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This article says it's talking about a universal basic income, and makes the usual point that a completely universal, no-strings-attached income is simple to ad

by gjm11 11y ago

This article says it's talking about a universal basic income, and makes the usual point that a completely universal, no-strings-attached income is simple to administer, doesn't have poverty traps, etc. And then, towards the end where it starts looking at numbers, it starts saying things like > But by excluding 45 million retirees who already receive a basic income through Social Security, the cost falls to $2.7 trillion. And if the benefit is phased out for households earning more than $100,000 (that would be 20 percent of the U.S.'s 115 million households, or about 70 million people, assuming three to a household), the cost declines to about $2 trillion. You could confine the program to adults and shrink the price tag even more, possibly to as low as $1.5 trillion. 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. (The correct thing to say here is: Yes, a universal basic income sufficient to keep everyone out of poverty would be really expensive. Taxes would need to go up a lot, which would leave wealthier people less well off than they are now. If you don't want a large-scale redistribution of wealth, then you don't want a BI scheme sufficient to keep everyone out of poverty. But you might still want to consider a BI scheme that's not sufficient to keep everyone out of poverty, to simplify and to reduce poverty traps. No one would have to be much worse off then. But it wouldn't be enough for anyone to live on, and would still need supplementing by other safety nets.)

Lawtonfogle 11y ago
>This article says it's talking about a universal basic income, and makes the usual point that a completely universal, no-strings-attached income is simple to administer, doesn't have poverty traps, etc. Does anyone advocate giving it to everyone? What about children? Does a child get the same as an adult? What about non-citizens who are in the nation legally? What about non-citizens who are in the nation illegally? What about citizen children of non-citizens who are in the nation illegally? There are consequences to saying yes to any of these we need to think through, but perhaps more importantly, is there even a chance of passing some of these (could you imagine the Republican attack on answering yes to either of the last two?).
- Unklejoe 11y ago
  The only feasible approach in my opinion: [What about children? Does a child get the same as an adult?] Yes, but the funds are stored in an account and are inaccessible to them until a certain age is met (or they qualify as an independent, similar to how the FAFSA (doesn't) work). [What about non-citizens who are in the nation legally?] No. [What about non-citizens who are in the nation illegally?] No. [What about citizen children of non-citizens who are in the nation illegally?] Yes.
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  On the issue of children, non citizens, etc., my personal view of the best way for a UBI to work are: > What about children? Does a child get the same as an adult? Maybe; if so, the child's allotment goes to the legal guardian (and, like the guardian's own UBI, is treated as income for tax and other purposes), but you also eliminate child-care related tax deductions and credits. > What about non-citizens who are in the nation legally? What about non-citizens who are in the nation illegally? I would lean toward saying citizens and legal permanent residents (green card holders) get UBI. Others do not (note that this includes non-immigrant work visa holders, like H-1Bs), though in the odd case of a non-UBI-eligible (but legally present) parent with a UBI-eligible child, the parent would be eligible to draw the child's UBI, just as a parent with their own UBI eligibility with a UBI-eligible child would. > What about citizen children of non-citizens who are in the nation illegally? That's...trickier. My preference would be that the citizen child would get an allotment, but that the guardian would have to normalize status to draw that allotment. The details of that are more for a discussion of immigration policy than UBI policy though. An even trickier question is non-resident citizens, and particularly non-resident U.S. citizen children of non-resident non-citizens.
amelius 11y ago
Can't we just taper it "on" and see what the effects are? For instance, in the first year everybody gets 10% UBI, second year 20% UBI, etc. until 100% UBI. If by year 10 the economy still functions as desired, we keep UBI. Otherwise we taper it off again.
- Unklejoe 11y ago
  The only way for this approach to work would be to define the metrics of "success" before starting this taper process. Also, it would need to be implemented in such a way that makes the process unstoppable. Otherwise, it will be nearly impossible to taper "off" in the event of a failure. It's easy to start giving people money that they never had, but once they have a taste, it's going to be hard to take it away.
  - civilian 11y ago
    I also think there's never been a pattern of having "success metrics" tied to laws. Laws are LAW. The best we could get using current legal technology would be a built-in expiration of the law. And if the people think it's good, then we'd vote for representatives who will retain it.
- sokoloff 11y ago
  You lose support from many people if the plan doesn't include dismantling massive government agencies responsible for other support/giveaway programs. You can't dismantle those until you're at the 90+% range of any reasonable UBI payout.
yummyfajitas 11y ago
It's not just wealthier people who will be worse off - it's everyone. Basic income is known to create a large disincentive for work. In previous experiments (Mincome) labor supply dropped by about 10% - double what happened during the great recession. This means that fewer working mothers can find child care, fewer laborers to mow your lawn, fewer nurses, fewer teachers, etc. No matter how much money you give to people, fewer services provided makes us all become poorer. That's simple arithmetic.
