A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2016-05-02/a-basic-income-should-be-the-next-big-thing

by warrenmar • 10 years ago

641 808 10 years ago

golergka• 10 years ago

That's a little surprising — with all discussions about basic income taking place, I assumed it is more of a left-wing thing. But what is even more surprising are arguments against it: social workers being laid off and other more complicated policies like minimum wage taking a back seat. With this kind of rhetoric, it's easy to believe that the real reason is the "welfare lobby" of government officials who don't want their bloated offices to close, indeed.

aub3bhat• 10 years ago

I think the reason for huge support behind Basic Income is failure of government in efficient allocation of its resources. The current generation with its experience with public education, spending on unnecessary wars and other poorly run government programs no longer trusts government to effectively deliver services. Thus Basic Income seems like a natural solution. I honestly would prefer a smaller government that reallocates resources, over Bernie Sanders style big government socialism.

rubyfan2• 10 years ago

Why does it follow that the answer to an inefficient government is to give that same government more power to redistribute wealth?

Being a big inefficient government and redistributing wealth are not mutually exclusive.

jessriedel2• 10 years ago

It's important to distinguish between rights- and incentive-based objections to redistribution and efficiency-based objections to government spending. The government as an organization of humans is very inefficient and wasteful at accomplishing actual tasks (e.g., building bridges), but it's actually very efficient at redistributing wealth through pure transfers (e.g., the administrative overhead of social security is negligible compared to the amount redistributed). Thus the best objections are grounded in bad incentive effects or property rights, not the inefficiency of government.

richmarr• 10 years ago

I think the reason for huge support behind Basic Income is failure of government in efficient allocation of its resources.

Basic Income is interesting because (a) it removes the requirements for administration of social security and policing of fraud, and (b) because some people think increased automation/AI will create increased unemployment so a different approach would be beneficial.

I'm not aware of evidence to support a view that poor implementation of particular social security programs is a driver.

paulddraper• 10 years ago

So in response to excessive spending people want to spend more?

bontoJR• 10 years ago

Switzerland will hold a June 5 referendum on whether to give every adult citizen 2,500 Swiss francs (about $2,600) a month.

Yeah and, for sure, it won't pass... considering how conservative we are, plus the legal side of the proposal is not so clear in where the money will come from.

sambe• 10 years ago

This doesn't seem like enough for Switzerland - what do you think? Based on my experience this would be on the very low side. The previous vote on minimum wage was quoted as working out at around 4000CHF/month. Granted, most basic income proposals are on the low side - this just seems even lower than normal.

VeejayRampay• 10 years ago

It seems low. I think this is what cashiers at Lidl or Leader Price actually make in Switzerland. Or rather, it's the urban legend in France that this how much a cashier in Lidl/Leader Price makes in Switzerland.

Though this might be part of the whole "Everything is better in Switzerland" psyche prevalent in France (streets are paved in sheets of gold, etc).

tribaal• 10 years ago

Well, holding a referendum in Switzerland means 100k citizens agree to put it up for referendum, nothing more, nothing less.

It's not some kind of endorsement of it as a good or feasible idea, unfortunately. As you point out, most pro basic-income people I've talked with here tend to hand-wave the "how do we pay for it" question as "implementation detail" or some idealistic rhetoric ("tax the rich more!") which is not encouraging me to vote in favor.

I would be happy to give my vote to a proposal that included a budget proposition, or a rational analysis of feasibility. The current one doesn't (http://initiative-revenudebase.ch/initiative/)

Kenji3• 10 years ago

I read that they (the people who launched it) proposed to increase the VAT to 50%. 50% VAT! This is lunacy. The proponents of UBI in Switzerland are economic illiterates. I haven't heard of a single good way to fund this UBI which costs more than 3 times the current budget of the state.

amelius2• 10 years ago

I'm still wondering about one thing: if everybody has a basic income, then who will be doing the dirty jobs like collecting our waste? Will the price for waste collecting go up? And will there then be a kind of economic "inversion", where the intellectual people prefer to work on interesting stuff at the expense of money, while the "non-intellectual" (need a better word here) people will make all the money doing the dirty jobs?

the-dude• 10 years ago

Dirty jobs already are paid a premium. I would expect the differences to be amplified though, for good reason?

FiReaNG3L• 10 years ago

It is already the case - go try and pursue a career in academia and see how much money you make compared to a plumber.

argonaut• 10 years ago

In CS, if we include industry pure research, you make a lot more ;)

gjm117• 10 years ago

Some intellectually satisfying jobs (academic, author, artist, ...) pay badly. But many others are well paid, and probably most of the best-paid jobs are (1) largely brainwork and (2) pretty interesting to do.

Some not-very-intellectual jobs (plumbers are everyone's favourite example, which makes me suspect there aren't many others) pay pretty well. But most don't.

Some jobs that usually pay pretty well: Software developer. Lawyer. Doctor. Quant. Corporate executive.

Some jobs that usually pay pretty badly: Cleaner. Waiter. Shop-floor sales person. Bank cashier.

I think these are more representative than comparing adjunct professors with plumbers.

NhanH• 10 years ago

And will there then be a kind of economic "inversion", where the intellectual people prefer to work on interesting stuff at the expense of money, while the "non-intellectual" (need a better word here) people will make all the money doing the dirty jobs?

In the long run, any menial task is supposed to be automated away completely. In short term, what you described already happened in area like Post-doc and game industry (or humanities degree, if you will ...).

nine_k2• 10 years ago

I don't think plumbing or even waste collection is going to be seriously automated any time soon.

Can you imagine what kind of autonomous robot would it take to be able to do regular plumbing work, in cramped spaces, with low visibility, requiring relatively significant physical efforts? The software side of it can definitely be solved (though not easy at all). The hardware side would require significant breakthroughs, if the device is going to be cost-effective even compared to a highly-paid certified plumber.

Same applies to electricians, and in certain degree to car mechanics, too. We have large swaths of infrastructure built with maintenance by humans in mind. These humans are not exactly easy to replace with robots.

k-mcgrady8• 10 years ago

In my opinion a UBI won't work until we can automate more of these jobs but in the short term I agree with you that the wage for them would go up to attract people. It would also depend on the size of the UBI. If the UBI is just enough to get by comfortably but not enough to make big expenditures like a new TV/phone etc. then people will have to continue to work to afford luxuries. A lot of people do those jobs because they don't have the skills necessary for other jobs so if they want luxuries they will still do them (maybe part-time instead). I could also see highly skilled people who want extra money for one big purchase to take on a job like that for a few weeks (which you couldn't really do at a tech company).

gaius2• 10 years ago

The basic income will provide only the basics - if you want luxuries, you will still need a job.

drawkbox• 10 years ago

On top of that you might be able to only have to work half a year or jobs could be shared among multiple people. Jobs may even pay more for harder work. Sharing jobs or partially working might also be needed to keep prices/inflation low, this actually meshes with the gig economy that is being talked about and moved to it seems. Entrepreneurship would be a huge result of basic income as well as competition for workers and increase in demand along with more consumers.

empressplay15• 10 years ago

I'm not convinced it will even provide the basics. There would be nothing to stop rents / real-estate prices from going up to compensate. Or food, or utilities. It's simple supply and demand.

Lawtonfogle2• 10 years ago

Is having a child a basic or a luxury?

This idea seems to be built on a notion that there are needs and that their are wants, and that we are only going to give enough to supply needs. But there are two major underlying problems with this.

First, even if we assume that needs and wants exist, you aren't going to have agreement on what falls in what category. For starters, is having children a need or a luxury? Is a clean place to live a need or a luxury? Is having a healthy food a need or a want?

Second, I'm not sure the division between needs and wants is even real. Yes, you'll die without food in a few weeks, die without water in a few days, and die without air in a few minutes, but what about something that increases ones likelihood of dying in a few years, but not any shorter? For example, a starving person can survive off a very poor diet for a much longer time than with no diet, but if they are missing vital nutrients, they will still eventually die. Or look at loneliness and the negative effects it has on people. You won't die within a year from lack of human contact, but your overall life expectancy will drop greatly (except for infants, who will die from lack of human contact, as shown in a few experiments which scientists are ethically banned from reproducing).

gonzo41• 10 years ago

People join the military for reasons other than money. Become doctors and emergency services etc all for reasons that are not related to money. People will do the things they do, but having some money means that people can take risks and feel safe in society. It removes the hard floor.

Loic• 10 years ago

"people can [...] feel safe in society": This is the most important thing from my point of view. If people feel safe, you reduce stress, tension in the society and you increase the quality of life of everybody in the same society. It should benefit everybody.

This is really why I want this to happen on a large enough scale to see if it really works or not.

mtbcoder• 10 years ago

It removes the hard floor.

In the US, we could already make great strides with removing the hard floor by simply implementing universal, primary health care coverage, free/low-cost higher education and wages that keep up with inflation. I feel that BI in some form is inevitable and the next logical step of civilized society, however, given the incredible resistance to providing universal health care, I do not see BI happening in my lifetime.

rlpb• 10 years ago

If the market rate for dirty jobs goes up, will the basic income be enough, or will I struggle to pay for my waste collection (and everything else) on the basic income alone?

empressplay15• 10 years ago

Which is a good point. Ultimately all costs get passed on to the consumer -- so where does it end?

arximboldi• 10 years ago

I don't know if that would actually be the case, but if it were, the question would be: is it actually a bad thing?

I don't see any moral justification for a software engineer earning more than someone collecting waste [1]. In fact, it is normal that as our society gets more educated and the supply of unskilled workers goes down, a lot of hard manual labor will become expensive. This is already the case with mining, for example. The fact that we software engineers do a job that we like and is well paid at the same time is a very lucky (for us) historical accident.

On the other hand, I see in basic income an opportunity to also do unalienated work. For example, I'd very happily use BI to take buy some time off and to do a kinda "libre software retreat", hacking on free projects for a while without needing to bargain with an employer that owns everything that comes out of my head.

[1] Excluding the cost of education, let's assume university is free as in a few places in Europe.

microtonal• 10 years ago

I don't see any moral justification for a software engineer earning more than someone collecting waste [1].

In general I agree. However, besides education costs (I have quite many friends who have a sizeable loan), software engineers also enter the workforce quite a bit later. E.g., taking Netherlands as an example:

- Waste collector: age 12-16 VMBO

- Software engineer: age 12-18 VWO, age 18-23 BA+MA university

Also, very few students actually finish university in time. So, they are usually 24 or 25 when they are on the market. So, there would be less opportunity to build up a pension at equal wages.

weddpros2• 10 years ago

"I don't see any moral justification for a software engineer earning more than someone collecting waste"

That's because moral justification isn't at the center of our society. The market is. Many attempts have been made to switch from the market to something else, not many were brilliant.

The "lucky historical accident" you cite isn't one... It's just the way our society was built.

Also you could argue on many different levels. To me, long studies meant delayed enjoyment of life, less freedom until 23, etc... You get less immediately, more later.

In the end, the question is really: "Do we want to use social engineering (as it's called) and try to build a brand new society, when all other attempts lead to poverty and war?"

redsummer• 10 years ago

"I don't see any moral justification for a software engineer earning more than someone collecting waste"

Garbage Disposal people earn over $100k. Software engineers earn about $80k. A job that can be outsourced or automated is not valuable. http://money.cnn.com/2016/02/24/news/economy/trash-workers-h...

hasenj• 10 years ago

I don't see any moral justification for a software engineer earning more than someone collecting waste

Do you see a moral justification for paying a doctor more than a receptionist? I see none for paying them the same.

vanviegen• 10 years ago

Apart from the extra income, consider that most people don't actually want to be hanging around their houses all day every day. Of course, employers may have to make working conditions more attractive and many people may want to work shorter weeks. Hurray for quality of life, I say!

PietdeVries6• 10 years ago

Sure - or alternatively, employers move to another country where wages are lower and employees complain less. China for instance. Think back: what is still entirely made in the US or the UK? What can we still produce without China? And why with free money down the streets would that all over a sudden change or improve? But it will change in a worse way when employees want better working conditions...

_Understated_8• 10 years ago

I haven't read into it too much at the moment as it's still a bit of a pipe-dream just now although it's looking more likely to change but I sit on the fence at this time (with a lean towards "no").

I don't see that happening to be honest but I do see something worse...

Won't the price of everything go up for those that don't currently need the welfare system? Is this a sort of stealth tax increase on the middle class?

I live in the UK and pay a lot into the system but I am by no means rich. I don't claim anything except child benefit (dunno how I qualify but I do... for £80 a month or something).

If you remove the need for someone currently on welfare to take a min-wage job then that means the job either doesn't get done or the salary for it must go up. So, if it goes up, then that company's price will go up or they face going out of business.

If they manage to stay in business, I will need to pay more to use their service than I did before but if they go out of business because I am not willing to pay it, they end up claiming welfare and my tax goes up to pay for it.

Honestly, I don't see an upside for anyone except those that can't/won't work!

empressplay15• 10 years ago

Absolutely. And even those who can't / won't work _still_ won't be able to find a place to live or eat well because rents and food prices will go up to compensate for it.

pjc508• 10 years ago

Child benefit is almost-universal. It was completely universal until a conservative government started means-testing it on the parents.

yks• 10 years ago

I think that is the point, there will be too many people "that can't work" due to tech innovations.

It all makes sense if you think about welfare not as "these slouches are rewarded for the laziness" but as a price you pay so that unemployed people are not forced into violent property expropriation from you.

When large swaths of population don't have an access to money-making jobs, it significantly affects middle class well-being.

Of course you can "get yours" and double down on police and live behind electric fences South Africa style, but that's not pretty.

rmc• 10 years ago

Higher wages for dirty jobs would certainly spur innovation in labour saving devices to reduce the amount of manual labour.

"Dirty" jobs being paid more certainly does sound a little more ethical than today, where those with little options have to work those dirty jobs to keep their house and to eat, and they are paid low.

Chronic512• 10 years ago

Dirty jobs will pay more. But their rent will also increase. Net negative for them.

yummyfajitas22• 10 years ago

How would it spur innovation? After enacting a BI, we've just reduced the labor supply and funneled resources toward consumption (since rich people invest, poor people consume, and we've shifted resources from rich to poor).

Labor supply = Labor servicing consumption + labor servicing investment

Rearranging this implies:

Labor providing investment = labor supplied - labor providing consumption

Simple arithmetic shows we now have less resources devoted to investment. So how will this innovation actually occur? I realize demand for it might go up, but if supply doesn't increase correspondingly, so what?

fsloth• 10 years ago

I would presume the quality of low-paying low-income jobs will increase. If people have the opportunity to leave there is an actual business incentive to treat employees well. I would presume the overall "quality" of the workforce would increase, as the detrimental effects of poverty on cognitive development and capacity is well known.

So who will do the dirty jobs? I presume ways are found in which to make them less distasteful. They are not about "dirtyness" per se, but about application of high dexterity manual labour on various tasks.

empressplay15• 10 years ago

I think that once landlords, housing markets and other needs-businesses such as utilities and food providers realize they can hike their prices to absorb the basic income, there will still be plenty of people collecting waste.

T-A• 10 years ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Financial_Fable

UVB-763• 10 years ago

This only applies to our global economy if every country were to implement UBI, and with similar amounts.

nihonde3• 10 years ago

I'd like to think that if you've got a civilization that people feel is worth keeping, the "dirty" jobs become a shared responsibility.

TheOtherHobbes• 10 years ago

Low-skilled dirty jobs should either be automated, or they should be treated like taxation.

Everyone, without exception, has to pitch in and do them - to a reasonable standard, with doubled time for slacking, and serious punishments for avoidance - for [very small number of days a year].

If that sounds authoritarian, consider that's how work already functions for most people - except they're compelled to do it all the time, not just for [very small number of days].

thiagoperes• 10 years ago

First of all, no job should be considered dirty.

Second, if you go to places like Netherlands, Norway and Japan you'll see that it's not about money. Higher education prepares workers to do more complex, more efficient and more productive jobs.

Also, the society is more conscious about not having someone to do stupid things for them like collecting their trays after they eat at the McDonadls, this is YOUR responsibility as a member of a society, to look for others as well.

So in Amsterdam for example, street cleaning and trash collection are done with specialized vehicles. In Denmark, subways are autonomous.

