Universal Basic Income - pro.s and con.s

[Inkdaub]

25 minutes ago, larrytheimp said:

Just want to say that the idea that the only reason people do anything productive is for survival money, and that people would simply become lazy and watch tv if you increased their standard of living a bit, is fucking insulting on a really basic level. 

This line of thinking makes me extremely angry and I will try to formulate a better response beyond "fuck this noise".  It's all wrapped up in some weird protestant "work ethic" mumbo jumbo.

Agreed.

The idea that everything has to be based on fear otherwise it will all fall apart absolutely shows our system to be a bad one.  Why we tolerate it is completely beyond me. 

[OldGimletEye]

Just now, dbergkvist said:

D (which I take it is unemployed or similar) is would lose his housing/unemployment benefits etc and instead get the 500. T

Okay, what I assume you mean here is that if you cancel all other social insurance programs, then there will be enough money to pay D 500 dollars (because he doesn't get a housing allowance, food stamps, unemployment benefits, etc.)

I doubt it. Maybe if you got rid of medicare or something. But our other social insurance programs are small and I doubt canceling them will raise the needed funds.

[dbergkvist]

28 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

Okay, what I assume you mean here is that if you cancel all other social insurance programs, then there will be enough money to pay D 500 dollars (because he doesn't get a housing allowance, food stamps, unemployment benefits, etc.)

Your assumption is correct.

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I doubt it. Maybe if you got rid of medicare or something. But our other social insurance programs are small and I doubt canceling them will raise the needed funds.

It may well be that you are correct in this, and that the US is not a suitable country for this type of reform, as it prefers to spend it's tax money on warfare and handing out to healthcare insurance companies, rather than welfare for poor people, and the welfare budget therefore is too small to be reformed in this way. And changing those priorities is beyond the scope of any UBI reform.

Medicare should definitely be reformed, as it's currently a huge gift to insurance companies (governments do not need to buy instance, as the whole point of insurance is to protect you against unforseen expenses, but the fact that people get sick and need healthcare is not unforseen from the government's perspective), but that's a bit of unrelated issue.

[Free Northman Reborn]

The real reason why UBI might become necessary in future, as advocated for by Elon Musk amongst others, is that robots and AI might eventually take the vast majority of our jobs. That is a legitimate problem, but will require a lot of study to resolve.

UBI just being a different form of welfare safety net for the poorest 10 or 20% is not the reason to implement it.

[dbergkvist]

10 minutes ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

The real reason why UBI might become necessary in future, as advocated for by Elon Musk amongst others, is that robots and AI might eventually take the vast majority of our jobs. That is a legitimate problem, but will require a lot of study to resolve

If people themselves own the robots and AIs, they won't need to work, as they can just live off the capital gains that their robots and AIs produce. Letting Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg etc own all the robots and AIs will make humanity their subjects. If they get bored with humanity leeching* off of them, they could just turn their robots into soldiers and the rest of humanity would not have any ability to force them to give UBI to anyone.

[*] from their perspective

[Free Northman Reborn]

8 minutes ago, dbergkvist said:

If people themselves own the robots and AIs, they won't need to work, as they can just live off the capital gains that their robots and AIs produce. Letting Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg etc own all the robots and AIs will make humanity their subjects. If they get bored with humanity leeching* off of them, they could just turn their robots into soldiers and the rest of humanity would not have any ability to force them to give UBI to anyone.

[*] from their perspective

Sure. So how do I go about owning enough personal robots to live off the fruits of their labor?

[dbergkvist]

26 minutes ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Sure. So how do I go about owning enough personal robots to live off the fruits of their labor?

Apparently you are OK with using the government to coerce Elon Musk to give you UBI, so I don't see why you wouldn't instead just use the same government to instead coerce him to give you the robots*. I'm not saying that that would necessarily be the best or only solution, but I don't see why taking UBI is more doable than taking capital.

If taking them outright is too harsh, the government could restrict how much a company can sell AI/robot output, and/or mandating that they also sell the robots that produced it, if that makes you feel better.