- vocatus_gate 11y ago
  It's so strange. It's almost as if people don't work if they don't have to.
- pjc50 11y ago
  Except it's not simple arithmetic, because the normal economy doesn't count - cannot assign - a value to work done for yourself or your family. Someone going out to work and paying a large fraction of their income for child care is counted, whereas someone staying home and looking after their children is not. Only the first has value in an economic sense. Is it the only work that has value in a moral sense?
  - notahacker 11y ago
    It's not true to say a stay-at-home parent isn't rewarded in an economic sense. They're rewarded by not having to pay a large fraction of their household income for child care. It's a tenable line of argument to argue that the opportunity cost of child care - typically less than earnings foregone - isn't as high as the social benefit from taking care of one's own child, but I can't really think of a less efficient means than BI to try to redress that imbalance.
    - pbhjpbhj 11y ago
      Is reward the same as not being penalised? I don't feel that's true.
    - 11y ago
newjersey 11y ago
I'm one of the people who supports excluding people under the age of eighteen from basic income.
- creshal 11y ago
  Most countries have dozens to hundreds of government programs (a dozen federal, a dozen per state, another dozen per city, …) to support parents of underage children. You'd get rid of a lot of administrative overhead by outphasing all of them in favour of including children into basic income (maybe at a fixed reduced rate if expenses are a concern).
  - dalore 11y ago
    Can see it now. Pop out more children, get more money. This incentives baby making. Which might actually be a good thing in countries with declining birth rates.
    - danharaj 11y ago
      If you think it's so rational to have children for cash, you can go do it. I've never met anyone who actually thinks it's a good idea. It's always a hypothetical to malign the poor. Because people who malign the poor know exactly how poor people think, or something.
      - Unklejoe 11y ago
        Do you really not believe that some people would start having children for the sole purpose of income if there was suddenly a program that provided people with $10,000 per year in cash for every child they have? Having children for financial benefits is a real thing. It's not just something people accuse the poor of for the purpose of hate (although it is commonly used in such a way). It's usually not as direct as "let me have this kid so I can get my rebate check", but it's certainly a consideration for many people who are poor. The mentality is more along the lines of "I can't make it by myself, but as a family, we might be able to sustain ourselves". Most people are aware that it will probably end up costing them more in the long run, but people do crazy things in desperate times.
timlyo 11y ago
I think the article is talking more about the difference from the current system. > But by excluding 45 million retirees who already receive a basic income through Social Security, the cost falls to $2.7 trillion. These retirees can be excluded from the calculation because they are already being paid, they wouldn't add any additional cost to the system.
- jackreichert 11y ago
  Is it fair to say they're being paid if they paid into the system paying them for their entire working lives? Can someone please explain why people call Social Security an entitlement? Am I missing something?
  - astral303 11y ago
    It's language war. Entitlement spending is a great way to negatively frame social security.
    - jackreichert 11y ago
      Well, now I understand why all those pesky employees of mine feel so entitled to getting their paychecks. It must be because they're millennials or something...
      - jonwachob91 11y ago
        I'm not certain... My first job as a programmer my boss use to bust my balls and joke that I must not care about getting paid because I often let my checks pile up before asking for them... (and I wasn't exactly flush with cash from another source...)
    - CajunAlexTrebec 11y ago
      To be clear, the money I'm paying into Social Security today is being consumed by current Social Security recipients. It is not being set aside for me to use when I theoretically begin to draw Social Security in the future.
brightball 11y ago
To make it work you'd have to take whatever the amount is and extract it from all other government benefit programs. You get $700 / month from the government for basic income. Your social security, welfare, unemployment, disability, etc is reduced by $700 / month. Reducing all of those programs by the first $700 would effectively gut each of them enough to finally make some reforms without inducing panic in everyone who uses them. If you were to implement the Fair Tax, which includes a stipend for basic needs, you'd get bipartisan support as well. The only difference is that you increase the stipend to the level of the BI. For kids, you give the parents their basic income until they hit school age and then the BI goes towards funding their school. This would also enable people who wanted to utilize private schools a much easier choice by essentially becoming a voucher. No loan could utilize the BI as security...except for student loans. That would allow driving down of interest rates as well as default aversion too. Payments could be automatically extract from the BI since student loans would finally be secured against something other that expected future earnings.
- goda90 11y ago
  Or instead, give it universally to children, but require a certain percentage be saved in some sort of fund that they are given full control of when they turn 18. That way the parents don't have to shoulder all of the expense of a child, but the child isn't screwed over by irresponsible parents either.
  - brightball 11y ago
    When they turn 18 they are already going to have access to the BI. I'm not sure of the benefit of a fund rather than directing it to school funding. Prior to school it would allow parents to pay for daycare, diapers, food and subsidize paternity/maternity leave.
