Being able to eschew shitty soul-sucking jobs in favor of real personal development is "zero benefit"?
who lives on $500 a month? and the economy will simply adjust to absorb this increase anyway, so hence my comment about zero benefits. also, for young people at least, "shitty" jobs build character, which seems ever more critical these days. after working a "shitty" job for a little while, a person may be motivated to better themselves, or at least get a better job.
9.8% of the USA lives on $6,000 a year or less, according to the IRS. So, about 10% of the population lives on $500 a month. This isn't targeted to young people, though it will benefit them. This is also targeted at displaced workers, low-skill workers, and the upcoming tens of thousands marginalized out of the workforce by increasing automation.
There's not really a PATH for people to move from shitty job to non-shitty job anymore. There simply aren't enough good jobs for every adult.
One of the things about UBI is that these pilot programs aren't UBI, because they aren't universal. Giving a segment of the population free money is going to benefit that segment, no question. Welfare and Quantitative Easing are both examples of that. But when you make it universal, my economics intuition says that the effect will be washed out by a commensurate rise in prices. Or put another way, you can subsidize t…
UBI is giving a segment an increase in income (unless you are just printing money for it, which no one has proposed), since money comes from increased taxes or decreased existing spending somewhere else; there are, compared to the status quo ante, a segment of net gainers and one of net losers (with, most likely, a smooth continuum between.)
So it's not actually different from the limited implementations in the way you paint it (it's different in other important ways, but not that one.)
One of the things about UBI is that these pilot programs aren't UBI, because they aren't universal. Giving a segment of the population free money is going to benefit that segment, no question. Welfare and Quantitative Easing are both examples of that. But when you make it universal, my economics intuition says that the effect will be washed out by a commensurate rise in prices. Or put another way, you can subsidize t…
One of the things about UBI is that these pilot programs aren't UBI, because they aren't universal. Giving a segment of the population free money is going to benefit that segment, no question. Welfare and Quantitative Easing are both examples of that. But when you make it universal, my economics intuition says that the effect will be washed out by a commensurate rise in prices. Or put another way, you can subsidize t…
Sure, if you simply gave everyone $1 for every dollar they already have, all you do is double prices and change nothing of substance. But I think the pro-UBI argument would be that you don't need to increase the money supply to do it. About 60% of Federal spending is on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Reducing the spending on these programs, and other inefficient transfers such as welfare and disability will…
How is UBI any different from welfare if it is what you describe?
From your description, it actually sounds worse. As I read it, it sounds sort of like this.
1) Reduce Social Security (so steal people's retirement money that they paid in...)
2) Reduce Medicare / Medicaid (The group of people that receive these are often the one's least likely to be able to afford medical care (the poor & the eldery) while simultaneously being the one's most likely to need such care (at least the elderly)).
One of the things about UBI is that these pilot programs aren't UBI, because they aren't universal. Giving a segment of the population free money is going to benefit that segment, no question. Welfare and Quantitative Easing are both examples of that. But when you make it universal, my economics intuition says that the effect will be washed out by a commensurate rise in prices. Or put another way, you can subsidize t…
Sure, if you simply gave everyone $1 for every dollar they already have, all you do is double prices and change nothing of substance. But I think the pro-UBI argument would be that you don't need to increase the money supply to do it. About 60% of Federal spending is on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Reducing the spending on these programs, and other inefficient transfers such as welfare and disability will…
I disagree with your premise that doubling the number of dollars everyone has would simply double prices. If you take someone that has $1 million in the bank, and magically make that $2 million, they almost certainly won't double all of their expenditures (they probably wouldn't change what they spend at all on a wide variety of categories - food or clothing, for instance). Rising inequality means that lack of demand is actually a big issue, since we're transferring income from people that would readily increase consumption, given more income, to people that will largely sit on that money. Globally speaking, our factories could easily produce more goods without raising prices much, if any. I believe a UBI would effectively be a transfer of wealth from people that have lots of money (but don't spend it) to people that don't have lots of money (but would readily spend more if they had it), but it wouldn't be the zero-sum game that people often assume it would, just by virtue of our productive capacity not being nearly maxed out.
