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An Engineering Argument for Basic Income

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Re: An Engineering Argument for Basic Income

#31

Post by ogre_codes »

rocketpastsix wrote: post #21
m1117 wrote: post #2

People who have unemployment don't want to work because they'll loose unemployment :/ UBI seems like a good motivation and a fun experiment, looking forward to hopefully AY launching it in NYC.

>People who have unemployment don't want to work because they'll loose unemployment hasn't this been debunked repeatedly? While yes, Im sure there are some people who do their hardest not to work to collect money, most people want to be out there working. I dont think youre correct per se, but I do think that part of the reason people linger on unemployment is because jobs that they are able to get dont pay nearly en…

I know someone who is fighting this. It's not so much they don't want to work, but the fact that with our current system there are places where working causes you to earn less. Unemployment is one piece, but food stamps and other benefits get cut off as well. Working costs money. Commuting, child care, uniforms, etc. For a person with children, a minimum wage job is tough to justify.

A system where government help was tapered until people were above the poverty line would eliminate these perverse incentives.

Re: An Engineering Argument for Basic Income

#32

Post by nyghtly »

nrclark wrote: post #28

Site is hugged for me, so I can't check to see if the author addresses this. I've been wondering - wouldn't UBI tend towards an inflationary spiral? I'm sympathetic to the goals of UBI. But without price controls, what would prevent rent/mortage/food/entertainment prices from just rising to absorb everybody's newfound income? College tuition has been going up exponentially since the introduction of federal student ai…

> The Social Security Administration sends out checks each month to 64 million people, mostly the elderly and disabled. Unemployment Insurance programs send out checks each month to 2.1 million people. In other countries, the government, in addition to paying these kinds of old-age, disability, and unemployment benefits, also pays out a monthly benefit to every child. In the US that would mean checks going out to the families of around 74 million children.

> None of this leads to any inflation problems because, as mentioned in the very first section above, taxes are used to fund these programs, just as they would be for any other permanent welfare state expansion.

https://www.peoplespolicyproject.org/2020/03/18/understandin...

Re: An Engineering Argument for Basic Income

#34

Post by fiftyfifty »

nyghtly wrote: post #32
nrclark wrote: post #28

Site is hugged for me, so I can't check to see if the author addresses this. I've been wondering - wouldn't UBI tend towards an inflationary spiral? I'm sympathetic to the goals of UBI. But without price controls, what would prevent rent/mortage/food/entertainment prices from just rising to absorb everybody's newfound income? College tuition has been going up exponentially since the introduction of federal student ai…

> The Social Security Administration sends out checks each month to 64 million people, mostly the elderly and disabled. Unemployment Insurance programs send out checks each month to 2.1 million people. In other countries, the government, in addition to paying these kinds of old-age, disability, and unemployment benefits, also pays out a monthly benefit to every child. In the US that would mean checks going out to the…

There are roughly 209 million adults in the US. Providing a $1,000/month UBI (which seems to be what's commonly proposed) will cost us $2.5 Trillion every year. That is a lot of tax to collect. If we are not careful it will be become a debt burden and it will cause inflation. I'm not saying that it can't be done but I think we would all like to see a very careful plan on where exactly that much money is going to come from.

Re: An Engineering Argument for Basic Income

#35

Post by somethoughts »

danenania wrote: post #14

It feels like the combination of Yang's presidential run and covid has broken the seal on the idea of UBI in the US. After having the experience of the government sending everyone direct payments, I think it's all but inevitable that we'll arrive at some level of formal UBI in the future. Given its sky high bipartisan popularity, it's hard to imagine how any non-UBI supporting politician will be able to compete with…

Re: 2 - It'd be kind of interesting if the UBI was tied to a 30 hour work week or 4 day work week. A bit like ok we want to give you money to pursue your dreams but we also want to make sure you have your act together with some cadence so you don't drift off into nowhere-ville.

And before you downvote - I'm coming off reading this story which is on the HN front-page where the guy basically created his own UBI and then fell off the map:

https://www.wired.com/story/unsettling-truth-mostly-harmless...