I like to believe that as you increase education and income, the people that would be considered "dumb" in an very unequal society will spend their time developing technologies to automate tasks no one likes to perform and increase productivity.

corin_3• 10 years ago

First of all, no job should be considered dirty.

Some jobs, such as cleaning, and collecting waste, literally deal with dirt. I don't think he was using "dirty" as an insult.

sokoloff11• 10 years ago

You're suggesting that people that would be considered "dumb" today will suddenly start inventing automation of street cleaning, trash collection, and the like if we implement a basic income and better education?

That strikes me as an extraordinary claim.

latch• 10 years ago

Your parent probably meant dirty in a very physical way, not, as you seem to have taken it, a demeaning way. I don't think of "dumb" when I hear "dirty"; maybe the popular Discovery TV Show "Dirty Jobs" is a reason for that.

Also, while I've never been to Norway or Netherlands, I think you're underestimating the number of "dirty jobs" that support you. Who's tilling the land? Mining the minerals? Excavating land? Driving the garbage trunks? Emptying the lobster traps? De-greasing the engines? Tending the public spaces?

I'm not against legalized prostitution, but I think its a strong strike against any claims of higher responsibility towards society.

Yes, many of these things might be automated one day, but that seems far away (a century at least). Your parent's question is valid and, as far as I'm concerned, there's no place on earth that comes remotely close to what you seem to be describing.

spacecowboy_lon2• 10 years ago

They meant in the industrial relations sense of being "dirty" Jobs which traditionally came with a premium - sewer workers dustmen steel workers both because its unplesant work and there s also a risk premium.

Its why a pit deputy (coal miner) in the UK can charge £2k for a single weekend shift.

morgante9• 10 years ago

Also, the society is more conscious about not having someone to do stupid things for them like collecting their trays after they eat at the McDonadls, this is YOUR responsibility as a member of a society, to look for others as well.

To play devil's advocate, why? If my time is more valuable than a McDonald's worker's, why should I be wasting it on cleaning up trays?

Your argument could easily be extended to saying that restaurants are in general frivolous. Isn't feeding yourself a fundamental responsibility as a member of society? Except that destroying restaurants would actually be quite economically negative.

chongli12• 10 years ago

Tons of people already do some of the dirtiest jobs around for free. One example is caring for severely disabled and/or elderly people. Sure, there are facilities for these people where workers get paid to care for them but many rely on family members to care for them without any financial compensation.

ww52013• 10 years ago

If no one does dirty jobs, their price goes up until it's worthwhile for someone to do them (think of Uber surge). Basic supply and demand.

More costly dirty jobs encourage automation and they will be automated away. The trend has started long ago. It used to take 3 people per garbage truck to collect trash, one driver and 2 people physically pick up the trash cans. Then it was 2 as better trucks came along. Now it's one driver per truck, as the truck has mechanical arms to collect the trash.

With driverless trucks in the horizon, it is not far fetch to have one driver overseeing 2 to a small fleet driverless trucks to collect garbage on a street in parallel.

tempodox• 10 years ago

And the price for the production of waste would go up, too. Not necessarily a bad thing.

dagw• 10 years ago

No matter how you structure BI, there will always be people who won't be getting it. If only citizens get it, then there will be lots of permanent residents who still need jobs, if citizens and permanent residents get it, then there will be lots of people of temporary work and student visas who still need a job etc. etc.

"Worst" case scenario. You end up having to import a bunch more foreigners to do those jobs at the lower wages.

mrottenkolber2• 10 years ago

You sound really afraid of having to collect your own waste.

a3n• 10 years ago

10k/year, or whatever it might be, isn't that much. Most people would want more, and you'll need to work for more.

As to "who would do the dirty work." You probably didn't mean it this way, but the question implies that we have to keep people down in order to do the work that "we" need them to do.

When something is in short supply, you compete for it. UBI would bring competition to employers, especially at the lower incomes. Part of that competition would be with "not working," but it would also be with other employers, as it would then be easier for people to look for or prepare for other jobs, and it would make it easier for people on the bottom rungs to expect better treatment.

Spooky235• 10 years ago

That's already happening. I pay the guy mowing my lawn as much as the 40th percentile IT or programmer working at my company.

TheCoelacanth2• 10 years ago

Do you give him the salary and benefits of a 40th percentile programmer and pay all of his expenses in addition to that? Do you pay him as much as the billable rate of a 40th percentile programmer?

I doubt either one. To compare a full-time employee's hourly wage to an hourly billable rate you will generally want to multiply the hourly wage by about 2.

k-mcgrady8• 10 years ago

> "But in the U.S., many liberals see it as naive and a distraction from more practical priorities, such as a $15 minimum wage and paid family leave."

I can't see how they could believe this. First of all a minimum wage becomes unimportant as you should hypothetically have enough money to support the kind of lifestyle a minimum wage job would provide without working. Secondly, as it's no longer financially critical to them, people won't be as inclined to take on minimum wage type jobs - which will force the wage up anyway so that the business can attract employees. So it should take care of itself. As for paid family leave (I presume they mean maternity/paternity leave?) you won't need that as your basic income will ensure you still have money coming in. And if the company wants to retain your services after your leave they will offer it anyway. The key point in these examples is that even if you don't get a higher minimum wage or paid family leave it's no longer going to have a big effect on you as you have your UBI to rely on.

Also, it doesn't seem to me like there is a left/right split on this elsewhere in the world. This leads me to believe that the problem is the highly partisan US political system. The right is obviously going to support UBI as it would significantly reduce government size - the left can't be seen to be agreeing with the right. I think it's a kind of childishly schoolyard thing you see a lot in US politics (he likes that so I don't).

mseebach2• 10 years ago

The biggest problem with the UBI debate is that few people explicitly name the amounts they imagine. You seem to imply a level near the minimum wage, but that's flat out impossible. The total US tax revenue is around $20k/year/person, so a realistic UBI is upper bounded at perhaps $2-300/month (full time at $15 is about $2,600/month) - and at 20% of total revenue, that would have to replace substantial portions of existing social programs to be viable.

k-mcgrady8• 10 years ago

I envision it as enough for someone to get by. So not enough for luxury expenditures. Basically food and shelter. I'm also looking at this from the perspective of someone in the UK who doesn't have to think of things like health care and education which changes things quite a bit. I'd say around $800 p/m per person would be plenty if you look at food and rent for a room in a shared apartment. Tax revenue should also stretch much further with a UBI. You could reduce huge inefficiency and lay off the majority of staff involved in welfare programs which would amount to massive savings.

crdoconnor4• 10 years ago

I can't see how they could believe this. First of all a minimum wage becomes unimportant as you should hypothetically have enough money to support the kind of lifestyle a minimum wage job would provide without working.

It's considered a distraction because it's a political pipe dream that has a very low chance of being implemented.

The reason the left doesn't like it is fourfold:

* The pretext for basic income presumes that we have a lack of spending because we've run out of things to spend money on. This couldn't be further from the truth. American infrastructure is crumbling and yet politicians still want to restrict necessary spending, choking off demand and killing jobs.

* The pretext for basic income also presumes that we have a wide variety of cheap goods that don't need much US labor because of efficient markets and automation. We don't. We have a wide variety of cheap goods not requiring US labor because China intentionally undervalues its currency. China can pull the plug on that at any point and trigger a torrential level of inflation in the US.

* The last time the US faced this problem of high unemployment due to artificially suppressed demand (in the 30s) it was successfully fixed with federal job guarantees that ended up providing useful employment and getting a huge amount of useful infrastructure built that we still use today.

* However much you try to deny it or dress it up, people actually want jobs - for more than just the income.

k-mcgrady8• 10 years ago

Some good points, I'm curious about your final point though. Personal want just for more than just the income. IF the UBI worked, are you suggested people would want to, but couldn't work anymore? That jobs would be difficult to find?

BigJono• 10 years ago

I'm so glad we imported this style of politics to Australia. It's lovely watching our government openly and boldly torch tens of billions of dollars on our Internet infrastructure and condemn our economic prospects for decades simply to spite the other political party, while the idiot masses cheer them on because the blue team is winning against the red team.

DanielBMarkham2• 10 years ago

The reason UBI has such broad appeal is that, well, people are able to do basic math.

Take for instance the amount spent on the bank bailouts, which were supposedly done to help stimulate the economy. If you'd just let the banks fail, you could have spent the same money giving everybody a check for somewhere around 20K (the number is debatable).

Hate poverty? The U.S. has spent more than 5 Trillion on it over the last few decades. That's another 20K or so per man, woman, and child. The national debt is closing in on 20T. Would you rather have a balanced budget and a check for 100K? (I understand the math is way fuzzy here. It's to make a point.)

We're reaching the point where the average person who supports helping the poor can figure out that we could have just set up an endowment for each poor person when they were born and spent less money than this. And at the same time we would get rid of a lot of folks doing useless overhead simply because the system is so complex.

For those reasons and more I like the UBI idea.

But ideas are worthless. Execution is everything. We need about a thousand different experiments -- ran for 10 or 20 years -- before we can begin to start saying what might work or not work. When I look at other charitable causes (aid to Africa comes to mind first), the rhetoric got way out ahead of the actual results for many, many decades. Tons of time, effort, and money were spent on strategies that didn't work but sounded pretty cool. We'd be idiots not to recognize that this is the danger here too.

The first question we have to ask is this: What is UBI? Is it a reliable income in place of a bunch of other services? Or is it in addition to a bunch of other services? The difference matters. Once that's defined, I sure would like to see if a majority of people doing nothing "rubs off" on ambitious, driven people. Or maybe it works the other way around. Maybe a small percentage of ambitious, driven people, in a society without external pressures, can persuade more and more folks to find meaning in helping others. Beats me. Sure will be fun to learn more.

Slogans are great. Results are better.

cromulent2• 10 years ago

As it is such a massive societal change, some sort of testing and experimentation would have to be done, I think.

The recent Freakonomics episode on the topic talked about a Canadian experiment "Mincome" from the 70s. There were some interesting results. Worth a listen.

"FORGET: One of the findings was that high-school completion rates had increased, and we discovered that boys, in particular, in low-income families had been under a fair amount of pressure to become self-supporting as quickly as they could. When mincome came along, some of the families decided that they could allow their sons to stay in high school just a little bit longer. So instead of quitting school at age 16 and getting their first full-time job, these boys stayed in school until they were 18, until they graduated from high school and took their first full-time job a little bit later."

http://freakonomics.com/podcast/mincome/

ChrisLomont9• 10 years ago

If you'd just let the banks fail, you could have spent the same money giving everybody

The bailouts were asset swaps, repaid with a gain for the taxpayer [1]. They were not cash giveaways. Comparing this to simply giving cash to people is ludicrous.

The most at risk was about 2T, with only 650B actually out at any time, which at your claim of 20K per person, only pays for 32 million people. You're off by an order of magnitude (completely ignoring that the bailouts were asset swaps, not giveaways).

Hate poverty? The U.S. has spent more than 5 Trillion on it over the last few decades. That's another 20K or so per man, woman, and child

Over the course of decades. It's not 20K in a year. It's more like 1/40th ($500) of that a year. And the only places I can find a number this large includes Medicare/SS payouts. Are you going to remove these programs (especially Mecicare/Medicaid) with your conversion to a once in a lifetime check per person?

The national debt is closing in on 20T. Would you rather have a balanced budget and a check for 100K?

That's nonsense. Adding massively more to spending via UBI is not going to balance the budget or reduce the debt, and I don't know what magic lets you take 20T of debt (the biggest holder being SS, and large amounts to the Fed and loans to US investors, such as retirement funds) and simply divide by 320M people to get 100K (actually, this is 62.5K) in a check. Nothing in this line of numerology makes any sense. These uses are nowhere near exchangeable.

(I understand the math is way fuzzy here. It's to make a point.)

The math isn't fuzzy. It's simply wrong, from the starting values, to the calculations, to the conclusions.

The reason UBI has such broad appeal is that, well, people are able to do basic math.

Unfortunately this basic math is not coupled to reality, ignores very important and well tested economic ideas backed by 100+ years of empirical data, and is ignores the downsides and costs involved.

And so far, I fail to see many UBI proponents that are able to do basic math. A few can, but mostly they are full of numerology and ignoring the meaning of various amounts.

I've yet to see a UBI that doesn't either require massive tax hikes to the point of possibly destroying the economy or leave those needing assistance now in much worse shape.

Slogans are great. Results are better.

Intellectually honest claims checking is better, and it helps avoid chasing impossible or unlikely or destructive plans.

[1] https://projects.propublica.org/bailout/

DanielBMarkham2• 10 years ago

You seem to be in search of an argument. I will not provide you with one.

Yes, the math is plain wrong. No, it does not change the point. I am not writing an essay or presenting a white paper on UBI. Heck, I'm not even supporting UBI except in terms of "let's experiment"

So that was a wonderful tear down of my math, which I expected, but it doesn't change my thesis any: whatever amount of money you would like to provide for good causes, a good case can be made to eliminate the middleman and provide that money directly to everybody -- no qualifying, no overhead, no gaming the system, no complex system of administration.

I'm not in favor of massive tax hikes. I'm also not in favor of bandying around the slogan "UBI". As I said, until there's some real policy there, it looks attractive on the surface. I outlined the reasons why it looks attractive. That's about all we can say about it right now.

cromulent2• 10 years ago

When I think about it from a business perspective, the advantage is not just smaller government but workforce flexibility. If I only have 20 extra hours of work some weeks, there is no way I am hiring another person full time. With a basic income in place, I can hire someone at market rates just for those 20 hours without all of the stress for both parties. Still not perfect, but much better.

raphaelj• 10 years ago

A basic income could make low-pay jobs more interesting than ever, and companies could benefit from it.

In most developed EU countries, a "social" income is given to unemployed people. In Belgium, it varies between 550€/month and 850€/month, depending on the situation. People lose this income as soon as they start to work, that means that a part-time job with an income of about 1000€/month is really unattractive. With a basic income, unemployed workers could be stimulated to accept this kind of low-pay jobs, as the pay will add up to their basic income.

With the increase of productivity we got in the last 50 years, the hours worked by low-skilled workers must be lowered, or we will face endlessly increasing unemployment rates. An universal basic income can stimulate this.

unsigner• 10 years ago

I don't see how the government can be shrunk, short of violent collapse. UBI will be introduced, and not a single government program will be dropped, not a single government official laid off; wars, bailouts and $500 toilet seats will continue, but we'll have to tax, borrow or print a few more billions (or trillions, in the case of US-sized economies - I live in a small country).

empressplay15• 10 years ago

Won't a basic income just increase inflation? Minimum-wage jobs would by necessity then need to pay more, which would then cause the costs of goods and services to go up, which would then make living more expensive, necessitating an increase in the basic income and so forth...?

For example, say I'm a landlord. If everyone all of a sudden had an additional "base" income, why wouldn't I increase my rents to absorb at least a portion of that? Then, only people who had a job would still be able to afford to rent from me, while those on the basic income would be unable to afford it. I'm not out either way.

So you would say you need to introduce legislation to stop me from doing that, but the free market would abhor that and likely accuse you of being a communist. So you can't. So I'm failing to see the point of the whole exercise?

ramblerman• 10 years ago

Minimum-wage jobs would by necessity then need to pay more

The whole reason the debate is becoming so prominent now is just because minimum-wage jobs and even non minimum wage jobs will be replaced by robots/ai. The goods may even become cheaper.

adaml_623• 10 years ago

You need to read some analysis of this before asking basic questions like that. There are factors like unemployment rate, tax, and government efficiency to consider.

crdoconnor4• 10 years ago

The cost of inflation is spread across the whole economy. The brunt will mainly be borne by those holding large liquid cash reserves and owning loans, not minimum wagers.

empressplay15• 10 years ago

I still think that until the real estate question is resolved it's all a moot point. Already-inflated property markets will just become more inflated.

panic5• 10 years ago

Minimum-wage jobs would by necessity then need to pay more

That's the opposite of what's being proposed: the minimum income comes from the government, not employers. Minimum income can replace minimum wage.