Sure, if you simply gave everyone $1 for every dollar they already have, all you do is double prices and change nothing of substance. But I think the pro-UBI argument would be that you don't need to increase the money supply to do it. About 60% of Federal spending is on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Reducing the spending on these programs, and other inefficient transfers such as welfare and disability will…
I disagree with your premise that doubling the number of dollars everyone has would simply double prices. If you take someone that has $1 million in the bank, and magically make that $2 million, they almost certainly won't double all of their expenditures (they probably wouldn't change what they spend at all on a wide variety of categories - food or clothing, for instance). Rising inequality means that lack of demand…
While the now $2 millionaire would not be likely to spend that extra million on food and clothing they would be extremely likely to invest that money in a variety of financial instruments, making that capital available in the market so it can be put to good use. Investing does help inject value into the economy and drive growth - "sitting on it" would require literally keeping it in cash in a bank, which no sane person would do due to inflation.
One of the things about UBI is that these pilot programs aren't UBI, because they aren't universal. Giving a segment of the population free money is going to benefit that segment, no question. Welfare and Quantitative Easing are both examples of that. But when you make it universal, my economics intuition says that the effect will be washed out by a commensurate rise in prices. Or put another way, you can subsidize t…
Sure, if you simply gave everyone $1 for every dollar they already have, all you do is double prices and change nothing of substance. But I think the pro-UBI argument would be that you don't need to increase the money supply to do it. About 60% of Federal spending is on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Reducing the spending on these programs, and other inefficient transfers such as welfare and disability will…
The rich corporations and people are used to having wealth transfer "up" to them. That's why it has gotten so out of hand (the gap keeps increasing). By flipping the UBI switch, they aren't going to all the sudden say, "Well, it was a good ride while it lasted." Those tax increases will be funded by syphoning everyone's UBI back to the rich in the forms of price increases.
So, then the poor will be left with decreased Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, etc. But hey! At least they get 12K a year!
One of the things about UBI is that these pilot programs aren't UBI, because they aren't universal. Giving a segment of the population free money is going to benefit that segment, no question. Welfare and Quantitative Easing are both examples of that. But when you make it universal, my economics intuition says that the effect will be washed out by a commensurate rise in prices. Or put another way, you can subsidize t…
Well, you're not giving UBI to everyone. Just the people who don't earn more than UBI level. For everyone else, UBI becomes like the standard deduction under the current US system.
One of the things about UBI is that these pilot programs aren't UBI, because they aren't universal. Giving a segment of the population free money is going to benefit that segment, no question. Welfare and Quantitative Easing are both examples of that. But when you make it universal, my economics intuition says that the effect will be washed out by a commensurate rise in prices. Or put another way, you can subsidize t…
Sure, if you simply gave everyone $1 for every dollar they already have, all you do is double prices and change nothing of substance. But I think the pro-UBI argument would be that you don't need to increase the money supply to do it. About 60% of Federal spending is on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Reducing the spending on these programs, and other inefficient transfers such as welfare and disability will…
I disagree with your premise that doubling the number of dollars everyone has would simply double prices. If you take someone that has $1 million in the bank, and magically make that $2 million, they almost certainly won't double all of their expenditures (they probably wouldn't change what they spend at all on a wide variety of categories - food or clothing, for instance). Rising inequality means that lack of demand…
While the now $2 millionaire would not be likely to spend that extra million on food and clothing they would be extremely likely to invest that money in a variety of financial instruments, making that capital available in the market so it can be put to good use. Investing does help inject value into the economy and drive growth - "sitting on it" would require literally keeping it in cash in a bank, which no sane pers…
> they would be extremely likely to invest that money in a variety of financial instruments, making that capital available in the market so it can be put to good use
This improves the supply-side of the economy, but doesn't do anything to stimulate demand for products. Today, lack of demand is a larger problem than increased output. The labor share of GDP has been decreasing since the 70s, and its starting to hit levels where people are having trouble affording as many goods. Although investing is a good use of funds, arguably redistribution (a type of demand-side stimulus) would be more helpful today.