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Free Cash to Fight Income Inequality? Stockton, CA Is First in US to Try

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Re: Free Cash to Fight Income Inequality? Stockton, CA Is First in US to Try

#21

Post by pmiller2 »

dwc wrote: post #15
pmiller2 wrote: post #11

I still haven't seen a good explanation for how UBI on a truly universal scale isn't going to just raise housing prices to capture the surplus. I mean, if my landlord knew I (and anybody else who could theoretically live in my apartment) had a spare $2000/month, forever, I'm pretty sure he'd want it.

The money in (real) UBI comes from somewhere, obviously. It's not like everyone just has more money. If you can already afford the basics then it's going to come out of your money in taxes to a greater or lesser degree. So for people in a normal middle income range you pay and then get the money back. Higher income people would pay more and get back the same as you. Low income people would pay little or nothing and g…

Yes, the money has to come from somewhere, but the traditional form is that UBI distributions replace most or all other forms of social services. Right now, I'm paying out and receiving little or nothing back directly (and I am not arguing that I should -- I don't need, say, food stamps, or subsidized housing at the moment, but those programs should be there for those who do). Why wouldn't it be rational for my landlord to want my UBI money?

Re: Free Cash to Fight Income Inequality? Stockton, CA Is First in US to Try

#22

Post by marme »

pmiller2 wrote: post #11

I still haven't seen a good explanation for how UBI on a truly universal scale isn't going to just raise housing prices to capture the surplus. I mean, if my landlord knew I (and anybody else who could theoretically live in my apartment) had a spare $2000/month, forever, I'm pretty sure he'd want it.

That is not how any market works. Just because your customers have more money does not change the supply or demand for your product. A luxury apartment fetches a high price because there is demand from tenants willing to pay the luxury price. No one is going to pay more for the same apartment unless there is more demand for apartments than there is supply like you have in NYC and SF. More income causes prices to rise because people start outbidding each other for everything. Why sell your house for 100k when someone else is offering 120k

Re: Free Cash to Fight Income Inequality? Stockton, CA Is First in US to Try

#23

Post by tomschlick »

dahdum wrote: post #6
scarmig wrote: post #2

> “The trolls I’ve been dealing with on social media and in real life have very racialized views of how this is going to work,” Mr. Tubbs said. “As the first black mayor of this city, it would be very dangerous if the only people to get this were black.” > He wants to select participants who are most likely to spend their money wisely, generating stories of working poor people lifted by extra cash. Well, that's prett…

It wouldn't really be UBI, but still worthwhile data for programs with work requirements. I'm rather fond of the idea of work based programs. For example, for every $1 of W2 income you earn you receive $1 bonus, up to a cap of say $7,500. This boosts wages on the low end and strongly encourages employment. Funding this through income taxes and you won't have to kill off risky / low profit small business with local li…

> It wouldn't really be UBI

None of these "experiments" are. They all fail to simulate the biggest downfall of UBI which is that when you do it at scale, prices go up. It happens for all the same reasons that guaranteed student loans have driven up the cost of college in the past 30 years.

Re: Free Cash to Fight Income Inequality? Stockton, CA Is First in US to Try

#24

Post by goda90 »

pmiller2 wrote: post #11

I still haven't seen a good explanation for how UBI on a truly universal scale isn't going to just raise housing prices to capture the surplus. I mean, if my landlord knew I (and anybody else who could theoretically live in my apartment) had a spare $2000/month, forever, I'm pretty sure he'd want it.

What if it's not spare? It's their only $2000/month so they're not going to pay that much for rent, and someone else will offer lower prices to get that money. These same people aren't tied to a job, so they can more easily move somewhere cheaper too.

Re: Free Cash to Fight Income Inequality? Stockton, CA Is First in US to Try

#25

Post by stouset »

rarec wrote: post #13
pmiller2 wrote: post #11

I still haven't seen a good explanation for how UBI on a truly universal scale isn't going to just raise housing prices to capture the surplus. I mean, if my landlord knew I (and anybody else who could theoretically live in my apartment) had a spare $2000/month, forever, I'm pretty sure he'd want it.

That's always been what I wondered as well. UBI solves everything, except for the part where an actor who knows explicitly that all of his tenants will be getting a flat amount per month, then why not raise prices to capture some of that as well? Why wouldn't everything just increase in price slightly, everyone can afford a little bit more now.

These are really excellent points I hadn’t considered.

On the other hand, let’s run the experiment the other way. We currently have significant numbers of people working with no hope of financial stability in their future. Will taxing them to fill the coffers of the rich improve their situation? Given the current situation of increasing wealth inequality seemingly exacerbating existing problems, I can’t imagine that this is a promising approach.

