Universal Basic Income Is Superior to a $15 Minimum Wage (2019)
basicincometoday.com
Universal Basic Income Is Superior to a $15 Minimum Wage (2019)
1–10 of 184 posts
Re: Universal Basic Income Is Superior to a $15 Minimum Wage (2019)
#2and yet both are bullshit
Re: Universal Basic Income Is Superior to a $15 Minimum Wage (2019)
#3Kind of a self defeating claim; sorta like saying McDonalds burgers are better than Burger King. Both are pretty pretty bad for you.
Re: Universal Basic Income Is Superior to a $15 Minimum Wage (2019)
#4And why does the author not support both?
It's articles like this that make me wonder if the purpose of the basic income movement is to act as a sort of pipe dream spoiler for more realistic progressive policies - like a $15 minimum wage.
Either that or a plan to make welfare "fairer" by ensuring that disabled veterans who can't work and tech millionaires get the same $ amount each month from the government.
Especially since the author accused the $15 minimum wage "burdensome"... this is incoherent given the cost of providing, yknow, money for nothing for everyone.
Re: Universal Basic Income Is Superior to a $15 Minimum Wage (2019)
#5I agree UBI is better than a minimum wage, but it seems a Negative Income Tax as advocated for by Milton Friedman would be still better. It would have the desired effect of supporting the poor with guaranteed income (something minimum wage can’t do because of the labor shortage it creates, especially amongst low-skilled employees), but do so a lot more cost effectively than UBI since you wouldn’t be guaranteeing payments to people who don’t need them and would avoid any welfare trap created by existing welfare programs.
Re: Universal Basic Income Is Superior to a $15 Minimum Wage (2019)
#6Kind of a self defeating claim; sorta like saying McDonalds burgers are better than Burger King. Both are pretty pretty bad for you.
Unless you don't have any food....in which case either would be pretty welcome.
I tend to agree that if we (society as a whole) determine that there should be a minimum income below which no one is allowed to fall, a UBI-type system is more equitable than a minimum wage increase.
The costs of UBI fall on everyone, while the costs for minimum wage increases fall on the very business owners who tend to employ the young and/or unskilled. It's McDonalds and the local car wash (and their employees!) that take it in the neck with a minimum wage increase, not Google or Goldman Sachs.
Re: Universal Basic Income Is Superior to a $15 Minimum Wage (2019)
#7Kind of a self defeating claim; sorta like saying McDonalds burgers are better than Burger King. Both are pretty pretty bad for you.
Who is 'you?'
Capitalism is a social good to the extent that it solves problems and makes people's lives better. But capitalism only solves the problems of people with money: their cash is THE incentive for others to figure out how to solve their problems. If people with problems have no money, they effectively create no demand.
Add wealth to the bottom tier of society and we'll generate generate demand to solve problems at the bottom, which in turn generates a supply of people to fix those problems. This is effectively what happened after WW2, driving the massive growth of the American middle class and a huge increases in standard of living.
Finally, there are plenty of studies backing up minimum wage increases. The boogeyman of inflation in this context is nothing but FUD.
Re: Universal Basic Income Is Superior to a $15 Minimum Wage (2019)
#8I agree UBI is better than a minimum wage, but it seems a Negative Income Tax as advocated for by Milton Friedman would be still better. It would have the desired effect of supporting the poor with guaranteed income (something minimum wage can’t do because of the labor shortage it creates, especially amongst low-skilled employees), but do so a lot more cost effectively than UBI since you wouldn’t be guaranteeing paym…
> would avoid any welfare trap created by existing welfare programs.
How would it do that?
Re: Universal Basic Income Is Superior to a $15 Minimum Wage (2019)
#9I agree UBI is better than a minimum wage, but it seems a Negative Income Tax as advocated for by Milton Friedman would be still better. It would have the desired effect of supporting the poor with guaranteed income (something minimum wage can’t do because of the labor shortage it creates, especially amongst low-skilled employees), but do so a lot more cost effectively than UBI since you wouldn’t be guaranteeing paym…
The only difference between a UBI and a negative income tax is framing.
Suppose you have a negative income tax in the amount of $12,000 which phases out at a rate of 25% up to $48,000 in income, and a 5% marginal tax rate on people who make less than $48,000 and a 30% marginal tax rate on people who make more.
Suppose you have a $12,000 UBI and a flat 30% tax rate.
These are really the same thing. The advantage of the UBI is that you see more clearly what you're doing, so that if somebody suggests to e.g. have a steeper phase out, what it really corresponds to is having a higher marginal tax rate on lower income people than higher income people. Which is maybe not what you want.
Re: Universal Basic Income Is Superior to a $15 Minimum Wage (2019)
#10I agree UBI is better than a minimum wage, but it seems a Negative Income Tax as advocated for by Milton Friedman would be still better. It would have the desired effect of supporting the poor with guaranteed income (something minimum wage can’t do because of the labor shortage it creates, especially amongst low-skilled employees), but do so a lot more cost effectively than UBI since you wouldn’t be guaranteeing paym…
> something minimum wage can’t do because of the labor shortage it creates
It's important to read economic literature beyond old dead economists because many modern economists disagree with this, or think it doesn't paint a full picture of the situation. Noah Smith comes to mind.