[Werthead]

7 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

This weakens the incentive to get off your ass and better yourself. Even if fear of homelessness is what motivates someone to go and become a waiter or construction worker, that is better for society than having millions sitting at home watching TV while earning a government freebie.

Making people do things out of fear is a bad idea. It forces people to stay in jobs where they are being bullied or harassed or treated illegally because of the fear they can't quit and find another job, and the significant difficulties in searching for another job when you already have a job (the advent of the internet and automated job searches has helped that somewhat, but you still have issues with people having to take sick days to attend interviews for other jobs and so on). It allows, if not encourages, predatory and unpleasant working practices because it concentrates power in the hands of businesses rather than the employees.

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It will put upward pressure on the wages for menial jobs, reducing the deserved premium that more highly educated people should earn compared to those who are less educated - and like in Australia will make the cost of a beer or a meal in a restaurant ridiculously expensive for a normal middle class person.

In almost every case, raising the wages of low-paid workers rarely translates to price rises in the products, especially for huge companies. This is the same sort of hysterical argument as in America where the idea of a $15 ph minimum wage for someone working in McDonalds means that Big Macs will now cost $30, despite there being plenty of countries where McDonalds pays $15 ph or higher and the food is only marginally more expensive than in the US.

Also, logically, it doesn't put pressure on menial jobs at all, because everyone has the same safety net below them. It might make companies more willing to make employees happier because they will have lost the dominant power in the relationship (unless staff are unionised) and they may have to provide more competitive wages, but that should have been the case anyway.

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The idea that there are millions of talented authors, artists and musicians that would greatly improve society if only they could be freed from the constraint of earning a living is highly unrealistic. Most would just end up sitting at home, producing nothing of worth.

And idle hands are the devil’s workshop. 

I don't think I've seen this argument in favour of a UBI made with a straight face. There are some cases where there are authors, artists etc who are struggling to survive who would be able to dedicated themselves to their careers with a UBI safety net, but if that is the case and they still fail, then they will need to find other work. If they succeed, they will be making money and paying back into the taxes in profits.

Also, the idea being advocated by most UBI advocates is giving enough people to live on but not live in luxury, or even mediocrity. It's maybe £1000 a month, perhaps significantly less, enough to just about pay your rent (well, maybe) and maybe food and Internet, but not enough to drown yourself in books, movies and video games every month. If you wanted a reasonable quality of life you'd definitely have to still work.

One argument is that in poor areas of the country where the cost of living is very low, people might find this is enough to sit on their arses all day and have a reasonably comfortable life, but those exact areas are where the number of jobs is very low and people are doing that already on Universal Credit.

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And four, even if all of the above were untrue, whats the point of paying everyone $2000 a month if the average cost of living then just increases by an average of $2000 due to the inflationary pressure of all this free cash being available?

The inflationary aspect is a valid point, and one that I haven't seen strongly argued against. However, as noted, people would probably not be receiving $2K a month, rather significantly less.

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If taking them outright is too harsh, the government could restrict how much a company can sell AI/robot output, and/or mandating that they also sell the robots that produced it, if that makes you feel better.

The rather more practical solution I've seen advocated is simply taxing a robot's output so it pays for the human(s) they've supplanted. And if that makes companies say, "Well, why bother with the robot, I might as well just employ the human being?" then that works as well.

[dbergkvist]

9 minutes ago, Werthead said:

The rather more practical solution I've seen advocated is simply taxing a robot's output so it pays for the human(s) they've supplanted. And if that makes companies say, "Well, why bother with the robot, I might as well just employ the human being?" then that works as well.

But then you still end up with the situation where a few companies/rich people own all the capital/means of production, which was the outcome I was asked to explain how to avoid.

[OldGimletEye]

22 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Also, the idea being advocated by most UBI advocates is giving enough people to live on but not live in luxury, or even mediocrity. It's maybe £1000 a month, perhaps significantly less, enough to just about pay your rent (well, maybe) and maybe food and Internet, but not enough to drown yourself in books, movies and video games every month. If you wanted a reasonable quality of life you'd definitely have to still work.

