71–80 of 413 posts
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I mean, if I was offered half of my current salary (which is, admittedly high, as a software engineer) for free under the condition that I don't work, I'd totally take that deal.
And you can, if you get fired.
Jobless people generally cannot earn additional income while collecting unemployment benefits or they risk losing that assistance. Worst. Idea. Ever. I know -- it's a common feature of income support systems, including here in the US. I don't know whether UBI is going to prove workable or not. But even if it doesn't, if we could just redesign the systems we do have so they never give recipients a disincentive to work…
Is there any data backing up the idea that it actually is a disincentive? 1. Anyone I know that has received benefits for being unemployed desperately wants to be employed again. 2. In the UK, unless things have changed, you can work up to 16 hours per week while receiving unemployment benefits and I believe the benefits you receive gradually falls with the amount of work you get paid for. 3. If you suddenly lose you…
The counter-argument of course is that you shouldn't have children if you can't afford to raise them, but the disincentives are there, and as crazy as it sounds people are incentivised to have a lot of children as a method of escaping work.
(Optional sad Futurama parody being: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cyber_House_Rules)
It should never be more beneficial for someone to sit at home than to go out and earn a living.
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As you define it. I define UBI as having a floor on people's income, where the government ensures everyone is above that floor. So it's universally ensuring everyone had a basic income.
Your definition is not the usual one, I think. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income http://basicincome.org/basic-income/faq/#income
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Means-tested programs are the epitome of wasteful government bureaucracy. It's never the right way to "compromise". If we can't sell straight UBI, then something like universal food stamps would be a good first step: https://web.archive.org/web/20160321083817/http://mattbrueni...
I'm not necessarily opposed to means-testing; for example, progressive income tax rates can be seen as a form of means-testing, and I think they're a good thing. What I care about is that the function from income earned to income (including subsidy) received be monotonic . Again, the income tax system (at least in the US) is carefully designed to have this property: when you make enough more money to move into a high…
> Even though you keep less of your next dollar of earnings the more you make, there's never a point at which earning the next dollar will leave you with less money after tax.
The problem is that's not the only thing you want. You also don't want marginal rates of 75%+ for low and middle income people. It's not only that taking a $20K/year job shouldn't cost you $21K/year in benefits, it's that it shouldn't cost you $15K/year in benefits while you now incur more transportation and childcare expenses.
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Means-tested programs are the epitome of wasteful government bureaucracy. It's never the right way to "compromise". If we can't sell straight UBI, then something like universal food stamps would be a good first step: https://web.archive.org/web/20160321083817/http://mattbrueni...
I am reminded of an article I read years ago (sorry, no reference) about a low income family in Chicago (I think) during the Reagan era. The family had saved up a bit of money to send their kid to college, but some bureaucratic org found out. It was responsible for handling their benefits and because the total amount of assets the family had was over an acceptable limit, they cut out _all_ benefits to the family. Til…
I'd assumed that Finland had a really strong welfare system like Norway and Sweden.
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That's basically a negative income tax. That is, if you make below a certain amount, the government gives you money until your income reaches some base level.
Does that have any negatives that basic income doesn't? To me it sounds like a direct subset of that UBI aims to achieve. So a solid stepping stone towards it.
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> 1. Anyone I know that has received benefits for being unemployed desperately wants to be employed again. My father makes so much money that when he's unemployed he actually doesn't really look for a job that urgently. This is because his unemployment benefits are enough for him to pay the bills. He'd like to make money to retire... but he does rest for a few months in between jobs.
>> My father makes so much money that when he's unemployed he actually doesn't really look for a job that urgently I doubt this is a typical situation of someone on unemployment benefits.
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Means-tested programs are the epitome of wasteful government bureaucracy. It's never the right way to "compromise". If we can't sell straight UBI, then something like universal food stamps would be a good first step: https://web.archive.org/web/20160321083817/http://mattbrueni...
Also a huge problem is that you get this living support based on your income, and it has no proper upper bounds. One could receive hundreds if not a thousand euro in extra support if they chose to live in a costly neighborhood (namely, central Helsinki). Even more of a disincentivizing factor to consider here.
1) High income: My personal gross income was among the top 20 % of earners. Thus, high taxes.
2) Poverty: My family's net income after housing expenses was below the threshold of the last-resort income support.
All it took was having three small children, wife not working as the youngest was a newborn thus only the minimal maternity allowance, Helsinki region housing costs and the progressive taxation of "high earners".
The way to get out of it was to take a job abroad for a while. But Finland is my home, even if I hate some parts of the welfare state politics, so I came back.