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It Is Time For Basic Income

hawkins.ventures

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Re: It Is Time For Basic Income

#21

Post by silvertonia »

Retric wrote: post #8
krazydad wrote: post #2

I am not at all an economist, but I wonder: if everyone had the same amount of fixed income (in addition to whatever else they made from their jobs), wouldn't there be continual inflation, rendering that money worthless? Wouldn't the fixed income become the new zero income? Also: How does Macdonalds work in this situation, if the fixed income "replaces" minimum wage. Does Macdonalds pay on top of this wage? Do they d…

To make things simple let's assume a flat tax of 20% pays a 10k per year basic income. Someone making 0k ends up with .8 * 0k + 10k = 10k. Someone making 10k ends up with .8 * 10k + 10k = 18k. Someone making 50k ends up with .8 * 50k + 10k = 50k. Someone making 100k ends up with .8 * 100k + 10k = 90k. Someone making 200k ends up with .8 * 200k + 10k = 170k. Thus the only people that get the full amount are those who…

check your copy/pasted numbers

Re: It Is Time For Basic Income

#22

Post by benched »

The idea that you absolutely must work hard in exchange for the necessities of your life, is so deeply ingrained in our collective consciousness, like a fundamental law of conservation, that it seems a lot of people cannot conceive otherwise.

Re: It Is Time For Basic Income

#23

Post by dragonwriter »

jbayes wrote: post #10
krazydad wrote: post #2

I am not at all an economist, but I wonder: if everyone had the same amount of fixed income (in addition to whatever else they made from their jobs), wouldn't there be continual inflation, rendering that money worthless? Wouldn't the fixed income become the new zero income? Also: How does Macdonalds work in this situation, if the fixed income "replaces" minimum wage. Does Macdonalds pay on top of this wage? Do they d…

All basic income does is create a floor. Depending on flavors of basic income, some have suggested lowering or entirely abolishing the minimum wage. This way, labor would be done at the true (or closer to true) market value. If you're not willing to work at Mickey D's for a dollar an hour, you would have a basic income to fall back on. I don't think that inflation would be a huge problem, since this is wealth redistr…

> I don't think that inflation would be a huge problem, since this is wealth redistribution, likely through taxes, rather than printing money and giving it to people. However, I'm no economist either, so I may be far off base in regards to inflation.

The short term effects of redistribution downward on the income scale (and thus generally from those with a lower marginal propensity to consume to those with a higher propensity) would seem pretty clearly to be some degree of demand-pull inflation.

Re: It Is Time For Basic Income

#24

Post by PaulHoule »

robobenjie wrote: post #4
krazydad wrote: post #2

I am not at all an economist, but I wonder: if everyone had the same amount of fixed income (in addition to whatever else they made from their jobs), wouldn't there be continual inflation, rendering that money worthless? Wouldn't the fixed income become the new zero income? Also: How does Macdonalds work in this situation, if the fixed income "replaces" minimum wage. Does Macdonalds pay on top of this wage? Do they d…

It replaces minimum wage in that McDonalds is welcome to offer a job flipping burgers for $1 an hour if they want. However, because no one _needs_ a job to live (because they can just live on the basic income) someone would only take that job if it was worth it/fulfilling to them.

How does this all interact with debt? Can I get a lump sum payment in return for my future wage? Can it be taken away to pay creditors, child support, back taxes, etc. ?

Re: It Is Time For Basic Income

#25

Post by a8da6b0c91d »

If anything like basic income happens expect immigration to be halted and birthright citizenship grants to be ended. The value and meaning of citizenship will rapidly change and tolerance for outsiders taking a slice of the pie will rapidly plunge. I think there will be a lot of ramifications like this that most people probably aren't considering.

Re: It Is Time For Basic Income

#26

Post by d357r0y3r »

jdreaver wrote: post #3

I am always wary of supporting a basic income guarantee. Although it sounds much better than the current welfare mess we have, the actual implementation will probably be an addition rather than a replacement.

Yeah, somehow I don't see the IRS and the various other federal institutions than have grown up around revenue collection closing their doors any time soon.

The good thing about guaranteed basic income is that it has the positives of welfare without the negative incentives (i.e. if I make over X amount, my check stops coming). If you implement minimum income without replacing the current provisioning system, then you haven't really solved any problems.

Re: It Is Time For Basic Income

#27

Post by patmcc »

krazydad wrote: post #2

I am not at all an economist, but I wonder: if everyone had the same amount of fixed income (in addition to whatever else they made from their jobs), wouldn't there be continual inflation, rendering that money worthless? Wouldn't the fixed income become the new zero income? Also: How does Macdonalds work in this situation, if the fixed income "replaces" minimum wage. Does Macdonalds pay on top of this wage? Do they d…

To your first point: not necessarily. Most serious suggestions of a basic income don't involve just printing a huge amount of cash and mailing it out. They're about taxing high earners more, saving a bunch of money on other social programs (and probably police and stuff as well), and then distributing that money to everyone. If you balance that out instead of just increasing the money supply, it might not cause crazy inflation.

To the second - they pay whatever they need to pay to get the workers they need. Everyone is already getting $X a week from the basic income. Fast food workers will make a total of $X+Y a week, and doctors will earn $X+Z, where Z is probably a lot more than Y.

Also, remember basic incomes are typically suggested to be enough to live on and no more - so if you want some luxury items (whatever we decide those are) you'll probably need to get a job somewhere. So there's still incentive to get a job.

Re: It Is Time For Basic Income

#29

Post by tghw »

krazydad wrote: post #2

I am not at all an economist, but I wonder: if everyone had the same amount of fixed income (in addition to whatever else they made from their jobs), wouldn't there be continual inflation, rendering that money worthless? Wouldn't the fixed income become the new zero income? Also: How does Macdonalds work in this situation, if the fixed income "replaces" minimum wage. Does Macdonalds pay on top of this wage? Do they d…

The inflation theory assumes that everyone will go out and spend exactly as much more as they are now getting in fixed income. Obviously, that is not the case. Some people will save more. Others, above a certain threshold, will have marginally less money, because we would need to pay for a fixed income with taxes. I did the math a while ago, but can't find it now. My recollection was that at about $70,000 of income per year, an individual would break even between the extra income and extra taxes. People making over $70,000 would actually pay more in taxes than they receive.

Also, just because it replaces minimum wages doesn't mean McDonald's doesn't pay its employees. It means that both sides, employees and employers are working in an elastic, free market, so the wages will be set depending on labor supply and demand.

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