> it's an insidious wealth concentration mechanism aimed at removing both the motivation and means for upward mobility.
Wealth concentration mechanism? This seems like the exact opposite of wealth concentration to me. You're distributing money here.
The removal of upward mobility? Again, I fail to see how providing a basic income removes upward mobility. It's quite literally the exact opposite. One of the most difficult parts of getting yourself out of poverty and moving upward in class socioeconomically, is the seed level funding required to bootstrap yourself through your non-earning period to earning period. Usually in most cases, that's the time required to get an education when you're hemorrhaging money on both sides (i.e. having to pay tuition on one end while simultaneously having less time to work in favor of being able to have time to study/take the classes you're paying for on the other).
> Whether you make $40k, $100k, or $500k, the $10k isn't there to prove "additional income support". The system could be set up so that after basic income is implemented, your disposable income is the same as it was before--people making $40k wouldn't have $10k in free money to spend, because their taxes would go up $10k a year, for example.
> So if you make over $100k a year, you might be taxed $15k more than you were before, but you would also receive $10k.
So basically as a middle class person, I don't benefit at all, I may even lose money, but some kid who has no income and wants to live in his parents basement gets $10k/yr for contributing nothing to society? Am I understanding this correctly?
The upper class won't care - this is pennies to them, but this is going to bite the middle class badly and completely change their incentives to avoiding getting housing and living as cheaply as possible to minimize or eliminate work.
You always have to think very carefully about the incentives you create with something like this. This seems to create very bad incentives to me, incentives which would have caused me to make very, very different decisions in life drawing me away from any sort of productivity in society.
I'm not strictly against this idea, but as you've presented it, I can't see a way this would ever be implemented, how would you sell it to the middle class?
>Distributing money indiscriminately devalues work and effort.
This is a poor understanding of the concept. The idea behind a Basic Income Guarantee is that it is received equally by every citizen in the country. It's an idea linked to Negative Income Tax and other like proposals, and shares support of many with a more libertarian/economically conservative bent.
In most areas of North America where Basic Income experiments have occurred, the overall workforce does decline, but in very specific ways: mainly with single mothers and teenagers. Mothers choosing to stay at home with their children, and teenagers graduating high school are more positive impacts on the society at large than the greater retention of wealth by the highly motivated.
Wealth can only be created in societies, and therefore the overall health of a society should be of paramount concern to those interested in creating wealth. While I do not advocate for many socialist principles, a certain baseline ensures the society remains sustainable in the long term, thus allowing its members to grow wealth.
Both too much (Communism, socialist Europe) and too little (Argentina, Venezuala, the US) will lead to inevitable social collapse and the reduction of wealth (or the ability to create more) for all.
> 1) As defined above, this is horribly inefficient and expensive. I, a software engineer in Silicon Valley, would receive this $10k. How does this benefit society? I already make over $100k; I don't need additional income support.
So give basic income only to people doing less than the basic income, and take it away once you are doing more. That's how it's been implemented in some countries, and I don't see any reason not to follow this scheme.
> You misunderstand Basic income as providing equal wealth to everyone...
I can see how you might think that, but I disagree. What I am trying to do is show that the idea that a basic income can provide without distorting prices isn't grounded in reality.
What is the bare minimum amount of money required for someone to survive? And who defines what "surviving" is? If you're married with six kids (four currently of the right age for private school) your "bare minimum" might be $25k/mo. No that's not legit? What is? Does the "bare minimum" require that you get only a small 1 bedroom to yourself? Or an efficiency? Or maybe you should be required to live with roommates to bring your rent cost down? Do you get more money if you have kids, or less? What happens if you get married or divorced?
If you live somewhere where the cost of living is high you get more money; how do you ensure people actually live where they say they do? What would prevent me and 100 of my closest friends from all saying we live in a shithole in NYC while we use that money to buy all kinds of good lives for ourselves in more rural areas? The cost of living differential is probably at least 2x and maybe higher, so there's a lot of incentive to abuse the system.
