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A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

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Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#121

Post by notahacker »

k-mcgrady wrote: post #63
mseebach wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The biggest problem with the UBI debate is that few people explicitly name the amounts they imagine. You seem to imply a level near the minimum wage, but that's flat out impossible. The total US tax revenue is around $20k/year/person, so a realistic UBI is upper bounded at perhaps $2-300/month (full time at $15 is about $2,600/month) - and at 20% of total revenue, that would have to replace substantial portions of ex…

I envision it as enough for someone to get by. So not enough for luxury expenditures. Basically food and shelter. I'm also looking at this from the perspective of someone in the UK who doesn't have to think of things like health care and education which changes things quite a bit. I'd say around $800 p/m per person would be plenty if you look at food and rent for a room in a shared apartment. Tax revenue should also…

The savings from laying off a few bureaucrats and jobcentre employees aren't going to change the fact that the £250bn needed just to give a $800/£550 per month BI to working age adults in the UK is a lot more than the £3bn spent on unemployment benefit. (eliminating tax credits, disability benefits and housing benefits will net another £110bn, but also render a lot of poor people poorer or even homeless, which is the opposite of what BI is generally proposed to do)

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#122

Post by pjc50 »

_Understated_ wrote: post #118
pjc50 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Government should provide every citizen with basics should they falter: Food, clothing, shelter, education etc. I absolutely believe that is a basic human right. > What I don't want is to fund anything other than a safety net: Welfare should be a helping hand to get you back on your feet or to give you a start - Nothing more. It should also come with an expiry date! These two statements completely contradict one an…

You are right, they are contradictory - I was typing faster than I was thinking. I believe in a kind of 2 tier system but I didn't get that across. e.g. You lose you job and the welfare system keeps you going at your current burn rate (you will likely have to make some adjustments but you won't lose your house!) until you can get back on your feet. Let's say 12 months (pulled that figure out the air!) After that, the…

That seems quite a lot like the current UK system, although with more generous insurance after loss of employment and simpler claiming in the basic system, rather than negotiating the benefits maze.

(It's more complicated once you consider immigration and asylum, but hardly anyone not subject to that system understands it)

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#123

Post by Chronic51 »

rmc wrote: post #33
amelius wrote: post #5

I'm still wondering about one thing: if everybody has a basic income, then who will be doing the dirty jobs like collecting our waste? Will the price for waste collecting go up? And will there then be a kind of economic "inversion", where the intellectual people prefer to work on interesting stuff at the expense of money, while the "non-intellectual" (need a better word here) people will make all the money doing the…

Higher wages for dirty jobs would certainly spur innovation in labour saving devices to reduce the amount of manual labour. "Dirty" jobs being paid more certainly does sound a little more ethical than today, where those with little options have to work those dirty jobs to keep their house and to eat, and they are paid low.

Dirty jobs will pay more. But their rent will also increase. Net negative for them.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#124

Post by empressplay »

AlisdairO wrote: post #103
empressplay wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This would only work in places where supply exceeded demand. In a landlords' market there is no reason to compete. All the same people who could afford to rent from you before can still afford to rent from you now, you're just charging them more.

Basic income could have the effect of flattening out demand rather - at the moment, people are forced to cluster close to where the work is available. If I want to just live on basic income, why not go somewhere more affordable?

...and all of a sudden these places that were previously unattractive are now attractive, and housing that previously had no demand now does.

The point I'm trying to make is that it's not as simple as some might like to think.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#125

Post by jfaucett »

ww520 wrote: post #92

The Fed engineers a slow inflation every year via interest rate control and gives the benefit of the newly created money to banks, the loan borrowers, and asset holders as rates lower than keeping inflation at zero. Since the money supply increases anyway, might as well give the new money as basic income to ALL people. At least the money will be spent directly by the people for economic activities, instead of indirec…

i agree with you, but am doubtful as to whether they'll do it. The gov't and its nearest banking buddies benefit enormously from the new money before it inflates outward across the economy and devalues.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#126

Post by dagw »

amelius wrote: post #5

I'm still wondering about one thing: if everybody has a basic income, then who will be doing the dirty jobs like collecting our waste? Will the price for waste collecting go up? And will there then be a kind of economic "inversion", where the intellectual people prefer to work on interesting stuff at the expense of money, while the "non-intellectual" (need a better word here) people will make all the money doing the…

No matter how you structure BI, there will always be people who won't be getting it. If only citizens get it, then there will be lots of permanent residents who still need jobs, if citizens and permanent residents get it, then there will be lots of people of temporary work and student visas who still need a job etc. etc.

"Worst" case scenario. You end up having to import a bunch more foreigners to do those jobs at the lower wages.

