Universal Basic Income Is Superior to a $15 Minimum Wage (2019) • Hacker News Board

Re: Universal Basic Income Is Superior to a $15 Minimum Wage (2019)

#121

Post by imtringued » Sat, Jan 30, 2021, 10:21 PM UTC

SV_BubbleTime wrote: post #17

cylon13 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're always incentivized to make marginally more money with the negative income tax because it gives you a monotonically increasing effective income vs job income curve, whereas some welfare systems end up with disincentives at various points of income where you'd make overall less by exiting the income level where you're receiving the aid (the same curve gets a negative slope or a downward jump).

I hate to ask, but can you dumb this down? I still don’t really get it. Are you saying that if you have no job that 100% of your income is tax funded, but if you have even a shitty job that you still get more benefit than the job alone but this is sliding scale down to some unknown point which you no longer receive any benefit at all?

I don't know about negative income taxes but UBI just gives you a flat amount no matter how much you earn or whether you are unemployed. It's always on top of your existing salary.

Re: Universal Basic Income Is Superior to a $15 Minimum Wage (2019)

#122

Post by andrewflnr » Sat, Jan 30, 2021, 10:22 PM UTC

FrozenVoid wrote: post #44

azey47 wrote: post #5

I 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…

A negative income tax is far more complex, here is an example of contemporary system. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earned_income_tax_credit ``Millions of American families who are eligible for the EITC do not receive it, essentially leaving billions of dollars unclaimed. The IRS estimates that about 20 percent of eligible taxpayers do not claim $7.3 billion of Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) each tax year.[43]``

The correct solution here is to make it automatic.

Re: Universal Basic Income Is Superior to a $15 Minimum Wage (2019)

#123

Post by jpindar » Sat, Jan 30, 2021, 10:24 PM UTC

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #9

azey47 wrote: post #5

I 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 th…

You can't buy food with a printout that says you're going to get some money next year.

Re: Universal Basic Income Is Superior to a $15 Minimum Wage (2019)

#124

Post by imtringued » Sat, Jan 30, 2021, 10:27 PM UTC

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #23

pydry wrote: post #4

And 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. Especial…

The concern is that we're soon going to reach a point where "our current economic order" - the assumption that every healthy adult should have a full-time job - is unsustainable. I wouldn't say I oppose a $15 minimum wage, and I don't think the author would either, but we do desperately need to start thinking about our transition to a post-work society and I worry minimum wage debates are sucking up a lot of the ener…

>the assumption that every healthy adult should have a full-time job - is unsustainable.

Inflation makes sure that everyone can get a job. The fact people you even entertain this though is hilarious. The entire point of capitalism is to maintain growth and that growth can only be maintained by employing people.

People hate on growth but what's the alternative? Imagine being in the 15th century and saying: This is it, people will never have a full time job again, ever.

The 21th century wouldn't have happened if people thought like that. The dark ages would have lasted forever.

The reason why we have so much underemployment is quite simple. Inflation has been way too low. Honestly, we have so much inflation to do that even the measly 2% that the Fed targets is way too little. Inflation has slowly picked up and it shows. Underemployment is shrinking in the US.

Re: Universal Basic Income Is Superior to a $15 Minimum Wage (2019)

#125

Post by imtringued » Sat, Jan 30, 2021, 10:31 PM UTC

erik_seaberg wrote: post #96

wpietri wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think we'll run out of things for people to do? The history of the last 500 years or so suggests that when old jobs get optimized out of existence, there's still plenty that needs doing. When I look around, I definitely don't see a society with no unfilled needs, so I expect we can keep going quite a spell.

We've mostly run out of things for horses to do, which is why we don't see so many anymore. Automation took longer but it's getting pretty close for a lot of simple jobs at the same time.

Money represents labor, not machine time.

All goods and services are ultimately the product of labor.

Re: Universal Basic Income Is Superior to a $15 Minimum Wage (2019)

#126

Post by tobmlt » Sat, Jan 30, 2021, 10:33 PM UTC

Thinking of how economics discussion usually goes with truly lay folk in this field makes me want to build a pretty little website showing various triangle diagrams for trade, market clearing under various actions etc.

Stuff from undergrad economics - mostly micro to start maybe. Maybe some international trade thrown in.

It seems way-to-hard to find such simple pictures for theory anybody can understand.

Then when alternatives are suggested it will be easy to see how they fit in the picture - what assumptions are modified etc.

I recall from my high school and college requirements for Econ it’s likely that most US educated people had a fake “civics and Econ” class in high school (We memorized questions about Sam Walton for our Econ tests, for example) and may have had one optional class in college. That makes it easy for unsound ideas to thrive.

In saying the above I make no statement about the ideas of this post. I wouldn’t hazard it online because I can’t promise to put the work in due to the above issue which I wish, similarly, I had time to address in my limited way. Since this is the internet I’ll say this: UBI seems fairly smart given the alternatives. So does Some kind of negative income tax.

Re: Universal Basic Income Is Superior to a $15 Minimum Wage (2019)

#127

Post by akvadrako » Sat, Jan 30, 2021, 10:33 PM UTC

hehehaha wrote: post #111

akvadrako wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> With negative tax rate not so much since you would need to work in order to benefit This is not how NIT works. You can read this for an intro: https://www.scottsantens.com/negative-income-tax-nit-and-unc...

You still need to work and have income. If I am missing something I’d love to know.

NIT means your income starts in the negative. So if you don't work you have -10k income, for example. With a 10% tax rate you'll get 1k back.

Re: Universal Basic Income Is Superior to a $15 Minimum Wage (2019)

#128

Post by Simulacra » Sat, Jan 30, 2021, 10:38 PM UTC

I'm not an economist so I would really appreciate insight into a thought I've had about UBI. Let's say your rent is $1,000 per month, and the government began a universal basic income program of $500 per month for everyone. If your landlord raises your rent by $500, are you not in the same position as you were before without the UBI?

I ask this because my argument with a UBI is that it will create more money in the system, true, but there's no limitation that prevents landlords and merchants from also raising their prices with the justification that they know you have it. So to take a stab at a question: Would a UBI lead to inflation?

Re: Universal Basic Income Is Superior to a $15 Minimum Wage (2019)

#129

Post by syshum » Sat, Jan 30, 2021, 10:51 PM UTC

scsilver wrote: post #114

syshum wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fairness is treating everyone equally, the fact you put that in quotes is concerning... Further it is not just people that have paid off college debt or are past the stage where are concerned about college debt.. Many people worked their ass off to become good at a trade or other profession with out incurring college debt, why should we then have to pay increased taxes to pay of those that bought into the college lie…

Fairness often leads to zero sum outcomes, sometimes positive sum outcomes for all parties can be had from "unfair" allocation.

When it comes to government, equal treatment for all individuals in society is the only ethical method

Everything else is just corruption

Re: Universal Basic Income Is Superior to a $15 Minimum Wage (2019)

#130

Post by imtringued » Sat, Jan 30, 2021, 10:53 PM UTC

overton wrote: post #19

Authors like this frame the UBI/minimum wage debate as if we just haven't figured out the right policy mix to fix poverty or precarity -- as if it's a problem of ideas. I propose that it's in fact a question of power -- 1) who benefits from people being poor and how much 2) power do they have? 1) Owners of capital, who don't want to see their labour costs escalate and use firing/the poverty gun as a disciplinary tool…

I think this is spot on. Wealth gives you power that you can use to protect that wealth and thus the endless cycle begins.

It's not that hard to build a system where everyone benefits. However, it's even easier to build a system where special interests benefit the most because they are the ones who are in charge after all.