I Think People Should be Paid not to Work, if That's What They Want: Switzerland to vote

[The guy from the Vale]

I do see where y'all are coming from and I do have an issue with paying people for nothing who are capable of labor.  I think it shows a lack of respect for the labor of others.

You can be capable of labor and still be unemployed, or underemployed, for myriads of reasons. Many of them have little to do with lazyness or disrespect.

Reducing the bureaucracy of several welfare agencies should be a good thing. Or should we instead let people starve if they can't find a job in a future that has automatized the process they worked in previously? What is there to be said against providing the minimum necessary for the needy when our wealth suffices to pay that amount for everybody?

Again, it's not like this would abolish wages, only supplement them at the basics. Employers would probably need to offer less wages for their services either because the baseline would have been paid already. So in actuality, they might be able to offer more jobs to more people. And while less people would have to work in any circumstance, many would still want to be able to afford better housing, a new smartphone or a car (or... or... or...), and for that they'd still need to work. 

Again, why would a citizen dividend be a bad thing? 

[Altherion]

Would there not be an inflationary impact from this?

One would think so, but it does not appear to be the case. Here is an article that addresses this. I'm not entirely convinced by everything he says, but the part about Alaska is true (you can see its inflation compared to that of the US as a whole here). Of course, it could be that the Alaska giveaways are too small, but they should still make some sort of difference and they do not appear to do so.

Altherion,

But doesn't "stepped up basic" imply that those on it are entitled to everything others have earned despite contributing nothing material to a given society?  Doesn't that reduce the value of the labor others are exerting?

I don't mind the arguments in the form of questions, but can you please keep them reasonable? This is the second time in this thread where the question is basically nonsensical. Nobody is arguing that the people who receive only the basic income "are entitled to everything others have earned." They are entitled to enough money to live, but not much more than that. The people who have jobs will also get the basic income and they'll get their salaries in addition to that so they'll have a lot more.

As to your second question, in the scenario where this is possible, the value of the labor has been reduced, yes... but not by the people on basic income. The reduction of value would be done by the machines (who even today do most of the work).

So, in theory, we would cut out all other forms of assistance, and provide a stipend for each citizen? Why aren't we doing this. 20,000 would be enough to survive, and any other income would be for the betterment of your family and life. I think its a great idea. What would anyone have to complain about it for, when everyone receives it regardless? The conundrum is as FNR said, how do you enforce a law against raising the prices on rent and such? If that was done, then nothing would be gained by this.

Because we're not quite in a society where this is necessary yet. It is currently still cheaper to have many low-skill jobs done by human beings earning close to minimum wage than it is to pay for the automation. However, we should get there within a decade or two.

[Lany Freelove Cassandra]

I do see where y'all are coming from and I do have an issue with paying people for nothing who are capable of labor.  I think it shows a lack of respect for the labor of others.

I apologize for all the times I disrespected you in the past 5 years.  it was never my intent, I just couldn't find work. (ok, I didn't always get benefits in between temp jobs, but I did get unemplyment twice and SNAP once for 4 months.)

[Happy Ent]

Here’s what I don’t understand about basic income:

How do you prevent people from giving money to other people (on basic income) for services (cleaning, sex, transportation, etc.)? I don’t understand that part. Because unless you prevent this, there will now be two sources of income for the thrifty: basic + untaxed compensation. Everybody is heavily incentivised towards that combination. But now society is even worse off than before: all the universal commodities (housing, food, healthcare) are now skewed towards those people on basic income who have an additional source of income, so these commodities have become even less available to the “pure basic” demographic, and society as a whole has less revenue to “make it free”.

I don’t get this, probably because I haven’t done my homework. Is there an easily accessible “Basic Income 101” pamphlet that addresses these questions?

(Just to make sure: this question is different from “then who would want to work”? I assume that people are heavily incentivised to work under basic income, just as without it. It’s just that the optimum is “work + BI”, compared to the other two models “work without BI” and “BI”.)

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

 

I apologize for all the times I disrespected you in the past 5 years.  it was never my intent, I just couldn't find work. (ok, I didn't always get benefits in between temp jobs, but I did get unemplyment twice and SNAP once for 4 months.)

Lany,

That's not what I mean.  I see a distinct difference between being unable to find work and choosing not to work.  The proposed "basic income" would facilitate the latter.  I have no problem with unemployment insurance we are all paying for.

