Activists push for guaranteed minimum income for Canadians • Hacker News Board

Re: Activists push for guaranteed minimum income for Canadians

#71

Post by eru » Mon, Jun 30, 2014, 5:56 AM UTC

learc83 wrote: post #49

eru wrote: post #45

Earlier 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…

>In the US that would also be possible, but the level of basic income you arrive at might be bloody low. Why would that be? The US has a significantly higher GDP per capita than every European country except Norway, Luxemburg, and maybe Switzerland (depending on who you ask). If you're talking about limiting it to current social welfare expenditures, the US spends about 20% of GDP on social welfare [1], and many Euro…

Thanks for the numbers.

Re: Activists push for guaranteed minimum income for Canadians

#72

Post by pjc50 » Mon, Jun 30, 2014, 6:10 AM UTC

forrestthewoods wrote: post #42

ppereira wrote: post #26

I 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)

You don't actually have to run the numbers, because you can look through the dollar values to the underlying consumption distribution. And running the numbers is complicated by the likely discontinuity in wage and price inflation.

Is there enough food in the US to feed everyone? Undoubtably yes.

Is there enough space for housing? Yes, although the spatial distribution is a problem. But if it's no longer so essential to live where the jobs are ..

So, if the scheme is targeted to that everyone can afford a minimum standard of living, and taxes are increased so that income above that sees less of an increase in standard of living, the feasibility is obvious.

The real problems are the desire to exclude "undesirables" and "non-contributors", which results in an expensive, bureaucratic, and vindictive system.

(The UK is heading in the other direction with the "bedroom tax" and other changes leading to a big rise in demand from foodbanks)

Re: Activists push for guaranteed minimum income for Canadians

#73

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jun 30, 2014, 6:37 AM UTC

Scoundreller wrote: post #67

I think a "guaranteed minimum income" can be re-phrased as "Giving everyone, at no charge, the things they'll be dead without in a week (food, water, shelter), but it's up to you to buy them on the open market". I've never understood why one has to pay for the bare essentials, while piles of other things, like health care, transportation, parks, police, fire, etc. are highly/wholly subsidized through general taxes. W…

[deleted]

Re: Activists push for guaranteed minimum income for Canadians

#74

Post by Scoundreller » Mon, Jun 30, 2014, 7:00 AM UTC

transfire wrote: post #4

It certainly makes a lot of sense. Just consider the reduction in crime it could bring about. That alone is nearly enough to make it worth it. However, 20k is a bit too high. You don't want to discourage people from working altogether. After considerable thought, I think the equivalent of a part-time job at minimum wage makes the most sense.

"You don't want to discourage people from working altogether."

Employers needing employees will have to come up with something better than "come to work or starve" as an incentive. HNers should be familiar with a large number of methods.

Re: Activists push for guaranteed minimum income for Canadians

#75

Post by Scoundreller » Mon, Jun 30, 2014, 7:06 AM UTC

thatusertwo wrote: post #51

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.

I think that's the beauty of the concept. At the end of the day, most people's lives won't change much. The welfare client will have roughly the same amount of wealth. The middle-class earner will have the same level of wealth.

The power comes from: a) Removing the bureaucracy of having both a progressive tax system (you make more, you pay more) and a redundant means tested benefits system (you make more, you get less) b) Having security of the basic needs of life, regardless of what happens.

Re: Activists push for guaranteed minimum income for Canadians

#76

Post by logicchains » Mon, Jun 30, 2014, 7:07 AM UTC

Scoundreller wrote: post #67

I think a "guaranteed minimum income" can be re-phrased as "Giving everyone, at no charge, the things they'll be dead without in a week (food, water, shelter), but it's up to you to buy them on the open market". I've never understood why one has to pay for the bare essentials, while piles of other things, like health care, transportation, parks, police, fire, etc. are highly/wholly subsidized through general taxes. W…

Many would argue that the government is less efficient at providing various goods. Where I live in Australia, for instance, public schools and hospitals are generally regarded as being inferior to privately run ones. In such circumstances it is more efficient for the government to give poor/unemployed people money to purchase these things on the private market.

