have 1 person with all of the country's wealth. > If we equalise wealth, however, such that both have $4,899.13, then in 50 years Jane will have $34,816.57 and Jo will have $13,186.44, for a total wealth pool of $48,003.01 Have you considered second order effects here? What if additional wealth allows "Jo" to increase th…

>Good thing our society doesn't optimize for maximum absolute wealth growth in a vacuum, else we'd have 1 person with all of the country's wealth.

The person must be trading with others somehow to be gaining those 4% returns; they could only end up with all the wealth if literally nobody else saved any money. And if nobody else saved any money, there'd be no economic growth at all if not for the person with all the wealth.

>Have you considered second order effects here? What if additional wealth allows "Jo" to increase their per annum return because they invest it in a business or education?

Jo started with the same amount of wealth as Jane; he had no less opportunity to invest it in a business/education, invest it in something to increase in something that increased his investment returns, than she did.

>In this case, the condition assumes that the rate of wealth creation is fixed and unalterable on a scale of 50 years. It also falsely assumes (just world fallacy) that wealth is already allocated in such a way as to belong to people with high (unalterable) wealth creation potential.

It doesn't assume the latter, it assumes Jane and Jo started with the same amount of wealth, and shows that given this condition it will result in more wealth being allocated to the people with more wealth creation potential. Starting from the same point, Jane and Jo have equal chance to increase their ability to create wealth.

Re: Study: A universal basic income would grow the economy

#88

Post by logicchains »

StormChaser_5 wrote: post #70
logicchains wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did my bachelors in economics, and one of our textbooks taught that all other things being equal (ceteris paribus), more wealth equalisation (taking from the richer and giving to the poorer) means less wealth creation in the long term. Why? Wealth will naturally concentrate in the hands of those more capable of creating it: if Jo is making 2% per annum return and Jane is making 4% per annum return, and they both st…

This argument breaks down in a couple of different ways but lets just look at one: Assuming there is no wealth redistribution then you had Joe and Jane have $19.128.28 and $69,330.20 respectively. Lets say they both die on the same day and leave all their wealth to Joe Junior ($19,128.28) and Jenny ($69,330.20). Now it turns out that Joe Junior works hard and is really smart. He can get a 5% per annum return. Meanwhi…

>This argument breaks down in a couple of different ways but lets just look at one:

>Assuming there is no wealth redistribution then you had Joe and Jane have $19.128.28 and $69,330.20 respectively. Lets say they both die on the same day and leave all their wealth to Joe Junior ($19,128.28) and Jenny ($69,330.20).

I'd argue this is a categorically different case as it's taking wealth from a dead person. From economic perspective I agree there's less of an argument that this reduces growth.

>And of course the same is true without having to wait for the next generation. Just because person A made good use of their resources for 10 years is no indication that they will always continue to do so and so are going to generate the best return on those resources - and the opposite is also true. That said while past performance is no indicator of future success it is a whole lot better then nothing.

If past performance is some indicator of future success, then would it be fair to say that if a redistribution policy ignores this, and takes into account no other factors correlated with potential future returns in determining whom to redistribute to, then on average it will still result in transfer from better investors to worse investors? An opposed to e.g. redistribution in the form of scholarships to poor but well-performing students, which could increase overall growth.

Re: Study: A universal basic income would grow the economy

#89

Post by kirsebaer »

xienze wrote: post #76
jpindar wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same as now. You don't get more food stamps just because you ran out.

The difference is it's earmarked money today. There's no potential to spend your food money on a phone and then claim you can't buy food at the end of the month.

Most countries just give cash to people without income, they don't bother with a separate food program. That seems to work fine.
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