    - nojvek 11y ago
      I know of folks who end up many kids to maximize on the welfare per kid. Can you really trust all parents? I've seen some abuse of welfare in my days in Australia.
karmacondon 11y ago
The only way I can see UBI working is if most people get no benefit. So someone making the average US income of $50,000/yr would get a check for $20k from the government and then see their taxes go up by ~$20k. Rich people would pay much more, effectively transferring their wealth to the poor. People who are solidly middle class wouldn't see much change, except having a new class of potential customers (the people that used to be poor).
- PietdeVries 11y ago
  I fear it will only increase inflation to a level that the 10k people get is representing about the same in goods as the current level is they have. Free money is fake: it doesn't work in my opinion. It either increases the price level (hey - even the poor bum gets 10k a year, so he can afford a $10 bread, isn't it?) or it will stop people from over-achieving. My motivation to earn extra with a job only to see it go to taxes would reduce significantly if I can remain at the same level without a job and just 2 or 3 extra kids :)
  - deleted 11y ago
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  - stale2002 11y ago
    Well, buts it's NOT free money. The money is coming from rich people and being given to poor people. The 'amount' of money in the system stays the same and therefore inflation stays the same. Also, at least recently everyone has been talking about how inflation is too LOW not too high.
    - jay_kyburz 11y ago
      Yes but rich people are not spending thier money on rent and food. I think that giving the poor this money will mean basic necessities will just get more expensive and the poor will have the same as they have now, and landlords and Wallmart will pocket the cash.
      - 11y ago
caseysoftware 11y ago
> 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. You are entirely correct.. but I think you're missing the point. Think of that first description as the marketing pitch to the general public. By saying it is universal and "free" to administer, it gets people behind it who don't think through the consequences.. which is a large chunk of the target audience. They are also the people who could put amicable politicians in power and keep them there. But a "no-strings-attached" basic income would force politicians to give up the one thing they desire more than anything: power. So the second description with the actual mechanics of it, is for those people who actually get to administer the "free" program and tie their strings to groups, situations, and behaviors they want to punish or promote. I am as free market as they come and find myself intrigued by the UBI... but the thing that prevents me from supporting it is that politicians and political systems DO NOT give up power so the "we can get rid of everything else" line is obviously a lie.
- throwaway420 11y ago
  > But a "no-strings-attached" basic income would force politicians to give up the one thing they desire more than anything: power. I tend to think the exact opposite is true: a universal basic income is conceivably one of the most massive power grabs imaginable. If this comes to pass in America, you're going to have a large chunk of the population COMPLETELY dependent on the government's teat. And ultimately, a population that's dependent on the government for their means of survival (even if its spun as "no strings attached") is indirectly under total political control.
  - civilian 11y ago
    “Therefore a wise prince ought to adopt such a course that his citizens will always in every sort and kind of circumstance have need of the state and of him, and then he will always find them faithful.” -Machiavelli
  - mac01021 11y ago
    I agree that instating UBI may become an excellent strategy for existing power structures to preserve themselves by paying out the minimal amount to prevent social unrest. However, I think it will be nearly impossible to succeed in spinning it is "no strings attached" unless everyone really can continue to exercise all of their current rights (to free speech, to the democratic process, etc) without losing the benefits. You make it sound like the state will be able to say "Don't speak in opposition to our policies or we'll let you starve". I'm skeptical.
clarkmoody 11y ago
You forget that the thing voters want and the law that hits the books are often very different. By the time any measure gets out of Congress, it will, by necessity, have been carved up and divvied out, with all sort of exemptions and special cases and kickbacks.
JulianMorrison 11y ago
Taxes would go up. But previously blocked productivity would be released, and socially desirable but marginal services would become viable.
- nostrebored 11y ago
  That's a significantly more optimistic outlook than the idea that prices would inflate relative to the UBI stipend handed out. Particularly around staples like food, rent, etc.
  - truphan 11y ago
    Why would there be inflation? No new money is being printed to accommodate the extra income for the recipient, those funds are distributed by reallocating money already in circulation
    - dragonwriter 11y ago
      Any redistribution is going to have some upward pressure on prices of goods demanded more by those receiving the redistribution than those who are, in net, paying it, and downward pressure on prices of goods demanded more by those paying the redistribution than by those who are receiving it. For most goods, the ratio of the new to old price should be less than the ratio of the post-distribution to pre-distribution income of the group demanding the item, though this may not be the case for, e.g., goods where there are monopoly rents being extracted.
- kybernetyk 11y ago
  With high tax rates my perviously released productivity would get blocked though. I sure as hell wouldn't do the work I'm currently doing with a 80% tax rate attached.
vlunkr 11y ago
