It Is Time For Basic Income • Hacker News Board

Re: It Is Time For Basic Income

#651

Post by JonFish85 » Sat, Mar 22, 2014, 7:40 PM UTC

I may be missing something important, but at a glance there are about 140M jobs in the US. If we gave each of the ~320M US citizens $20k/yr, that comes out to roughly $6.4T/year as mentioned elsewhere in this thread.

If there are roughly 140M jobs, presumably there are 140M people working those jobs, meaning that there are approximately 140M people who must cover that $6.4T, which works out to be ~$46k/yr for each working person.

If we assume we can completely wipe the following off the books: Social Security ($773M), Income Security ($541M) and Medicare ($471M), the net cost per year drops to $4.6T/yr, which works out to be ~$33k/yr for each working person.

Total federal income tax[1] in 2013 was around $1.3T (Individual) + $273B (Corporate) = $1.59T. An increase from $1.59T to $6.2T is about a 290% net increase.

I did some very rough spreadsheet-math with [2] and [3] and came up with the following. If we didn't tax the $20k at all, and left everything the same as last year, the bottom 77% would be a net negative of ~$1.2T assuming all of their income tax went directly to pay for the $20k.

I assumed that the number of people in the top 2% made the same average salary as the top 1% in [4], and came up with the top 2% of income tax payers as being a net positive of $1.4T. I made that assumption just to make the math easy and to err on the side of optimism.

The 78-98 percentile come out to be a net positive of approximately $350B.

Looking back at the $1.3T federal income tax total for individuals, this would mean that after the $20k/person was paid for, the total federal income tax dollars would be roughly $600B (Individual income tax) + $273B (Corporate income tax) = $873B.

Looking at [5], it seems that there was a $3.803T - $2.902T = $901B deficit last year. If we knock off the difference in income tax revenues ($1.59T - $873B = $717B), then suddenly we have a $901B + $717B = $1.618T deficit again.

This all assumes that jobs stay constant, of course. I realize that all of these numbers are very rough, but I had some fun doing spreadsheet math so I figured I would share!

[1] http://www.usgovernmentrevenue.com [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_... [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rate_schedule_(federal_income_t... [4] http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/attachments/... [5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_United_States_federal_budg...

Re: It Is Time For Basic Income

#652

Post by 6d0debc071 » Sat, Mar 22, 2014, 7:43 PM UTC

tsotha wrote: post #648

6d0debc071 wrote: post #516

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Society makes it possible for everyone to earn a living Do you have evidence of the size and nature of job vacancies compared to the skills and number of the unemployed?

Well then, I'm confused. OP said society made it possible for me to make a living.

Ah, I think I see what you mean.

While I can't speak for OP:

Without a society there'd be no education system, no legal tender, no laws protecting employees, no laws protecting companies, no infrastructure supporting it - and so on. So society makes it possible for people to have jobs. There's an old saying that it takes a village to raise a child, which tends to indicate that the group has had a lot of input to the success of the individual for a long time.

I can't even imagine how something as complex as the prerequisites for programming would work without a society. State of nature economies. I suppose you could have small family groups at some point on the hunter-gatherer to farming spectrum, but the minute those families come together into groups and start to develop more complex interactions... that looks mightily like a society to me.

But it doesn't follow from that that society makes it possible for everyone to have a job. Just that those who do could not without one.

It's very close to being the same underlying logical form that goes:

'All cats are four-legged mammals. Buts not all four-legged animals are cats.'

All employees are enabled by a society. But not all people in a society are so enabled.

Re: It Is Time For Basic Income

#653

Post by bertil » Sat, Mar 22, 2014, 7:44 PM UTC

contingencies wrote: post #638

bertil wrote: post #569

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, for unjustified expenses? I pass those as personal expenses, and get they out of my corporate accounts. Sounds tight, but Denmark has a history of corporate corruption in the 70-80s they are trying to curb. More importantly, not sure how that is related to individual benefits; on the contrary: seems like they are focusing on tax dodging.

It's related because if the price you pay for fuzzy utopian governance with near-total compliance is totalitarianism, it's not worth it. Further, if you're setting up paralegal business flows in corporations to avoid personal tracking, then it's but an illustration of the same.

It sounds like we agree to disagree.

Re: It Is Time For Basic Income

#654

Post by stcredzero » Sat, Mar 22, 2014, 7:50 PM UTC

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #583

growupkids wrote: post #549

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course it happens. Entitlement spending essentially never goes down, it always goes up or when proposals are floated to reduce it they almost always fail. People do vote to give themselves money, and they always vote to protect their entitlements.

