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Basic income would not reduce people’s willingness to work

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Re: Basic income would not reduce people’s willingness to work

#611

Post by bryan_w »

munk-a wrote: post #428
catillac wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m dealing with this infinite loop chatbot with Verizon right now haha. My number port to become a Verizon customer was supposed to take 4-24 hours. Ten days later still nothing. Chatbot asks me for topics to help with, put in my number but it’s not a Verizon number (it’s mid port) so they recommend I register, I try to register and I cannot because my number isn’t a Verizon number, so back to the chatbot about my p…

It's Verizon's choice not to compensate someone fairly to deal with all the abusive folks that call up customer support - and to have company policies that force people to turn to CS out of desperation. I think it's perfectly fair for people to refuse to work phones for minimum wage and I think it's also perfectly fair for you, who probably pays hundreds of dollars a month to this company for the services that might…

But what happens when all the phone companies go out of business because of this?

Re: Basic income would not reduce people’s willingness to work

#612

Post by munk-a »

bryan_w wrote: post #611
munk-a wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's Verizon's choice not to compensate someone fairly to deal with all the abusive folks that call up customer support - and to have company policies that force people to turn to CS out of desperation. I think it's perfectly fair for people to refuse to work phones for minimum wage and I think it's also perfectly fair for you, who probably pays hundreds of dollars a month to this company for the services that might…

But what happens when all the phone companies go out of business because of this?

We all decide that a planned economy is the only way to move forward? If market forces have any influence and companies are actually going out of business due to poor customer service than someone should switch strategies to actually offer non-terrible customer service.

Re: Basic income would not reduce people’s willingness to work

#613

Post by Aunche »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #537
Aunche wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The closest analogue to true UBI goes on in the oil-rich Gulf nations. Citizens are basically guarenteed a job where they don't even need to show up, which is basically an inefficient form of UBI. Some, like Saudi Arabia are transitioning to true UBI. The result of this is that these nations are completely reliant on foreign labor. Both skilled on unskilled work is dominated by foreigners. The latter have enough leve…

How much does that job pay compared to other things, and compared to the poverty line? What's a specific country I should look at here? It's definitely possible to give away too much, but that's not a good argument that $0 is optimal.

Hard to find good sources but Kuwait had a median household income of $40k. Meanwhile, almost 1 million workers make less than $300 a month, so Kuwait citizen families likely make a lot more than $40k.

https://gulfnews.com/world/gulf/kuwait/almost-1m-foreigners-...

The purpose of money is a medium of exchange for goods and services. Giving money for the sake of nothing defeats the entire purpose of money, because you're giving everyone money without creating new good and services. Note that this is different from conditional payments like food stamps or pensions, which serve the purpose of insurance. This is also different from welfare, which is targeted towards certain people in hopes of improving their well-being.

Re: Basic income would not reduce people’s willingness to work

#614

Post by thegrimmest »

danaris wrote: post #607
thegrimmest wrote: post #591

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm arguing that there are many industries that would not survive workers having an alternative that provides for their basic needs, or would be transformed into niche, artisanal goods/services that would be out of reach of ordinary people.

If an industry cannot survive without forcing workers into degrading conditions and poverty wages, then it does not deserve to survive.

Right, but the people who will suffer first and most from an industry dying out, or costs increasing, would be the poorest people.

Re: Basic income would not reduce people’s willingness to work

#615

Post by noogle »

ipaddr wrote: post #551
noogle wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Money doesnt just have some "value" you can share like a pie. The trillions of dollars printed by the Federal Reserve in the past two years beg to differ. Honestly, if the country is going into deficit, you might as well give it directly to people instead of injecting it via financial institutes. Society in general may greatly benefit from having people not HAVING to work.

Prices inflate like they have recently and will continue until prices absorbs any increases and the lack of production will put a greater strain.

Yet that did not deter us from creating trillions of dollars and giving them to financial institutes.

What if we printed the same amount and gave it directly to people? the $6T/year could yield ~$40K to each of the ~150M working-age Americans.

The biggest impact is to give employees more power in the negotiation with employers: currently, employees are far more pressed to find work than the employer needs to fill in a position (if the employee fails to pay rent, they are evicted; if an employer fails to meet a deadline, nothing happens immediately), and have the inherent disadvantage of having orders of magnitude more employees than employers.