Can someone explain to me how a true basic income would be expected to work? If you're not excluding anyone, where does this massive amount of money come from? I suppose it has to be taxed out of the wealthy? So they still receive the income but pay it back in taxes? This is an honest inquiry. Yes you can save money by cutting these programs, but that argument doesn't add up for me yet because you still have to pay EVERY person in the country. (or is it every adult)
- dazmax 11y ago
  Yes the rich would probably pay more even with getting their basic income. The point of giving it to everyone is to reduce the administrative cost of figuring out who qualifies, and to get rid of "welfare cliffs" that give poor people a disincentive to earn more for fear of losing assistance programs.
  - dragonwriter 11y ago
    Essentially, it avoids duplicating income-based computations across tax system and multiple benefit programs, and concentrates then in the tax system (once you have a mature UBI that has displaced other benefit programs.) In this sense, it can be seen as an application of the DRY principle.
- dllthomas 11y ago
  Yes, you tax it back. Typically proposals include a flat tax (or flat tax increase) to pay for it. In that case, you net extra money from the system if you make more than the mean, and you net pay into the system if you make more than the mean, but there are no hard cliffs and your next dollar earned still means more money in your pocket at any point.
  - vlunkr 11y ago
    Ok, combining this with a flat tax does make sense. > your next dollar earned still means more money in your pocket at any point This is critical as well, I've known people who get trapped in welfare because they are so far into it that going to work isn't really advantageous. Thanks for your input!
dragonwriter 11y ago
A UBI (usually, that "unconditional" not "universal", though "universal" seems to be becoming popular among outlets that are newly jumping onboard the idea) is distinguished from other social benefit programs in not being means-tested or behavior-tested. Obviously, there has to be some bounds on who is qualified (everyone on the planet? Probably not. Adult citizens are usually the narrowest category suggested, all legal residents regardless of age or citizenship usually the broadest. Any of these are still UBIs, so long as they aren't means- or behavior-tested.) But, the big problem is the idea that the UBI should initially be sufficient to lift everyone out of poverty. The immediate goal should be to have a UBI which reduces poverty and addresses the fact that capital increasing takes the reward of economic growth, rather than it being broadly distributed. The long-term goal should be to displace and go beyond existing means-tested anti-poverty programs in lifting people out of poverty, but the best way to do that is to build a system that grows naturally. As an example: eliminate preferential treatment of capital income in income taxation, maintaining otherwise general structure of the existing progressive income tax system, and set aside a portion of the total income tax revenue equal to the initial increase in tax revenue for the "Common Welfare Fund". 90% of the new money in the fund is distributed as UBI by equal division among qualified recipients (e.g., all citizens and LPRs, if that's the group defined to receive the UBI), the remainder is retained as a stabilization fund (with returns on the stabilization fund treated as "new money" in future years, and rules providing for some distribution from the stabilization fund to current benefits to reduce calculated benefit declines.) Each year, reduce the actual minimum hourly wage from its nominal level (which I'm presuming gets inflation-indexed before this) by 1/2000 of the annual UBI level (for wages covered by overtime mandates, the minimum overtime wage is calculated first, and then reduced for the UBI) -- over time, the UBI displaces the minimum wage. Other (e.g., means-tested) benefit programs aren't directly eliminated (immediately), but income from the UBI is treated as normal income for both income tax and benefit calculation purposes, so (assuming economic growth such that real tax revenues pre capita increase faster than inflation), even with eligibility criteria indexed for inflation, growing UBI will reduce the proportion of the population eligible for any such programs, eventually to 0 as the UBI crosses the maximum threshold for each program, allowing the programs to be retired.
deleted 11y ago
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randyrand 11y ago
WE NEED TO LOWER THE COST OF LIVING Its unacceptable that food in the US is 2x the cost of that of china, for instance. http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_countries_result.jsp?country1=China&country2=United+States http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_countries_resul...
- specialist 11y ago
  Regulating food safety costs money. I'm happy to pay.
  - randyrand 11y ago
    Is that the only driver of increased food costs? Does China have a lot of food related deaths? There needs to be solid evidence to justify a 2x increase in the cost of food.
- oldmanjay 11y ago
  You'll have to reduce the value of productivity. Many have tried, but no one has ever pulled it off successfully because it only takes one asshole who realizes the whole scheme is trivially exploitable just by working harder to ruin it for everyone.
  - randyrand 11y ago
    What does that even mean? Productivity decreases costs, not the other way around. Did you mean to say the value of unskilled labor?
serge2k 11y ago
> 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.
Iv 11y ago
Just reduce the amount. Start with any no-strings-attached amount and climb from there. As soon as you give people as little as 100$/month you will see some people tweeting about all the tricks they found to make it enough. Of course it wont be enough to bring most from poverty and those who can live off that will often start off some possessions, but the goal is to lower the bar of entry into that situation. Only under these conditions can we transition from the bullshit-job economy we have and make sure that the general automation of production will benefit most instead of a few.