Sure, but now that you've raised the price, there's an opportunity to undercut you that didn't exist before. The result ultimately depends on the supply and demand of housing. Just think of it like a bunch of slightly-richer people moving into the neighborhood. Prices will rise, but not enough to take all the new residents' extra money.

empressplay15• 10 years ago

This would only work in places where supply exceeded demand. In a landlords' market there is no reason to compete. All the same people who could afford to rent from you before can still afford to rent from you now, you're just charging them more.

keithnz• 10 years ago

with a UBI, you don't need a minimum wage. Also low end jobs will pay on top of a UBI, so it will be quite attractive if you don't have a lot of skills for higher paying work. Also with a UBI you have to balance it with a tax system that taxes wealth. In new zealand one of the advocates of UBI came up with a calculator for it ( simplified, but gives the idea of some of the levers you need to do it ) http://www.bigkahuna.org.nz/calculator/finance-minister.aspx

If you live in an area where there is a housing shortage, then yes, the market will drive things higher, but then a UBI lets people be a bit more mobile so people may move out of high rent areas more easily, also potentially driving up wages because less people are around to do needed work, but then as everyone gets pushed up, the tax will start to pull things back down. The whole point is income redistribution , especially in a society thats starts getting more and more automated.

idiot993• 10 years ago

There isn't huge support. Step out of the bubble...

It's just the new generation of kids flirting with communism.

gjm117• 10 years ago

I think you may not have it perfectly clear in your mind what "communism" means.

towlejunior• 10 years ago

Truly, the most predictable of all replies.

idiot993• 10 years ago

Perhaps you need to convince the public that having a large government handing out a specific allowance to everyone regardless of how hard they work, is somehow different to communism.

dang• 10 years ago

Please don't take HN threads on generic ideological tangents.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11619113 and marked it off-topic.

cmdli• 10 years ago

From the $1 trillon stated in the article, spread across 300 million people, each person would get around $3000 a year. That honestly doesn't seem like it would help a lot, considering it would replace current welfare systems. The Swiss proposal of around $2600 a month, implemented in the US, would cost nearly $10 trillion a year which doesn't really seem feasible.

I don't think the problem with basic income is an ideological one, its a numbers one. There simply isn't enough money to implement it without massively increasing taxes.

empressplay15• 10 years ago

...and how do you stop companies from hiking prices to absorb it?

UVB-763• 10 years ago

Purchasing power will still be increased through imports.

_Understated_8• 10 years ago

I absolutely agree but my biggest fear is that socialists don't give a shit and will push "progressive taxes".

I live in Scotland and they love the fact that they can raise taxes here now... they openly talk about it and very few people I know bat an eyelid!

But it's the curse of socialism imo: As long as you tax people earning more than me then I am fine with it.

Sadly, something I have heard too often

Edit: Spelling

gjm117• 10 years ago

There are some sorts of political proposal it's reasonable to be shocked at people talking openly about. For me, they're things like: Reintroducing slavery. Switching to communism. Putting people in prison for having the wrong religion. Expelling all black people from the country.

... Do I understand correctly that you consider raising taxes to be in this category?

cmdkeen• 10 years ago

Very few people bat an eyelid because the upcoming election is a guaranteed SNP win, and they aren't planning on raising taxes - despite claiming to be a more progressive party.

If Scotland was really keen for tax rises the SNP would implement them given they are currently focusing on nothing but winning sufficient support for a second Independence Referendum.

arethuza2• 10 years ago

"they openly talk about it"

Neither the SNP (by far the most powerful political party in Scotland) or the Conservatives (who look likely to be the 2nd most powerful party) are advocating tax rises.

Of course, there are people advocating tax rises - Labour, Lib Dems and the Socialists - but they are, of course, quite free to do this and the public will no doubt be just as free to not to vote for them.

gjm117• 10 years ago

If there is enough to implement it with a big tax increase but not without a big tax increase, and if that makes it infeasible ... isn't that exactly an ideological problem?

(For the avoidance of doubt, an ideological problem can be a serious real problem. If a basic income can't be implemented without a tax increase that voters would never tolerate, that's a good reason not to do it. If it can't be implemented without a tax increase that would wreck the economy, that's also a good reason not to do it, but I think that would rightly be called a numbers problem rather than an ideological one.)

ianpurton• 10 years ago

Doesn't the US spend that much already on quantitative easing :) ?

crdoconnor4• 10 years ago

$10 trillion a year which doesn't really seem feasible.

There's nothing infeasible about spending $10 trillion a year. The US can quite literally print and spend as much as it likes in dollar terms. The only limiting factor is inflation.

As soon as public spending starts causing ~> 12% inflation year on year you need to start worrying about "can the country afford this?". Not until then. The government certainly wasn't worrying about the total dollar number during the war or the last bank bailout.

felipeerias• 10 years ago

The main problem with a general basic income is that it would be enormously wasteful, regressive and unfair. If you have a good economic situation, 250$/month is peanuts. If you are grasping for air, it won't be enough; even more so if it comes at the expense of getting rid of public programmes that can target concrete problems and leverage economies of scale.

Other approaches (e.g. minimum guaranteed income for the jobless and tax credits for the working poor) look like a far better use of resources.

takno5• 10 years ago

If you're earning more you will effectively pay the money back in higher taxes, so the transfer will be much the same as for a minimum guaranteed income, but without the costly administration, confusing rules and moral judgement that come with minimum guaranteed incomes

notahacker8• 10 years ago

Of course, when you do introduce actual numbers and note that poor people looking for work generally get more than $3000 per year in benefits, and early retirees and stay-at-home spouses generally don't, arguments against a proposal that would in practice take away from the former class of people and give to the latter become a profoundly ideological argument.

corin_3• 10 years ago

The Swiss proposal of around $2600 a month, implemented in the US, would cost nearly $10 trillion a year which doesn't really seem feasible.

That number sounds higher than it would effectively be:

1) The population is ~320m, but ~65m of those are under the age of 16 (add on another 8m if you say under 18), who presumably don't need the same $2600/month right from when they are babies. That shaves of $2.8trillion

2) Some people currently on benefits will get to keep all of the $2,600, some people will break even receiving $2,600 and paying an extra $2,600 in tax, and at the richer end of the spectrum they will receive $2,600 and pay more than $2,600 back, to balance it out across society. Even before you start counting the extra money you get from taxing the rich with more than the free income they receive, if you draw a line at the median of society and say that everyone richer than that pays back the $2,600 they receive each month in tax (i.e. saying the richest half don't need this basic income) then that's $3.8trillion that is technically being given out but immediately bein taken back by the Government. (Hopefully they negotiate good bank fees! Obviously the benefit to this seemingly pointless giving out and taking back of money is not having to deal with the legwork of judging who deserves benefits.)

So that's cut almost $10trillion down to ~$3.8trillion that's actually being given out.

3) Now take off current welfare costs. Wikipedia says "Total Social Security and Medicare expenditures in 2013 were $1.3 trillion" and I'm too lazy to find a figure that doesn't include Medicare. Let's imagine that it's split 50/50, we have $3.2trillion left to find.

And this is when you start moving the line we drew down the middle of society and figuring out what % of the $2,600 different levels of society should get to keep or have to pay back in tax or have to pay extra in tax. If you think the rough amount of welfare spent on society currently is right then you can balance it so that less people get supported and less taxes are needed. If you think more people should receive more support and richer people should pay even higher taxes to cover that then it can be pushed in that direction.

The simplest way to logically think "can it be balanced?" is to imagine that 100% of the population gets given $2,600 (or whatever amount) each month, and 100% gets taxed that exact same amount. Everyone is receiving that basic income, and (other than relatively small admin costs) the program is break even. Then you just play with numbers, always balancing both sides, to redistribute wealth from richer people to poorer people (which is already what the welfare system does).

xienze2• 10 years ago

we have $3.2trillion left to find.

Bear in mind that the current US budget is $3.8 trillion dollars. So even in this best case scenario we have to nearly double our budget. There just isn't enough income to make this work.

rhino3694• 10 years ago

You probably have to give children some sort of amount. Maybe even the full amount. The public isn't going to buy into a program that gives an abled bodied man who smokes pot and plays WoW all day the full share but give a single mom the 4 kids the same amount.

There is also no way this would work if 50% of the country doesn't really get the income because you raise their taxes to take it back. Middle class taxes are a third rail in American politics. Even socialist Bernie Sanders won't raise their taxes.

You'd be better off just raising the earned income tax credit.

jasiek• 10 years ago

Looks like this topic needs a serious longitudal study. This being a hot political topic virtually guarantees no one will conduct one.

abhi152• 10 years ago

The simple answer is : A subsidy of such large proportions is not economically viable for the Govt.

heckerboy• 10 years ago

I will say that if the US ever got a basic income, I wouldn't have a reason to kill myself anymore.

aminok4• 10 years ago

Living on money taken by force from others is an easy solution, but it is not an ethical one. If you feel like you have a reason to kill yourself, you need to find someone to talk to about this, not look to the government, and the fruits of its authority, for your salvation. It's not lack of resources that makes someone suicidal. It's a deficiency in your ability to address the challenges you face in your life.

Again: the solution is to talk to someone. There are many who go through what you do, and there are many people out there who can help. You're not alone.

ww52013• 10 years ago

The Fed engineers a slow inflation every year via interest rate control and gives the benefit of the newly created money to banks, the loan borrowers, and asset holders as rates lower than keeping inflation at zero. Since the money supply increases anyway, might as well give the new money as basic income to ALL people. At least the money will be spent directly by the people for economic activities, instead of indirectly via the loans and asset inflation.

The Fed can raise interest rate to shrink the money supply for banks and borrowers while give more direct cash to expand the money supply via basic income. This can be in addition to the government's budget spending on basic income.

An interesting outcome is the deflation of the asset bubble as rate increases. The money supply expansion via direct cash counters the deflation in economy. This should reverse the trend of the great wealth transfer to the asset holders in the last 20 years.

jfaucett• 10 years ago

i agree with you, but am doubtful as to whether they'll do it. The gov't and its nearest banking buddies benefit enormously from the new money before it inflates outward across the economy and devalues.

ChrisLomont9• 10 years ago

The benefit is not given to the banks - the money is added through asset purchases on open market sales. The Fed owns more assets (usually Treasuries) and the bank has cash. If you want to get in on it, buy Treasuries.

Next, the Fed avoid targeting zero inflation, because it's currently impossible to hit that number so exactly, and they desire to avoid deflationary spirals. The past 150 years has shown across hundreds of countries that the current solution is vastly better than the boom and bust cycles previous, and has also demonstrated the benefit of fiat over commodity (like gold). There are ample papers showing this in the econ literature, and is the primary reason not a single country tries to use previous methods.

Next, new money is added through asset purchases, not giveaways, so it's erroneous to think this money can just be handed to individuals as cash, unless perhaps those individuals were selling assets to the Fed of equal value.

Next, the target is usually around 2%, and the money supply is around 2T, resulting in 400B a year, or, 2K a year per adult, which is nice, but hardly a basic income. It's more like a tax break. It's hardly going to change wealth transfers, since most people will just consume it, and the wealth would go back to companies, mostly the ones you decry above.

Finally, when the Fed targets low inflation, that would dry up the basic income, and I don't think giving people such a variable and uncertain income would do well for planning and stability. Soon people would clamor and elect politicians that guaranteed the Fed would pay X per year, defeating the entire mechanism the Fed uses to stabilize markets.

humanrebar5• 10 years ago

If you want to get in on it, buy Treasuries.

Let them eat cake?

...they desire to avoid deflationary spirals.

I've never really understood this. Dropping prices (see the recent changes in oil prices) are really good for the impoverished, at least in the short run. If we are really talking about a post-scarcity economy, wouldn't deflation indicate efficiency and be a good thing?

ww52013• 10 years ago

Good point you raised about FOMC directly injecting money. That's another case how the Fed benefits the banks and the Have's directly. Fed buys and sells treasury to create and destroy money but with more money created over time to encourage inflation. The extra money created are given to the treasury sellers with better pricing over time. The people without treasury are left out of the new money created. Of course the banks benefited from the extra money; FOMC only deals with the 22 big banks and the primary bond traders.

Besides FOMC, loan is a bigger money creation mechanism. With 10% fractional reserve, the banks can lend out 10X of what they have. In that case interest rate dictates how much loan actually lent out and how much money actually created. By raising or lowering interest rate, the Fed increases or decreases the overall loan amount. Lowered interest rate encourages bigger loan amount, vastly increases the money supply for assets, leading to the current asset bubble.

Basic income can become another mechanism for the Fed to inject money. The Fed can buy less treasury, raise rate, and give out more in basic income.

People spending the extra money and companies earning them are good. Companies earning money via products and services are good. This encourages more products and services, and more employment. Instead the new money created now are given to the asset holders and locked up in assets.

Edit: QE was another money creation mechanism and it hugely benefited the banks. The Fed bought assets at inflated price from the banks with created money.

Kenji3• 10 years ago

"The past 150 years has shown across hundreds of countries that the current solution is vastly better than the boom and bust cycles previous, and has also demonstrated the benefit of fiat over commodity (like gold)."

Uh, no. Quite the contrary. Since the abolition of the gold standard, our economies were prone to fluctuations like they haven't been in decades. Because then the (central) banks can meddle with the quantity of our money to their liking.

MicroBerto17• 10 years ago

Regarding inflation... if everyone instantly has $X now, doesn't $X become worthless?

For instance, why would landlords not raise rents knowing that everyone now has this cash?

drabiega• 10 years ago

Because that's not how markets work. The ones that try would loose all their business to those that didn't.

arebop• 10 years ago

I expect we would see a general price level increase if we used inflation to fund a basic income. But because it destroys household wealth in proportion to the wealth of the household and creates household wealth uniformly throughout the population, the net effect is not just higher numbers on the currency but also flatter distributions of wealth and income.

As for landlords specifically: the renters already have $x they are not using for rent, so why don't the landlords get that? If there is no good or service that absorbs all the money right now, there's no reason to think there would be one for the marginal money of a basic income scheme.

ww52013• 10 years ago

The problem is not inflation. It happens already. The problem is the new money created causing the inflation is given to the asset holders and banks, not to everyone.

Rent increases now, due to inflation. The general public have to give more despite not getting the created money. Landlords got the benefit of rising rent due to inflation and rising housing price due to lower interest rate to create more money.

Basic income just shifts the inflated money to everyone instead of just the asset holders.

belorn• 10 years ago

Because the world doesn't work like that? if it did, we would be paying the same proportional amount of income to rent today in 2016 as we did during 1970. We don't. Just because there is more money doesn't mean that you get proportional increase in construction, maintained demand for housing, or demand for land for which houses are built on. It doesn't change how government rezones in order to control rents in cities.

Rent is not some basic formula derived from the average income.

azernik• 10 years ago

Because all money is the same; basic income dollars are indistinguishable from the rest of the dollars out there.

What would happen (if you funded this by printing money rather than taxation) is that the value of the dollar would fall by (monetary value of basic income payment) / (total number of circulating dollars), creating a redistribution effect similar to that of a taxation scheme, but less planned out.

logfromblammo3• 10 years ago

In the short term, inflation does happen. This is because the economic allocations were done according to the old distribution of incomes, which is to say disproportionately benefiting the desires of the rich. Demand changes while supply remains the same.

So lower-income housing landlords do raise their rents. Grocery stores raise prices on their beef. Low-end used cars get more expensive. More dollars chase the same quantity of goods and services.

But basic income continues into the long run. It becomes a business opportunity to undercut those inflated prices, to capture more of the basic income flow for yourself. An entrepreneur builds lower-income housing and charges lower than the prevailing rents, immediately poaching business from the opportunist landlords, who now have to compete with one another to keep tenants.

As additional competitors enter the market, the economic allocations change to match the newer distribution of incomes. More businesses that serve lower-income people become viable, so more economic activity occurs to cater to that sector. Fewer businesses that serve higher-income people remain viable, because they are taxed more. It slowly becomes more expensive to be rich, and less expensive to be poor.

In the long run, wealth distribution flattens and is less self-reinforcing. More than a few people would be willing to walk a higher wire if they were given a stronger safety net, choosing risky entrepreneurship rather than safer employment. Prices only remain high if existing businesses are protected from competition.

some-guy• 10 years ago

If I understand correctly, the money isn't printed -- it's redistributed. The money supply isn't increasing, but it could be that money is more likely to be spent in the short term than sitting in a bank somewhere.

gjm117• 10 years ago

This article says it's talking about a universal basic income, and makes the usual point that a completely universal, no-strings-attached income is simple to administer, doesn't have poverty traps, etc.

