141–150 of 1001 posts
For some of the population they will literally be studying the effects of a temporary salary increase that follows a person if they change jobs.
For some of the population they will be studying a don't-have-to-work sabbatical.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Tough shit" sucks when parents blow their handout on lottery tickets and drugs, leaving their children in perpetual poverty.
It would replace welfare programs, not all social services. If children are not being cared for, the state will still intervene.
So, a question for the BI fans: I've seen it said repeatedly that BI will save us money (or at least, not be so outrageously expensive) in part because we can eliminate existing welfare programs. "Just cut a single check, no more overhead from several agencies", they say. But riddle me this: what do you do when someone on BI has a financial emergency or, as will happen with some regularity, just flat-out blows all th…
Well for starters I'd imagine a future BI system to handle something like rent via direct transfer to the landlord. Food handled the same way, some prepaid debit card that only works at grocery stores, etc.
I don't envision a system where people pick up a stack of 20's with a post-it note on it that says "remember to pay your rent".
Earlier quoted context omitted.
And pilot we're thinking 6 months to a year -- though still to be determined / could change.
I'm afraid with such short duration you'll not be able to observe true effects of basic income on people's behaviors. It will be more something like "sabbatical" in academia - you can devote a time to some side projects (whether career related or pure leisure), but everything you'll do you'll do with considerations of how your life will proceed once the sabbatical is over and there is no more safety net (assuming rat…
Honestly, I think any "Basic Income" research where the recipient classes aren't 100% of the members of some well-defined polity and where the policy is explicitly a close-ended pilot is researching something so fundamentally different from Basic Income (it is well-known that close-ended benefits have a different effect on behavior) that, while there may be some useful insights that have applicability to actual Basic…
So, a question for the BI fans: I've seen it said repeatedly that BI will save us money (or at least, not be so outrageously expensive) in part because we can eliminate existing welfare programs. "Just cut a single check, no more overhead from several agencies", they say. But riddle me this: what do you do when someone on BI has a financial emergency or, as will happen with some regularity, just flat-out blows all th…
In the simplest case, the same thing as when someone on existing cash benefits has an emergency or blows them all (and, yes, that happens even with restricted-use benefits like food stamps) -- there may be public and/or private emergency shelters, charity kitchens, etc. that operate at a level below the benefit programs that exist now that would be replaced eventually by UBI, and the transition to UBI doesn't really affect the use case for those.
There may be ways to improve the handling of those situations (or mitigate them) within a UBI by adding new public systems that leverage the UBI infrastructure, are voluntary, and don't change the basic nature of the UBI. But those are factors beyond the basics of a UBI -- in the simplest case, that's an issue that exists in the status quo and is not among those addressed by UBI.
As a resident of Oakland, I am excited about YC running this experiment here. I'm sure there will be plenty of debate over whether it's the best location, but it is definitely a place that provides a microcosm of many the issues BI hopes to address. It also has a population, regardless of where they are on socioeconomic spectrum, that is relatively open-minded to experiments like this. I look forward to learning more…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If the whole game is zero sum, then thats great! The solution to a zero sum game is easy. Redistribute wealth from everyone so that everyone is equally happy. There is no need to worry about innovation or discouraging people from working. Its zero sum, so we may as well go with the fair solution of 100% income redistribution and 100% basic income.
If you were optimizing for happiness only and had no ethical concerns about methods, then yes, a very flat or close to flat distribution is likely optimal. Like you, I believe that there are things more important from the perspective of society than mean happiness.
So, a question for the BI fans: I've seen it said repeatedly that BI will save us money (or at least, not be so outrageously expensive) in part because we can eliminate existing welfare programs. "Just cut a single check, no more overhead from several agencies", they say. But riddle me this: what do you do when someone on BI has a financial emergency or, as will happen with some regularity, just flat-out blows all th…
That said, I do think there are some welfare items that can be eliminated, namely those that provide an income guarantee rather than a safety net against catastrophic expenses. So for example, section 8 and food stamps might be phased out under a BI system (they're always going to get next month's or week's deposit), but I think government-subsidized healthcare should not be.
WRT things like the car breakdown case you described... I think that's a gray area? With a few very big exceptions (people with disabilities or living in rural areas) the lack of a car is mainly a catastrophic issue because it endangers jobs. If the person has a basic living standard guaranteed, the urgency goes down, and I think you can just say "tough shit, save up until you can afford the repair". But I do think that there has to be a social safety net for people for whom a greater variety of big-ticket outlays are essential.
So, a question for the BI fans: I've seen it said repeatedly that BI will save us money (or at least, not be so outrageously expensive) in part because we can eliminate existing welfare programs. "Just cut a single check, no more overhead from several agencies", they say. But riddle me this: what do you do when someone on BI has a financial emergency or, as will happen with some regularity, just flat-out blows all th…
First, Unconditional Cash Transfers (UCT) work better than most people expect (http://www.economist.com/news/international/21588385-giving-...). As noted in the article, UCTs work surprisingly well in scenarios where lack of capital is the primary problem. A UBI (at least as usually is discussed in the US) is a de-scaling UCT.
Second, most proponents of a UBI see it as more efficient because of the savings on administrative overhead. So dollar for dollar the assumption is that your social safety net with UBI is larger than current welfare.
Which finally brings us to the observation that current welfare is not an all-inclusive safety net, so opposing UBI because it isn't either seems a bit of a distraction.
A more interesting question, raised by the Economist article linked above, is where do UCTs break down? This is a question whether or not UBI should be _entirely_ UCT or if there should also be some Conditional Cash Transfers (CCT). This would be like providing incentives for going to college.
CCTs are better at correcting deeper issues that contribute to the cycle of poverty.
Ultimately I feel like a UBI is a good first step, but ultimately a combination of UCTs and CCTs are needed to really combat poverty.