[Lany Freelove Cassandra]

Lany,
That's not what I mean.  I see a distinct difference between being unable to find work and choosing not to work.  The proposed "basic income" would facilitate the latter.  I have no problem with unemployment insurance we are all paying for.

I was just messing with you.  I know what you meant, but it wasn't quite written that way

 

I honestly don't see the problem with the basic income theory, especially in the context of automation replacing the majority of labor jobs.

[McCracken]

I've always thought this is by far the most logical system for welfare.  The current system is both heartless and inefficient.  The current system says that people out of work need to be bullied and potentially starved into submission into working.  Even prisoners have a right to be fed so why not citizens?  Also loads of money is being wasted checking who is entitled and on bullying those who are.  Never mind the human cost in mental and physical health, poverty, suicide and wasted human potential.

Claims that it will disincentivise work are hilarious.  It actually should have the oppersite affect.  Right now at the bottom of labour market the more you work the more is taken from your benefits.  People working on minimun wage are barely making any more than those on benefits.  This is a massive disincentive to work.  Having a universal income means that every hour worked is more money in your pocket even for those at the very bottom struggling to get enough hours.

Worries over inflation are easily remedied with higher taxation if needed.  Though in the UK I believe we may be having deflation and we want at least 2% inflation so inflation really isn't a problem.

[Michael Seswatha Jordan]

I've always thought this is by far the most logical system for welfare.  The current system is both heartless and inefficient.  The current system says that people out of work need to be bullied and potentially starved into submission into working.  Even prisoners have a right to be fed so why not citizens?  Also loads of money is being wasted checking who is entitled and on bullying those who are.  Never mind the human cost in mental and physical health, poverty, suicide and wasted human potential.

Claims that it will disincentivise work are hilarious.  It actually should have the oppersite affect.  Right now at the bottom of labour market the more you work the more is taken from your benefits.  People working on minimun wage are barely making any more than those on benefits.  This is a massive disincentive to work.  Having a universal income means that every hour worked is more money in your pocket even for those at the very bottom struggling to get enough hours.

Worries over inflation are easily remedied with higher taxation if needed.  Though in the UK I believe we may be having deflation and we want at least 2% inflation so inflation really isn't a problem.

Great post! Yea, what really gets me is when you work overtime. A few years back I was reguraly putting in 72-84 hours. Trying to get ahead while raising two kids and putting the wife through school. Funny thing was, wasn't much a difference between a 60 hr check and a 84 hr one. And I made well above minimum wage. I never understood this at all. I know it all goes to FED taxes, but why? Why do they get all your money when your the one busting your ass to get ahead? It was really frustrating. And we never did truly get ahead in that time of our life. Now that my wife has a good paying job, I refuse to work overtime unless its mandatory for one reason or another. 

[Swordfish]

It would be interesting to see the cost projections for something like this, so there would be some basis of comparison with what we have in place today.

I'm not sure how much of this though would be replacing existing entitlements, and how much of it would be in addition to existing entitlements, but my feeling is that this would be mostly additive, yes?

[Glaurung]

Pretty sure we have ways of enforcing laws.  And the way this gets solved is by tying the minimum income to inflation.  No laws necessary.  But I think we're downplaying the effect of people having more ability to fill markets by having the flexibility to pursue what they want, so if there is a market (such as the renters market) where demand and profits are high, more people will have the ability to come into that market to fill that supply with lower prices, driving it down.

How is having the flexibility to pursue what they want going to help most markets?  Particularly the housing market?  The people who are going to have more time on their hands because they're falling back on a stipend, are not going to have the $ to invest in housing.  Not to mention, the housing market would climb initially as a result of higher initial incomes, until it reaches a balancing point.  Those who are living on a stipend salary, or even a stipend + part-time job, are going to be the least able to afford housing. What the majority of people choose to fill their extra time with, will for the most part useless and contribute little to nothing.  There might be a flood of small businesses in a few unskilled markets for those with an entrepreneurial spirit, but doubtful it would be anything significant enough to have much impact on market prices.  

The housing market though, will go up.  There is no way around that one.  The only way you keep rent low in such a scenario is through government intervention. 

[Shryke]

Here’s what I don’t understand about basic income:

How do you prevent people from giving money to other people (on basic income) for services (cleaning, sex, transportation, etc.)? I don’t understand that part. Because unless you prevent this, there will now be two sources of income for the thrifty: basic + untaxed compensation. Everybody is heavily incentivised towards that combination. But now society is even worse off than before: all the universal commodities (housing, food, healthcare) are now skewed towards those people on basic income who have an additional source of income, so these commodities have become even less available to the “pure basic” demographic, and society as a whole has less revenue to “make it free”.