by gjm11 11y ago

Lawtonfogle 11y ago

>This article says it's talking about a universal basic income, and makes the usual point that a completely universal, no-strings-attached income is simple to administer, doesn't have poverty traps, etc. Does anyone advocate giving it to everyone? What about children? Does a child get the same as an adult? What about non-citizens who are in the nation legally? What about non-citizens who are in the nation illegally? What about citizen children of non-citizens who are in the nation illegally? There are consequences to saying yes to any of these we need to think through, but perhaps more importantly, is there even a chance of passing some of these (could you imagine the Republican attack on answering yes to either of the last two?).

Unklejoe 11y ago
The only feasible approach in my opinion: [What about children? Does a child get the same as an adult?] Yes, but the funds are stored in an account and are inaccessible to them until a certain age is met (or they qualify as an independent, similar to how the FAFSA (doesn't) work). [What about non-citizens who are in the nation legally?] No. [What about non-citizens who are in the nation illegally?] No. [What about citizen children of non-citizens who are in the nation illegally?] Yes.
dragonwriter 11y ago
On the issue of children, non citizens, etc., my personal view of the best way for a UBI to work are: > What about children? Does a child get the same as an adult? Maybe; if so, the child's allotment goes to the legal guardian (and, like the guardian's own UBI, is treated as income for tax and other purposes), but you also eliminate child-care related tax deductions and credits. > What about non-citizens who are in the nation legally? What about non-citizens who are in the nation illegally? I would lean toward saying citizens and legal permanent residents (green card holders) get UBI. Others do not (note that this includes non-immigrant work visa holders, like H-1Bs), though in the odd case of a non-UBI-eligible (but legally present) parent with a UBI-eligible child, the parent would be eligible to draw the child's UBI, just as a parent with their own UBI eligibility with a UBI-eligible child would. > What about citizen children of non-citizens who are in the nation illegally? That's...trickier. My preference would be that the citizen child would get an allotment, but that the guardian would have to normalize status to draw that allotment. The details of that are more for a discussion of immigration policy than UBI policy though. An even trickier question is non-resident citizens, and particularly non-resident U.S. citizen children of non-resident non-citizens.

amelius 11y ago

Can't we just taper it "on" and see what the effects are? For instance, in the first year everybody gets 10% UBI, second year 20% UBI, etc. until 100% UBI. If by year 10 the economy still functions as desired, we keep UBI. Otherwise we taper it off again.

Unklejoe 11y ago
The only way for this approach to work would be to define the metrics of "success" before starting this taper process. Also, it would need to be implemented in such a way that makes the process unstoppable. Otherwise, it will be nearly impossible to taper "off" in the event of a failure. It's easy to start giving people money that they never had, but once they have a taste, it's going to be hard to take it away.
- civilian 11y ago
  I also think there's never been a pattern of having "success metrics" tied to laws. Laws are LAW. The best we could get using current legal technology would be a built-in expiration of the law. And if the people think it's good, then we'd vote for representatives who will retain it.
sokoloff 11y ago
You lose support from many people if the plan doesn't include dismantling massive government agencies responsible for other support/giveaway programs. You can't dismantle those until you're at the 90+% range of any reasonable UBI payout.

yummyfajitas 11y ago

It's not just wealthier people who will be worse off - it's everyone. Basic income is known to create a large disincentive for work. In previous experiments (Mincome) labor supply dropped by about 10% - double what happened during the great recession. This means that fewer working mothers can find child care, fewer laborers to mow your lawn, fewer nurses, fewer teachers, etc. No matter how much money you give to people, fewer services provided makes us all become poorer. That's simple arithmetic.