And then, towards the end where it starts looking at numbers, it starts saying things like

But by excluding 45 million retirees who already receive a basic income through Social Security, the cost falls to $2.7 trillion. And if the benefit is phased out for households earning more than $100,000 (that would be 20 percent of the U.S.'s 115 million households, or about 70 million people, assuming three to a household), the cost declines to about $2 trillion. You could confine the program to adults and shrink the price tag even more, possibly to as low as $1.5 trillion.

Yes, you can reduce the amount paid out by making it not a universal basic income scheme any more. But that rather misses the point.

(The correct thing to say here is: Yes, a universal basic income sufficient to keep everyone out of poverty would be really expensive. Taxes would need to go up a lot, which would leave wealthier people less well off than they are now. If you don't want a large-scale redistribution of wealth, then you don't want a BI scheme sufficient to keep everyone out of poverty. But you might still want to consider a BI scheme that's not sufficient to keep everyone out of poverty, to simplify and to reduce poverty traps. No one would have to be much worse off then. But it wouldn't be enough for anyone to live on, and would still need supplementing by other safety nets.)

yummyfajitas22• 10 years ago

It's not just wealthier people who will be worse off - it's everyone.

Basic income is known to create a large disincentive for work. In previous experiments (Mincome) labor supply dropped by about 10% - double what happened during the great recession.

This means that fewer working mothers can find child care, fewer laborers to mow your lawn, fewer nurses, fewer teachers, etc. No matter how much money you give to people, fewer services provided makes us all become poorer. That's simple arithmetic.

pjc508• 10 years ago

Except it's not simple arithmetic, because the normal economy doesn't count - cannot assign - a value to work done for yourself or your family.

Someone going out to work and paying a large fraction of their income for child care is counted, whereas someone staying home and looking after their children is not. Only the first has value in an economic sense. Is it the only work that has value in a moral sense?

lostcolony• 10 years ago

Where are you finding a drop of 10%? All I can find is "On the whole, the research results were encouraging to those who favour a GAI. The reduction in work effort was modest: about one per cent for men, three per cent for wives, and five per cent for unmarried women. These are small effects in absolute terms and they are also smaller than the effects observed in the four US experiments, a result that once again confirms the importance of not simply importing US research results and applying them to the Canadian context, with its different labour market institutions, practices, attitudes and social support programs."

From http://archive.irpp.org/po/archive/jan01/hum.pdf

Meanwhile, other studies have shown productivity actually increased when basic income was instituted amongst extreme poverty - http://www.bignam.org/BIG_pilot.html

shostack2• 10 years ago

Funny thing happens when labor supply drops...prices for labor go up. In this case, the market would determine how much they'd need to go up by to get enough people doing things to meet demand. It may be more than many want to pay, but such is life.

pessimizer2• 10 years ago

The price of servants will go up, yes. And the price of prostitutes, too - nobody's thinking about that!

schrodinger• 10 years ago

Is 10% less work necessarily a bad thing? Couldn't this be supplemented with technology via automation?

blurbleblurble5• 10 years ago

I'll have you know that money itself tends to disincentivise work for a lot of people. In this economy, monied relationships are too often wage slavery. People think that they can pay me to work on something I don't love. You are sitting here talking about people mowing your effing lawn. Are you kidding me? If you aren't gonna do that yourself, why in the dear beloved earth should you expect some stranger to do it except out of either good will or fear? Sure, you can get some deeply fearful stranger to sit in the same building day in and day out, doing your dishes and pouring you coffee, putting their own individuation on hold for your career, just to have basic economic security. But in the big picture, a whole world of people out of touch with what they love is bad for the planet itself.

Many people never get a chance to discover a passionate relationship with work. Collectively, when we kick the habit of forcing people into doing things out of fear (with money) means that a lot of people are gonna be feeling like fish out of water. Generations of slaves don't just jump out of their chains eager to get working again.

rskar• 10 years ago

I am wondering how bad the disincentive to work really is. In the microcosm of my family home, our kids have their basic needs (and then some) met, they receive allowances, and yet they still seek ways to earn extra money. My expectation is that there are plenty of humans in our nation (let alone the world) who will have desires that will outstrip the about $10,000 of basic income. For anyone in business fretting on available labor, it seems the costs of wages, benefits, and maintaining a work environment suitable for human activity is a much bigger issue - which are mostly addressed by ever growing use of automation. There's already talk of $15/hr wages spurring on ever more automation at fast-food restaurants and retailers - and that $15/hr push being made largely because of the number of people who receive government assistance while holding down jobs (http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2015/04/13/get-a-job-most-wel...).

Anyway, per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mincome, this 5 year study has many qualifiers placed upon why the drop in labor, with the more interesting of these involving child care, education, and mental health: The results showed an impact on labor markets, with working hours dropping one percent for men, three percent for married women, and five percent for unmarried women. However, some have argued these drops may be artificially low because participants knew the guaranteed income was temporary. These decreases in hours worked may be seen as offset by the opportunity cost of more time for family and education. Mothers spent more time rearing newborns, and the educational impacts are regarded as a success. Students in these families showed higher test scores and lower dropout rates. There was also an increase in adults continuing education. ... Manitoban economist Evelyn Forget conducted an analysis of the program in 2009 which was published in 2011. She found that only new mothers and teenagers worked substantially less. Mothers with newborns stopped working because they wanted to stay at home longer with their babies, and teenagers worked less because they weren't under as much pressure to support their families, which resulted in more teenagers graduating. In addition, those who continued to work were given more opportunities to choose what type of work they did. Forget found that in the period that Mincome was administered, hospital visits dropped 8.5 percent, with fewer incidents of work-related injuries, and fewer emergency room visits from accidents and injuries. Additionally, the period saw a reduction in rates of psychiatric hospitalization, and in the number of mental illness-related consultations with health professionals.

toomanythings2• 10 years ago

This is a fact that I first learned in high school 45 years ago.

blfr3• 10 years ago

You have been arguing against basic income for years now, and with some really good points[1], but I think you consistently miss the main attraction of the idea to the HN crowd.

Many here believe that if people weren't forced to work for income, they would be doing things that are more valuable but also more difficult to monetize (at least initially but perhaps generally), like open source development. There is an underlying belief that vast creative talents are untapped or wasted because of the need to work for money. It's the intellectual's dream lifestyle. One that used to be possible for writers and academics.

Other reasons are largely an afterthought. That's why basic job for example is not a convincing counterargument despite the numbers. This is not really about helping the poor, that would be an auxiliary benefit at best.

[1] https://www.chrisstucchio.com/blog/2013/basic_income_vs_basi...

legutierr6• 10 years ago

labor supply dropped by about 10%

Isn't this the exact effect you would want, if you are instituting basic income partly as a response to structural unemployment as a result of automation?

fewer working mothers can find child care, fewer laborers to mow your lawn, fewer nurses, fewer teachers, etc.

Maybe these jobs start paying more. How is that bad? With basic income, more mothers would be able to stay home with their kids, more people would care for their own homes, and the nurses and teachers we need would see bigger paychecks.

Net, I don't see how society is worse off under that arrangement. It sounds a lot like how life was in this country before huge income disparities made hiring servants normal for people with means.

It's not just wealthier people who will be worse off - it's everyone.

You assert this, but your comment doesn't successfully back up your assertion.

deanCommie• 10 years ago

fewer working mothers can find child care, fewer laborers to mow your lawn, fewer nurses, fewer teachers, etc.

First of all, even if the people in positions like this were only working for sustenance and UBI provides it for them, it doesn't mean some wouldn't want to continue working to make even MORE money. UBI is a baseline, not welfare. If previously a lawn mowing job was only enough for rent and food, maybe now with UBI it'd be enough for rent, food, and the occasional dinner and a movie. Ain't nothing wrong with that.

But you're right, at least some people would definitely completely exit the work force. Well, that just means the salaries of the rest would go up. Simple economics. Does that mean that some working families can no longer afford to pay a new immigrant bottom dollar to mow their lawn and instead have to pitch in themselves? Maybe so. Is that so bad.

Okay, you say, but what about those working mothers that are barely making enough money to be able to afford the most basic child care while they make their income? Good news - UBI also helps THEM too so either they no longer need to work if all they're doing is getting by to keep a roof over the child's head, or they have enough extra to pay for the increase in child care.

I'm not saying "don't worry about, it'll all sort itself out". This is a very complex policy with millions of consequences to our societies - intended and unintended. A lot of research must be done, and also experimentation. But to say that with UBI everyone would be worse off is ridiculous bordering on propagandistic.

lmm4• 10 years ago

Aren't you assuming that leisure time is worthless there?

Suppose country A consists of 99 peasants and 1 plutocrat. The peasants work full-time and the plutocrat consumes their entire economic output living a life of fabulous luxury. Country B consists of 100 people who work part-time and live simple lives that they can afford. Country A produces more goods and services and has a higher GDP than country B - let's say twice as high. Nevertheless it is reasonable to consider country B better-off.

Edit: The above is probably conflating some unrelated issues, so let's just simplify: country A works full-time (40hrs/week) and spends their leisure time expensively, country B works part-time (20hrs/week) and spends their leisure time cheaply. Country A's GDP is twice that of country B in the obvious way. Is country A really better off than country B? (If you're going to make a revealed preferences argument about working hours then bear in mind that there are very few less-than-full-time jobs on offer, partly an artifact of the way current regulations treat full- and part-time jobs)

vocatus_gate• 10 years ago

It's so strange. It's almost as if people don't work if they don't have to.

zby• 10 years ago

"Participants who worked had their mincome supplement reduced by 50 cents for every dollar they earned by working." - that is not Universal Basic Income.

"... found that only new mothers and teenagers worked substantially less. Mothers with newborns stopped working because they wanted to stay at home longer with their babies, and teenagers worked less because they weren't under as much pressure to support their families, which resulted in more teenagers graduating."

And that does not sound bad at all and it rather counters the lack of supply of nannies (if there was such).

(Quotes from wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mincome)

clavalle3• 10 years ago

Basic income is known to create a large disincentive for work. In previous experiments (Mincome) labor supply dropped by about 10%

So what? Those people spent their time on things they valued more than the money they could earn by selling it. This just shows that they were underpaid for the value of their time through the threat of imminent pain of starvation or homelessness.

The market will adjust and pay those people more if the value they create and the profits reapable from their labor make that paid labor worth it.

Low value jobs will go away.

Some of that freed time will be spent on consuming, no doubt, but much will be spent on longer horizon value adding activities like schooling or starting businesses or more efficient uses like taking care of children.

dllthomas4• 10 years ago

Not only are your numbers misleading (we've dug into that in depth in previous conversations - the students who choose to spend more time on their studies are not producing tremendous, irreplaceable value), but the comparison is absurd. The problem in Great Depression was not that too many people chose not to work because they had sufficient other sources of income - pretty close to the opposite.

gdubs• 10 years ago

What you left out is that the Mincome program also lowered hospital visits and work-related injuries. Yes, I hear you saying, "of course, less work == less workplace injuries." But what's important is the effect fewer injuries has on productivity. This happened with the 40 hour workweek laws introduced by the New Deal. Fewer injuries, better productivity numbers over the long run. [1] This study was short-lived and should at least be repeated with better controls before we make blanket statements about what will and won't work.

You also gloss over the fact that it allowed mothers to stay home with their children. The benefit to society and productivity of stronger families shouldn't be understated.

Finally, you assume that people would stop cutting lawns, nursing, and providing childcare – why?

1: The Rise and Fall of American Growth: http://press.princeton.edu/titles/10544.html

randomgyatwork• 10 years ago

Doesn't less participate also increase pay rates? Those who do work will end up making more because there are few people to drive down their wages?

stonemetal• 10 years ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mincome

Not sure where you got your numbers from. Wikipedia suggest that it was not even half that.

The results showed an impact on labor markets, with working hours dropping one percent for men, three percent for married women, and five percent for unmarried women.

bsder• 10 years ago

This means that fewer working mothers can find child care, fewer laborers to mow your lawn, fewer nurses, fewer teachers, etc. No matter how much money you give to people, fewer services provided makes us all become poorer. That's simple arithmetic.

This is, in fact, precisely backwards. There are plenty of jobs that people simply cannot do because they cannot make a living at them both through lack of money as well as lack of stability. Social workers, elderly healthcare support, child care, etc. are all very poorly paid and basically not worth doing if you have any other choice.

With a UBI, people can work those jobs for very small amounts of money knowing that they are covered.

jklinger4102• 10 years ago

Any lack of production will be made up for easily by eliminating redundant positions in many businesses and automation.

newjersey4• 10 years ago

I'm one of the people who supports excluding people under the age of eighteen from basic income.

creshal2• 10 years ago

Most countries have dozens to hundreds of government programs (a dozen federal, a dozen per state, another dozen per city, …) to support parents of underage children. You'd get rid of a lot of administrative overhead by outphasing all of them in favour of including children into basic income (maybe at a fixed reduced rate if expenses are a concern).

wiz21c• 10 years ago

You do realize that there are people less than eighteen years old who are parents ?

theseatoms• 10 years ago

You can be more precise by only excluding actual dependents.

goda902• 10 years ago

How about children are included, then provide X% to parents for child care expenses, and X% to a fund that the child can't access until 18. That way we don't have to do free higher education. Public universities can expect each student to have close to XXXXX dollars saved away and set tuition accordingly.

timlyo2• 10 years ago

I think the article is talking more about the difference from the current system.

But by excluding 45 million retirees who already receive a basic income through Social Security, the cost falls to $2.7 trillion.

These retirees can be excluded from the calculation because they are already being paid, they wouldn't add any additional cost to the system.

jackreichert2• 10 years ago

Is it fair to say they're being paid if they paid into the system paying them for their entire working lives? Can someone please explain why people call Social Security an entitlement? Am I missing something?

brightball5• 10 years ago

To make it work you'd have to take whatever the amount is and extract it from all other government benefit programs.

You get $700 / month from the government for basic income. Your social security, welfare, unemployment, disability, etc is reduced by $700 / month. Reducing all of those programs by the first $700 would effectively gut each of them enough to finally make some reforms without inducing panic in everyone who uses them.

If you were to implement the Fair Tax, which includes a stipend for basic needs, you'd get bipartisan support as well. The only difference is that you increase the stipend to the level of the BI.

For kids, you give the parents their basic income until they hit school age and then the BI goes towards funding their school. This would also enable people who wanted to utilize private schools a much easier choice by essentially becoming a voucher.

No loan could utilize the BI as security...except for student loans. That would allow driving down of interest rates as well as default aversion too. Payments could be automatically extract from the BI since student loans would finally be secured against something other that expected future earnings.

goda902• 10 years ago

Or instead, give it universally to children, but require a certain percentage be saved in some sort of fund that they are given full control of when they turn 18. That way the parents don't have to shoulder all of the expense of a child, but the child isn't screwed over by irresponsible parents either.

notahacker8• 10 years ago

Why would you get bipartisan support for the FairTax? Redesigning the tax structure to favour millionaires (massive net beneficiaries because their US consumption expenditure is usually a tiny fraction of their capital gains tax and/or income tax bills) over the middle classes (no matter how high the stipend is someone has to pay for the millionaires' tax cut) isn't exactly a popular proposal even on the right

That said, agree with your main point that making BI deductible from [mostly] retained existing benefit entitlements is the least messy way of introducing it, but it also makes it more politically difficult since it's paid for purely by tax increases.

throwanem2• 10 years ago

You get $700 / month from the government for basic income.

I thought the idea was that it be enough to live on.

ThrustVectoring2• 10 years ago

IMO social security is too much of a hot button issue to touch. I'd market UBI as "social security for everyone" - that sets both the level that people get, and neatly removes the issue of giving both UBI and social security to retirees.

dragonwriter26• 10 years ago

If you were to implement the Fair Tax, which includes a stipend for basic needs, you'd get bipartisan support as well.

No, you wouldn't. Flat tax proposals and national sales tax proposals like the "FairTax", have support almost exclusively on the right (and each particular such proposal has minority support on the right.) You won't get bipartisan support for any of them.

prostoalex4• 10 years ago

You get $700 / month from the government for basic income. Your social security, welfare, unemployment, disability, etc is reduced by $700 / month.

What happens to Medicare under that scenario? Some medical procedures, particularly for old people, can exceed that.

