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Jack Dorsey is giving Andrew Yang $5M to build the case for a basic income

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Re: Jack Dorsey is giving Andrew Yang $5M to build the case for a basic income

#191

Post by gowld »

uses wrote: post #160
Press2forEN wrote: post #110

Years ago, proponents of UBI claimed that it was a replacement for all other forms of social welfare. Now it appears by most proposals to be yet another means-tested add-on. What happened?

I think there has been growing momentum behind the idea that some needs aren't met best by a market approach. One of the ideas behind UBI is that people can figure out what they need, and just spend the money. But that doesn't really solve the needs that may not be optimal for a 100% market approach - probably the big two being health and education.

And housing.

Re: Jack Dorsey is giving Andrew Yang $5M to build the case for a basic income

#192

Post by luckylion »

slg wrote: post #153
cheeseomlit wrote: post #136

If the government starts giving me enough money each month to subsist while drastically raising taxes on my earnings from employment then I'll simply stop working. I would imagine most people would do the same.

Are you currently only working just to subsist? Because most people on HN work much harder than they need to and make much more than they need to just to subsist.

You currently don't have the option to not work. Most people work more than they need to because they realize that the future is uncertain and having savings will be beneficial if there's trouble at some point in the future. Give the same people a trust fund that takes care of them and that they trust to last for their life time, and most will stop working as hard. They may still work, but much less and most likely on very different things.

Re: Jack Dorsey is giving Andrew Yang $5M to build the case for a basic income

#193

Post by marcusverus »

Mayzie wrote: post #159
cheeseomlit wrote: post #136

If the government starts giving me enough money each month to subsist while drastically raising taxes on my earnings from employment then I'll simply stop working. I would imagine most people would do the same.

The idea is that everyone receives a basic income, equivalent to a (hopefully) updated minimum wage. Then if people want extra money for luxuries, then you work a job which will pay you on top of your standard basic income. I imagine most people would continue working.

Even assuming that the vast majority of people would keep working to maintain their standard of living, there are major issues with UBI:

1) The incentive to enter the workforce is greatly reduced. Every high-school graduate would have the means to shack up with a few of their buddies and live the college lifestyle indefinitely. I'm currently a productive adult, but only because there was no alternative. UBI is an alternative.

2) The nest-egg required to retire is greatly reduced. If a married couple is saving up for retirement with a retirement income of 60K, they're currently need $2,000,000 to retire (pre social security). If that same married couple is receiving 12K each in UBI, the required nest-egg is almost halved to $1,200,000. That means couple can retire a decade earlier than they previously could. This will see millions of people retiring during what would have been their most productive (i.e. tax-payingest) years.

3) Much like a shorter work week, UBI will be a tremendous competitive disadvantage for US goods and services. When the labor market inevitably shrinks, wages will necessarily rise. This will a competitive drag on exports of US goods and services.

I'm not saying that these things are bad. They sound great for the individuals in question. But they will eventually hollow out the workforce.

Re: Jack Dorsey is giving Andrew Yang $5M to build the case for a basic income

#194

Post by jpindar »

cheeseomlit wrote: post #136

If the government starts giving me enough money each month to subsist while drastically raising taxes on my earnings from employment then I'll simply stop working. I would imagine most people would do the same.

You do you, but... chicks dig guys with good careers.

(You may think that's a bad thing, but it's still true.)

Re: Jack Dorsey is giving Andrew Yang $5M to build the case for a basic income

#195

Post by pdonis »

seph-reed wrote: post #177
WalterBright wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the government provided food, shelter, and video games, I expect quite a few people would see no purpose in working. Also the surfers and backpackers.

Good for them. The point of work is to not have to anymore so you can follow your passions. We've invented machines that can do basically everything it takes to support human life. Seems like there should be a lot more people following passions now.

> We've invented machines that can do basically everything it takes to support human life.

We have? We have machines that can do everything it takes to grow food, prepare it, ship it where it's needed, with no humans? We have machines that can build houses, cars, bicycles, and other forms of transportation, with no humans? We have machines that can make our clothes and all other necessary items with no humans? We have machines that can fix all our crumbling infrastructure with no humans?

I think you are drastically underestimating the amount of human work that is needed just to keep the basic functions of society working. Let alone to provide all the nice to have things that we all want.

