Universal Basic Income - pro.s and con.s

[Which Tyler]

Discussion on the UK politics board, really deserves a thread of its own, and input from further afield.

 

Personally, I've become convinced over the last 2-3 years that it's a really good idea. Not for a huge payment, but enough to cover the essentials - 4 walls and a roof, heating, internet and food - if you want a telly and PS5, work for it. The current world of fulough payments and Covid cheques has really brought the conversation to the fore.

It would basically replace almost all forms of state level welfare payments, saving massively on bureaucracy as it would be far simpler to administer.

Quantity would need to be localised for different costs of living, taken from a more centralised template. Something like typical cost of a flat-share + low-use utility bill + basic supermarket shop.

The public would (once they'd wrapped their head around it) be happier, with approaching zero poverty and homelessness. No-one would have to work a job they hate, and jobs that no-one wants to do would have to pay better, anyone would have the ability to just do what they love, more artists, more small businesses etc

 

The Finnish trial certainly highlighted the psychological benefits: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/may/07/finnish-basic-income-pilot-improved-wellbeing-study-finds-coronavirus

[Altherion]

46 minutes ago, Which Tyler said:

Quantity would need to be localised for different costs of living, taken from a more centralised template. Something like typical cost of a flat-share + low-use utility bill + basic supermarket shop.

If it differs from locality to locality, it's not very universal, is it? What this would mean in practice is that city people would get dramatically more than rural people and people in larger, expensive cities (like New York or London) would get more than anyone else. Implemented this way, it's a recipe for civil unrest if ever there was one.

That said, the more common implementation (i.e. a basic income that is actually universal for a given country rather than location specific) does not suffer from this problem. If I remember correctly from previous discussions, the main issue is that the money simply does not add up. Even if you replace all government assistance with this thing, it would still either be too little per person or too expensive for the government.

[Which Tyler]

Then define "local", and I'm pretty sure civil unrest would work both ways TBH, it's one of the many genuine problems. Some places are simply more expensive to live, so payments need to be higher there (or allow people in poorer areas to live in luxury).

Oh, and universal  =/= identical, it means that everyone is covered, not that everyone gets the same regardles sof need. Or at least, that's what it means to me - and is a discussion worth having.

 

As for doing the maths, I just had a look at it (grossly over simplified) over on the UK thread.

For the UK, the welfare state costs £275B

With another circa £425B in waived tax as we allow people to earn a "reasonable" amount before taxing them.

That £700B would allow £10,500pa to every man woman and child in the UK - which is livable for most of the country (but Londoners would riot if expected to get by on that)

[DireWolfSpirit]

I don't care for the idea of giving more to people who choose to live in overpriced rent districts. If they can't afford an area they should move to where their means will stretch further.

Everyone should receive the same allowance, similar to a system like the stimulus money. We don't give the people in high rent districts extra stimulus based on higher cola.

I mean really if the alternative is to be the standard, why shouldn't we all move to Honolulu the day this goes into effect?

[polishgenius]

27 minutes ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

I don't care for the idea of giving more to people who choose to live in overpriced rent districts. If they can't afford an area they should move to where their means will stretch further.

 

You say that like it's really simple for everyone just to move. Also if you create a system where you get rewarded for living in a cheaper area you're very quickly going to make those the most in-demand areas and shoot the price up.

There's no perfect solution to giving everyone 'equal' pay, but adjusting for living costs is the solution that means people aren't getting vastly different lifestyles out of the same system based on location.

 

[DireWolfSpirit]

35 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

 

You say that like it's really simple for everyone just to move. Also if you create a system where you get rewarded for living in a cheaper area you're very quickly going to make those the most in-demand areas and shoot the price up.

There's no perfect solution to giving everyone 'equal' pay, but adjusting for living costs is the solution that means people aren't getting vastly different lifestyles out of the same system based on location.

 

Living where you do not have the means to stay is a cruel, prolonged suffering and rather than try to subsidize such behavior it would be better for people to pay rents where its affordable for them. Thats just a basic behavior of survival for any species.

