Basic Income caused crime to drop by 40% and strengthened workforce? • Hacker News Board

Re: Basic Income caused crime to drop by 40% and strengthened workforce?

#41

Post by lvh » Wed, Aug 01, 2018, 5:36 PM UTC

trothamel wrote: post #32

bryanlarsen wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So to get a BI of £12K, average taxes would have to go up by £8K per person. And since about 2/3 of the adult population are taxpayers, that gives £12K per taxpayer, which balances the payout they'd receive from BI. People with above average incomes would pay into BI, and those with below average incomes would net from BI.

Assuming we're talking about the UK here, that would require £517,000,000,000 - or about 70% of current tax revenues.

Yep; though the usual corollary is also that you'd cancel a bunch of other welfare programs -- that is: you're replacing benefits with UBI, not just tacking UBI on. (Not advocating for it; just saying that 70% of tax revenues makes it sound like you'd nearly double taxes to cover UBI, and that's not quite true.)

Re: Basic Income caused crime to drop by 40% and strengthened workforce?

#42

Post by gnode » Wed, Aug 01, 2018, 5:36 PM UTC

devoply wrote: post #5

Ontario recently cancelled their experiment with universal income. Which points me to the fact that even if UBI becomes reality at some point, it's only one government away at any time from being cancelled or adjusted. So your livelihood at any given time is dependent upon government balancing its books. Considering how bad many modern developed governments are at doing this, it gives me little hope of UBI being any…

You could say the same about public healthcare programs, although in many countries they have now been around long enough that their destruction is now politically impractical.

Re: Basic Income caused crime to drop by 40% and strengthened workforce?

#43

Post by AnimalMuppet » Wed, Aug 01, 2018, 5:37 PM UTC

bryanlarsen wrote: post #38

gtCameron wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That assumes that GDP would not be impacted negatively by the massive tax increase. I'm sure there are many theories, in both directions, of what would happen to the total tax revenues if you were to raise rates significantly, but it's surely far more complicated that your idea makes it sound.

Moving money from rich people to people much more likely to spend it rather than hoard it should result in a significant GDP boost.

Maybe not. Rich people are more likely to invest it; the economy also needs that.

Re: Basic Income caused crime to drop by 40% and strengthened workforce?

#44

Post by Retric » Wed, Aug 01, 2018, 5:37 PM UTC

trothamel wrote: post #32

bryanlarsen wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So to get a BI of £12K, average taxes would have to go up by £8K per person. And since about 2/3 of the adult population are taxpayers, that gives £12K per taxpayer, which balances the payout they'd receive from BI. People with above average incomes would pay into BI, and those with below average incomes would net from BI.

Assuming we're talking about the UK here, that would require £517,000,000,000 - or about 70% of current tax revenues.

Assuming zero other changes to the tax code or spending which as far as I know nobody wants to do.

The US example is usually to remove Social Security, food stamps, HUD, unemployment insurance, low income tax breaks, etc which means close to zero net cost but a massive shift in benefits.

Overall I think the driver for UBI is more about complexity than welfare. For example without changing revenue you could eliminate the need for tax prep. However H&R block for example really loves their billions per year in waste. So in many way's that's the context UBI should be judged not just it's direct impacts.

Re: Basic Income caused crime to drop by 40% and strengthened workforce?

#45

Post by vorpalhex » Wed, Aug 01, 2018, 5:37 PM UTC

twblalock wrote: post #29

The big problem with UBI, aside from how to pay for it, is that it will not survive as either universal or basic once the voters get their hands on it and decide that, say, UBI benefits should be cut for felons, increased for single mothers, indexed to the cost of rent, etc. In other words, we have a bunch of different welfare standards for people in different situations because that is what succeeds politically, and…

To be fair, I'm not entirely convinced that a truly universal system is the best. After all, a single parent has significant additional expenses - and should taxpayers be paying to give violent criminals a work-free existence? (Would you pay a living wage to someone who sexually assaulted your daughter?)

