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Pelosi: It's time to consider universal basic income pushed by Andrew Yang

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Re: Pelosi: It's time to consider universal basic income pushed by Andrew Yang

#11

How was $1000/month for anyone over age 18 supposed to be funded? Without exact details answering such, do voters believe this is more than seeking voter-attention. Are there actual plans of implementation whose economics/numbers work? I see people discuss such but never see answers.

The same way we are funding massive corporate bailouts. Sovereign government debt does not work like personal debt, for the simple reason that money can be printed. Fears of inflation in a time like this are completely unwarranted.

edit: Back of the envelope math shows that 1000/month for the US population is about $4 trillion/year. The Fed has pumped more than that into financial markets since this pandemic has started, alone. That is why the S&P is back up to where it was in 2018, despite the world suffering the greatest demand shock in history. Pumping up the financial markets is doing nowhere near the economic good that a UBI would right now.

Re: Pelosi: It's time to consider universal basic income pushed by Andrew Yang

#12

How was $1000/month for anyone over age 18 supposed to be funded? Without exact details answering such, do voters believe this is more than seeking voter-attention. Are there actual plans of implementation whose economics/numbers work? I see people discuss such but never see answers.

Yang proposed to fund it using a 10% VAT, which just about works out to the right amount if you assume you can enforce the VAT on the entire $20T US GDP. I doubt Pelosi has made a concrete funding proposal. (Edit: I answered specifically about Yang's/Pelosi's funding proposals because I thought that was what parent asked -- not sure if I'm crazy or they edited their post.)

Re: Pelosi: It's time to consider universal basic income pushed by Andrew Yang

#13

How was $1000/month for anyone over age 18 supposed to be funded? Without exact details answering such, do voters believe this is more than seeking voter-attention. Are there actual plans of implementation whose economics/numbers work? I see people discuss such but never see answers.

Answers: https://www.yang2020.com/what-is-freedom-dividend-faq/

He also talked about the actual implementation a lot during the campaign.

Re: Pelosi: It's time to consider universal basic income pushed by Andrew Yang

#14
post #11

How was $1000/month for anyone over age 18 supposed to be funded? Without exact details answering such, do voters believe this is more than seeking voter-attention. Are there actual plans of implementation whose economics/numbers work? I see people discuss such but never see answers.

The same way we are funding massive corporate bailouts. Sovereign government debt does not work like personal debt, for the simple reason that money can be printed. Fears of inflation in a time like this are completely unwarranted. edit: Back of the envelope math shows that 1000/month for the US population is about $4 trillion/year. The Fed has pumped more than that into financial markets since this pandemic has star…

I agree that worries of inflation are unwarranted (if anything we are at risk of deflation), but what happens after the economy returns? Aren't we at risk of inflation from all of the new money dumped into the economy?

Re: Pelosi: It's time to consider universal basic income pushed by Andrew Yang

#15
post #11

How was $1000/month for anyone over age 18 supposed to be funded? Without exact details answering such, do voters believe this is more than seeking voter-attention. Are there actual plans of implementation whose economics/numbers work? I see people discuss such but never see answers.

The same way we are funding massive corporate bailouts. Sovereign government debt does not work like personal debt, for the simple reason that money can be printed. Fears of inflation in a time like this are completely unwarranted. edit: Back of the envelope math shows that 1000/month for the US population is about $4 trillion/year. The Fed has pumped more than that into financial markets since this pandemic has star…

Why are they completely unwarranted? I'm not an economist, so it's not obvious to me why printing money wouldn't lead create an inflation problem that is worse than the unemployment problem. I would be very interested to know the details that allow us to say such things so confidently.

EDIT: Thanks to those who provided such insightful answers! Very helpful for a layperson like me.

Re: Pelosi: It's time to consider universal basic income pushed by Andrew Yang

#16
I think well before we consider universal basic income, we should consider universal basic services. Many services are already highly regulated and naturally somewhat difficult to exploit.

Healthcare is the obvious one. It's not like you can get a surgery and then resell it to exploit the system. (You could, of course, exploit things like pain medication, but overall healthcare is not expoitation-friendly.)

Some amount of water, electricity, Internet access, and some amount of food are other good candidates. (Shelter is a much harder problem to solve and one where I think going through money is probably a better approach.)

I'd much rather see every person be given a reasonable amount of food, water, electricity, Internet access, and good healtcare. That is almost enough to lift people out of poverty and give them enough safety and security to enable them to live healthy, successful lives.

Then maybe see if it makes sense to provide money too. But my hunch is that UBI itself isn't a great solution. You can think of it effectively as a negative tax rate for the poor. The UBI has to be paid for by other taxes, so at some income/wealth level you will be breaking even and above that you will be paying for the UBI for people under.

I think that structure is perfectly fine for moral reasons, but looking at it from that perspective, it's not clear to me how simply having a relatively minor negative tax rate will solve the systemic problems faced by the poor. Getting a check for a hundred bucks every month isn't going to fix everything if you break your back and need a million dollars in healthcare.

What people need to thrive is security the knowledge that if unfortunate events outside of their control happen, that they will be helped to the degree that society is able. If you know you can be made bankrupt if you get sick, or your access to water can be shut off if someone robs you, then you are "poor" in all of the ways that subjectively matter.

Re: Pelosi: It's time to consider universal basic income pushed by Andrew Yang

#17

How was $1000/month for anyone over age 18 supposed to be funded? Without exact details answering such, do voters believe this is more than seeking voter-attention. Are there actual plans of implementation whose economics/numbers work? I see people discuss such but never see answers.

By really applying taxation to rich?

Re: Pelosi: It's time to consider universal basic income pushed by Andrew Yang

#18
post #11

How was $1000/month for anyone over age 18 supposed to be funded? Without exact details answering such, do voters believe this is more than seeking voter-attention. Are there actual plans of implementation whose economics/numbers work? I see people discuss such but never see answers.

The same way we are funding massive corporate bailouts. Sovereign government debt does not work like personal debt, for the simple reason that money can be printed. Fears of inflation in a time like this are completely unwarranted. edit: Back of the envelope math shows that 1000/month for the US population is about $4 trillion/year. The Fed has pumped more than that into financial markets since this pandemic has star…

[deleted]

Re: Pelosi: It's time to consider universal basic income pushed by Andrew Yang

#19

I think well before we consider universal basic income, we should consider universal basic services . Many services are already highly regulated and naturally somewhat difficult to exploit. Healthcare is the obvious one. It's not like you can get a surgery and then resell it to exploit the system. (You could, of course, exploit things like pain medication, but overall healthcare is not expoitation-friendly.) Some amo…

Governments that centrally plan all the basic necessities you outline are terrible at all of them. Democide tends to happen as government collects more power in the process.

Letting government give a basic income and the private sector filling supply is a much more reasonable solution.

Let’s a free market exist to satisfy demand while recognizing the end of jobs is about here.

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