"Also if you create a system where you get rewarded for living in a cheaper area you're very quickly going to make those the most in-demand areas and shoot the price up."

Not really, we already have that in the U.S. where in some areas a $2-300k house would cost you millions in the expensive coastal regions or Hawaii.

There's no way the Midwest and South should be expected to subsidize people, in over their heads, who can simply move to where they can afford things. It happens every day all over the world.

When the hunting grounds go bare you move on.

[polishgenius]

8 minutes ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

Not really, we already have that in the U.S. where in some areas a $2-300k house would cost you millions in the expensive coastal regions or Hawaii.

 

 

The reason cities are expensive at the moment is because they are where the jobs are. If you disattach being able to stay alive from location, there'll be far less reason to stay in them, and also makes it far more likely that they move out to places and don't get a job- not even out of idleness but because if you're struggling to live in the area where the jobs are, but can live comfortably where the jobs aren't even if you don't have one, then you'll go there and worry about whether you can find one later.

In fairness I think ultimately changing our dependence on cities would be a good thing, but it'd need more of a plan than hoping people being given a just-about-living-income move sensibly into areas where it makes sense.

But also if 2-300k houses are your standard for how this would work I feel like you have unrealistic expectations of what UBI is?

12 minutes ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

Living where you do not have the means to stay is a cruel, prolonged suffering and rather than try to subsidize such behavior it would be better for people to pay rents where its affordable for them.

In this scenario the reason people don't have the means to stay in places is because you're not allowing them to have those means. You're essentially saying that anyone living only off UBI aren't allowed to live in major cities.

[DireWolfSpirit]

You may be reading a little extra into what I'm saying by some of that response.

My biggest objection is a universal basic income that is based on geography instead of basic demo's like family makeup and means testing. A similar benefit should go to everyone nationally if it's a federal program, not different levels for different states. I don't think Hawaiians or Californians should get a $4000 benefit while a family in Missippi is deemed to only need $1000. 

Screw that noise, it would be extraordinarily unpopular and doomed to try to institute such a program in that matter.

Social Security doesn't care whether one lives in Tennessee or New York, they get the benefit they've earned regardless of their cost of living.

[Centrist Simon Steele]

4 hours ago, Altherion said:

If it differs from locality to locality, it's not very universal, is it? What this would mean in practice is that city people would get dramatically more than rural people and people in larger, expensive cities (like New York or London) would get more than anyone else. Implemented this way, it's a recipe for civil unrest if ever there was one.

That said, the more common implementation (i.e. a basic income that is actually universal for a given country rather than location specific) does not suffer from this problem. If I remember correctly from previous discussions, the main issue is that the money simply does not add up. Even if you replace all government assistance with this thing, it would still either be too little per person or too expensive for the government.

Hm, this is confusing. It's universal basic income, not universal and exactly equal basic income. Cost of living varies depending on where you live.

3 hours ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

I don't care for the idea of giving more to people who choose to live in overpriced rent districts. If they can't afford an area they should move to where their means will stretch further.

Everyone should receive the same allowance, similar to a system like the stimulus money. We don't give the people in high rent districts extra stimulus based on higher cola.

I mean really if the alternative is to be the standard, why shouldn't we all move to Honolulu the day this goes into effect?

So, if you don't make a lot of money, where should people move? For me, I live in a pricey town in a part of Colorado that is hard to find anything different. I could move to a rural area in the middle of nowhere, or into Wyoming, but I'm working on my PhD and I'm a college instructor. 

To me, this line of thinking is bordering on "you don't belong here" territory. People have a right to live in places that make them happy. If they don't want to move across the state, into another state, etc...honestly, I am just mystified by this rationale. Urban areas that are predominantly black are cheap because they've been neglected for the last century. So, let's give these people UBI and say they need to move or stay in these run down, often dangerous places to live. Where will they go? Iowa? Wyoming? Where virulent white pride parades are held weekly in some of these small towns? UBI is meant to lift people out of the poverty created by the hoarding of wealth, not make them retreat to some corner of America where their "class" or "job prestige" matches the surrounding neighborhoods in which they work.