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#127

Post by corin_ »

cmdli wrote: post #43

From the $1 trillon stated in the article, spread across 300 million people, each person would get around $3000 a year. That honestly doesn't seem like it would help a lot, considering it would replace current welfare systems. The Swiss proposal of around $2600 a month, implemented in the US, would cost nearly $10 trillion a year which doesn't really seem feasible. I don't think the problem with basic income is an id…

> The Swiss proposal of around $2600 a month, implemented in the US, would cost nearly $10 trillion a year which doesn't really seem feasible.

That number sounds higher than it would effectively be:

1) The population is ~320m, but ~65m of those are under the age of 16 (add on another 8m if you say under 18), who presumably don't need the same $2600/month right from when they are babies. That shaves of $2.8trillion

2) Some people currently on benefits will get to keep all of the $2,600, some people will break even receiving $2,600 and paying an extra $2,600 in tax, and at the richer end of the spectrum they will receive $2,600 and pay more than $2,600 back, to balance it out across society. Even before you start counting the extra money you get from taxing the rich with more than the free income they receive, if you draw a line at the median of society and say that everyone richer than that pays back the $2,600 they receive each month in tax (i.e. saying the richest half don't need this basic income) then that's $3.8trillion that is technically being given out but immediately bein taken back by the Government. (Hopefully they negotiate good bank fees! Obviously the benefit to this seemingly pointless giving out and taking back of money is not having to deal with the legwork of judging who deserves benefits.)

So that's cut almost $10trillion down to ~$3.8trillion that's actually being given out.

3) Now take off current welfare costs. Wikipedia says "Total Social Security and Medicare expenditures in 2013 were $1.3 trillion" and I'm too lazy to find a figure that doesn't include Medicare. Let's imagine that it's split 50/50, we have $3.2trillion left to find.

And this is when you start moving the line we drew down the middle of society and figuring out what % of the $2,600 different levels of society should get to keep or have to pay back in tax or have to pay extra in tax. If you think the rough amount of welfare spent on society currently is right then you can balance it so that less people get supported and less taxes are needed. If you think more people should receive more support and richer people should pay even higher taxes to cover that then it can be pushed in that direction.

The simplest way to logically think "can it be balanced?" is to imagine that 100% of the population gets given $2,600 (or whatever amount) each month, and 100% gets taxed that exact same amount. Everyone is receiving that basic income, and (other than relatively small admin costs) the program is break even. Then you just play with numbers, always balancing both sides, to redistribute wealth from richer people to poorer people (which is already what the welfare system does).

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#128

Post by lackingcaffeine »

I think the idea of a basic income is really interesting though one aspect of it troubles me and I would be interested to hear HN's solutions to it. The trouble lies in the creative and economic relationship. If a substantial number of people reduce or stop their usual working hours and live off the income to pursue entirely creative activities, such as making a website or art, they are exempt from the usual capitalist status quo which forces a venture to be good, popular and eventually profitable (there is no standard of quality necessary as long as its overheads are not too high). This could mean a substantial number of people are neither creating wealth through work or taxable business.

One counter-argument is that by freeing up people to pursue their interests, there will be more good businesses opened as well, which will be profitable in the long run. The other is that a person would not pursue a project that is not well-received for a long period of time due to negative feedback.

Neither of these fully answers the problem though of what the system would do to stop people falling off the economic grid and the impact on GDP/taxable income this would have. Any thoughts?

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#129

Post by _Understated_ »

pjc50 wrote: post #90
_Understated_ wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's crazy. I absolutely don't need it but for some reason I qualify.

It's not really for you - it is child benefit, after all. Think of it as basic income for kids, to keep them clothed and out of the factories. I'm in favour of bringing back the Education Maintenance Allowance, and making it very slightly performance-related.

Haha, of course :)

However, I am not in favour of Government handouts. How much money did it cost to give me £80 back? £100? £150?

Would it not be better to reduce my tax so I pay £80 less each month?

Re: A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

#130

Post by mcv »

Interesting how this article spins Basic Income as something of particular interest to conservatives while liberals would object to it. I suppose that can help sell the concept to highly partisan anti-liberals, but I know plenty of liberals and progressives who strongly support Basic Income.

The idea that the people employed in the bureaucracy managing the current mess of programs losing their job is a silly concern. Why should we keep paying people for unnecessary bullshit jobs? Why should we employ people to check and ensure that other people aren't secretly working? Let those people do something more productive.

I would like Basic Income to be a bit more than $10,000 per year, though. Ideally, especially when the number of jobs available falls due to increased automation, I'd like the Basic Income to provide a comfortable income. People can and will still work to increase their income further, but when robots do more and more of the work for us, there's no reason to punish people for being unable to compete with robots.

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