Current federal government revenues top out at $3 trillion. Dividing it by a rough population number of 300 million (and ignoring the fact that portion of it comes from corporate income tax, excise taxes, etc.), the revenues collected stand at $10,000 a year a citizen. Distributing $8,400 a year back requires rather deep cuts to every single entitlement program and then some (defense, USPS, air traffic controllers, national parks, etc.)

mmanfrin• 10 years ago

  If you were to implement the Fair Tax, which includes a stipend for 
  basic needs, you'd get bipartisan support as well

Poe's Law is pinging.

phkahler• 10 years ago

"fair tax" is the stupidest thing ever. How do you implement a progressive tax on consumption? You'd have to keep track of every purchase a person makes to know how much they've spent. It's worse than keeping track of income, and it's also a massive surveillance tool. Then there's the whole problem that people who have lower income will pay a higher percentage of it in tax. There is nothing good about that scheme.

karmacondon• 10 years ago

The only way I can see UBI working is if most people get no benefit. So someone making the average US income of $50,000/yr would get a check for $20k from the government and then see their taxes go up by ~$20k. Rich people would pay much more, effectively transferring their wealth to the poor. People who are solidly middle class wouldn't see much change, except having a new class of potential customers (the people that used to be poor).

PietdeVries6• 10 years ago

I fear it will only increase inflation to a level that the 10k people get is representing about the same in goods as the current level is they have. Free money is fake: it doesn't work in my opinion. It either increases the price level (hey - even the poor bum gets 10k a year, so he can afford a $10 bread, isn't it?) or it will stop people from over-achieving. My motivation to earn extra with a job only to see it go to taxes would reduce significantly if I can remain at the same level without a job and just 2 or 3 extra kids :)

caseysoftware• 10 years ago

Yes, you can reduce the amount paid out by making it not a universal basic income scheme any more. But that rather misses the point.

You are entirely correct.. but I think you're missing the point.

Think of that first description as the marketing pitch to the general public. By saying it is universal and "free" to administer, it gets people behind it who don't think through the consequences.. which is a large chunk of the target audience. They are also the people who could put amicable politicians in power and keep them there.

But a "no-strings-attached" basic income would force politicians to give up the one thing they desire more than anything: power. So the second description with the actual mechanics of it, is for those people who actually get to administer the "free" program and tie their strings to groups, situations, and behaviors they want to punish or promote.

I am as free market as they come and find myself intrigued by the UBI... but the thing that prevents me from supporting it is that politicians and political systems DO NOT give up power so the "we can get rid of everything else" line is obviously a lie.

throwaway420• 10 years ago

But a "no-strings-attached" basic income would force politicians to give up the one thing they desire more than anything: power.

I tend to think the exact opposite is true: a universal basic income is conceivably one of the most massive power grabs imaginable.

If this comes to pass in America, you're going to have a large chunk of the population COMPLETELY dependent on the government's teat. And ultimately, a population that's dependent on the government for their means of survival (even if its spun as "no strings attached") is indirectly under total political control.

Lawtonfogle2• 10 years ago

This article says it's talking about a universal basic income, and makes the usual point that a completely universal, no-strings-attached income is simple to administer, doesn't have poverty traps, etc.

Does anyone advocate giving it to everyone?

What about children? Does a child get the same as an adult?

What about non-citizens who are in the nation legally?

What about non-citizens who are in the nation illegally?

What about citizen children of non-citizens who are in the nation illegally?

There are consequences to saying yes to any of these we need to think through, but perhaps more importantly, is there even a chance of passing some of these (could you imagine the Republican attack on answering yes to either of the last two?).

Unklejoe14• 10 years ago

The only feasible approach in my opinion:

[What about children? Does a child get the same as an adult?]

Yes, but the funds are stored in an account and are inaccessible to them until a certain age is met (or they qualify as an independent, similar to how the FAFSA (doesn't) work).

[What about non-citizens who are in the nation legally?]

No.

[What about non-citizens who are in the nation illegally?]

No.

[What about citizen children of non-citizens who are in the nation illegally?]

Yes.

dragonwriter26• 10 years ago

On the issue of children, non citizens, etc., my personal view of the best way for a UBI to work are:

What about children? Does a child get the same as an adult?

Maybe; if so, the child's allotment goes to the legal guardian (and, like the guardian's own UBI, is treated as income for tax and other purposes), but you also eliminate child-care related tax deductions and credits.

What about non-citizens who are in the nation legally? What about non-citizens who are in the nation illegally?

I would lean toward saying citizens and legal permanent residents (green card holders) get UBI. Others do not (note that this includes non-immigrant work visa holders, like H-1Bs), though in the odd case of a non-UBI-eligible (but legally present) parent with a UBI-eligible child, the parent would be eligible to draw the child's UBI, just as a parent with their own UBI eligibility with a UBI-eligible child would.

What about citizen children of non-citizens who are in the nation illegally?

That's...trickier. My preference would be that the citizen child would get an allotment, but that the guardian would have to normalize status to draw that allotment. The details of that are more for a discussion of immigration policy than UBI policy though.

An even trickier question is non-resident citizens, and particularly non-resident U.S. citizen children of non-resident non-citizens.

amelius2• 10 years ago

Can't we just taper it "on" and see what the effects are? For instance, in the first year everybody gets 10% UBI, second year 20% UBI, etc. until 100% UBI.

If by year 10 the economy still functions as desired, we keep UBI. Otherwise we taper it off again.

Unklejoe14• 10 years ago

The only way for this approach to work would be to define the metrics of "success" before starting this taper process. Also, it would need to be implemented in such a way that makes the process unstoppable.

Otherwise, it will be nearly impossible to taper "off" in the event of a failure.

It's easy to start giving people money that they never had, but once they have a taste, it's going to be hard to take it away.

sokoloff11• 10 years ago

You lose support from many people if the plan doesn't include dismantling massive government agencies responsible for other support/giveaway programs.

You can't dismantle those until you're at the 90+% range of any reasonable UBI payout.

clarkmoody4• 10 years ago

You forget that the thing voters want and the law that hits the books are often very different. By the time any measure gets out of Congress, it will, by necessity, have been carved up and divvied out, with all sort of exemptions and special cases and kickbacks.

JulianMorrison• 10 years ago

Taxes would go up. But previously blocked productivity would be released, and socially desirable but marginal services would become viable.

nostrebored• 10 years ago

That's a significantly more optimistic outlook than the idea that prices would inflate relative to the UBI stipend handed out. Particularly around staples like food, rent, etc.

kybernetyk• 10 years ago

With high tax rates my perviously released productivity would get blocked though. I sure as hell wouldn't do the work I'm currently doing with a 80% tax rate attached.

vlunkr2• 10 years ago

Can someone explain to me how a true basic income would be expected to work? If you're not excluding anyone, where does this massive amount of money come from? I suppose it has to be taxed out of the wealthy? So they still receive the income but pay it back in taxes? This is an honest inquiry.

Yes you can save money by cutting these programs, but that argument doesn't add up for me yet because you still have to pay EVERY person in the country. (or is it every adult)

dazmax• 10 years ago

Yes the rich would probably pay more even with getting their basic income. The point of giving it to everyone is to reduce the administrative cost of figuring out who qualifies, and to get rid of "welfare cliffs" that give poor people a disincentive to earn more for fear of losing assistance programs.

dllthomas4• 10 years ago

Yes, you tax it back. Typically proposals include a flat tax (or flat tax increase) to pay for it. In that case, you net extra money from the system if you make more than the mean, and you net pay into the system if you make more than the mean, but there are no hard cliffs and your next dollar earned still means more money in your pocket at any point.

composer• 10 years ago

(Pardon the incredulous-sounding intro but...)

Actually you can pay for it. Exactly because any regular ordinary person can pay for it. Exactly because abundance is inherently free. (For the rest of the comment I'll redefine the label "you" to be one single ordinary person who wants to make a basic income happen IRL.) [0]

Abundance is free because it defeats the fundamental condition required for a scarcity-allocating market. That fundamental condition is: there is not enough for everybody. For example, try selling stray kittens in a neighborhood overrun with stray cats. No scarcity, no market price. In contrast, basic income requires abundance otherwise you have no business trying to universally share something you don't have enough of. Everybody can't have formula one race cars and red bottom heels. So just to be explicit:

With a universal basic income, you should only seek to share only those things you have in abundance. And since abundance is free, you are merely

  **seeking to share free shit**.

  **Abundance cycles**

A) Armed with the above perspective, you launch a form of self-sustaining loop called an abundance cycle. You take out a home equity loan for $25K. You use $15K of that $25K to build [1], or buy [2], a THOW ("tiny house on wheels").

B) You give the tiny house to a handy builder-type who redirects the savings in rent towards spending more time building, you guessed it, more tiny houses. You use the remaining $10K to cover materials for the initial THOWs that the builder builds from scratch.

  **Ride free**

C) The next THOW is gifted to a mechanic. The mechanic brings transportation into the abundance cycle. D) Y'all build, then sell a third THOW to buy requisite parts/materials for the mechanic's transportation phase. E) Mechanic personage, freed from financial shackles of keeping a roof overhead, begins spitting out reliable autos restored from $3K jalopies and hoopties found on craigslist [3]. They alternatively build electric bikes [4] and velomobiles [5] if requested over a car.

  **Gotta eat**

F) Your circle of three, all saving on rent and transportation, is now able to repeat the process to bring a grower into the loop. A house and car is gifted to a combination aquaponics [6] grower, diy soylent [7] mixer, mealsquare [8] baker and cricket powder [9] integrator.

  **Zap that**

G) Next, the self-sustaining circle does its amoeba thing to encompass a solar installer. The installer works with the builder to produce, or retrofit, THOWs topped with solar panels [10]. The circle goes off grid if/when desired. Now you've got food, shelter, transportation, and energy all covered.

  **Highly contagious**

H) You assemble the circle, affectionately calling itself the "amoeba initiative". It meets and decides to split into two organisms. I) The first organism focuses on gifting houses, transports, foods and electricities to as many people as possible as fast as possible. "Build two, sell one, gift one, repeat" is it's poorly-chosen motto. Gifts are first made to contagion vectors, namely giftees most able to produce more gifts.

  **Umm, water?**

J) The second organism does the research [11] and entrepreneur thing to find the best way to cover the last and most difficult and most critical basic need, water. Strategically selected expertises seek to bring to the masses a Slingshot-like [12] water purifier. Delivering clean water from polluted urban water sources-- think Flint, MI --means full grid independence. Kowtow to ~~immorten joe~~ the water MUDs only when you want unnaturally relocated grass species growing unnaturally green.

  **No fossils**

K) You assemble the AI ("amoeba initiative") again. You task them with extending arms to cover energy storage with air batteries the size of shipping containers, ala LightSail [13], which solves the weight and toxicity problems with time-shifting power from the solar panels. This in turn is crucial to weaning the last tenacious supplicants of the fossil fuel teat. You also task the assembly to polish cel-tower-obsoleting [14] laptops and mesh-connecting [15] smartphones, in order to deliver i) internet, ii) more importantly mobile data, and iii) most importantly carrier independence.

  **Better markets**

L) While the AI is still assembled, you reluctantly but necessarily task them with a PRA ("public relations arm"). The PR arm demonstrates and clarifies, in preemption of forseeable change resistors, how freer and larger and healthier private markets result from all the free and scary sharing of abundance. A market economy will always precipitate from the phenomena that is the human appetite. By design the human appetite, even when fed all essential nutrients, is infinite and will always find more to want beyond need. "Built to crave perfection", "continuous improvement necessitates an infinite appetite", "trust good instincts" are among catch-phrases tossed onto the annoyingly named ideate wall that triggers your early escape from PRA's first session. Exhausted, the assembly decides to table whether to engulf the tailors' guild; apparently folk suffering about naked isn't enough of thing.

  **Zero net cost** (nee Shit's free yo!)

M) One day, the AI throws a recognition ceremony. A sizeable surplus resulted from delivering requests for customization of the "basic" AI houses, transports, and recipes. From the surplus, the AI assembly symbolically pays back your original $25K loan. They hand you a wordy plaque that truthfully states "You did it for free" as the last line.

  **tl;dr**

Because of something called abundance cycles, even you can cover the world's basic needs, eliminate missed human potential and consequently bend hyper-exponentially the curve of human progress. The 13 "unlucky" steps are just an "off the top of the dome" illustration. A serious treatment can do much better exactly because a basic income focused on sharing abundance is free to do, exactly because abundance is intrinsically free.

tl;dr($tl;dr) Because abundance cycles

  *p.s.*

Seriously... imagine bending the curve of human progress for $25K. Recoupable. That is a fraction of the cost of 1 basic income trial or study. It's not my place to tell any advocates who do _actual better more_ work than myself to "Stop studying, Start doing", so maybe you can find a lesser hypocrite than myself to tell YC Research. ;-)

=====

[00] precedent https://www.reddit.com/r/BasicIncome/comments/3m8x3d/hey_guy...

[01] http://www.tumbleweedhouses.com/pages/plans

[02] http://www.tumbleweedhouses.com/products/amish-barn-raiser

[03] http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2016/01/28/the-man-who-gets-h...

[04] http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2015/08/31/electric-bike-revi...

[05] http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2012/10/electric-velomobiles....

[06] http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2014/10/20/aquaponics/

[07] https://diy.soylent.com/

[08] http://www.mealsquares.com/faq.html

[09] http://static1.squarespace.com/static/52524dbbe4b0b242f8ce4c...

[10] http://defyingnormal.com/blog/2014/08/26/tour-solar-setup-va...

[11] http://simonthorpesideas.blogspot.com.au/2015/05/science-and...

[12] http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-tech/re...

[13] http://www.lightsail.com/

[14] https://myriadrf.org/projects/novena-rf/

[15] http://www.technologyreview.com/news/516571/build-your-own-i...

dragonwriter26• 10 years ago

A UBI (usually, that "unconditional" not "universal", though "universal" seems to be becoming popular among outlets that are newly jumping onboard the idea) is distinguished from other social benefit programs in not being means-tested or behavior-tested. Obviously, there has to be some bounds on who is qualified (everyone on the planet? Probably not. Adult citizens are usually the narrowest category suggested, all legal residents regardless of age or citizenship usually the broadest. Any of these are still UBIs, so long as they aren't means- or behavior-tested.)

But, the big problem is the idea that the UBI should initially be sufficient to lift everyone out of poverty. The immediate goal should be to have a UBI which reduces poverty and addresses the fact that capital increasing takes the reward of economic growth, rather than it being broadly distributed. The long-term goal should be to displace and go beyond existing means-tested anti-poverty programs in lifting people out of poverty, but the best way to do that is to build a system that grows naturally.

As an example: eliminate preferential treatment of capital income in income taxation, maintaining otherwise general structure of the existing progressive income tax system, and set aside a portion of the total income tax revenue equal to the initial increase in tax revenue for the "Common Welfare Fund".

90% of the new money in the fund is distributed as UBI by equal division among qualified recipients (e.g., all citizens and LPRs, if that's the group defined to receive the UBI), the remainder is retained as a stabilization fund (with returns on the stabilization fund treated as "new money" in future years, and rules providing for some distribution from the stabilization fund to current benefits to reduce calculated benefit declines.)

Each year, reduce the actual minimum hourly wage from its nominal level (which I'm presuming gets inflation-indexed before this) by 1/2000 of the annual UBI level (for wages covered by overtime mandates, the minimum overtime wage is calculated first, and then reduced for the UBI) -- over time, the UBI displaces the minimum wage.

Other (e.g., means-tested) benefit programs aren't directly eliminated (immediately), but income from the UBI is treated as normal income for both income tax and benefit calculation purposes, so (assuming economic growth such that real tax revenues pre capita increase faster than inflation), even with eligibility criteria indexed for inflation, growing UBI will reduce the proportion of the population eligible for any such programs, eventually to 0 as the UBI crosses the maximum threshold for each program, allowing the programs to be retired.

randyrand3• 10 years ago

WE NEED TO LOWER THE COST OF LIVING

Its unacceptable that food in the US is 2x the cost of that of china, for instance.

http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_countries_resul...

specialist3• 10 years ago

Regulating food safety costs money. I'm happy to pay.

oldmanjay• 10 years ago

You'll have to reduce the value of productivity. Many have tried, but no one has ever pulled it off successfully because it only takes one asshole who realizes the whole scheme is trivially exploitable just by working harder to ruin it for everyone.

serge2k2• 10 years ago

Yes, you can reduce the amount paid out by making it not a universal basic income scheme any more. But that rather misses the point.

