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>>I'm genuinely unable to fathom why when it comes to solving the diverse, expensive and very real problems a social safety net is designed to capture, that "gi
by patmcc 11y ago
>>I'm genuinely unable to fathom why when it comes to solving the diverse, expensive and very real problems a social safety net is designed to capture, that "give everyone a fixed large chunk of cash each year" is so widely perceived as the "most efficient" solution on here.
I don't know if it's the absolute most efficient, but I suspect it's a lot more efficient than the current collection of social safety nets - especially assuming the tax agency is already decent at doing it's job, giving everyone a few hundred dollars a week is pretty easy to administer, and can be taxed back from higher earners easily. If instead you have multiple decision trees about who gets particular benefits and who doesn't, you suddenly need a bureaucracy, and those are always expensive.
Fundamentally I want my society to feed, clothe, and house people who can't manage to do it themselves for whatever reason. At that level it's not that diverse; does it matter if someone is disabled, drug addicted, chronically unemployable, a single mother with no support, a refugee, whatever? They can't come up with rent and food money, let's give it to them.
- notahacker 11y agoBureaucracies cost a lot. Paying a subsistence level income to everyone who is economically inactive would cost a lot more. I mean, in the UK there's currently around 9 million economically inactive working age people who pay no tax, are not registered as looking for work and yet could theoretically claim BI, vs less than 2 million people who've to registered as unemployed and looking for work that actually get out-of-work benefits. That difference pays for a lot of bureaucrats, at least some of whom are supposed to do useful things in finding people work or training as well. And yes, it matters hugely whether someone is disabled, a single mother or a whatever, because their rent and food money needs are likely to be quite different.
- nether 11y agoThat's the traditional wisdom, and why it took so long for direct cash payments to become popular in philanthropy. The result is a little counterintuitive, depending on your intuition. The data show that free money works extraordinarily well at elevating the poor: http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2013/10/25/240590433/what-happens-when-you-just-give-money-to-poor-people http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2013/10/25/240590433/what-...
- patmcc 11y agoI'd support including children in a basic income scheme at a reduced level (so $400/month for a child, $900/month for an adult, as a very rough example). Aside from extra kids, I don't see it as necessary to adjust the benefit amount Also, my idea of a basic income would be for everyone in the country (every citizen and permanent resident at least) to receive it, non-optionally. No applying, no means test, nothing. You get $X direct deposited every week or two. For high income people it get taxed back (and more), of course. So it's not just to those who are economically inactive, it's to everyone. And sure, we should help people find useful work and all that. But it can be separate than giving them money for basic living expenses.