Adjusted for inflation it can go down. And some states have reduced welfare (welfare mothers don't vote).

You'd have to add in lobbying for corporate tax breaks, subsidies, and all manner of sweetheart deals.

Re: It Is Time For Basic Income

#655

Post by gwern » Sat, Mar 22, 2014, 7:57 PM UTC

damonpace wrote: post #296

kalvin wrote: post #164

I think if you could see close-up how these systems work now, you'd be convinced that it's completely not worth the cost in practice to try and figure out who "deserves" each of the many, many special benefits/allowances/exemptions available (plus it's incredibly difficult for potential recipients to figure out what they're eligible for, plus it imposes those costs on the people who aren't eligible, but end up having…

This basic premise(MVP) exists on American Indian reservations, quasi-sovereign states. The BIA and the Tribe distributes an equal share of funds from either the government or gaming to each tribal member. As long as you can prove you are a tribe member, you get the funds. Feel free to visit any of these reservations and see the kind of lives they live. I grew up surrounded by them in Arizona and went to school with…

> Feel free to visit any of these reservations and see the kind of lives they live.

And is this squalor & dysfunctionality entirely absent in reservations without significant revenue to distribute?

Re: It Is Time For Basic Income

#656

Post by trystero » Sat, Mar 22, 2014, 8:04 PM UTC

demoncore wrote: post #306

I just spent a year living in South Western France which is the most socialist part of France. (I'm a US citizen based here most of the time and I'm a CEO). If you want to see the result of wealth redistribution, go check it out yourself. You'll meet young men and women in the prime of their lives who spend their entire day in a coffee shop and later a bar, sipping a beverage discussing art, culture, poetry, how busi…

> the roughly $25K per year they get for doing nothing

If you think that you can get that amount of money from doing nothing in France, you must have spent that year on crack. Do you have any idea how the french welfare state works? The minimum income (if you're eligible) is currently about €6000 per year. And that's not even enough to pay rent in most french cities (I'm paying €700/m for a 35 m², one bedroom, apartment in one of the poorest suburbs of Paris).

Re: It Is Time For Basic Income

#657

Post by trystero » Sat, Mar 22, 2014, 8:08 PM UTC

benched wrote: post #22

The idea that you absolutely must work hard in exchange for the necessities of your life, is so deeply ingrained in our collective consciousness, like a fundamental law of conservation, that it seems a lot of people cannot conceive otherwise.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestant_work_ethic

Re: It Is Time For Basic Income

#658

Post by izerop » Sat, Mar 22, 2014, 8:14 PM UTC

nirnira wrote: post #427

A truly insane and stupid idea befitting an insane and stupid political culture. And lo and behold! Embraced with open arms by the Hacker News community. What a surprise.

Agreed. People want money for nothing, which will inevitably amount to nothing. Chosing to do nothing, that's no concern of mine. Should I be punished for the stupidity of others? Giving a paycheck to those who are rendering themselves useless to society?

Suprised you didn't get negative Karma for your comment like I did. Ha.

Re: It Is Time For Basic Income

#659

Post by bertil » Sat, Mar 22, 2014, 8:15 PM UTC

JonFish85 wrote: post #651

I may be missing something important, but at a glance there are about 140M jobs in the US. If we gave each of the ~320M US citizens $20k/yr, that comes out to roughly $6.4T/year as mentioned elsewhere in this thread. If there are roughly 140M jobs, presumably there are 140M people working those jobs, meaning that there are approximately 140M people who must cover that $6.4T, which works out to be ~$46k/yr for each wo…

Thank you for making detailed calculation. None of the country that has significant social coverage (comparable to what you describe) has kept a significant Army, or significant social unrest that needs too heavy a Police force. I’m assuming that social quiet is where the equation start to add up.

Re: It Is Time For Basic Income

#660

Post by aarkling » Sat, Mar 22, 2014, 8:16 PM UTC

Houshalter wrote: post #575

growupkids wrote: post #535

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Additionally, the cost of living varies widely, for example, in the US. Between climate differences (it costs more to stay warm in Alaska in the winter than it does in Florida), logistical differences (fuel costs more in Hawaii than it does in Texas), to real estate costs (housing is more expensive in SF, CA than in Norfolk, VA), to transportation costs (parking in NY is more expensive than in Jacksonville, FL), etc.…

Well so what? If you are going to consume more of the economy's resources to choose to live in a more expensive place, then you should have to pay for it. Conversely, why should we give less to people who live in more affordable places?

I think the difference is it may be more expensive to live in a city but may still make sense because of the availability of jobs and higher income. With basic income the income aspect of choosing a place to live is weakened.