Since UBI is essentially the most generalized form of a benefits program, I really have to hope that it works. If it doesn’t, that seems damning to other benefits programs which are inefficiently (and IMO ineffectively, due to perverse incentives) means-tested. If it doesn’t, and if anti-UBI is virtually axiomatically a bad idea, then I’m not sure what’s left.

Re: Free Cash to Fight Income Inequality? Stockton, CA Is First in US to Try

#26

Post by privacypoller »

JaceLightning wrote: post #19

I'm not sure this is "universal" basic income if it's only for 100 people...

I'm more concerned that the elected mayor, who has an obvious vested interest in the project being a success, wants to target "those most likely to make good decisions" - how is that universal?

The whole pretext of these plans is that there is no qualifying conditions or criteria for participation. If you only give money to a group filtered for a target outcome it's (a) just another social assistance program and (b) not an experiment

Re: Free Cash to Fight Income Inequality? Stockton, CA Is First in US to Try

#27

Post by pmiller2 »

bsder wrote: post #20
pmiller2 wrote: post #11

I still haven't seen a good explanation for how UBI on a truly universal scale isn't going to just raise housing prices to capture the surplus. I mean, if my landlord knew I (and anybody else who could theoretically live in my apartment) had a spare $2000/month, forever, I'm pretty sure he'd want it.

> I still haven't seen a good explanation for how UBI on a truly universal scale isn't going to just raise housing prices to capture the surplus. I mean, if my landlord knew I (and anybody else who could theoretically live in my apartment) had a spare $2000/month, forever, I'm pretty sure he'd want it. This is one of the reasons why a local UBI doesn't really work. If you have a national UBI, people can move . That l…

I don't really get this. If the surplus is efficiently captured (which markets are incredibly good at doing), how do these people come up with the cash to move?

Re: Free Cash to Fight Income Inequality? Stockton, CA Is First in US to Try

#28

Post by michaelchisari »

pmiller2 wrote: post #11

I still haven't seen a good explanation for how UBI on a truly universal scale isn't going to just raise housing prices to capture the surplus. I mean, if my landlord knew I (and anybody else who could theoretically live in my apartment) had a spare $2000/month, forever, I'm pretty sure he'd want it.

This is essentially the inflation argument and we have a lot of indicators that a UBI doesn't lead to significant inflation.

But it brings up the point that a UBI will not solve all of our problems. An extra $2000 a month doesn't help you if you don't have medical insurance and get a $500k bill from a terminal disease, for instance.

What a UBI does is removes a lot of bureaucracy around welfare for recurring costs (rent, clothes, food, gas, etc) and it addresses the scaling problem we're having with inequality. It's an imperfect solution, of course, but I haven't heard many other viable (by capitalist standards) options.

Re: Free Cash to Fight Income Inequality? Stockton, CA Is First in US to Try

#29

Post by BadThink6655321 »

bsder wrote: post #16
peterwwillis wrote: post #5

I think removing red tape and allowing people to pay for things they need right now is an excellent way to speed people's recovery from poverty, but it needs nudges, and those nudges need to be informed by data and empirical evidence. We need to know what people are spending the money on so we know how to target the biggest problems as well as the corner cases. If you know what the actual problems are and where the m…

[flagged]

“Toxic racial politics from the right wing...”

I agree that racial politics is toxic, but racial politics is just one subset of identity politics. The left has “sown the wind” and they’re going to “reap the whirlwind.”

May $diety help us all.

Re: Free Cash to Fight Income Inequality? Stockton, CA Is First in US to Try

#30

Post by rm_-rf_slash »

pmiller2 wrote: post #11

I still haven't seen a good explanation for how UBI on a truly universal scale isn't going to just raise housing prices to capture the surplus. I mean, if my landlord knew I (and anybody else who could theoretically live in my apartment) had a spare $2000/month, forever, I'm pretty sure he'd want it.

Look up Henry George and the Single Tax: the tax on economic rents. Land ownership, intellectual property, and so on are taxed.

This was pitched as an alternative to income taxes, which deincentivie labor and reduce income and thus the ability for people to be self-reliant instead of dependent on charity or government programs, and sales taxes, which fall disproportionately on poorer people who have to spend a larger share of their income on basic needs. Even Milton Friedman, no friend of taxes, thought if George’s Single Tax proposal as “the least worst tax,” because it would (theoretically) have the least depressing effect on economic growth.

Theoretically, your landlord could not raise rents to avoid their tax burden, as the increase in rent would directly correlate with their tax burden.

George also suggested that Single Tax revenues could provide for a UBI, although the size and scope of government was much smaller in 1880.

Speaking as a junior white-collar worker whose only significant capital is held in a retirement account, the idea of a tax on economic rents (and an assumed cut in my income/payroll/sales taxes) is very appealing, far more than a paltry UBI check each month.

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