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A Basic Income Is Smarter Than a Minimum Wage

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Re: A Basic Income Is Smarter Than a Minimum Wage

#281

Post by RyanZAG »

QuotedForTruth wrote: post #136
kough wrote: post #29

> No one wants to hire them at a high minimum wage, especially when locals are readily available The main drawback to a minimum wage is that it artificially increases the cost of labor, to the point where it's no longer worth it to an employer to hire a low-output employee. I think we'd all agree that increasing employment is a good goal, but an increased minimum wage actually hinders progress on that front. As the m…

The counter argument is that human labor has an actual cost. That is the cost to keep a human alive and in some level of comfort. Government benefits of many different types have "artificially" lowered this cost. Where employees refuse to pay enough for a human to live on, the government picks up the slack. Raising the minimum wage may be "artificial," but its not the first control placed on some otherwise natural la…

Sure, but it's a low paying job vs no job.

Minimum wage is stupid - if you need people to get a higher income than the value they can output, you need to supply that additional income through social grants. Forcing them out of work by allowing robots to undercut them is idiotic when they are willing to work.

Re: A Basic Income Is Smarter Than a Minimum Wage

#282

Post by mmanfrin »

randyrand wrote: post #245
mmanfrin wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NIC is analogous to basic income. At a certain point, the taxes you pay in a basic income scheme are equal to the basic income you earn. Those who earn less than you are earning a NIC, those above are paying income tax. It is the same thing.

No its not in practice. NIC is generally tied to working. A part time employed person will make less than a full time one. Under BI it is not tied to working. The incentives are worse.

How? A full time employed person will still make more than a part time. Basic Income is flatly applied, everyone gets it; earning more then means you still have more. This isn't some cutoff-if-you-make-too-much thing.

Re: A Basic Income Is Smarter Than a Minimum Wage

#283

Post by mmanfrin »

RivieraKid wrote: post #276
mmanfrin wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NIC is analogous to basic income. At a certain point, the taxes you pay in a basic income scheme are equal to the basic income you earn. Those who earn less than you are earning a NIC, those above are paying income tax. It is the same thing.

Equavalent to basic income with a specific tax system. But the whole system would be harder to understand and have 1 redundant parameter.

NIC would be harder to understand, or BI would?

If the latter, I wholeheartedly disagree. Normal taxes would remain, the only difference is that you get BI as well.

Re: A Basic Income Is Smarter Than a Minimum Wage

#284

Post by Lawtonfogle »

ricardobeat wrote: post #137
yanilkr wrote: post #95

A Basic Income from Govt comes at a huge price of loss of individual liberty. If someone gives you free stuff, they will expect controls like where you are allowed to spend your money and time. This model of taking from the productive sources and rewarding everyone else will have to break at a certain point. how come you get rewarded for enjoying the gossip column and I spend extra effort doing something else which i…

Actually automation is replacing the work that humans have to do - this means that most activities left will be the ones that are not in high demand, with low or no pay. Imagine we have machines providing us food and all the material possessions we ever need, without any human input. Traditional capitalism/distribution of wealth through employment makes little sense under this scenario. This model of taking from the…

The only way this would work is to remove income taxes and use other forms of taxes to pay for basic income. This would ensure those that own the automation pay for it. But as being discussed elsewhere in this thread, the more likely result is that people who are working for income will end up with less money than before (even when you count in the basic income), thus being rewarded less for working as hard as before.

Re: A Basic Income Is Smarter Than a Minimum Wage

#285

Post by Turing_Machine »

RivieraKid wrote: post #81

Negative income tax makes more sense to me. (NIT is a system where you either get or give money from/to the governement, depending on your income.) First it's both a simple welfare and tax system in one package. Basic income as typically understood is only half of the story. It's also easier to reason about, the money flows are way more obvious, it's immediately clear whether you are a net contributor or receiver and…

While negative income tax might be "simple" in theory, in practice I think it would likely turn into the same mess of loopholes and bizarre rules that we have now.

A big benefit of the basic income model is that there's really no room for lawyers, accountants, etc. to pervert the process. If everyone gets the same amount, there's no way to game it that I can see (now, I'm sure someone, somewhere will figure out a way to game it... that's what people do, but at least on the face of it it seems far less gameable than our current tax and welfare setup).

If it were made a part of the FairTax model (which would be easy to do, given that that model already requires cutting everyone a check), then gameability would take another huge hit.