This is why I don't see a modest UBI having all these horrible labor supply effects as predicted by some. For someone in poverty, a 1000 dollars or pounds per month would be a big help, but they certainly wouldn't be living in luxury or comfort off UBI alone.

[OldGimletEye]

5 hours ago, dbergkvist said:

Your assumption is correct.

It may well be that you are correct in this, and that the US is not a suitable country for this type of reform, as it prefers to spend it's tax money on warfare and handing out to healthcare insurance companies, rather than welfare for poor people, and the welfare budget therefore is too small to be reformed in this way. And changing those priorities is beyond the scope of any UBI reform.

Medicare should definitely be reformed, as it's currently a huge gift to insurance companies (governments do not need to buy instance, as the whole point of insurance is to protect you against unforseen expenses, but the fact that people get sick and need healthcare is not unforseen from the government's perspective), but that's a bit of unrelated issue.

Well certainly the American healthcare system is pricey, compared to other systems. Getting our cost under control would help to finance a UBI. But, also, keep in mind that UBI is just one big program advocated by the American left. It also wants to pay for things like free college, fighting global climate change, etc. I'm not sure how it envisions paying for all these things or how it will prioritize these various new programs.

[Heartofice]

I said this in the UK thread but I generally fear that a base amount of money given to everyone would very quickly devolve into numerous arguments around who is more deserving of that money, about why some people aren’t getting more than others and why we shouldn’t prioritise some groups more. 

There was already talk of different amounts based on location ( some locations needing far more to simply survive than others ), but if you expand that argument out to money based on need then that’s where if all goes haywire.

While I admire the intention to simplify the whole system, my guess is that over time you’d just end up back where you started, and the money being handed out became means tested, with all the paper work that goes with it.

[Denvek]

If you're somewhere like America, where the states and cities have their own taxation powers, maybe the answer would be to set a federal UBI at the lower level and let the states/cities decide if they want to top it up based on their cost-of-living. Wouldn't work in a centralised system like the UK, but places with more federal/devolved systems could try to solve the regional differences that way.

Although that doesn't really stop the complaints, just changes who people are complaining to/about.

[maarsen]

In Canada whenever any social benefit is introduced, such as Child benefits, Old Age security benefits, it is always given to all that qualify based on age. Then those whose income is above the level where the benefit stops, have the benefit clawed back through taxes. Then based in the previous year's income, the benefit is recalculated for the next year. The means test and enforcement are done through the existing income tax structure. The theory has been to err on the side of overpaying and then getting it back as opposed to deciding who is needy beforehand and improperly denying a benefit. This system has been in place since the 60s.

[Martell Spy]

2 hours ago, Denvek said:

If you're somewhere like America, where the states and cities have their own taxation powers, maybe the answer would be to set a federal UBI at the lower level and let the states/cities decide if they want to top it up based on their cost-of-living. Wouldn't work in a centralised system like the UK, but places with more federal/devolved systems could try to solve the regional differences that way.

Although that doesn't really stop the complaints, just changes who people are complaining to/about.

It's probably better if it's federal. States often don't have the budgets. In the U.S. particular state governments are often conservative and regressive. Even in blue areas. The American Left is coming to terms with this on healthcare. I had high hopes for state-based healthcare public options, but so far several states failed to implement it. Washington state technically has a public healthcare option now, but I don't even know how to buy it. I looked on the exchanges and didn't see it. Medicaid remains a great program though, and is always there if you lose a job or have income cut.

Plus, again if a City or State implements it, it's not really UBI. You've removed the universal part and part of the simplicity.

I tend to think of UBI as we already have a UBI, but it goes directly to billionaires and CEOs. Saying we can't afford it while Bezos and his ilk head to trillionaire status is pretty laughable. The real question is how much income inequality will we tolerate and so far the answer seems to more and more of it. UBI is just one of the methods of trying to tackle it.