So the businesses have more profits, but higher taxes right? The money for a basic income doesn't just magically appear does it? Where does the money come from to pay it?
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.
> Basic income. Free tuition. An outright grant, no repayments. Literally zero barriers except ability for anyone, for any level of academic achievement in anything. Result: a culture with a lot more understanding of the real world, and the preservation of human and humane values, rather than a laser focus on the hand-to-mouth of Jobs Right Now.
Incorrect. This will foster a culture of inferiority because not everyone is equal. No matter what you do, the lower class will be jealous of the upper class and will always demand for more.
Money and education is solved? What about universal access to entertainment? Universal food? Universal housing?
>In order to be useful the basic income has to be a substantial fraction of the median income
Woah thats a pretty crazy assumption - basic income only needs to provide enough income for basic needs to be useful - are you trying to say that the median salary in the US is the bare minimum to meet necessities?
Median income is the amount which divides the income distribution into two equal groups, half having income above that amount[1]
currently the median household income is estimated to be $51,371 - if you think that this is the MINIMUM amount of basic income for the program to be useful then its clear you have a core misunderstanding of basic income at its core.
>What I mean is that say $2000 for 0 hours worked in a month is very nice, and $2020 for 1 hour worked is at least in percentages, infinitely less desirable.
You say that people are not entirely rational at the beginning of your comment, yet you are now assuming they are - many people enjoy work, do you think PG only does ycombinator purely for the money? warren buffet? does tom cruise still act only for the paychecks?
Also, you are missing another key point of my last comment, and that is that the price of labor will rise. I agree that working for 20 extra dollars isnt going to seem as worth it when you already have enough to serve your needs - that is the whole point. wages will rise, people will be choosier about what work they are willing to do, and the less desirable jobs will have to pay more - that is how simple supply and demand work
>EDIT: I forgot to touch on the black market. If a person wants to accumulate income it might be better to do so on the black market. That allows a person to avoid high taxes (basic income has to come from somewhere, that somewhere is always proposed to be higher taxes). That makes the black market (or working "under the table") attractive. The shadow economy of Europe is already by one estimate 17% of the total economy. Basic income would further encourage such things:
First, you are somehow overlooking that the incentive to work under the table is already there, yet the vast majority of workers do not get paid cash under the table - it is in both the employer and employees interest to subvert the tax system for wages already yet this isnt happening - what makes you believe that this would so dramatically change that MOST of the labor market chooses this option?
This is to ignore that fact that there are regulatory bodies that actually enforce this, and will go to job centers to make sure employees are being payed legally - this happens all the time and is a common method is trying to find illegal aliens (I have years of experience cooking in restaurants where i have seen this first hand many times)
> With a basic income, we can reduce spending by abolishing all social assistance
I would love to see the numbers that show a no-questions-asked basic income would be cheaper than the present social assistance monies.
There are a lot of logistics here. How do we prove you did not already get your check? What about those without mailing addresses. Or ID's? Is the basic income adjusted for families of 1 vs 7?
This idea of a minimalist ruleset for financial assistance seems like it is great at first, but will inevitably just get more and more bloated (and costly) as you actually implement it.
> I don't think for a minute that everyone should get paid the same
Conflating your concept of "everyone should get paid the same" and basic income is a logical fallacy (false equivalence?). Nothing about basic income requires that everyone's total income be identical.
Further your "you don't provide any benefit to society you shouldn't be as well off" again has nothing to do with basic income. Nothing about basic income requires everyone to be as "well off" as everyone else.
What will society look like when there are only highly skilled jobs available? How would unskilled parents improve the lot of their children? I find it difficult to imagine that a permanent underclass is likely to lead to a society that is stable over the long term.
> Plenty of people already receive checks from the government every month that they live on, in exchange for no real work responsibilities. Like, a whole lot of people. There should already be a not-so-huge wave of accomplishment coming from all these people.
That isn't the same as no responsibilities.
> Modern Western societies are rich enough that smart, motivated individuals can mostly rise to the level of their own ability.
Capitalism isn't a meritocracy and hasn't been for some time (if ever).