If you consider as a method to introduce an income floor it makes sense. At 100k+ I really don't need any sort of basic income. A senior citizen getting paid social security is already getting the money out of that bucket (arguably that bucket should be phased out and everyone should be entitled to their basic income instead, perhaps with extra breaks for seniors).

I really don't support just giving out 30k a year to everyone. I can see the logic in giving out money to get everyone to that level (or whatever sensible number). I also think it's sensible to say that the benfit doesn't just go away if you start a job making 35k a year, but it does start to reduce as your income goes up. This gives you an incentive to work, even if your job isn't that high paying, but makes the program cheaper by not giving out money to people who really don't need it.

Iv• 10 years ago

Just reduce the amount. Start with any no-strings-attached amount and climb from there.

As soon as you give people as little as 100$/month you will see some people tweeting about all the tricks they found to make it enough. Of course it wont be enough to bring most from poverty and those who can live off that will often start off some possessions, but the goal is to lower the bar of entry into that situation.

Only under these conditions can we transition from the bullshit-job economy we have and make sure that the general automation of production will benefit most instead of a few.

lackingcaffeine3• 10 years ago

I think the idea of a basic income is really interesting though one aspect of it troubles me and I would be interested to hear HN's solutions to it. The trouble lies in the creative and economic relationship. If a substantial number of people reduce or stop their usual working hours and live off the income to pursue entirely creative activities, such as making a website or art, they are exempt from the usual capitalist status quo which forces a venture to be good, popular and eventually profitable (there is no standard of quality necessary as long as its overheads are not too high). This could mean a substantial number of people are neither creating wealth through work or taxable business.

One counter-argument is that by freeing up people to pursue their interests, there will be more good businesses opened as well, which will be profitable in the long run. The other is that a person would not pursue a project that is not well-received for a long period of time due to negative feedback.

Neither of these fully answers the problem though of what the system would do to stop people falling off the economic grid and the impact on GDP/taxable income this would have. Any thoughts?

rorykoehler2• 10 years ago

This could mean a substantial number of people are neither creating wealth through work or taxable business.

How is this any different than what we have currently? It could be argued that many employed persons are currently destroying wealth through unethical practices encouraged by profit/rent seeking that is prevalent in contemporary economy.

A basic income as you have noted will also allow for people to open 'good businesses' without as much of a pressure to turn a profit. Ideally society would start to look down upon the "I work for <expletive>'s people/companies because I need to pay the bills" attitude that is pervasive today and people would start taking their responsibilities to themselves, their community and our greater environment more seriously.

lackingcaffeine3• 10 years ago

I don't agree that anything close to a majority a people are working unethically or for unethical ends. Most people are doing jobs that have some economic and societal function. This system works so well because if the product you are offering isn't needed by society then it can't exist. I'm just wondering what the consequences of this subversion will be. If everybody opens a "good business" that doesn't make a profit or is needed, the services we do need will be compromised and the money we take to build schools and hospitals will be reduced.

The ethical net gain might be good, and society's impression of jobs may be altered but that doesn't answer the economic problem of how to encourage people to work in fields that are fiscally meaningful

mcv6• 10 years ago

I think most people will continue to work, simply because people generally like having more money. What will stop is degrading bullshit jobs for little pay. Businesses that rely on those jobs will disappear, unless they manage to make their jobs more attractive. Businesses will have to work harder to attract employees, because employees are less desperate for work. More of the profit will go to employees, less to upper management and shareholders. I think that's a good thing.

Unless those jobs can be automated completely, of course. But then, GDP is fine, taxes will probably focus more on corporations, and people will be freed from the degrading bullshit jobs, free to look for something better. And that, I think, is also a good thing. Let the robots do the stupid work, while we're off doing more fun stuff.

Make sure technology makes everybody's lives better. Isn't that the entire point?

lackingcaffeine3• 10 years ago

My concern is perhaps not with this generation but the next. I don't think anybody who is used to working and the lifestyle that it allows would seek a massive reduction in income to pursue something frivolous, but it is easy to imagine an entire group of people entering the job-market for the first time having no inclination to work for a job, when their own hobbies and interests can be sated without the need to be profitable. Which needless to say would be economically damaging in the long run

marknutter6• 10 years ago

So then all those businesses raise the cost of their goods and services to attract employees who demand higher wages and better working conditions, effectively wiping out the net benefit of UBI in the first place.

dcacaac• 10 years ago

they are exempt from the usual capitalist status quo which forces a venture to be good, popular and eventually profitable

I think you're making a lot of assumptions here. Does the pressure to make money force a venture to be good? Certainly some products are not good, and we have many examples open source projects that are fantastic. Plus there is still social pressure to be doing interesting things with your time, but it's my guess that very creative people don't even need any outside encouragement.

mcv6• 10 years ago

Interesting how this article spins Basic Income as something of particular interest to conservatives while liberals would object to it. I suppose that can help sell the concept to highly partisan anti-liberals, but I know plenty of liberals and progressives who strongly support Basic Income.

The idea that the people employed in the bureaucracy managing the current mess of programs losing their job is a silly concern. Why should we keep paying people for unnecessary bullshit jobs? Why should we employ people to check and ensure that other people aren't secretly working? Let those people do something more productive.

I would like Basic Income to be a bit more than $10,000 per year, though. Ideally, especially when the number of jobs available falls due to increased automation, I'd like the Basic Income to provide a comfortable income. People can and will still work to increase their income further, but when robots do more and more of the work for us, there's no reason to punish people for being unable to compete with robots.

ido• 10 years ago

The sum also depends on how much robots will make stuff cheaper. Remember buying clothes and appliances/electronics before the 90s?

These used to be major expenses, and much more expensive than today, adjusted to inflation (stuff got cheaper partially due to globalisation & partially greater automation).

throwanem2• 10 years ago

You mean the clothes and the electronics made by Asian indentured workers in conditions close to outright slavery? I mean, don't get me wrong, I participate in the modern economy as much as the next guy, and the man who eats meat is brother to the butcher. But let's not get starry-eyed imagining that robots make our trousers and smartphones.

Spooky235• 10 years ago

Why should we keep paying people for unnecessary bullshit jobs?

Because human services jobs employ thousands of people (a state like New York has 40k+ people in public sector social services and at least that many private sector) and control thousands of votes.

Democrats will have a hard time supporting it, because those unionized workers will get them voted out.

It's also very telling about what "basic income" really is. Conservatives don't give a shit about social welfare, this is just another scheme to enrich their pals and undermine the social safety net.

wtbob• 10 years ago

Conservatives don't give a shit about social welfare, this is just another scheme to enrich their pals and undermine the social safety net.

Huh?! That makes no sense: how is giving everyone a sufficient income to survive undermining the social safety net? How is increasing taxes on the wealthy enriching their pals?

mcv6• 10 years ago

But why employ that many people to do something we don't need, when you could also employ them to do something more productive?

akshatpradhan• 10 years ago

I suppose that can help sell the concept to highly partisan anti-liberals, but I know plenty of liberals and progressives who strongly support Basic Income.

Anecdotal experience. My anecdotal experience is the opposite where the liberals I know believe increasing the minimum wage is that "next big step forward." They won't even give the idea of Basic Income a chance.

chongli12• 10 years ago

Those people are neoliberals, not progressives.

dragonwriter26• 10 years ago

My anecdotal experience is the opposite where the liberals I know believe increasing the minimum wage is that "next big step forward." They won't even give the idea of Basic Income a chance.

UBI proponents have a lot of work to do putting together and coherently articulating a realistic, plausible route from where we are to where UBI hopes to get us. Most have been good at articulating a great picture of why a mature UBI system would be great, but much less good at painting a picture of how you get from here to there in a believable way.

lr4444lr• 10 years ago

It always held broad appeal. Milton Friedman, MLK, and Frances Fox Piven all supported UBI.

thenomad• 10 years ago

Agreed. I'm fairly seriously liberal and my filter bubble tends very liberal too. There's somewhere between significant and overwhelming support for Basic Income within that group from what I've seen.

xienze2• 10 years ago

I would like Basic Income to be a bit more than $10,000 per year, though.

Well, that's one of the major problems with this scheme: a whole lotta people will as well. In much the same way that we currently hear "I can't raise my family on minimum wage!" we will hear "I can't raise my family on my UBI!" Anyone who can't see how UBI increases will become a promise of every presidential hopeful hasn't been paying attention.

When the people realize they can vote themselves money... something something, I can't remember the rest.

---

I also get a kick out of how people think welfare programs will be eliminated by UBI, and that's why it won't be so expensive to implement. So what happens when someone on UBI has their car break down or, as will often be the case, just flat-out doesn't budget properly and now they can't buy groceries? We're just going to let them starve? Of course not. There will be a safety net below the UBI.

adrianN• 10 years ago

UBI should increase periodically; tied to economic growth.

Aoyagi7• 10 years ago

10k? That's almost the average income (or more, depending on how you count taxes) of the Czech Republic. If I had to choose between living in a 2nd world country and working and living in a 1st world country and not working for the same money, guess which I'd choose?

mason552• 10 years ago

Prices would be much higher here. I imagine your $10k goes much further in Czech

alehander422• 10 years ago

I am just amused by the "2nd world country" thing. I really fail to see how life in Central Europe is somehow of "lower quality"(e.g. Czech, Poland, Germany) compared to USA. I'd actually prefer living in Central Europe or especially Southern Europe over USA any day.

fucking_tragedy8• 10 years ago

You're ignoring that $10k/yr is well below the poverty rate in the US. That's abysmally poor.

I'm sure you'd like the $10k/yr + working option better if rice and dog food don't sound like appealing staples.

xefer• 10 years ago

To paraphrase that XKCD comic, "14 benefit programs?! Ridiculous! We need to create one universal benefit program that covers everyone! Now you have 15 programs."

I get the sense that liberals and conservatives have wildly different conceptions of what a Basic Income would mean in practice.

Conservatives and libertarians may like the idea of giving a single no-strings-attached check every month to everyone and anyone and sending them on their way. Liberals I imagine expect a basic income will be enough to guarantee food, clothing and housing and perhaps some means of allocating portions to those categories, which is more or less what we have now.

lsaferite4• 10 years ago

"universal benefit program" meaning it is designed from the beginning to replace the 14, so now you have 1.

dionidium• 10 years ago

The reason that the 15th program doesn't replace the earlier 14 is because each program is operated independently and according to the motives of its members (who don't buy into the plan to replace themselves).

A legislative mandate neatly solves that problem. The analogy doesn't hold.

makomk• 10 years ago

I think the author may have a conservative bias. For example, he writes: "The proposal died in part because of liberal opposition to a work requirement and obstruction by a well-organized welfare lobby, Moynihan would later write." If it's got a work requirement it's not really minimum income, is it? It certainly doesn't have the same properties as one - far from reducing bureaucracy, the proposal in question would've created a whole new bureaucracy around making sure people were working or seeking work and penalizing them if the bureaucrats decided they weren't trying hard enough. Oh, and it was specifically aimed at replacing welfare for single moms at a time of massive unemployment.

Basically, the reason he sees Basic Income as something of particular interest to conservatives is that he's hijacking the term to describe conservative policies of trying to punish people into work regardless of how realistic it is for them to find a job.

morgante9• 10 years ago

It's not disingenuous though. In my personal experience, many liberals do in fact oppose basic income.

Don't forget that public sector unions (ie. the people administering all the existing entitlement programs) are a major liberal constituency.

I would like Basic Income to be a bit more than $10,000 per year, though. Ideally, especially when the number of jobs available falls due to increased automation, I'd like the Basic Income to provide a comfortable income.

There are plenty of places in the country where $10k is more than enough to live on. One of the biggest benefits of UBI would be that we can start moving more people to the massive areas of our country where there's low COL and few jobs.

mac010218• 10 years ago

I would like Basic Income to be a bit more than $10,000 per year.

That's not basic, though. I don't think there are many towns (maybe none) in the USA where you can't stay warm, dry, safe, and clean with a soft bed and a healthy diet for $700 per month.

Overtonwindow2• 10 years ago

Negative. Those with money will fight like hell to keep from giving it up. However if by some chance/miracle a guaranteed income is ever instituted, it will become a political football, as politicians and advocacy groups seek to continuously push it higher and higher. Instead of a money handout, I would rather support money in exchange for public works and service. I don't believe handouts without some kind of exchange will ever really work.

dsr_• 10 years ago

The primary problem with a guaranteed employment program is the proliferation of edge cases:

- I want a job, but I have no transportation

- I want a job, but I have no skills

- I want the money from a job, and I'm willing to show up to a job, but I never actually do the work. If you fire me, I will go get another guaranteed job.

- I show up to the job and do the work, but my manager hates me and fires me. I guess I will go get another guaranteed job.

- I show up to the job and do the work, but all the managers in this town have an unspoken agreement that they will report people of my (skin color, gender, orientation, whatever) as not doing the work, so I have been fired multiple times.

- Bureaucracy managing the guaranteed jobs program replaces the bureaucracy managing the programs eliminated by Basic Income.

I'm in favor of more spending on maintenance and public works, but I don't think a guaranteed jobs program will work as well as basic income.

Overtonwindow2• 10 years ago

Good point.

zamalek2• 10 years ago

Although I advocate the empowerment of the impoverished, this looks like a very fundamentally flawed idea that would actually harm those it sets out to help. We need a different approach.

When you give everyone in the economy a $10000 basic income you drive demand without driving supply. This graph[1] demonstrates how we estimate the relationship between the two, as well as price. As you'll notice, an increase in demand without an associated increase in supply results in an increase in prices. Essentially we might expect that over time the $10000, with market forces as the causation, will become the new N=0 point. Your basic salary becomes worthless. Any economic freedoms that you have created are fleeting in nature.

A stricter socialist approach seems to be the better one: instead of investing that money into people's pockets, you invest it in job creation in services that assist these people. For example: aggressive funding of soup kitchens. The poorest of the poorest might not have money in their pockets, but it might be possible to provide even advanced (e.g. internet) services to them in such a way that they don't require money. This solution conveys no economic freedom - an ingredient for misery.

Point is: I don't know and honestly, we don't know.

Helping the impoverished is one of the most important goals of our race; but racing into poorly thought out solutions might result in the impoverished being no better off in the long run. I'd love to hear some counterarguments because the basic salary, at least superficially, has the attractive quality of being simple to implement.

[1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7a/Su...

MaulingMonkey• 10 years ago

What's the net economic difference between giving someone $5, which they then spend on soup, and spending $5 to buy soup on their behalf? None. Same for spending $10000 on someone's behalf via services, versus simply giving them $10000 which they then spend on the same services. Who holds the taxpayer provided money when making the final sale for goods or services is moot.

In both cases you're driving up demand, which is what in turn drives up supply. Supply doesn't magically materialize - either someone pays for it with money, or someone pays for it with time not spent earning money, to provide those services or products. As your own graph demonstrates, quantity goes up regardless. What's your "new N=0 point" on the graph?

My point here is not that there aren't issues with funding demand for services with inelastic supply (where large increases in price only lead to small increases in quantity, meaning little good was done.) There are such issues. Instead, my point is that these are not UBI specific issues. They're valid concerns with housing programs and rent controls today, for example.

The real difference of consideration between UBI vs other social welfare programs (when taken as a whole), is how demand might change (lowering in some places while increasing in others) when the ones actually consuming the services get to direct where the dollars are spent, instead of government policymakers.

In theory, replacing social welfare programs with UBI might drive demand away from elastically supplied goods and services, towards inelasticly supplied goods and services. It's far from a given, though - we have plenty of existing government programs for such inelastic things as housing. If you see some fundamental flaw of UBI that would cause demand to shift this way, I've missed it, so please do share.

I'm more concerned by the other factors:

On the one hand, those in need of services in many cases the ones in the best position to know what they need, so the money for those services may be spent more efficiently - especially if there's less waste in red tape bureaucracy, from government organizations unfettered from the pressures of capitalism.

On the other, if you haven't learned how to manage your money, don't know about the things that could best help your situation, or are in the grips of addiction, it may be difficult for you to spend your money wisely.

My understanding is that direct cash influxes to the poor in 3rd world countries has worked pretty well. It's not perfectly analogous to helping out the poor in 1st world countries via UBI, but I'm fairly hopeful it's analogous enough.

zamalek2• 10 years ago

What's your "new N=0 point" on the graph?