 

[Mlle. Zabzie]

You know, the more I read this the more I am convinced that UBI is:

1.  Probably not practicable in implementation (at least in the US),

2.  An uneasy sell for most current taxpayers, and 

3.  Probably not a great policy idea at the end of the day.

Mind you, I'd love to get rid of the execrable EITC and find better ways to help people out of poverty.  But I remain unconvinced that there is an executable way to fund and implement UBI (particularly without sacrificing other policy goals that would do more for more people). In the medium term, I would have thought we would be better off re-examining our estate tax (and in particular doing away with the horrifying basis step up on death), investing in infrastructure, abolishing the sacred cow of the capital gains rate, and funding health care.  A flat panem and circenses payment to all seems....ill-advised and unfundable.  I also suspect there would be some unanticipated consequences (some of which, OGE, who is away ahead of me, is already anticipating).  

[Mlle. Zabzie]

1 hour ago, Chataya de Fleury said:

I am rather fond of the step up in basis on date of death

All joking aside it is terrible tax policy.  It means that it is totally possible for wealth to accumulate and change hands within a family indefinitely without tax under current law (more or less).  I'd be fine with it if we had a real estate tax so that the built-in-gain were consistently taxed.  But alas.....

[Larry of the Lawn]

14 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Sure. So how do I go about owning enough personal robots to live off the fruits of their labor?

I'd start with robot bootstraps, prolly, but you do you.

[Altherion]

19 hours ago, OldGimletEye said:

Any UBI program should be financially neutral in the long run. There are roughly about 200 million adults in the US. For a monthly payment of 500 dollars per month, back of envelope math comes out to about 1 trillion per year. Federal revenues were about 3.4 trillion in 2020. The amount of revenue that would have to raised would be significant.

This is the fundamental problem with UBI that you run into before even needing to discuss the details of how the money is raised and spent: $500 per month is simply not enough for what UBI intends to do. It works out to $6000 per year which is far below the poverty line anywhere in the country and would not come close to replacing the array of benefits that poor people currently get. It would be not a basic income, but a supplemental income -- and, as you say, even this requires significant revenue.

To get even a semi-realistic basic (i.e. poverty line) income, one needs to at least double this, but keep in mind that the incomes of people at the poverty line are currently supplemented by the aforementioned array of benefits so one still couldn't get rid of the latter even though the revenue required is now roughly $2.4 trillion. Try as one might, the math just doesn't add up.

[Martell Spy]

2 hours ago, Altherion said:

This is the fundamental problem with UBI that you run into before even needing to discuss the details of how the money is raised and spent: $500 per month is simply not enough for what UBI intends to do. It works out to $6000 per year which is far below the poverty line anywhere in the country and would not come close to replacing the array of benefits that poor people currently get. It would be not a basic income, but a supplemental income -- and, as you say, even this requires significant revenue.

To get even a semi-realistic basic (i.e. poverty line) income, one needs to at least double this, but keep in mind that the incomes of people at the poverty line are currently supplemented by the aforementioned array of benefits so one still couldn't get rid of the latter even though the revenue required is now roughly $2.4 trillion. Try as one might, the math just doesn't add up.

It is supplementary income. I don't think the goal of many is to immediately start a $2000/month UBI. There is a long-term goal of replacing income due to increasing automation, but that is in the future. One of the advantages of a lesser UBI is that it helps prepare us for that future.

I'm not even sure it needs to be $500, at least at first. I think like a $50/month UBI would be a good starting point. That would show that it can be done and give it time to gain some popularity. 

And $500 is actually larger than it appears. That's $1000 a month for a couple. I have a working class relative that has a an elderly mother-in law and an adult son that doesn't work in the house, that would add $2000/month income to the household. Non-family adults could form  group housing situations and pool their UBI and thus stretch it further.

And getting rid of benefits is not really a concern to me. I consider it an afterthought. That's a goal of libertarians that support UBI.