ETA: I am really dumbfounded by your proposed limitations. UBI is meant to lift people up from bad circumstances, but you want a stipulation that outlines ways in which you place a limit on what circumstances are allowed to be improved?

[Centrist Simon Steele]

Double

[DireWolfSpirit]

I think people are looking at something exactly backwards when they can convince themselves that a benefit should be smaller for a family in Gary Indiana or rural Missippi then the benefit we bestow on the fortunate people who live in sunny vacation lands those families can only wish they could visit let alone live in.

Every family (that's qualified) should get the same benefit whether they are from Detroit or Rodeo Drive. That's at a bare minimum, flipping into people from wealthier enclaves ( where cola is higher) should get more, is an instance of egregious reasoning.

[The Anti-Targ]

In most social welfare systems there are supplemental payments available for high rent places. I don't see why a UBI that replaces all current forms of social welfare payments wouldn't do the same. I can't imagine there is really much need for higher payments other than for rent. Why would there be civil unrest when a person in an expensive rent city still doesn't have a better overall livestyle than a person in a low rent city or town. However it adds a layer of bureaucracy, and even within a city, there are more or less expensive rental areas, and does someone earning a 7 figure salary get the higher UBI, or cost of living add on, for living in NYC, as well as an unemployed person, or person on minimum wage? Does a person with a mortgage get an accommodation add on the same as someone renting?

 

[Altherion]

1 hour ago, Centrist Simon Steele said:

Hm, this is confusing. It's universal basic income, not universal and exactly equal basic income. Cost of living varies depending on where you live.

Yes, cost of living varies depending on where you live, but so do salaries; the reason that the expensive cities are expensive is that there are a lot of people there who are quite well paid and they are in turn willing pay high prices for inherently limited goods such as land near the city center. To give you an extreme example, Billionaires' Row is in one of the most expensive localities in the world. Under your plan, they would get more than practically anyone else (of course, they wouldn't actually notice it as no matter what the basic income is, it would still be less than pocket change to them).

Don't get me wrong -- I live in one of the outer boroughs of New York City and the cost of living here is very high. However, my salary here is also higher than it was when I worked in the Midwest and I don't think people outside of New York and San Francisco and a few other cities will be happy when people who are already well off get more our of UBI than pretty much everyone. The obvious solution to this is to scale the amount received by income so that people who are already well paid get little and billionaires get nothing (or almost nothing)... but of course this requires means testing and all of the associated bureaucracy which is precisely what UBI was meant to avoid.

[DireWolfSpirit]

By paying every family a federal equal benefit each family could decide the state they want to live in. This notion that poorer areas with lower cost of living should receive less pretty well guarantees they will be either ghetto or rural poor trapped, while upper middle income people would benefit tremendously. It shouldn't be off the backs of the working poor. They deserve no less federal relief than fortunate people. Under this reasoning would we start lowering social security payments to people in low cost of living states?

No way would I be for an upside down idea like that.

Actually that begs the question, under ubi, does social security get eliminated?

[Martell Spy]

Yeah, if you are means-testing it or sorting by geography it's not really UBI and you lose the benefits.  The Alaska oil fund doesn't sort by geography does it?

I support implementing UBI, but not necessarily removing the welfare state. Depends on what country, what the UBI is set at, and really big one is there already universal healthcare already in the country? I'm not going to support scaling back or eliminating Medicaid when not only do we not have universal healthcare in the United States, our private healthcare sector is a real shitshow. I'd be pretty hesitant about touching Social Security or Medicare. Anyway, part of the point would be for seniors to be able to combine UBI and SS. We might finally be able to end the cruelty of people being forced to work into their 70's and higher just to make ends meet. I would probably be comfortable removing food stamps, but only if there was like a 500$ UBI already in place.

