20k would be great, I could cover my rent and have a few hundred dollars a month left over. Thats not a lot, but its enough to assure I can continue to live an not have to worry about what would happen if my job vanished, or an emergency came up that prevented me or my girlfriend from working.
Activists push for guaranteed minimum income for Canadians
51–60 of 108 posts
Re: Activists push for guaranteed minimum income for Canadians
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
I just assumed the article didn't address that properly. Simply because that number would be astronomical and not practical. It should only apply to those who require it, under a certain threshold.
That's not basic income. Basic income by its definition goes to everyone. That's what makes it an appealing substitute for minimum wage, welfare, etc.
People usually talk about basic income plus an adjustment in tax and the rest of welfare programs, to make it come out neutral for the average person.
Re: Activists push for guaranteed minimum income for Canadians
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
It has to be livable on in order to prevent the crime people are forced to do when they aren't making enough to live on though.
Is crime in Canada really motivated by basic subsistence? In developing countries, and in the US this is sometimes the case, but even then, there are "honest" opportunities which aren't that much worse.
There are multiple studies and meta studies presenting a link between inequality and crime. So even if it's not for basic subsistence it does appear that raising the lower end of society up could improve the crime rate. Though I admit that's not a comment on the reason for the crime.
Re: Activists push for guaranteed minimum income for Canadians
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
In Europe it's entirely feasible, if your whole goal is to more or less keep the same post-tax, post-welfare distribution of income. You just do away with the traditional combination of means tested welfare and means tested taxes, and replace it with means testing for the taxes only. In the US that would also be possible, but the level of basic income you arrive at might be bloody low. I don't know the data. At least…
This may sound rude, but I literally do not care about any response that does include napkin math. The concept of basic income has been quite popular on HN and elsewhere for the past 6-12 months. I have asked for napkin math probably two dozen times. No one has ever been able to provide it. I love the concept of basic income. I've played with the numbers quite a bit myself. I've tried to make it work. I can't do it.…
US GDP ~16 trillion. Government social spending 20% of GDP[1]
or about 3.2 trillion dollars. US population about 320 million.
That's right at about $10k per year to every American if we capped it at current government social spending.
So a family of 4 would get $40k a year.
You could make that 3.2 trillion go a lot further by raising taxes gradually so that when you reach say $75k you're paying as much extra taxes are you receive in Basic Income.
I'm pretty sure [1] includes state and local spending as well so this would be tricky.
[1] http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/social-issues-migration-health/...
Re: Activists push for guaranteed minimum income for Canadians
#55I once calculated the tax implications of a basic income where everyone received a lump sum paid for by a flat income tax. A basic income at the current welfare rate seemed to be easily achievable. I seem to recall that a 20k basic income was at the upper limit of what would be achievable without an exorbitant income tax rate. Many comments on the web are dismissive of a basic income because they simply multiply the…
I'd genuinely like to see your numbers because I've not seen a single napkin math calculation that makes is even remotely feasible. (for the United States)
I don't see your email address in your profile. I did the calculation about 3 years ago for Canada, so it may or may not be useful.
It is not so far fetched when you consider that we already provide some welfare support and a progressive income tax schedule with a complete exemption for low incomes. Most basic incomes proposals would do away with regular social assistance (while retaining special programs for the disabled, etc.) and would do away with the exemption for low incomes, since that is compensated for by the basic income.
Some have calculated that the progressive income tax could be entirely replaced with a flat tax with basic income and be close to optimal. I am not so optimistic, but the great thing about a basic income is that it can be tested at a low level and then slowly increased to determine its actual cost.
Re: Activists push for guaranteed minimum income for Canadians
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
> You don't want to discourage people from working altogether. 20k is basically poverty, you are not going to remove any desires at that level. > I think the equivalent of a part-time job at minimum wage makes the most sense. The idea is to make sure that when all else fails, you can still cover the necessities of life, things like eating and a place to sleep. Part-time minimum wage doesn't come close to that.
This is simply wrong. How can you even say that? A family of four would get $80K, which is certainly not poverty level.
Most implementations I've seen children under 18 don't get the full amount. See a lot of $15k adult $3-5k children under 18.
Re: Activists push for guaranteed minimum income for Canadians
#57It's fairly interesting the way this idea, and similar ones, connect some of the more intelligent fringe people from both right and left ends of the spectrum. Famously Friedman's answer to what would be better than minimum wage was a negative income tax bracket, and Nixon, of all people, almost implemented it.
How exactly would a negative tax bracket work? Taken literally, this would mean that up to a certain income level, the government would pay you an amount proportional to how much you make. Presumably what it actually means is that you would be paid inversely proportional to how much you make.
At first glance it seems to me that this would have one of the same problems as the current system, which a guaranteed basic income is intended to solve - a high effective marginal tax rate at low (or no) income levels. (Unless the payment actually is positively proportional to earnings, in which case it has the obvious problem that it provides less benefit to those who need it most.)
Either way, I'm not clear on how this would be superior to a fixed guaranteed income with adjustments to the current tax rates such that the middle class end up with approximately the same after-tax total income.
Re: Activists push for guaranteed minimum income for Canadians
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
But those programs only apply to a small proportion of the population. This would apply to everyone.
I just assumed the article didn't address that properly. Simply because that number would be astronomical and not practical. It should only apply to those who require it, under a certain threshold.
It has to apply to everyone or it doesn't work. Otherwise you would see a massive effective marginal tax level at whatever point it was cut off. (Even if ramped down, although to a lesser extent.) What could be done instead is that the entire tax structure is altered so that much of the cost of the basic income is spread over the entire middle and upper range of income tax brackets, such that the middle class end up in roughly the same situation they were before the GBI was introduced.
Re: Activists push for guaranteed minimum income for Canadians
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
This may sound rude, but I literally do not care about any response that does include napkin math. The concept of basic income has been quite popular on HN and elsewhere for the past 6-12 months. I have asked for napkin math probably two dozen times. No one has ever been able to provide it. I love the concept of basic income. I've played with the numbers quite a bit myself. I've tried to make it work. I can't do it.…
US GDP ~16 trillion. Government social spending 20% of GDP[1] or about 3.2 trillion dollars. US population about 320 million. That's right at about $10k per year to every American if we capped it at current government social spending. So a family of 4 would get $40k a year. You could make that 3.2 trillion go a lot further by raising taxes gradually so that when you reach say $75k you're paying as much extra taxes ar…
That's a good point that if you're giving everyone say $20,000 a year you could still set taxes such that for a majority of employed adults you're net zero. So for simplicity you could assume just paying welfare recipients.
The point of doing it this way vs current welfare would be increased transparency / reduced bureaucracy and providing more of a sliding scale of income classes rather than welfare / non-welfare buckets. In principle the costs could be made to be nearly equivalent.
Re: Activists push for guaranteed minimum income for Canadians
#60If an "unconditional basic income" is ever to be successful, it should be tried first in a small, wealthy country, before being implemented in bigger countries. Good candidates might be Switzerland, Norway, Iceland and so on. Big experiments have a tendency to fail catastrophically...
Gotta read the article... there were already pilot programs.