Re: A Basic Income Is Smarter Than a Minimum Wage

#286

Post by Overtonwindow »

petra wrote: post #250
kough wrote: post #29

> No one wants to hire them at a high minimum wage, especially when locals are readily available The main drawback to a minimum wage is that it artificially increases the cost of labor, to the point where it's no longer worth it to an employer to hire a low-output employee. I think we'd all agree that increasing employment is a good goal, but an increased minimum wage actually hinders progress on that front. As the m…

>> Down Syndrome [0] .. are they worth hiring at $2.00/hour? Yes, and they and their families are willing for them to work at that wage, because there are huge benefits to being productively employed. Realistically, for people with disabilities that aren't being able to be in the regular labor market, there are some societal useful things to do, like volunteering(say in a soup kitchen), helping their community,etc. T…

I think the federal government and the states should reduce the tax burden on corporations that hire the disabled. For every disabled person you hire, your tax bill is lowered that much more. If 15% of your workforce is physically or mentally disabled, your state tax is zero. That would incentivize corporations to hire more disabled.

Re: A Basic Income Is Smarter Than a Minimum Wage

#287

Post by harryh »

SilasX wrote: post #162
empath75 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The top marginal tax rate would have to be dramatically increased to pay for it. Also, you'd have to increase capital gains and estate taxes. Make no mistake, basic minimum income would be a massive redistribution of wealth. I'm in favor of it, but let's not pretend we can pay for it by shuffling around some social safety net spending.

... and you'd have to stop everyone from throwing complicated tax structures around their incomes to avoid the increasing tax rates. I know, "just close the loopholes lol". Except that it's a battle of wits of nerds against a bureaucracy with every-bigger portions of the economy at stake, where every government victory is a longer, less transparent tax code.

Recent increases in the capital gains tax rate were very effective at increasing taxes on people in the upper end of the income spectrum. The ability of high earners to avoid taxes through complex use of loopholes is vastly overstated.

Re: A Basic Income Is Smarter Than a Minimum Wage

#288

Post by RivieraKid »

narrator wrote: post #117
RivieraKid wrote: post #81

Negative income tax makes more sense to me. (NIT is a system where you either get or give money from/to the governement, depending on your income.) First it's both a simple welfare and tax system in one package. Basic income as typically understood is only half of the story. It's also easier to reason about, the money flows are way more obvious, it's immediately clear whether you are a net contributor or receiver and…

I agree that it would be much better and fairer to have a negative income tax as the only form of social support. One of the worst things about the current social support system in the U.S is the welfare cliffs. There's a gap between $25,000 a year and $80,000 a year where there's a greater than 100% marginal income tax because people lose access to benefits at these income levels. This chart displays it very nicely:…

I think that NIC could be some sort of a base system with a set of modifications to handle various corner cases (people with disabilities etc.).

Yes, the cliff is definitely a problem with the current system.

Re: A Basic Income Is Smarter Than a Minimum Wage

#289

Post by randyrand »

ThrustVectoring wrote: post #267
randyrand wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Increase employment" is targeting the wrong measure. What is the correct measure? Sounds like you are arguing for wealth per capita or total wealth. Even still, wealth per captia is (productivity) * (employment) / (population). Ignoring time. So even if I agreed with you, more employment is still a good thing even under your 'correct' measure.

The correct measure is something like quality-adjusted life years ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality-adjusted_life_year ), treating the particular details of the job as a disability.

For many people working improves their quality of life.

Making things, having some purpose, giving back to society, ect are all very rewarding things.

Re: A Basic Income Is Smarter Than a Minimum Wage

#290

Post by sievebrain »

clarkmoody wrote: post #196
yanilkr wrote: post #95

A Basic Income from Govt comes at a huge price of loss of individual liberty. If someone gives you free stuff, they will expect controls like where you are allowed to spend your money and time. This model of taking from the productive sources and rewarding everyone else will have to break at a certain point. how come you get rewarded for enjoying the gossip column and I spend extra effort doing something else which i…

The Basic Income is the terminal phase of a democracy, wherein people are rewarded simply for existing, extracting their subsistence from the productive forces in the economy. It is the final vote-buying mechanism of the political elite to create a permanent dependent underclass. Thanks to our democratically-installed public school system, liberty is a topic which cannot be discussed in polite company. Don't be disco…

Your argument could be made about any form of welfare.

"Liberty is not a topic that can be discussed in polite company" seems more likely to be an issue with your definition of liberty rather than an issue with the polite company.

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