In essence I meant that, in a construed way, the buying power of $10000 would approach the same buying power as the pittance that the impoverished have today. Your argument was very educational so I have to do some more thinking about this and may discard that point. Thanks for the food for thought.

wapapaloobop• 10 years ago

This isn't why we would do it, but only 1 in 10,000 'unemployed' citizens need make a significant contribution to open source or some kind of theoretical discovery to make Basic Income a bargain investment for society as a whole.

known• 10 years ago

1. USA could have PREVENTED https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamophobia had it initiated UBI in 1971 for rest of the world when it pegged dollar to OPEC Oil http://www.zerohedge.com/print/502779

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income_around_the_world provides impetus to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_mobility

3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominant_minority will OPPOSE UBI because they fear you'll NOT be subservient to them

4. UBI is prudent distribution of cash, not wealth

kempe• 10 years ago

You could look at Sweden here for a reference. Everyone does not get a fixed sum of money but everyone can get social services to help out if you are unemployed thou the amount of money vary from situation to situation. This and other things like everyone has a right to schools, universities and health care does not come for free however. 25% tax on products, salary tax 30-55% on different salary ranges + ~15% on top for pension plan and state tax that the employee never sees that the company pays. So sure it can work but it's not cheap and it builds on that everyone should get a job. If people lost interest in that and unemployment would raise more, that would be bad...

nxzero• 10 years ago

One thing that strikes me as a bit off is that there are a massive amount people that are "retired" but want to work. While I get that basic income is intended for a segment of the population that's able to work, seems like including a massive segment of the population that's already receiving basic income via social security AND wants to work would provide a lot of data for just the cost of measuring it; meaning the basic income is already covered.

dilemma4• 10 years ago

The basic problem that makes universal basic income impossible is that it's simply not possibly to set the level of it. Have a try:

1. What should UBI be in San Francisco? 2. What should UBI be in Detroit? 3. Should they be the same? 4. What happens if they're not the same? 5. What happens if they're the same?

epaga• 10 years ago

1. $10,000. 2. $10,000 3. Yes. 4. They would be. 5. All of the proposed benefits of UBI.

dilemma4• 10 years ago

1. Can an unemployed single parent of two support themselves and their family on $10,000 per year in San Francisco? 2. Can an unemployed single parent of two support themselves and their family on $10,000 per year in Detroit? 3. Why? 4. See 3. 5. What are the proposed benefits of UBI?

rbcgerard3• 10 years ago

I see two basic issues:

1. How do you implement this whithout border control - if you create a basic income that is higher than ~1/2 the world's income the amount of illegal immigration will be huge

2. Will we really have the will to tell people who are starving because they lost their stipend to drugs or gambling "too bad"?

tome• 10 years ago

These seem like key issues. In particular I really can't understand how this can be compatible with any non-negligible amount of immigration.

grogers• 10 years ago

1. Most likely the UBI would only go to legal permanent residents.

2. It's at least no worse than today for those people. Support groups will still exist. If you distribute money frequently (e.g. weekly) it might help a little in preventing catastrophic situations where people lose it all. My concern here is that the payday loan industry grows instead of shrinking (tough to predict these types of things).

rbcgerard3• 10 years ago

1. while that is likely the case, since we grant citizenship to those born here (who i believe can then sponsor their family), the obvious choice would be to move here illegally and have children.

2. many current programs today limit what can be bought (SNAPS) or provide the service directly (low income housing), that's not to say there are not ways around this or that dollars are not fungible, but I do think there is difference

RobertoG• 10 years ago

which one of those problems we don't have now, again?

rbcgerard3• 10 years ago

we obviously have both, which would seem to be exacerbated by such a plan.

snomad• 10 years ago

Will universal basic income take into account relative cost of living per geographical area? If so, why isn't the same done with income tax. If no, why then is it really a universal basic income / all that useful?

maxerickson3• 10 years ago

I guess different income taxes may not have them but in many tax systems, deductible expenses provide some relief for differences in cost of living.

undersuit6• 10 years ago

Many states, counties and cities in the United States already leverage their own income taxes in addition to federal income taxation. How about we let the same states, counties, and cities decide if they want to provide their own basic income addendum. And they might need to if the BI amount is great enough that a janitor in Seattle, or a maid in SF no longers sees a reason to live anywhere near a big city for a job that barely covers their financial needs, needs imposed on them by living in a big city.

MicroBerto17• 10 years ago

In the early 1970s, animal behaviorist John Calhoun built a "mouse utopia" to see what would happen if he created the perfect world for mice, with unlimited food, starting with four males and four females, that could reach a population of 2500.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Z760XNy4VM

What happened next is absolutely astonishing. When the mice had nothing to do and nothing to work for, their society collapsed upon itself. Females stopped caring for their young. Betas began guarding the elite females, despite them not breeding with anyone. Fights broke out for no reason whatsoever. Mice stopped eating.

Their population peaked at 2200, and then died off extremely quickly.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1644264/

It was a big, fat, giant mess. And it's exactly what will happen to us if we don't have something to work and live for. Hell, it's already happening.

I don't think humanity survives with basic income as planned. We fall apart when we have nothing to do. We're no better than mice - we are still just animals with a larger hierarchy.

I'd rather see unproductive humans digging and re-filling holes in the ground than getting paid to do nothing. Or something like the biking experiment in Black Mirror.

Yet we need to do something as automation grows. Society is in for some serious decisions, and no country currently has the leadership to be able to tackle them.

minsight• 10 years ago

I'm pretty sure that animal behaviour doesn't necessarily map perfectly onto human behaviour.

MicroBerto17• 10 years ago

Of course it's not perfect. But when something we're proposing has once resulted in total catastrophe (complete end of civilization), it's worth researching a hell of a lot more.

This is why I feel any democracy is eventually doomed to fail. People will vote themselves more and more free stuff, but "free stuff" ultimately defeats the will of the human spirit.

It's worth researching more, but everybody just seems to focus on the economic impact and not the social one. If you think this will end crime, then I have a bridge to sell to you.

taigeair• 10 years ago

Good point and interesting study. I do think people are different because of art and education, but I can imagine how it could lead to the feeling of meaninglessness.

pbhjpbhj8• 10 years ago

Do mice have a concept of leisure? Exploration for its own sake? Cultural enrichment? Scientific endeavour?

Also, in that experiment isn't there a complete excess of resources? We certainly don't have that, opulence would still be expensive and out of reach of a BI.

MicroBerto17• 10 years ago

a complete excess of resources? We certainly don't have that

You seen the obesity rates in America?

The people who truly enjoy "Exploration", "Cultural enrichment", and "Scientific endeavor" are not those that I'm worried about in this world. Most of the world does not operate like that, nor do they use (or even understand!) such phrases.

n724• 10 years ago

"And it's exactly something that will happen to us..."

There's nothing in your mouse anecdote which justifes this conclusion. Humans are, as I'm sure you're well aware, quite different from mice.

MicroBerto17• 10 years ago

Are we? If anything, I'd say we're on-average worse.

Of course, anecdotal.

So much blind optimism in this thread. I really need to get out, I'm clearly older and more jaded than you kiddoes

your_ai_manager• 10 years ago

Extrapolation works until it doesn’t.

tehrei• 10 years ago

Basic Income is very, VERY far away from the Utopia in that experiment. It means enough money to cover rent, utilities and food. For anything more, you still have to study, work, etc.

Also, it's one experiment, that I haven't seen replicated, done in an age when you had to show up those darn commies, that Capitalism is the best.

MicroBerto17• 10 years ago

It means enough money to cover rent, utilities and food.

Umm yeah, that's exactly what they gave to the mice.

The fact that it hasn't been replicated is extremely concerning, and makes me wonder why.

contravariant2• 10 years ago

I'd rather see unproductive humans digging and re-filling holes in the ground than getting paid to do nothing. Or something like the biking experiment in Black Mirror.

I'd rather people get paid to do nothing than people getting paid to do pointless tasks. I've seen some amazing things people made in their spare time, but I can't imagine anyone making something worthwhile digging and re-filling holes.

MicroBerto17• 10 years ago

Again, the people building "amazing things in their spare time" are not the people to be concerned about!!

The usefulness we'd get out of the creative top 1-5% of the population is far outweighed by the chaos that'd be caused by the bottom/criminal 10% of the population.

marknutter6• 10 years ago

Come on now.. anyone from 100 years ago would look at half the jobs people have now and categorize them as "pointless tasks"

whiskers08xmt• 10 years ago

Luckily, there are other pursuits in life than those who generate wealth. I don't think it's reasonable to think, that if humans didn't have to work, they'd all spend their time idly in front of the television.

undersuit6• 10 years ago

You're talking about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_sink which has not been reproduced in humans.

MicroBerto17• 10 years ago

It has not been reproduced because society collapses every last time we attempt to get anywhere near it.

See socialism. Chavez made all these same promises for free stuff, etc. It didn't work. It never works. Venezuela is now beyond doomed and are weeks if not days from total devastation.

Reproducing the 1972 study in a field environment on humans would take too long, but I'm confident that if you had a similar utopian tribe of 60 men and 60 women, the experiment would have to be terminated in less than a year due to whatever mularkey broke out. Scale that up and you have pure Venezuelan chaos on your hands.

zyxley6• 10 years ago

If you apply that "mouse utopia" to humans, what you get isn't a "utopia"... it's a refugee camp or low-security prison, where food and shelter is available but nobody can leave and there's nothing to do but walk around and talk to people. That's nothing like the basic income concept.

dragonwriter26• 10 years ago

And it's exactly what will happen to us if we don't have something to work and live for.

Accepting for the sake of argument that this is true (which, a single, non-replicated experiment on mice is far from sufficient to establish), it has nothing to do with Unconditional Basic Income, which does not provide unlimited quantities of anything, or otherwise make it so that humans don't have "something to live and work for".

jotux2• 10 years ago

The problem with your argument is that basic income isn't anything like a utopia or perfect world -- it's just enough to pay rent and buy food. Basic income for people is much closer to the treatment pet owners are expected to provide for their pets.

MicroBerto17• 10 years ago

And as I mentioned elsewhere, "free rent and free food" was basically exactly what the rats were given in their utopia.

All I'm saying is this: Before we start throwing free money around everywhere, maybe we should do some legitimate research on the human condition. I'm obviously confident that you won't like what you find, but at least you'll find out before it's too late.

a_imho• 10 years ago

Why is that ubi is considered the next big thing, while people on welfare are usually looked down upon? In the current (optimistic) horizon it might seem like a good idea, but a recession could easily spin this the wrong way imho. If you don't contribute by working and paying taxes on your income, there can be a problem when a stressed actor comes asking to justify your ubi. OTOH, if you do need to work either way, why not tweak the current distribution system and include ubi money in wages.

lsaferite4• 10 years ago

The reason many (not me) look down on things like welfare is they are not personally and directly benefitting while some other person is and they aren't perceived as working to deserve the benefit.

The idea with UBI is that you no longer make the government assistance a merit based assistance and instead everyone gets it equally. For those with large incomes the small amount of UBI will be a pittance. For those with little or no income it will be a lifeline. In both cases the amount would be exactly the same.

branchless• 10 years ago

Land value tax. Basic income will raise rents. Tax land not labour.

http://www.landvaluetax.org/what-is-lvt/

coderKen• 10 years ago

First world problems.

_Understated_8• 10 years ago

There is something else to consider too: The political party that brings this in will likely be in power for a really long time!

Think about the consequences: Even if it was proven financial suicide for the country (Governments can always print more money I suppose and let the next generation deal with the fallout), what political party would have a manifesto abolishing or reducing it? It would be political suicide.

clarkmoody4• 10 years ago

It already is political suicide to mention cutting any entitlement. This is the fundamental flaw of democracy.

dools2• 10 years ago

A universal basic income is inferior to a job guarantee:

http://www.economonitor.com/lrwray/2013/07/09/how-big-is-big...

http://neweconomicperspectives.org/2014/01/16-reasons-matt-y...

https://www.reddit.com/r/BasicIncome/comments/3ne2iu/randall...?

http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=13025

amai• 10 years ago

A job guarantee like they had it in the the former https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Bloc ?

dools2• 10 years ago

No, that was under a communist dictatorship.

That was 100% government employment to the exclusion of the private purpose.

It was a centrally planned economy where the government determined what everyone should do at all times.

A Job Guarantee, on the other hand (which I'll explain because you obviously didn't look at any of the links I posted in my initial comment, but rather went off your pre-existing opinions) is a guarantee by the government that if the private sector will not or can not employ someone, they will be given a good job by the government.

I won't bother providing additional links, you're obviously only interested in dealing with straw men.

xiphias• 10 years ago

The more free money printing is going on, the more I'm incentivized to buy/use Bitcoins from my hard work's money. UBI centralizes power to the money printers even more, gives a little to those who don't work (for their votes), and takes even more money away from those who work. Still, this can go on only with central banking.

ck2• 10 years ago

Millions can't even get health insurance in half of the entire USA (24 vs 26 states do not have medicaid expansion because the supreme court ruled it was okay to screw everyone over).

Good luck with this basic income fantasy. Might as well try to negotiate reparations for slavery.

How about you finish what was started FIRST - and don't give me this "we can do multiple things at the same time" nonsense. This is six years later. The need for health care is pretty much universally understood. Giving people free money would never get out of congress.

uhtred• 10 years ago

Surely $833 a month ($10,000 a year) still wouldn't be even close to enough for someone who is unemployed to live? Wouldn't rent and bills use that up, without leaving anything for food, clothing etc? I love the idea of universal basic income, but I feel it would need to be double the amount proposed in this article to really change society for the better. Otherwise people will still need to resort to crime to extra money, seeing as there are going to be even less jobs in the future.

danielvf• 10 years ago

I've volunteered at English as a second language classes. I've met plenty of people who live on less than that, while still having cars, smartphones, housing, and food.

America has about 11 million people who legally are forbidden from having a job. Many get black market jobs paying less than minimum wage, and still have money left over to send back home.

jboggan2• 10 years ago

Why not triple it? Why not $100,000k a year for everyone?

habosa5• 10 years ago

While I also find it hard to believe, the Federal Poverty Line is $11,880 for individuals. If you make $12k a year you are not considered to be in poverty (if you live alone).

So yes, 10k a year would still leave people below the current poverty line. But over 45 million americans already live below the poverty line. So evidence suggest it actually is enough to survive by some standard and may be a good place to start since it's likely that people will be able to find some supplementary income through work.

In the long term the goal would be to significantly increase quality of living for all and hopefully change the horrifying numbers I just presented.

pyrrhotech• 10 years ago

With a little planning and an abandonment of materialism, it is pretty easy to live on 10,000 a year in the US. Example: http://earlyretirementextreme.com/how-i-live-on-7000-per-yea...

alexvoda2• 10 years ago

I think the issue with BI is that no matter how many things are automated and how many items become abundent there are still things that will remain scarce: land, minerals. Land will remain a scarce resource and all things that depend primarily on land will remain scarce (housing, agriculture, etc.).

And in this situation there is nothing stopping land owners from absorbing the basic income. This means that revenue generated by land owning (not necessarily land owning itself) would have to be heavily taxed. Maybe even taxed progressively to avoid economies of scale in land owning and prevent a very few from owning all the land.

Or we could terraform celestial bodies in the Solar system.

It is important to note that land itself is limited, not housing. As long as we can continue building even higher and deeper housing is not actually limited.

mattgibson• 10 years ago

For this reason, I think Basic income really only makes sense when paired with land value tax (LVT) and rent caps, which would prevent that problem. Both already work well in other economies in Europe.

discardorama• 10 years ago

OK, so you introduce UBI. Yay! Now what happens to all the social workers employed by the city (say, SF)? Remember: SF spends ~$35K/homeless/year. Who pays when a homeless guy ODs and needs hospitalization? Right now government housing is subsidized for the poor (some people in SF pay $35/mo for a 2BR government apartment). Do we still have these subsidies after UBI? What about food stamps? And the 10M+ illegal immigrants?

jrcii• 10 years ago

Abolish all welfare, phase out social security, and have the poor rely on private charities. If people don't want to donate to the charities that's their choice, it's their money. You're not entitled to money, food, a home, or a job -- you're entitled to nothing. You're entitled to starve in the gutter. If you want something more you have to earn it or have someone voluntarily agree to give it to you out of their own free will.

chongli12• 10 years ago

Likewise, nobody should be entitled to police or military protection. If you've got a lot of money, you better hire a very large and trustworthy private security force to protect it because otherwise I'm going to take it from you.

habosa5• 10 years ago

If you live in the United States, that's not the social contract we've agreed upon and you should leave if you feel that way. As a citizen of the US we have decided to collect taxes to provide certain services for the common good.