Re: Jack Dorsey is giving Andrew Yang $5M to build the case for a basic income

#196

Post by bzb3 »

jedberg wrote: post #182
cheeseomlit wrote: post #136

If the government starts giving me enough money each month to subsist while drastically raising taxes on my earnings from employment then I'll simply stop working. I would imagine most people would do the same.

Every experiment in UBI says otherwise. Direct cash grants usually lead people to do more work, because now they can do the work they enjoy. Also, look around groups of wealthy people. The ones who don't have to work anymore. Sure, some of them live a life of leisure, but many of them still work, because they get bored otherwise.

There are lots of jobs people don't enjoy. Who's going to do those?

If they raise the salaries and start getting applicants, who's going to buy the much more expensive produce? They'd have to increase the amount of ubi, and there you have inflation.

Re: Jack Dorsey is giving Andrew Yang $5M to build the case for a basic income

#197

Post by mwfunk »

donw wrote: post #178
graham_paul wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'll simply stop working For a few months maybe. Soon, you will realise that to keep your previous lifestyle (or to simply fill your time with something other than browsing text-heavy sites) you need to work. So you will go back to work. And so will everyone else.

What happens if a large number of people can not afford a meaningfully better lifestyle than what is possible on a UBI because of the tax increases? (Genuine question, no gotchas here)

People get a UBI regardless of whether or not they work, that's the 'U' part. So any money you get from working is additional money on top of the UBI. It would be taxed, but it's still more money. It's not like other benefits where once you start earning your own money, you lose the benefit, and thus have to make a choice between not working to keep the benefit and working 40 hours a week to make similar or marginally more money.

Or, maybe you're taking that into account already, and are worried about an uncanny valley in between "not working" and "working" where a significant number of people simply don't work because that first rung in the "working" ladder isn't rewarding enough to start climbing the ladder, so they're incentivized to never work. If so, that's certainly a concern, but that would also be an indicator of a failed system that needed to be revised. It goes without saying that any implementation of a UBI system would have to be designed such that that didn't happen, but that's not an intrinsic quality of UBI systems.

Tax increases themselves would have to be progressive (as our current tax system supposedly is and always has been) to avoid creating these sorts of discontinuities that would disincentivize people from working. Any functional UBI system would have to take that into account, otherwise it's a failed implementation.

Re: Jack Dorsey is giving Andrew Yang $5M to build the case for a basic income

#198

Post by unethical_ban »

commandlinefan wrote: post #184
Mayzie wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea is that everyone receives a basic income, equivalent to a (hopefully) updated minimum wage. Then if people want extra money for luxuries, then you work a job which will pay you on top of your standard basic income. I imagine most people would continue working.

> everyone receives a basic income And, by definition, everybody who earns higher than the median wage will also receive a tax increase higher than the basic income they're being given "back".

I don't think there is a strict definition, but there certainly would be a threshold in the bracket where taxes > UBI, but what is your point?

That UBI is therefore worthless for everyone, because some people won't get it, in effect?

There are many variations, but one benefit of continuing its issuance even if someone is in a high tax bracket is unemployment - one of many services that could go away if UBI were in place.

If I make $200k, and lose my job, I don't apply for unemployment - I just get the UBI for that month to pay for expenses.

Re: Jack Dorsey is giving Andrew Yang $5M to build the case for a basic income

#199

Post by kerkeslager »

aintnoprophet wrote: post #189
xwdv wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is anecdotal but I haven’t seen guys hanging off garbage trucks in a long time. Around here it’s just one guy with a hydraulic arm on the truck that picks up the cans and dumps out garbage, and he does it very very efficiently. Pretty soon it should be possible to even replace the driver with a self driving truck that goes around pre determined paths in the neighborhood.

That may be true in populated areas. But, what about areas that lag behind? Rural america that is too poor to afford robot trucks. I see people hanging off garbage trucks all the time in the midwestern low pop and rural areas.

> But, what about areas that lag behind? Rural america that is too poor to afford robot trucks.

The robot trucks are cheaper than the humans that operate the non-robot trucks, so your argument doesn't make much sense here.

Re: Jack Dorsey is giving Andrew Yang $5M to build the case for a basic income

#200

Post by jpindar »

hooande wrote: post #165
cheeseomlit wrote: post #136

If the government starts giving me enough money each month to subsist while drastically raising taxes on my earnings from employment then I'll simply stop working. I would imagine most people would do the same.

very few people wish to subsist. most humans want a lifestyle that is similar to or better than that of the people that they socialize with

And most women want successful men.

(You can think that that's a bad thing, but your thoughts won't change it.)

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