vocatus_gate 11y ago
It's so strange. It's almost as if people don't work if they don't have to.
pjc50 11y ago
Except it's not simple arithmetic, because the normal economy doesn't count - cannot assign - a value to work done for yourself or your family. Someone going out to work and paying a large fraction of their income for child care is counted, whereas someone staying home and looking after their children is not. Only the first has value in an economic sense. Is it the only work that has value in a moral sense?
- notahacker 11y ago
  It's not true to say a stay-at-home parent isn't rewarded in an economic sense. They're rewarded by not having to pay a large fraction of their household income for child care. It's a tenable line of argument to argue that the opportunity cost of child care - typically less than earnings foregone - isn't as high as the social benefit from taking care of one's own child, but I can't really think of a less efficient means than BI to try to redress that imbalance.
  - pbhjpbhj 11y ago
    Is reward the same as not being penalised? I don't feel that's true.
  - 11y ago

newjersey 11y ago

I'm one of the people who supports excluding people under the age of eighteen from basic income.

creshal 11y ago
Most countries have dozens to hundreds of government programs (a dozen federal, a dozen per state, another dozen per city, …) to support parents of underage children. You'd get rid of a lot of administrative overhead by outphasing all of them in favour of including children into basic income (maybe at a fixed reduced rate if expenses are a concern).
- dalore 11y ago
  Can see it now. Pop out more children, get more money. This incentives baby making. Which might actually be a good thing in countries with declining birth rates.
  - danharaj 11y ago
    If you think it's so rational to have children for cash, you can go do it. I've never met anyone who actually thinks it's a good idea. It's always a hypothetical to malign the poor. Because people who malign the poor know exactly how poor people think, or something.
    - Unklejoe 11y ago
      Do you really not believe that some people would start having children for the sole purpose of income if there was suddenly a program that provided people with $10,000 per year in cash for every child they have? Having children for financial benefits is a real thing. It's not just something people accuse the poor of for the purpose of hate (although it is commonly used in such a way). It's usually not as direct as "let me have this kid so I can get my rebate check", but it's certainly a consideration for many people who are poor. The mentality is more along the lines of "I can't make it by myself, but as a family, we might be able to sustain ourselves". Most people are aware that it will probably end up costing them more in the long run, but people do crazy things in desperate times.

timlyo 11y ago

I think the article is talking more about the difference from the current system. > But by excluding 45 million retirees who already receive a basic income through Social Security, the cost falls to $2.7 trillion. These retirees can be excluded from the calculation because they are already being paid, they wouldn't add any additional cost to the system.

jackreichert 11y ago
Is it fair to say they're being paid if they paid into the system paying them for their entire working lives? Can someone please explain why people call Social Security an entitlement? Am I missing something?
- astral303 11y ago
  It's language war. Entitlement spending is a great way to negatively frame social security.
  - jackreichert 11y ago
    Well, now I understand why all those pesky employees of mine feel so entitled to getting their paychecks. It must be because they're millennials or something...
    - jonwachob91 11y ago
      I'm not certain... My first job as a programmer my boss use to bust my balls and joke that I must not care about getting paid because I often let my checks pile up before asking for them... (and I wasn't exactly flush with cash from another source...)
  - CajunAlexTrebec 11y ago
    To be clear, the money I'm paying into Social Security today is being consumed by current Social Security recipients. It is not being set aside for me to use when I theoretically begin to draw Social Security in the future.

brightball 11y ago

To make it work you'd have to take whatever the amount is and extract it from all other government benefit programs. You get $700 / month from the government for basic income. Your social security, welfare, unemployment, disability, etc is reduced by $700 / month. Reducing all of those programs by the first $700 would effectively gut each of them enough to finally make some reforms without inducing panic in everyone who uses them. If you were to implement the Fair Tax, which includes a stipend for basic needs, you'd get bipartisan support as well. The only difference is that you increase the stipend to the level of the BI. For kids, you give the parents their basic income until they hit school age and then the BI goes towards funding their school. This would also enable people who wanted to utilize private schools a much easier choice by essentially becoming a voucher. No loan could utilize the BI as security...except for student loans. That would allow driving down of interest rates as well as default aversion too. Payments could be automatically extract from the BI since student loans would finally be secured against something other that expected future earnings.

goda90 11y ago
Or instead, give it universally to children, but require a certain percentage be saved in some sort of fund that they are given full control of when they turn 18. That way the parents don't have to shoulder all of the expense of a child, but the child isn't screwed over by irresponsible parents either.
- brightball 11y ago
  When they turn 18 they are already going to have access to the BI. I'm not sure of the benefit of a fund rather than directing it to school funding. Prior to school it would allow parents to pay for daycare, diapers, food and subsidize paternity/maternity leave.
  - nojvek 11y ago
    I know of folks who end up many kids to maximize on the welfare per kid. Can you really trust all parents? I've seen some abuse of welfare in my days in Australia.

karmacondon 11y ago

The only way I can see UBI working is if most people get no benefit. So someone making the average US income of $50,000/yr would get a check for $20k from the government and then see their taxes go up by ~$20k. Rich people would pay much more, effectively transferring their wealth to the poor. People who are solidly middle class wouldn't see much change, except having a new class of potential customers (the people that used to be poor).