I don’t get this, probably because I haven’t done my homework. Is there an easily accessible “Basic Income 101” pamphlet that addresses these questions?

(Just to make sure: this question is different from “then who would want to work”? I assume that people are heavily incentivised to work under basic income, just as without it. It’s just that the optimum is “work + BI”, compared to the other two models “work without BI” and “BI”.)

I don't even understand this objection. Like, I don't know what you are proposing would be going on here.

Like, in what way is someone giving someone else money a problem for a guarenteed income system?

[Iskaral Pust]

Didn't we discuss this when Switzerland proposed and rejected it?  Sometimes I imagine past threads.

Western societies already do this through their various social welfare supports, but the amount isn't as much as the OP would like and the administration is deliberately bureaucratic (partly as a bloated jobs program for low skilled people and minorities) for the same practical reason: discourage use because it is not practical at larger sizes and it carries too many negative incentives.  It often seems that it would be much more efficient to just pay people cash instead of maintaining an elaborate welfare system (which we partially do in the US through tax credits) but that would destroy the public sector jobs program and it would require payments to everyone regardless of means in order to avoid free-riders and exploitation, and no-one wants to deal with the political messaging or the one-time inflation shock.

Any macroeconomist would draw you several charts showing a massive "dead weight loss".  There is net large unhappiness (aggregate loss of standard of living and services exceeds aggregate happiness from the increase in leisure) from this unless and until a big proportion of labor produces nothing, i.e. until we have so many robots that production is unaffected if swathes of people stay home.  Which really makes this a futurist question, as other posters have suggested.

As a futurist question, it is possible that increasing automation and AI will eventually reduce the value of human labor to negligible levels for a lot of people.  The counterargument is that this has happened many times before and every time we found alternate fields of work.  Just like Malthusian collapses no longer occur because technology keeps improving, labor demand never collapses because technology and ambition/greed/consumerism keeps improving.

I actually dislike the moral discussion because it veers too strongly to entitlement (always the flaw in liberal policy).  In a world of plenty, I would like us to provide some basic standard of living and dignity to every person.  But people also have a very strong ingrained instinct for fairness (cucumber vs grape) and for relative social status.  We resolve this by pricing the no-work substantially below the no-skill, undesirable work.  There is no solution to this where staying at home to write shit poetry can command a standard of living anywhere close to that of someone who cleans toilets.  Even in a futurist Star Trek world of unconstrained plenty (and to anyone who lived more than 100 years ago, we are already in that world) the desire for relative social status will still enforce this differential.

So stay at home and write you poetry.  The govt will provide you with basic shelter and necessities.  But you will feel poor compared to everyone else.  That will always be the case unless others value your poetry and compensate you in some way.

[Shryke]

Skynjay,

Not socialism but communism.  People like to be paid for their work.  It does give them a sense of value.  Perhaps such a State could arise with a high level basic income and not fall into some sort of totalitarian nightmare like every other attempt at centralized communism, but, I doubt it.

I'm not sure why you think Basic Guaranteed income would involve people not being paid for their work.

The whole point of Basic Income is to just give everyone money so no one has to work just to survive. You can always work for more money if you want.

From pilot programs and tests of this, it turns out most people will work. They work slightly less hours but they generally do stuff to feel productive and/or to make extra money.

As I remember from the pilot program in Manitoba, the only people who really worked alot less or stopped working were young people (who decided to get an education) and young mothers (who wanted to spend time with their babies)

[Shryke]

Skynjay,

Not socialism but communism.  People like to be paid for their work.  It does give them a sense of value.  Perhaps such a State could arise with a high level basic income and not fall into some sort of totalitarian nightmare like every other attempt at centralized communism, but, I doubt it.

I'm not sure why you think Basic Guaranteed income would involve people not being paid for their work.

The whole point of Basic Income is to just give everyone money so no one has to work just to survive. You can always work for more money if you want.

From pilot programs and tests of this, it turns out most people will work. They work slightly less hours but they generally do stuff to feel productive and/or to make extra money.