UBI will help the public by reducing the pressure on employees to find job, thus improving the negotiation power and conditions for all other employees. Even the slight help during COVID created the best conditions for working people in decades. Seems to be worth the inflation IMO.

Re: Basic income would not reduce people’s willingness to work

#616

Post by HowTheStoryEnds »

staticassertion wrote: post #517
bwb wrote: post #448

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get it... why not raise minimum wages to reflect local cost of living? IE, why tax all of us instead of the businesses not paying enough for their employees?

> why tax all of us Because it impacts all of us. Imagine the impact on crime and homelessness if there were UBI. Quality of life would improve for everyone . I'm happy to pay my taxes if it goes to that.

The problem is that it takes a strict authoritarian governmental control because you need to regulate the prizes of everything that's deemed necessary to prevent subsidizing controlling third parties.

Take housing for instance: rent would rise a lot when people suddenly get x more. People pay because they have no choice so the x transfers directly to the controlling third party in the end, completely negating any possible benefit but for those already in a non-vulnerable position.

Re: Basic income would not reduce people’s willingness to work

#617

Post by HowTheStoryEnds »

godelski wrote: post #555
manicdee wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can they afford to quit if they aren’t earning enough to live on in the first place? You have that luxury because of savings.

Even a small amount of income gives breathing room. That's the idea here. A full UBI would mean there's no chance of suffocating. I'm saying that we can dip our toes in first and we should still see effects. It isn't an all or nothing scenario as many put forward.

Only if all costs and prices remain the same as before the ubi and that seems a ridiculous pipe dream.

Re: Basic income would not reduce people’s willingness to work

#618

Post by aembleton »

ksec wrote: post #276
ozzythecat wrote: post #4

A link to the actual research paper would be helpful. In this experiment, what amount was given to the treatment group that received basic income? How often? How does that amount compare to the cost of living in their city? > ‘It’s sometimes said that people will sit around doing nothing if you give them free money.’ I’m not an academic, so take this with a grain of salt. If my job requires menial labor or involves g…

That is the thing. My definition of UBI is suppose to keep people alive. You wont die in starvation and live on street. But it is not suppose to give you Netflix, movies and popcorn. If you want those you need to work. Which is why >> ‘It’s sometimes said that people will sit around doing nothing if you give them free money.’ this never make sense unless people have different definition of UBI. You will need to work…

The government could provide everyone with a small apartment, free food and free public transport. Then do away with UBI and other direct financial benefits. The government can better organise these things and not worry that some money will just go to drug dealers or other vices.

Re: Basic income would not reduce people’s willingness to work

#619

Post by toast0 »

morelisp wrote: post #542
toast0 wrote: post #539

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about in the drive through? Moving the pouring of dine in/take out to the customers happened mid 200x, and saved labor back then, too.

> Moving the pouring of dine in/take out to the customers happened mid 200x At least 10 years earlier. Probably more but that's outside my memory range.

Here's a discussion from 2002 where someone says 'all the new McDonald's have serve-yourself-drinks' but older stores still had them behind the counter. At some point, most existing stores retrofitted self-serve, too. Other chains had it way earlier for sure.

https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mcdonalds-refill-policy-in...

Re: Basic income would not reduce people’s willingness to work

#620

Post by aembleton »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #76
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The more money you have - the less value a marginal dollar has. I think there would be a massive pressure to raise minimum wage. Why would you work for $7.50 an hour and pay $1 in taxes - spending the majority of your day to make ~$50 - that doesn't buy much - and you don't have much time to spend it anyway? When your options are either do that or be homeless and hungry - most people opt for work. But when you have o…

UBI might cover your food and rent, but it won't cover much past that. So if you want some beer money or a new videogame or whatever, you'll need to work. And since after UBI every dollar after taxes goes to luxuries, a low income provides a lot more luxuries than it does before UBI, so it's actually a lot more appealing to work -- you see the benefits directly.

So why not provide free food and homes? No need for money if it is just intended for these purposes.

UBI would be a subsidy to landlords and supermarkets; who would cream off a profit.

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