UBI as a productivity dividend • Hacker News Board

Re: UBI as a productivity dividend

#141

Post by randerson » Sat, Mar 14, 2026, 8:28 PM UTC

gruez wrote: post #113

davyAdewoyin wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't matter, because land is scarce resource

Land might be scarce in the technical sense, but not in the practical sense. Housing is only expensive because people want to live in superstar cities, which in turn is because that's where all the jobs are. If UBI eliminates the imperative to live in superstar cities, that makes scarcity a non-issue.

I can work from anywhere, but I like to live in a superstar city because I find it boring living in the suburbs. I want to be near my friends, near the live events, near the buzzing restaurants and art galleries and clothing stores where I can walk around and touch things. There will always be a concentration of people in cities for these reasons.

Re: UBI as a productivity dividend

#142

Post by jacquesm » Sat, Mar 14, 2026, 8:31 PM UTC

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #140

jacquesm wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think anybody but those that are really close to the halls of power and have sufficient capital to engage in large scale lobbying is going to be able to achieve regulatory capture. So I suspect there is significant, maybe even perfect over lap between the groups that could achieve regulatory capture and the ones that actually do, and that outside of that group it is pointless to even try. You can get into the…

Regulatory capture requires that laws (or regulations) are drafted that favor your interests. The only ways I am aware of for that to happen are: (a) sufficient political donations/bribes to get lawmakers to draft suitable language themselves (or via their staff) (b) a combination of political donations and a worldview on the part of lawmakers in which it is "just normal" for those affected by regulations to draft th…

True, but the USA has institutionalized the power of money in politics to the point that this is now a reality: what would be called outright bribery elsewhere is called campaign donations, there are lobbyists who get to write the laws that favor their paymasters and in fact it has been argued that 'money is speech' (it doesn't get much more bizarre than that to me). What Musk did during the last elections would get you jail in some 3rd world countries, you know, where they take voting serious.

Whether any of these require incredible levels of wealth or not is moot, I think. The reason for that is that it only matters when 'lesser levels of wealth' come up against 'greater levels of wealth' and the latter will always win that confrontation.

Re: UBI as a productivity dividend

#143

Post by marcosdumay » Sat, Mar 14, 2026, 8:32 PM UTC

randerson wrote: post #24

SoftTalker wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would not be inflationary if it's paid for with a tax on real value or income. Maybe somewhat inefficient, and prone to political meddling, but it's not introducing new money into the economy. If it's just printed money, it would be.

It would be in a sense, because that money is otherwise mostly hoarded by the wealthy, whose spending would look the same whether or not they are taxed. If money is saved and not spent, it is not really part of the economy in this sense. But if the money is transferred to others and spent on additional goods & services that is when it increases demand and raises prices.

It wouldn't be inflationary. What it would do is to make the government's inflation policy have effects immediately, instead of delayed by a decade.

That would happen for whatever direction the government policy is pushing.

Re: UBI as a productivity dividend

#144

Post by zozbot234 » Sat, Mar 14, 2026, 8:32 PM UTC

mattlondon wrote: post #128

A think a more workable and politically palatable version of UBI would be some form of universal utility allowance. E.g. the first x kWh electric you use, or the first X litres of water, or the first x GB of data you use is entirely free, for everyone (where X is some reasonable number that someone could just conceivably survive on). Then as you use more and more the prices start to gradually increase across a series…

A non-tradable utility allowance would incent people to waste these basic goods, and a tradable utility allowance, while obviously fixing this, would be no different than a UBI that was indexed to the price of basic utilities.