In the US, this is especially a problem. The cost of living in Texas is low enough that my salary as an engineer gives me a very high quality of life - but the same salary in NYC would be very different in life results. A federally set UBI then seems... well, to have the same issues that minimum wage do.

Re: Basic Income caused crime to drop by 40% and strengthened workforce?

#46

Post by jaggederest » Wed, Aug 01, 2018, 5:38 PM UTC

gtCameron wrote: post #25

3pt14159 wrote: post #8

It might be politically unpopular, but maybe we should just raise taxes and index them for measures of inequality. The GDP per capita of most modern economies can easily handle a basic income sufficient for all but the most expensive cities.

That assumes that GDP would not be impacted negatively by the massive tax increase. I'm sure there are many theories, in both directions, of what would happen to the total tax revenues if you were to raise rates significantly, but it's surely far more complicated that your idea makes it sound.

That assumes that the GDP would not be positively impacted by redistributing the funds to those who will spend it. A revenue-neutral taxation and distribution system should be more or less free of bias and significant negative effects on the economy, and that's what such ... socialist luminaries ... as Friedman proposed in the form of negative income tax brackets.

Re: Basic Income caused crime to drop by 40% and strengthened workforce?

#47

Post by the-pigeon » Wed, Aug 01, 2018, 5:38 PM UTC

Did anyone up voting this read it?

Worst article I've ever seen so high up on Hacker News.

Re: Basic Income caused crime to drop by 40% and strengthened workforce?

#48

Post by bryanlarsen » Wed, Aug 01, 2018, 5:38 PM UTC

trothamel wrote: post #32

bryanlarsen wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So to get a BI of £12K, average taxes would have to go up by £8K per person. And since about 2/3 of the adult population are taxpayers, that gives £12K per taxpayer, which balances the payout they'd receive from BI. People with above average incomes would pay into BI, and those with below average incomes would net from BI.

Assuming we're talking about the UK here, that would require £517,000,000,000 - or about 70% of current tax revenues.

That number is fairly meaningless though, since a majority[1] of people will be receive more money from BI than they'll lose in the increased taxes. Only the very rich will see significant real increases.

1: the average income is significantly higher than the median income.

Re: Basic Income caused crime to drop by 40% and strengthened workforce?

#49

Post by corin_ » Wed, Aug 01, 2018, 5:39 PM UTC

setr wrote: post #39

bryanlarsen wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So to get a BI of £12K, average taxes would have to go up by £8K per person. And since about 2/3 of the adult population are taxpayers, that gives £12K per taxpayer, which balances the payout they'd receive from BI. People with above average incomes would pay into BI, and those with below average incomes would net from BI.

I thought BI was equal distribution across the population; how can you charge less than its value per person, and pay it off?

Some of the population would pay more towards BI in taxes than the amount they receive as BI (just as some of the population gets taxes more than they receive social benefits currently).

Re: Basic Income caused crime to drop by 40% and strengthened workforce?

#50

Post by aaron-lebo » Wed, Aug 01, 2018, 5:39 PM UTC

xkjkls wrote: post #40

aaron-lebo wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, this is unfortunately pretty lazy research used to push an agenda. Related to that, the main claim: the 40% reduction in crime (no link, why?) is in Namibia. Is there anything about Namibia which makes it different from a developed economy like the US? I know it comes off as pedantic to complain about such stuff, but there's gotta be higher standards for evidence, otherwise you don't really trust your own argume…

I wouldn't necessarily call it "lazy research". It's imperfect, but there aren't exactly that many natural experiments in UBI that provide you great data. Sometimes you have to piece together insights from imperfect data.

It's not the research itself that is lazy, it's the way results with very limited scope are used by people to push an agenda. I guarantee you the authors are aware of the limits of their research. They aren't the ones making overarching claims. I challenge you to look up how social scientists themselves (and not one stop issue sites) feel about UBI.

You can't bother to provide a link when you are citing a statistic? That's just lazy. In graduate school they train you like an attack dog to find this stuff, so it's pedantic, but that really doesn't bother anyone? Just a link supporting your main claim - too much to ask?

The association with academia and "stats" without the same standards is weird.