PietdeVries 11y ago
I fear it will only increase inflation to a level that the 10k people get is representing about the same in goods as the current level is they have. Free money is fake: it doesn't work in my opinion. It either increases the price level (hey - even the poor bum gets 10k a year, so he can afford a $10 bread, isn't it?) or it will stop people from over-achieving. My motivation to earn extra with a job only to see it go to taxes would reduce significantly if I can remain at the same level without a job and just 2 or 3 extra kids :)
- deleted 11y ago
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- stale2002 11y ago
  Well, buts it's NOT free money. The money is coming from rich people and being given to poor people. The 'amount' of money in the system stays the same and therefore inflation stays the same. Also, at least recently everyone has been talking about how inflation is too LOW not too high.
  - jay_kyburz 11y ago
    Yes but rich people are not spending thier money on rent and food. I think that giving the poor this money will mean basic necessities will just get more expensive and the poor will have the same as they have now, and landlords and Wallmart will pocket the cash.
    - 11y ago

caseysoftware 11y ago

> 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. You are entirely correct.. but I think you're missing the point. Think of that first description as the marketing pitch to the general public. By saying it is universal and "free" to administer, it gets people behind it who don't think through the consequences.. which is a large chunk of the target audience. They are also the people who could put amicable politicians in power and keep them there. But a "no-strings-attached" basic income would force politicians to give up the one thing they desire more than anything: power. So the second description with the actual mechanics of it, is for those people who actually get to administer the "free" program and tie their strings to groups, situations, and behaviors they want to punish or promote. I am as free market as they come and find myself intrigued by the UBI... but the thing that prevents me from supporting it is that politicians and political systems DO NOT give up power so the "we can get rid of everything else" line is obviously a lie.

throwaway420 11y ago
> But a "no-strings-attached" basic income would force politicians to give up the one thing they desire more than anything: power. I tend to think the exact opposite is true: a universal basic income is conceivably one of the most massive power grabs imaginable. If this comes to pass in America, you're going to have a large chunk of the population COMPLETELY dependent on the government's teat. And ultimately, a population that's dependent on the government for their means of survival (even if its spun as "no strings attached") is indirectly under total political control.
- civilian 11y ago
  “Therefore a wise prince ought to adopt such a course that his citizens will always in every sort and kind of circumstance have need of the state and of him, and then he will always find them faithful.” -Machiavelli
- mac01021 11y ago
  I agree that instating UBI may become an excellent strategy for existing power structures to preserve themselves by paying out the minimal amount to prevent social unrest. However, I think it will be nearly impossible to succeed in spinning it is "no strings attached" unless everyone really can continue to exercise all of their current rights (to free speech, to the democratic process, etc) without losing the benefits. You make it sound like the state will be able to say "Don't speak in opposition to our policies or we'll let you starve". I'm skeptical.

clarkmoody 11y ago

You forget that the thing voters want and the law that hits the books are often very different. By the time any measure gets out of Congress, it will, by necessity, have been carved up and divvied out, with all sort of exemptions and special cases and kickbacks.

JulianMorrison 11y ago

Taxes would go up. But previously blocked productivity would be released, and socially desirable but marginal services would become viable.

nostrebored 11y ago
That's a significantly more optimistic outlook than the idea that prices would inflate relative to the UBI stipend handed out. Particularly around staples like food, rent, etc.
- truphan 11y ago
  Why would there be inflation? No new money is being printed to accommodate the extra income for the recipient, those funds are distributed by reallocating money already in circulation
  - dragonwriter 11y ago
    Any redistribution is going to have some upward pressure on prices of goods demanded more by those receiving the redistribution than those who are, in net, paying it, and downward pressure on prices of goods demanded more by those paying the redistribution than by those who are receiving it. For most goods, the ratio of the new to old price should be less than the ratio of the post-distribution to pre-distribution income of the group demanding the item, though this may not be the case for, e.g., goods where there are monopoly rents being extracted.
kybernetyk 11y ago
With high tax rates my perviously released productivity would get blocked though. I sure as hell wouldn't do the work I'm currently doing with a 80% tax rate attached.