When the government has a monopoly on providing a service, they face no competition, which reduces their incentive to provide a quality service. Some services however, such as roads, are seen as natural monopolies, meaning even if privately owned they would still be a monopoly. In such cases people look more favourably upon government ownership as a government monopoly is seen as superior to a private monopoly.

Re: Activists push for guaranteed minimum income for Canadians

#77

Post by rjtavares » Mon, Jun 30, 2014, 7:18 AM UTC

tempestn wrote: post #57

fidotron wrote: post #20

It'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 i…

The easier way to explain it is with a formula:

Taxes = -10 + 0.3 * BTI

So after tax income becomes:

ATI = 10 + 0.7 * BTI

(You can put on progressive taxes there, but I tried to simplify)

Re: Activists push for guaranteed minimum income for Canadians

#78

Post by Scoundreller » Mon, Jun 30, 2014, 7:19 AM UTC

logicchains wrote: post #76

Scoundreller wrote: post #67

I think a "guaranteed minimum income" can be re-phrased as "Giving everyone, at no charge, the things they'll be dead without in a week (food, water, shelter), but it's up to you to buy them on the open market". I've never understood why one has to pay for the bare essentials, while piles of other things, like health care, transportation, parks, police, fire, etc. are highly/wholly subsidized through general taxes. W…

Many would argue that the government is less efficient at providing various goods. Where I live in Australia, for instance, public schools and hospitals are generally regarded as being inferior to privately run ones. In such circumstances it is more efficient for the government to give poor/unemployed people money to purchase these things on the private market. When the government has a monopoly on providing a servic…

Do the private hospitals and schools actually have better outcomes, after controlling for the initially better socioeconomic status of their users?

I'm sure if you do a survey, the private organizations come out ahead, but people will recognize and give good ratings to a nicer looking building with prettier people running it, even if the results are poor, as long as they aren't drastically poor.

But yes, for many things, giving people cash would be better than directly providing the service. Monopolies, price takers, perfect competition (and I think one other) are well identified in economics, but regulators still allow harmful monopolies left-and-right, while intervening in highly-competitive markets for seemingly no reason.

Re: Activists push for guaranteed minimum income for Canadians

#79

Post by rjtavares » Mon, Jun 30, 2014, 7:20 AM UTC

grecy wrote: post #69

Australia already has basically this. It's called 'welfare', but anyone that doesn't have a job gets a touch over $1000AUD/mo (so just over $12kUSD/year) for life [1]. It doesn't matter if you've never had a job, or have, or whatever. They will encourage you to get a job, and you might have to work a little bit to get that money, but you'll get it. If you've got a partner, or dependent(s), you'll get more. Likely if…

You are saying that the benefic is reserved to those that don't have a job. That is not an unconditional income.

Re: Activists push for guaranteed minimum income for Canadians

#80

Post by logicchains » Mon, Jun 30, 2014, 8:08 AM UTC

Scoundreller wrote: post #78

logicchains wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many would argue that the government is less efficient at providing various goods. Where I live in Australia, for instance, public schools and hospitals are generally regarded as being inferior to privately run ones. In such circumstances it is more efficient for the government to give poor/unemployed people money to purchase these things on the private market. When the government has a monopoly on providing a servic…

Do the private hospitals and schools actually have better outcomes, after controlling for the initially better socioeconomic status of their users? I'm sure if you do a survey, the private organizations come out ahead, but people will recognize and give good ratings to a nicer looking building with prettier people running it, even if the results are poor, as long as they aren't drastically poor. But yes, for many thi…

>Do the private hospitals and schools actually have better outcomes, after controlling for the initially better socioeconomic status of their users?

Regarding private schools, I'm not sure; I imagine it's hard to study as there aren't many people of high socioeconomic status attending the 'worse' public schools, and not many poor people attending expensive private schools. There might be some data from countries like Sweden, where the government introduced a voucher system allowing parents to send their children to whatever kind of school they wanted and still get government support.

Regarding public hospitals here, they do have awful outcomes in terms of waiting time compared to private hospitals. For instance, waiting over a year for a procedure that could be arranged in a few weeks at a private hospital. I'm not sure about other outcomes.