You are free to fend for yourself in many parts of the world. But not if you like that blue passport.

ComteDeLaFere• 10 years ago

A basic income fails on the same point as increasing the minimum wage - neither provides much additional opportunity in life, both simply make being poor and disenfranchised more palatable.

maxxxxx• 10 years ago

This is such a nice distraction from solving any real issues. While people are debating basic income wages will keep stagnating and big companies are hoarding money in tax shelters. But hey, let's discuss basic income.

nazgob• 10 years ago

Does such tests as the one made in Kenya make sense at all? Having external money injected into local economy will have a different effect that taxing that economy and then redistributing part of it in form of UBI.

jboggan2• 10 years ago

'In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,

By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;

But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,

And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die."'

    :Rudyard Kipling [0]

0 - http://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/poems_copybook.htm

WWKong4• 10 years ago

How does a universal basic income work from economics stand point? Let's say everyone gets $1000/mo. Currently the market knows that everyone has $10 and prices bread accordingly at $1.50. Tomorrow the market will know that everyone has $1010 and will price the bread at $100. Thus everything from food to utilities to rent gets adjusted to the new normal and the poor can't still afford the basics. Is this theory not correct?

habosa5• 10 years ago

Take a step further. Let's say on day 1 of the basic income age all the bread merchants raise their price to $100.

One smart bread merchant will probably say "Hey I used to sell this for $1.50, I can do better than $100" and prices it at $90. Now everyone buys bread from him.

The other merchants feel the price pressure and the cycle continues, with the price settling down to something likely higher than $1.50 (to reflect the increased price of labor input as a result of basic income) but not so high that it totally eats the increased income.

So yes, things will cost more after basic income (after all you'd likely need some sort of inflation to find the money to give away). But in an efficient market they will not cost so much more than people are not still effectively richer than they were before. It does not change the intrinsic value of most things, it just makes certain inputs (namely labor) more expensive.

WWKong4• 10 years ago

In other words, utilities and commodities will always hover around cost price due to market forces and hence the poor will be able to afford the basics. There might be other non essentials that might become more expensive to absorb the extra money in the market, but we would have mostly likely solved a bigger problem. Makes sense. I still worry about housing.

marknutter6• 10 years ago

Labor is wrapped up in the intrinsic value of things. Gold is only intrinsically valuable after it has been extracted, therefore its labor costs are included in the price. Don't believe me? What happens to the price of gold when it suddenly becomes much easier to mine for it?

_rpd• 10 years ago

Is this theory not correct?

Yes, UBI in most of its incarnations is a deliberately engineered inflationary spiral - a one way ticket to Venezuela. Everyone simply ignores the issue.

narrator• 10 years ago

I think this is sort of the apotheosis of the concept that money is the universally effective solution to all problems.

Money is not the universally effective solution to health care in this country. We already spend double, as a percent of GDP ,compared to any other country.

I think we're going to run into some problems on the supply side with a universal basic income. Some prices will rise due to increased consumption. This will make capital investment (e.g Research and Development, New Factories, Upgrading Production Equipment) more costly. Eventually you'll burn the furniture to heat the house and then things will start to fall apart and get into an inflationary spiral. It does have the benefit going for it that it is less complex to administer though, while our health care system is enormously complex and grows ever more complex with the more money that gets spent on it.

dimino• 10 years ago

All of this is basically moot, because while the average person's entitlements might stay the same or increase due to a basic income to cover the things entitlements currently cover (we won't need to hand out food stamps if we have a basic income, for example), every other person's entitlements they rely on will get cut as a result, and those people (and there are at least tens of millions of them) will raise unholy hell about it.

There's the 10% for each entitlement that need the full entitlement, and there are dozens of entitlements, hundreds, so 10% of hundreds of programs will just be too many people to allow a basic blanket income to cover their entitlements.

All that said, my favorite version of this is the "negative income tax". We have something kind of like it already, but the EITC would have to be expanded significantly before it was actually something like a negative income tax, and that means cuts to other programs.

irrational• 10 years ago

I make more than $100,000 a year, but I'd gladly quit if I had a basic income that let me lay around at home all day and read library books.

scld2• 10 years ago

And you would be replaced by someone who likes to travel to tropical beaches to sit and read books all day :)

aminok4• 10 years ago

It would reduce the supply of highly skill labour, which would reduce the amount of goods/services produced, and as a consequence, the amount of wealth the world gets to consume. You're making the 'lump of labour fallacy' in assuming that someone will just take his stop with no loss.

Animats3• 10 years ago

The Bloomberg version of basic income means a minimal payment and an end to most need-based welfare programs. The guy who drinks up his benefits can just die on the street.

shams932• 10 years ago

10,000 isn't basic income its like slightly more than welfare for a basic income to be meaningful in a city like los angeles you're talking at least 70k if a person has even any hope of having a roommate situation. The other alternative is to give everybody everything they need in life at no cost, but 10k in los angeles is a joke, if they tax it you're talking still talking about having a choice between food and a youth hostel bed on that low an income.

shams932• 10 years ago

We've had this 10k basic income since the 1930s its called welfare, to reiterate what I just said basic income has to secure a middle class lifestyle for it to be meaningful.

jypepin• 10 years ago

"at least 70k" you gotta get back on earth man. When I got my first job in San Francisco I was making 65k, had 1 roommate in a nice apartment in the Mission, lived well, and was still able to save money. And LA is cheaper than SF.

scld2• 10 years ago

You wouldn't need to live in a city like Los Angeles. Without job security to tie you to a location, you would move to areas of the country/state where cost of living was lowest.

Additionally, if you wanted to live a middle class lifestyle, you would have a job. That's the incentive to keep working. The basic income is to keep people at an above-poverty income level, not to keep everyone at middle class. In fact, the mere definition of the term means you couldn't have everyone at middle class.

Animats3• 10 years ago

The next big thing, after the $15 minimum wage, should be the 8 hour day and the 40 hour week. Everybody gets overtime, unless you're in the 1%.

The whole "exempt" thing needs to go.

elihu• 10 years ago

I agree that everyone who goes over 40 hours should get overtime, but I also think the standard work week should be reduced from 40 hours.

Animats3• 10 years ago

One step at a time. A 40 hour work week is politically sellable. After all, we used to have it, so it's "conservative".

ja30278• 10 years ago

I really don't understand how a 'basic' income is supposed to work.

What if I spend my basic income on drugs and hookers? are you willing to let me starve? what about my kids? If not, then the basic income can't actually replace the existing social programs.

If nobody need to work, then if employers want employees, they have to pay more to get them, which makes prices rise, which makes your 'basic' income insufficient again.

I don't get it.

dragonwriter26• 10 years ago

I really don't understand how a 'basic' income is supposed to work.

Its like the Alaska Permanent Fund[1], but with a broader -- and by design growing with the economy -- revenue base.

What if I spend my basic income on drugs and hookers? are you willing to let me starve? what about my kids? If not, then the basic income can't actually replace the existing social programs.

Sure, it can still replace existing social benefit programs. For your kids, well, we already have provisions for taking children from the care of parents that abuse or fail to provide for them, and putting them in the care of the State with the parent responsible for support costs; allowing either redirecting the children's basic income from the parent to the new support provider (in a system where children have basic income) or diverting some defined portion the parent's basic income (in a system where children do not get allotted their own BI) to pay support costs is quite natural; this doesn't create an additional social benefit program.

As for you, some BI supporters would let you starve. Others might support having transitional food/shelter programs (which would be an additional short-term benefit program) available to avoid people falling through the cracks, but make the beneficiary responsible for the cost (possibly diverting some share of future BI payments until that debt was paid).

If nobody need to work, then if employers want employees, they have to pay more to get them, which makes prices rise, which makes your 'basic' income insufficient again.

Under realistic assumptions about elasticity, Basic Income would have some effect on accelerating price inflation of goods demanded at the low end of the income distribution, which would mean that the quality of life any level of UBI could sustain with no outside income would be somewhat less than one would expect with the same amount of income before the UBI became available. But overall, those receiving the UBI would be able to afford more than without it.

Further, UBI can cut employer costs (while it reduces economic duress to work, it also reduces the need for a minimum wage and many UBI proposals have it replace the minimum wage; it also means bad-fit employees will have less resistance to moving on, and that people will generally have more freedom to seek optimum job fits -- which are good for workers, but also most productive for employers.)

And most people don't just work enough to meet basic necessities if they are capable of getting more, so most people able to do economically useful work probably would even with a UBI that met basic needs -- people like luxuries.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Permanent_Fund

kamaal• 10 years ago

>What if I spend my basic income on drugs and hookers? are you willing to let me starve? what about my kids? If not, then the basic income can't actually replace the existing social programs.

My guess is UBI is going to help very few people, most people's troubles are going to continue anyways. Unless you are seriously ill, or physically disabled, or stuck in warzone Africa you need to accept the fact you are responsible for yourself. In fact merely acknowledging this fact is likely to do more to fix your problems can free cash from the government.

If and when UBI happens, Rich won't need it, those middle class people with some responsibility will get some marginal upgrade on their income. Most people with no responsibility will spend it away on things they don't as always. They will continue to blame rich people for their problems, and consider rich people as evil for not endlessly doling out free cash for their parties.

habosa5• 10 years ago

The cost-rising point is greatly simplified. Yes the cost of labor will go up, however this does not mean the prices rise so much that your basic income is not very helpful, and here's why:

  * Only the cost of labor will increase, the cost of other inputs to making goods or providing services will not.
  * The cost of labor will not increase uniformly, but rather it will increase most at the low end (people who are more likely to refuse employment due to basic income) and less at the high end.  A software engineer making $120k is not likely to decide to stop working because he now gets $10k from the government.  However a part-time fry cook making $6k a year might.

So you have a slight increase in the price of goods (the x% of the cost of goods that was from low-paid labor just got y% higher) but an increase in purchasing power that is larger than x% * y% so overall people now have more purchasing power.

googletazer• 10 years ago

I'm for basic income, however looking beyond it - whats really necessary is to be able to let each person discover their (productive) passion to be able to contribute and exchange their time and labor for some unit of value. 99% of people will still be competing for the same thing - food, housing, transportation, low level luxuries. With demand getting stronger, UNLESS the people receiving basic income get creative and produce the things they need, expanding the pie, the prices for them will go up.

Overall, tastes are infinite, I'd love to drive a tesla and live in a (multi?)million dollar mansion, but I can't. They are too expensive for me - meaning my work and labor doesn't produce enough value (or may be not valued appropriately - but this a whole other topic) to exchange for those things I want. If we want more people to drive teslas and live in mansions, everybody who will be getting UBI needs to get productive to increase the amounts of teslas and mansions in existence.

aidenn0• 10 years ago

And they fear that a basic income would, in the end, be less than what many people get when all the federal government's cash and social-service programs are combined.

Note that the poor will obviously get fewer benefits if BI is only funded from cuts to programs the benefit the poor.

Example: lets say we eliminate program X that currently has a means test limiting it to the poorest 20% of the population. If we, as the article suggests, use that money to fond some fraction of BI for the poorest 80% of the population, then one can trivially see that we have distributed 3/4 of the money for program X away from the poorest 20%.

Now there are significant savings from reducing overhead, but unless program X is 75% overhead, it's still a net loss in realized benefits for the poor.

In order to make BI palatable to the US left, you will need to fund it at least partly through raising taxes.

saiya-jin• 10 years ago

communism. everybody was forced to have a job, hence income. once you leave market forces driving the direction and try to force some righteous system down the throat of whole society, no exceptions taken, many bad things will happen. a lot of very unfair situations will occur in the system that aims to do the opposite.

I mean, by all means, do it, experiment on your society, take all the risks foreseen and unforeseen. if you manage to make first 50 years in glory (or 100 to be sure), you have my attention. just please, please don't shove it down my throat in country where me or my family lives. Please. Thank you.

where is the push for better education and more accessible healthcare? Fixing those guarantees a brighter future for mankind, period. this is roulette where you can lose a lot, gain a lot too.

gerbilly• 10 years ago

I would be for this but I'm afraid that once all the other programs are dismantled, food stamps, welfare etc, that the poor might end up getting less support than they did before.

I try hard not to be cynical, but I wonder if this isn't a ruse to accomplish exactly that.

I mean the US is known for being "frugal" when it comes to helping people. See the medical system for example, or the treatment that veterans get. Why the sudden surge in generosity, why the sudden desire to redistribute income?

Weren't these anathema just recently, even to some democrats?

Also the fact that it keeps coming up in the media makes me slightly suspicious.

Why is this being promoted so much right now? I bet there are PR firms out there calling newspaper reporters and bloggers, to promote coverage of this idea on behalf of who knows which group or organization. [1]

[1] http://www.prwatch.org/

mindcrime• 10 years ago

Find a way to do it without using force, or threat of force, and I'll be on board. Otherwise, any UBI proposal is a non-starter in my book.

yuzi• 10 years ago

Side question: what prevents a basic income from being a driving force behind an inflation jump making the system less stable?

For example: rent. Wouldn't landlords managing properties at the low end of the market price, raise those prices knowing people both 1. have more distribution control over their money (cash vs. coupons for things) and 2. More people in their target market have cash to pay.

xufi• 10 years ago

Let people fend off for themselves. That's what we do anyways when terror strikes. Imagine a post acolypatic world everyone fends for themselves are work hard for it.

shamus2• 10 years ago

I agree

shamus2• 10 years ago

Testing

lmedina• 10 years ago

Why not have repayable assistance? The government gives you money for up to 5 years until you get a job, and then you have to pay the government back. You pay the government back a small percentage of your monthly paycheck, say 0.05%, no interest. It's basically an interest free loan with a long repayment schedule. But at least the government gets something back.

ascotan• 10 years ago

This concept would simply create inflation.

Image everyone has $10 on island A. Island B sells coconuts and the going rate for a coconut is $1. Based on other bills the islanders need to pay for, $1 fits the average budget and is what people are willing to pay for coconuts.

Now make everyone on island A have $100. The demand for coconuts rises but people on island B soon realize they can make more money by raising prices even though they sell less units. They eventually increase the price of coconuts to $10 because that ends up being the price point at which the Island B people are making the most money.

Therefore by increasing the income of everyone by a factor of 10, you end up increase the prices by a factor of 10. There is some lag time where prices will balance out though, so if you just kept doing this every month you might have a period of faux prosperity but you would also be creating runaway inflation.

Chinjut• 10 years ago

We would not be increasing everyone's income by the same factor. People with less money would see their income rise by a larger factor than people with more money. Thus, for example, if you have $0 pre-BI and $X post-BI, with X > 0, there's no amount of inflation that will cancel out the fact that you've benefited.

aminok4• 10 years ago

Entrenching authoritarianism should NOT be the next big thing.

Compulsory basic income requires throwing people who refuse to hand over currency they receive in private trade in prison, where they are kept in small enclosures, and often develop mental illness, and suffer physical and sexual abuse. Techies should not support such a dark, authoritarian vision for the future.

Buge• 10 years ago

I don't understand your comment. By "hand over currency they receive in private trade" are you referring to taxes? Taxes already exist without basic income. The punishment for tax evasion does not necessarily have to increase because of basic income.

aminok4• 10 years ago

Yes. Specifically, I'm referring to taxes on income and sales. A basic income would most likely require taxes to increase and at the very least will make us more dependent on these taxes.

michaelbuddy• 10 years ago

Problem is there's a large number of people who work hard, produce and frankly don't look too kindly on those who don't. Why is it so hard to understand that when we don't have to do something, a lot of people won't do anything but frivolous non productive activities, while unabashedly leeching off those who like to work for profit, progress and frankly to make life interesting for them, their community and the future of all.

TrevorJ• 10 years ago

The problem is, this doesn't happen in a vacuum: how do you prevent rent-seeking and COL inflation? Not universal basic income works in a free market, you may have to control prices directly in order to do it.

A Basic Income Should Be the Next Big Thing

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