Re: An Engineering Argument for Basic Income

#36

Post by hnrodey »

rocketpastsix wrote: post #21
m1117 wrote: post #2

People who have unemployment don't want to work because they'll loose unemployment :/ UBI seems like a good motivation and a fun experiment, looking forward to hopefully AY launching it in NYC.

>People who have unemployment don't want to work because they'll loose unemployment hasn't this been debunked repeatedly? While yes, Im sure there are some people who do their hardest not to work to collect money, most people want to be out there working. I dont think youre correct per se, but I do think that part of the reason people linger on unemployment is because jobs that they are able to get dont pay nearly en…

>People who have unemployment don't want to work because they'll loose unemployment

It's not all people do this or all people do that. It 100% happens that a non-trivial percentage of people on government benefits (unemployment, etc.) choose to stay on these benefits for their entire duration and only then pursue work opportunities.

Re: An Engineering Argument for Basic Income

#37

Post by hnrodey »

m1117 wrote: post #2

People who have unemployment don't want to work because they'll loose unemployment :/ UBI seems like a good motivation and a fun experiment, looking forward to hopefully AY launching it in NYC.

>People who have unemployment don't want to work because they'll loose unemployment

It's not all people do this or all people do that. It 100% happens that some people on government benefits (unemployment, etc.) choose to stay on these benefits for their entire duration and then pursue work opportunities.

Re: An Engineering Argument for Basic Income

#38

Post by RandallBrown »

nyghtly wrote: post #32
nrclark wrote: post #28

Site is hugged for me, so I can't check to see if the author addresses this. I've been wondering - wouldn't UBI tend towards an inflationary spiral? I'm sympathetic to the goals of UBI. But without price controls, what would prevent rent/mortage/food/entertainment prices from just rising to absorb everybody's newfound income? College tuition has been going up exponentially since the introduction of federal student ai…

> The Social Security Administration sends out checks each month to 64 million people, mostly the elderly and disabled. Unemployment Insurance programs send out checks each month to 2.1 million people. In other countries, the government, in addition to paying these kinds of old-age, disability, and unemployment benefits, also pays out a monthly benefit to every child. In the US that would mean checks going out to the…

> old-age, disability, and unemployment

These are all groups of people that aren't working so there isn't any extra money available for people to raise prices on them.

If everyone makes $X more dollars than normal I don't understand why prices wouldn't go up to take advantage of that. Would it just be because taxes would go up as well so any extra profits would end up being fed straight back into the system?

Re: An Engineering Argument for Basic Income

#39

Post by AnthonyMouse »

danenania wrote: post #14

It feels like the combination of Yang's presidential run and covid has broken the seal on the idea of UBI in the US. After having the experience of the government sending everyone direct payments, I think it's all but inevitable that we'll arrive at some level of formal UBI in the future. Given its sky high bipartisan popularity, it's hard to imagine how any non-UBI supporting politician will be able to compete with…

> Once people get a taste of UBI, how do we prevent voters and politicians from pushing it to unsustainable levels? It seems like the incentive on both sides will be to always push it higher and higher.

You're forgetting the other side of the coin. The money comes from somewhere.

Suppose you can fund a $12,000 UBI with a flat 25% tax rate. So now the breakeven point is at $48,000 in income. If you make more than that you don't want to increase the UBI amount because it'll cost you more than it gets you.

Whereas you could fund a $15,000 UBI with a flat 35% tax rate. The rate has to be more than proportionally higher because of the negative impact of higher tax rates on economic activity. Now the breakeven point is at ~$43,000 in income. It's lower, so fewer people want to increase it more than that.

When the breakeven point has more than half of the population on the other side, you don't have the votes to raise the amount any more.

> Imagining a world with UBI, widespread automation, and general or close-to-general AI, what percent of humanity will be able to meaningfully contribute?

Imagine a world with widespread automation and general or close-to-general AI without a UBI.

Re: An Engineering Argument for Basic Income

#40

Post by toolslive »

xibalba wrote: post #26

Whatever happened to the "large scale" UBI pilots that were being conducted over the last few years? I believe some were being conducted by Altman/et al. Instead of (very) poorly fit conceptual models (this article), let's just look at the data. From what I recall from other UBI pilots around the world, results have been mixed to outright disappointing.

Your memory is biased.

https://www.kela.fi/web/en/news-archive/-/asset_publisher/lN...

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