Re: UBI as a productivity dividend

#145

Post by zozbot234 » Sat, Mar 14, 2026, 8:35 PM UTC

pjmorris wrote: post #132

randerson wrote: post #8

I'm UBI-curious, but surely inflation would be inevitable if everyone suddenly had $x more disposable income per year? Landlords and grocery stores and everyone else would raise prices because they know people can afford it. Obviously if you're living in poverty, anything is better than nothing, but would the average middle class person be better off? As far as I can tell no country has ever tested true UBI (uncondit…

Agreed. I tend to think a job guarantee would work better than UBI: have the government provide a job to anyone who can't find one somewhere else, something like what was done in the 1930's in the US. Come up with a list of things needed (can you think of anything that needs fixing?), and pay people a living wage and benefits to take care of those things. Call it 'Universal Basic Work.' Beyond spending government mon…

The government already does this by subsidizing low income earners via the EITC. It just outsources the actual job provision to the private sector, which is an effective alternative to wasteful make-work.

Re: UBI as a productivity dividend

#146

Post by OneDeuxTriSeiGo » Sat, Mar 14, 2026, 8:38 PM UTC

estearum wrote: post #27

throwaway94275 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In places that consist of many people with subsidized incomes, like elderly housing complexes, why aren't local grocery stores and gas stations higher than elsewhere? Also, aside from that question, prices will only rise if there's no competition. In a working market, if more people can afford a higher rent more apartments will be built.

Because the subsidies aren't on top of base income? The subsidy isn't the problem per se, it's the net increase in income. It is obviously self-evident everywhere that high incomes create high cost of living, which can be traced through higher costs all the way down to the land rents (the rent someone is willing to pay to have market access to the high local incomes).

The trick though is that you aren't really increasing net income. You are just adjusting the way you provide your safety net while increasing the volume of money and the "velocity" of that money.

A Universal Basic Income gives everyone a flat monthly or bi-weekly income. Whatever jobs you work on top of that also provide you income.

As a standard W-2 employee (in US terms) this UBI payment would be factored into your W-4 paperwork (income tax withholding). As your wage increases your withholding increases as well and at the end of the year ideally your return has a clean net 0 under/overpaid.

Below some income threshold your total income tax contribution would be less than the UBI payments and so you'd be receiving a prorated negative income tax throughout the year. You could also call it a prorated tax credit or fixed disbursement social welfare grant or whatever.

At that income threshold you are receiving an interest free loan from the government for the year with loan disbursment on a fixed schedule throughout the year. And of course you promise to pay back in full by the tax deadline (either via withholding and/or with a lump sum at the end of the tax year).

Above that income threshold you are still receiving that fixed disbursement schedule interest free loan from the government but you also start paying additional income taxes on top of that loan. This is of course all still handled via W-4 deductions during payroll and nobody touches your regular UBI disbursement that shows up in the bank as a direct deposit or as a check in the mail. It still shows up every 2 weeks or every month.

But importantly this system is resilient to sudden changes in income. If your income suddenly increases, you factor that in via your W-4 and nothing changes. But if you suddenly lose your job or you move to a much lower paying job, you keep receiving your UBI disbursements on that fixed interval and you aren't left with a tax burden for it at the end of the year.

And so UBI as a system is purely an implementation detail. If we took existing welfare systems. Housing subsidies, food security subsidies (SNAP, etc), insurance subsidies, etc. We factor their per person cost/payout and roll it all together into one fixed interval UBI check. We keep income tax rates the exact same as they are now but shifted to factor in this UBI income (i.e. start everyone at a negative income floor that slowly gets filled to 0 dollars once every UBI check for the tax year pays out). The taxes paid and the net incomes for everyone stays identical (more or less due to variations in thresholds for existing benefits programs).

So at the end of the day your income stays the exact same but there's more money moving around and more consistency for the tax payer/citizen/resident even when suddenly life events change their financial situation.

/rant. sorry for the wall of text

Re: UBI as a productivity dividend

#147

Post by zozbot234 » Sat, Mar 14, 2026, 8:40 PM UTC

estearum wrote: post #26

alpaca128 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If UBI is so high that people can afford paying extra without working for it then maybe, but I don't think that is the idea behind UBI. There still needs to be an incentive for people to work, they should just be in a place where they actually have a choice instead of living in survival mode every day.