Basic income (along with other ideas intended to improve the value of human capital) helps level the field so people can focus on things like a better education, etc.
Frankly, I think we need to focus more on providing access to better education (e.g. Free community college, technical schools, bachelor degrees) with reasonable application restrictions (e.g. Fields with low demand such as many Art/soft skill majors should have caps on how many free degrees are available while fields with high demand should be uncapped).
I think that'd get us alot further than basic income would in regards to your criticism.
HOWEVER, basic income isn't primarily about improving human capital...its just one of the reasons:
> I'm actually amazed at how little basic income helps people.
There have been many trials and this is again and again the most stunning conclusion (I doubt this one is even a good example) It is kinda silly how obvious it is in hindsight: A person living on 1 dollar per day will leverage the hell out of 10 cents extra.
What's wrong is a potential increase in income inequality and worst wealth distribution.
A corporation or somebody from a upper class will be getting richer from the work being done while the guy(s) doing the work with the basic income will stay at the same level. I don't think we should increase our inequality metrics even further.
> 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.
> 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.
> I find it so interesting that there are so many things being proposed by people entirely ignorant of political economy and contradictory to the most basic understanding of the profession.
Actually, the opposite is true.
1. There are many economists who support the idea of a basic income.
2. Many supporters of basic income are empiricists. Me, for example. I think it's an intriguing idea and that the trials so far have all shown good points.
What the idea needs now is more testing in the field.
If I might suggest, this is actually the problem with most of the arguments against basic income. People appear to have very strong beliefs about how the universe works and how economics works that are grounded in philosophic principles of fairness. Phrases like:
> This whole idea is a very naive scheme
> ... proposed by people entirely ignorant of political economy
> ... contradictory to the most basic understanding of the profession
> I keep hoping that the adults show up
... are all emotional reactions not supported by evidence.
Economics is, sadly, able to support lots of opinions, many contradictory. The only solution has to be based on real-world evidence from real-world trials. Either we'll find this idea will work or it won't, but I don't think your phrases above are currently strongly evidenced.
>> To me, this sounds like a good case for a basic income guarantee
>Where will the money come from? The math doesn't work.
I'm assuming the OP is funding basic income from the businesses since they are replacing the human labor with automation. This could be a direct tax on businesses or a tax on dividends or something. I'm not arguing for or against this here.
The math does in fact work out if the cost of basic income is less than the productivity increase created by the increased automation.
No, basic income as a change from means-tested welfare programs is a step away from institutionalized poverty by removing perverse incentives.
> Give them enough to survive but not climb out of their situation.
The difference between basic income and means-tested programs is that it focus on giving them at least enough to survive but not reducing that if they expend the effort to find additional income, so that recipients are not inhibited from improving their condition.
The actual level of basic income can be more than minimal survival necessity of course; the practical limits depend on productivity and increase with progressive automation (which is what makes it a system well-adapted to deal with an economy evolving in a way in which mass unskilled wage labor is increasingly unnecessary.)
> The danger is that far too many people will accept this standard of living.
If too many people accept the standard of basic income for the economy to support, it will drive inflation which will reduce the standard of living provided by basic income until it is no longer accepted by too many. It has an inherent negative feedback control structure.
> Sorry, seen too many on on SSI/SSID, section 8, and such, to believe that just handing money out helps.
Those programs are not like basic income, in fact, basic income is designed specifically to address the fundamental features of those systems which make them into permanent poverty traps.
Wealth concentration mechanism? This seems like the exact opposite of wealth concentration to me. You're distributing money here.
The removal of upward mobility? Again, I fail to see how providing a basic income removes upward mobility. It's quite literally the exact opposite. One of the most difficult parts of getting yourself out of poverty and moving upward in class socioeconomically, is the seed level funding required to bootstrap yourself through your non-earning period to earning period. Usually in most cases, that's the time required to get an education when you're hemorrhaging money on both sides (i.e. having to pay tuition on one end while simultaneously having less time to work in favor of being able to have time to study/take the classes you're paying for on the other).
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