The article points out that making basic income available to those contributing to society (working, looking for work or volunteering). That's incredibly short-sighted for several reasons: 1) the idle are best being, well, idle - out of the way while everybody else gets on with making the world a better place. Sure they will reap the benefits but their number is likely to no higher than the currently idle. Indeed the numbers are likely to be fewer since everybody is free to do what they want; 2) means testing whether somebody is eligible is going to create bureaucracy and drive up the costs of the system and finally 3) if I wanted to spend a couple of weeks cleaning up my local beach of garbage I should be free to do so - the benefit to society is obviously large but the effort might just be me or a small group of similar minded folks. Justifying that to some authority so I could collect my payment would kill a lot of creativity because of the paperwork involved. As a result of lot of trivial but useful things, cleaning garbage from playgrounds or collecting household vegetable waste for a local compost heap would go undone.
Replacing welfare payments with “basic income” for all is alluring, but expensive
11–20 of 131 posts
Re: Replacing welfare payments with “basic income” for all is alluring, but expensive
#12Here's some of my ideas:
1. CEO pay cap @ 20x(or some other similarly reasonable #) of the median salary of the employees. Median salary is 30k ? So I can only earn 600k ? Screw that, I'm going to get everyone closer to 75k, that'll put me at 1.5 mill, that's way better - and everyone profits.
2. Flat but fluid Nationwide Sales Tax (would mean anyone visiting, or staying illegally has to pay taxes -- way better than an income tax.) -- Adjust this yearly as needed to compensate for basic income and other needs. When there's a surplus lower it the next year, when there's a deficit raise it 1-2 cents per dollar.
3. Higher taxes on luxuries like: 4star+ hotels, First Class plane seats, fancy cars, boats, private jets.
4. All recipients must have a roof over their head, and an address to mail the check to.
5. Congress / Senate pay and benefits capped at the national average as well.
6. Allow individuals, ceo's, etc who have more money to "pay it forward" and actually donate money to the government earmarked for the basic income fund. Some of the .01% may actually want to help out the rest.
7. Tax on automation, and companies that use robots to displace workers. The age of the robot worker is coming, this may slow that down if we can make it less of an incentive.
Re: Replacing welfare payments with “basic income” for all is alluring, but expensive
#13The article also doesn't seem to take into account that we already spend of hundreds of billions of dollars every year of welfare programs that could be saved. The article just piles BI on as an additional expense.
I also think most BI supporters tend to shoot too high. The equivalent income of just a 16hr per week job at min wag would do wonders for the economy without putting a great deal of pressure on people not to work.
Re: Replacing welfare payments with “basic income” for all is alluring, but expensive
#14sure actually giving everyone 10k a year is going to cost too much. But I don't think anyone who is sane is actually proposing that.
At the moment, the poor get a mismash of benifits that all require administration.
replacing that with a single means tested universal income is far simpler.
for example:
every house hold is entitled to 10K, if you only earn 5k, you get a top up to 10k. This is no more costly that what already exisits in the UK (housing benefit, out of work, DLA, working tax credits) but is a magnitude more easy to administrate.
You get the added bonus of abolishing pensions that cost uber cash to maintain.
I think the economist is deliberately grasping at the wrong straws. Either that or the Swiss are batshit insane.
Re: Replacing welfare payments with “basic income” for all is alluring, but expensive
#15This analysis doesn't seem to account for the savings and increased efficiency from all the policy changes basic income would enable. For example, water and parking spaces could be priced at their actual cost, rather than being subsidized. This would make the water market function properly and allocate it efficiently, and remove a bunch of car-related externalities. Need public housing? Not if you set a high enough b…
As a counterexample, what about people who need more than a basic income? In Spain, chronic patients with expensive treatments are still subsidized. The Social Security system is based in solidarity: a few need a lot of money, while many don't need much at all, and it balances out (well, it doesn't, but that's another matter).
I'm fine with this. Maybe I'm in the paying end of the deal, but since I believe health is a matter of luck, I'd like to be able to be in the receiving end (and not be left to die) in case I have bad luck.
Of course this could be an exception, but I'm sure there are a lot more exceptions not taken into consideration in the basic income discussion. IMHO, basic income doesn't solve the problem and introduces new ones.
Re: Replacing welfare payments with “basic income” for all is alluring, but expensive
#16sure actually giving everyone 10k a year is going to cost too much. But I don't think anyone who is sane is actually proposing that. At the moment, the poor get a mismash of benifits that all require administration. replacing that with a single means tested universal income is far simpler. for example: every house hold is entitled to 10K, if you only earn 5k, you get a top up to 10k. This is no more costly that what…
That's a 100% tax rate on your first 10K in income?
Re: Replacing welfare payments with “basic income” for all is alluring, but expensive
#17I think the ethical arguments and the practical arguments about how other policies could be changed once basic income is implemented are more than enough reason to vote yes. But all of that is ultimately moot: the most important reason why basic income will soon be necessary is that "jobs" as they exist now are already on their way out.
The idea that it is "too expensive" just begs the question "too expensive to whom?" Eventually, our practice of giving the richest people more and more money will hit a breaking point, and we will have to figure out a way to take care of all the people whose livelihoods have been automated. Basic income is the best and easiest way to obviate that problem, and the richest can easily afford to pay for it.
Re: Replacing welfare payments with “basic income” for all is alluring, but expensive
#18Having negative income tax brackets for those that: 1. Work + 2. Declare their income (i.e., file tax returns) + 3. Make below X amount ... is more financially reasonable and has the benefit of keeping the person working/trying/moving . In this system, as an example, someone making below 30K year would gets the difference between what they make and the 30K mark given to them. Otherwise, the only other solution is to…
Speaking for people who make as much as, or more than, me: We could afford to pay a lot more in taxes.
Re: Replacing welfare payments with “basic income” for all is alluring, but expensive
#192700 per month is 32.4k per year - that's awfully high for a basic income. I'm not surprised it's "too expensive".
Re: Replacing welfare payments with “basic income” for all is alluring, but expensive
#20I don't see how this is affordable. With the Swiss amount of $2700 per month ($32,400 p.a) it's $32bn for 1m people per annum (8m people in Switzerland). This is 45% of the annual federal budget last year ($70b) & doesn't even cover 13% of the population. What about everything else that needs government expenditure: roads, defense, education & research, regulatory oversight, police?