 

 

 

[Centrist Simon Steele]

2 hours ago, Altherion said:

Yes, cost of living varies depending on where you live, but so do salaries; the reason that the expensive cities are expensive is that there are a lot of people there who are quite well paid and they are in turn willing pay high prices for inherently limited goods such as land near the city center. To give you an extreme example, Billionaires' Row is in one of the most expensive localities in the world. Under your plan, they would get more than practically anyone else (of course, they wouldn't actually notice it as no matter what the basic income is, it would still be less than pocket change to them).

Don't get me wrong -- I live in one of the outer boroughs of New York City and the cost of living here is very high. However, my salary here is also higher than it was when I worked in the Midwest and I don't think people outside of New York and San Francisco and a few other cities will be happy when people who are already well off get more our of UBI than pretty much everyone. The obvious solution to this is to scale the amount received by income so that people who are already well paid get little and billionaires get nothing (or almost nothing)... but of course this requires means testing and all of the associated bureaucracy which is precisely what UBI was meant to avoid.

Fundamentally untrue. I live in a high priced city and teaching salaries, for example, are higher across the interstate. This town's teacher wages works to keep up with the nearby rural areas. If you were to remove all these non high wage earners from the city, you'd lose half the population. But to be safe, best to just not give out money, am I right? They should have gone to college or something, right? Oh, I mean, I know teachers went, but they should have gotten a better degree, or they knew what they were getting into, right?

[felice]

Paying people more if they live in expensive areas just pushes the prices up even higher; it doesn't increase the supply of desirable land, and it increases inequality. If a place is too expensive to live in, other measures should be taken to address that problem. Construct more affordable housing if practical, and take steps to make alternative places more appealing to live (eg relocate major employers, invest the funds that would otherwise go on cost-of-living subsidies on amenities). If the location is inherently special in some way, prioritise short term accommodation and encourage people to take holidays there instead of live there.

[Inkdaub]

I am a supporter of the idea of a UBI, though I haven't really looked into the details of what it might look like.  I am fairly confident that we will see a UBI eventually.  I had always assumed it would be tied into income level instead of geography.  After your income passes certain benchmarks your portion goes down until you stop receiving it at all.  People smarter than me will figure that out.  What is needed is the will to do so.

I also think that, while there would be some, most people would NOT be content to get their UBI and then sit around all day doing whatever.  I think the relationship between employers and employees would naturally change but productivity would stabilize after a period of uncertainty.  People will still go to work.  I would and I'm not really all that unique.  That is not to say that things wouldn't change.

That said, a UBI would need to have a beneficial effect other wise why do it?  We can't give everyone $1000 per month then look away as the cost of living is raised $1100.  There needs to be controls put in place.  Again I'll need some smart people to figure this out...hopefully.  Extra credit if they eliminate billionaires entirely. 

We also need to get past this idea of what people deserve.  It is near meaningless and almost always negative as term. 

[rotting sea cow]

People should be able to live off from their work. If wages aren't enough it means there is a problem with wages and/or with the cost of living.

[Pebble thats Stubby]

1 hour ago, rotting sea cow said:

People should be able to live off from their work. If wages aren't enough it means there is a problem with wages and/or with the cost of living.

I really hate that due to income tax i earn in effect the company I work for because they pay a decent wage are subsiding the wages of other companies, because they refuse to pay a living wage. 

 

I don't object to paying the tax, nor do I object to everyone earning a living wage. But you should be able to get that from your job, and not cos someone else has a better paid job.   I want my tax to go on improving society not as a way for private companies to shirk their responsibilities.

There could be exceptions made with charities and not for profits for income subsidies. 

I think before UBI  comes in, it may be easyier for wage controls.  A realistic living wage as a minimum wage.  And the highest paid in any company cannot earn more than let's say 5 times the lowest this includes self employed but in effect employed by the company and subcontractors (those that technically work for company B, but everything they do is for company a and they are located at company A )

I'd include stock options and bonuses as part of the wage calculation.

I'd also consider share dividend payments cannot total more that total wages (or some fraction of, I've no idea of the maths )