Doesn't matter at all how much it is. It'll be (almost entirely or entirely) eaten by landlords. I am a landlord. I am setting prices for renewal. I have come to learn that 100% of my possible customer base now has $200/mo more to spend. I raise prices $200/mo with absolute certainty that I will find a renter. Congrats, mission accomplished.

> I am a landlord.

> I am setting prices for renewal.

Landlords do not really set prices arbitrarily, especially not in HCOL areas where most of the cost is land rent. The rent is set by the market, and if there's a new UBI only a negligible fraction of it will go towards rent. Rents might even decrease since any given UBI amount will go a lot further in a lower-COL area, which incents people to move out (reversing gentrification dynamics) and creates future opportunities for job creation in these economically depressed areas where such opportunities are most clearly needed.

Re: UBI as a productivity dividend

#148

Post by cogman10 » Sat, Mar 14, 2026, 8:43 PM UTC

estearum wrote: post #83

kbelder wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a normal market, they would. But housing is highly regulated with artificial shortages, so that pricing is very distorted.

Regulation is not what suppresses production, but the actual profit margins. It's extremely hard to make money building housing because the cost of land and labor are so high. These costs are high because we now live in an advanced economy where land can do much more valuable things than "be housing", and laborers can do much more productive things than "build housing."

Yup. Development companies contract when the housing market contracts. They aren't building houses for the fun of it, they are building them because they believe the 100 houses they build in a hot market will ultimately pay back the land purchase rights. They will never build so many houses as to decrease the cost of a home.

I actually got my home from a developer right after the housing bubble. They confided in me that they were giving away these homes pretty much at cost and that they had to fire a huge portion of their staff because the market was just crap at the time.

Really, the only way to actually achieve lower housing prices is through the state ownership and build out. The state could also spend a premium on building homes that it sells at a loss or rents at lower rates. But that will be pretty unpopular with the general public.

Re: UBI as a productivity dividend

#149

Post by cogman10 » Sat, Mar 14, 2026, 8:47 PM UTC

estearum wrote: post #85

Anon1096 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're failing to explain what dictates the price the market will bear. > Why don't landlords undercut one another? They literally don't have to. The only outcome is less profit. You'll find a tenant eventually, at any price. is very obviously not true, otherwise prices right now would be effectively infinite. Why are prices for an apartment in SF only 3k/mo instead of 30k? Surely under your reasoning a landlord coul…

> Why are prices for an apartment in SF only 3k/mo instead of 30k? Surely under your reasoning a landlord could just wait and get a tenant at any price they set? No, because local wages cannot sustain those prices If local wages could sustain those prices, then yes all rents would rise to that new higher local income level That is (quite self-evidently) prices are so phenomenally high in ultra high-income areas like…

> Competition between landlords is almost nil

In fact, collusion with the likes of yeildstar is the name of the game. Everyone is setting prices based on what the algorithm tells them to set prices and they all benefit from that uprise in prices because there's basically no competition decreasing the price.

There's also been a steady consolidation of ownership of rental units which also artificially increases prices.

There's a reason nowhere in the country at this point has affordable housing.

Re: UBI as a productivity dividend

#150

Post by nout » Sat, Mar 14, 2026, 8:49 PM UTC

jltsiren wrote: post #136

randerson wrote: post #8

I'm UBI-curious, but surely inflation would be inevitable if everyone suddenly had $x more disposable income per year? Landlords and grocery stores and everyone else would raise prices because they know people can afford it. Obviously if you're living in poverty, anything is better than nothing, but would the average middle class person be better off? As far as I can tell no country has ever tested true UBI (uncondit…

Is that what UBI has become these days? That everyone is supposed to get some extra money on top of whatever they already have? ~20 years ago, when UBI was a popular idea in my country, it was understood as a technical fix to the welfare and tax systems. It was supposed to simplify the systems and make them easier to understand. It was supposed to fix the perverse incentives people with low wages face, such as the ex…

The current UBI frame is nothing like what you said. And I think this is the issue with UBI - the incentives are not aligned for it to be stable and reasonable over time, but rather to get much worse and misused over time.