As I remember from the pilot program in Manitoba, the only people who really worked alot less or stopped working were young people (who decided to get an education) and young mothers (who wanted to spend time with their babies)

[Masonity]

Here’s what I don’t understand about basic income:

How do you prevent people from giving money to other people (on basic income) for services (cleaning, sex, transportation, etc.)? I don’t understand that part. Because unless you prevent this, there will now be two sources of income for the thrifty: basic + untaxed compensation. Everybody is heavily incentivised towards that combination. But now society is even worse off than before: all the universal commodities (housing, food, healthcare) are now skewed towards those people on basic income who have an additional source of income, so these commodities have become even less available to the “pure basic” demographic, and society as a whole has less revenue to “make it free”.

I don’t get this, probably because I haven’t done my homework. Is there an easily accessible “Basic Income 101” pamphlet that addresses these questions?

(Just to make sure: this question is different from “then who would want to work”? I assume that people are heavily incentivised to work under basic income, just as without it. It’s just that the optimum is “work + BI”, compared to the other two models “work without BI” and “BI”.)

The same way we do now. Working cash in hand and not declaring it is tax evasion and a criminal act. 

Pay your tax and you are welcome to take money from other people in order to do a job. 

 

 

The idea of basic income isn't to replace ALL income with it, it's to replace out of work benefits, low wage benefits and tax free allowances with a single set rate every citizen receives. Right now Bob gets £90 jobseekers allowance, Jill gets £90 tax credits and doesn't pay any tax as she works a low paid job and Mike doesn't pay tax on the first chunk of his income due to his personal tax free allowance. With CI they all get £90 in cold hard cash every week, but pay tax on every penny they earn. No-one is worse off, some are slighly better off, work always pays, there's no poverty trap where it's better to not work extra hours / 90%+ taper rates.

 

 

There was a time (when my kids were at nursery) that every extra £1 i earned, 96p of that went towards lowering in work benefits I was being paid, and 4p hit my bank account. 4p in £1. That's a joke caused by tons of benefits that overlap and kinda interact. With a CI I would have been receiving a much higher amount in my pocket. The Green Party of England and Wales suggested level was around 36p combined tax and national insurance i believe, so I'd get 64p in every £1 i earned. As would EVERYONE else. No more trap. No more stupid to work more hours. It'd encourage people to work to earn to get ahead while better protecting those who can't work, making it easier for creatives to take a risk and TRY to live off their art for a while (and some would fail and end up in work, some fail and sit at home, and others succeed), easier for entrepreneurs to try starting low capital businesses knowing they have the CI to live on until things get off the ground, it's a win win win win win. The only losers are people currently employed in means testing, sanction setting roles maintaining the current jumble of benefits.

[zelticgar]

What states are giving out that much in assistance, because I want to move there! When I was laid off, I got the MAX in unemployment benefits and that was $410 a week for 6 months.  When the unemployment ran out, and we got SNAP, it was about $350 a month

Your numbers work out to about $24,000 annually. Many states offer way more than that through welfare bennies. It pays pretty well already to not work in New England (except for Maine!). 

 

 

 

 

 

[Lany Freelove Cassandra]

Your numbers work out to about $24,000 annually. Many states offer way more than that through welfare bennies. It pays pretty well already to not work in New England (except for Maine!). 

 

 

 

 

 

They don't actually, since unemployment only last six months.  Anyway, there are only two states over 50,000 and I live in one of them. (obviously, I did it wrong  )

Problem with that chart is there is no breakdown in what the benefits are.

[Altherion]

I think that map is somewhat misleading. It almost certainly includes conditional programs like Medicaid which are good to have, but do not amount to money in one's hands. I suspect they also include benefits that are only present if one has children. Finally, they list the rewards as equivalents of pre-tax wages which makes sense if one is trying to compare it to work, but again, one would not have that much money in one's hands.

[zelticgar]

It seems like on average the numbers on that map estimate a 6k to 8k value for medicaid. I guess you can parse things how ever you want but the reality is between state welfare, disability, SNAP, unemployment, medicaid, housing assistance etc.. you can put together a package of services and cash that equates to probably close to what the OP had in mind for a "pay to stay home program."  I'm all for replacing the complexity of these programs with a lump sum cash program and eliminating the programs that are currently in place. 

 

[MerenthaClone]

Scot

re: "respecting the labor of others"  conversely, I'd love it if the answer to the ubiquitous "so what do you do?" question when meeting new people wasn't about how they earn money.  People do so much more than just work, and a Guaranteed Basic Income might be enough to facilitate a societal shift away from the idea that someone's self-worth should be based on their labor.