vlunkr 11y ago

Can someone explain to me how a true basic income would be expected to work? If you're not excluding anyone, where does this massive amount of money come from? I suppose it has to be taxed out of the wealthy? So they still receive the income but pay it back in taxes? This is an honest inquiry. Yes you can save money by cutting these programs, but that argument doesn't add up for me yet because you still have to pay EVERY person in the country. (or is it every adult)

dazmax 11y ago
Yes the rich would probably pay more even with getting their basic income. The point of giving it to everyone is to reduce the administrative cost of figuring out who qualifies, and to get rid of "welfare cliffs" that give poor people a disincentive to earn more for fear of losing assistance programs.
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  Essentially, it avoids duplicating income-based computations across tax system and multiple benefit programs, and concentrates then in the tax system (once you have a mature UBI that has displaced other benefit programs.) In this sense, it can be seen as an application of the DRY principle.
dllthomas 11y ago
Yes, you tax it back. Typically proposals include a flat tax (or flat tax increase) to pay for it. In that case, you net extra money from the system if you make more than the mean, and you net pay into the system if you make more than the mean, but there are no hard cliffs and your next dollar earned still means more money in your pocket at any point.
- vlunkr 11y ago
  Ok, combining this with a flat tax does make sense. > your next dollar earned still means more money in your pocket at any point This is critical as well, I've known people who get trapped in welfare because they are so far into it that going to work isn't really advantageous. Thanks for your input!

dragonwriter 11y ago

A UBI (usually, that "unconditional" not "universal", though "universal" seems to be becoming popular among outlets that are newly jumping onboard the idea) is distinguished from other social benefit programs in not being means-tested or behavior-tested. Obviously, there has to be some bounds on who is qualified (everyone on the planet? Probably not. Adult citizens are usually the narrowest category suggested, all legal residents regardless of age or citizenship usually the broadest. Any of these are still UBIs, so long as they aren't means- or behavior-tested.) But, the big problem is the idea that the UBI should initially be sufficient to lift everyone out of poverty. The immediate goal should be to have a UBI which reduces poverty and addresses the fact that capital increasing takes the reward of economic growth, rather than it being broadly distributed. The long-term goal should be to displace and go beyond existing means-tested anti-poverty programs in lifting people out of poverty, but the best way to do that is to build a system that grows naturally. As an example: eliminate preferential treatment of capital income in income taxation, maintaining otherwise general structure of the existing progressive income tax system, and set aside a portion of the total income tax revenue equal to the initial increase in tax revenue for the "Common Welfare Fund". 90% of the new money in the fund is distributed as UBI by equal division among qualified recipients (e.g., all citizens and LPRs, if that's the group defined to receive the UBI), the remainder is retained as a stabilization fund (with returns on the stabilization fund treated as "new money" in future years, and rules providing for some distribution from the stabilization fund to current benefits to reduce calculated benefit declines.) Each year, reduce the actual minimum hourly wage from its nominal level (which I'm presuming gets inflation-indexed before this) by 1/2000 of the annual UBI level (for wages covered by overtime mandates, the minimum overtime wage is calculated first, and then reduced for the UBI) -- over time, the UBI displaces the minimum wage. Other (e.g., means-tested) benefit programs aren't directly eliminated (immediately), but income from the UBI is treated as normal income for both income tax and benefit calculation purposes, so (assuming economic growth such that real tax revenues pre capita increase faster than inflation), even with eligibility criteria indexed for inflation, growing UBI will reduce the proportion of the population eligible for any such programs, eventually to 0 as the UBI crosses the maximum threshold for each program, allowing the programs to be retired.

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randyrand 11y ago

WE NEED TO LOWER THE COST OF LIVING Its unacceptable that food in the US is 2x the cost of that of china, for instance. http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_countries_result.jsp?country1=China&country2=United+States http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_countries_resul...

specialist 11y ago
Regulating food safety costs money. I'm happy to pay.
- randyrand 11y ago
  Is that the only driver of increased food costs? Does China have a lot of food related deaths? There needs to be solid evidence to justify a 2x increase in the cost of food.
oldmanjay 11y ago
You'll have to reduce the value of productivity. Many have tried, but no one has ever pulled it off successfully because it only takes one asshole who realizes the whole scheme is trivially exploitable just by working harder to ruin it for everyone.
- randyrand 11y ago
  What does that even mean? Productivity decreases costs, not the other way around. Did you mean to say the value of unskilled labor?

serge2k 11y ago

> 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.

Iv 11y ago

Just reduce the amount. Start with any no-strings-attached amount and climb from there. As soon as you give people as little as 100$/month you will see some people tweeting about all the tricks they found to make it enough. Of course it wont be enough to bring most from poverty and those who can live off that will often start off some possessions, but the goal is to lower the bar of entry into that situation. Only under these conditions can we transition from the bullshit-job economy we have and make sure that the general automation of production will benefit most instead of a few.