6 ms·

...aaaaand whether or not your children would be receiving it, right? We make many rather large financial decisions based on our choices to procreate or not. If

...aaaaand whether or not your children would be receiving it, right? We make many rather large financial decisions based on our choices to procreate or not. If I didn't know if my kids were taken care of, I would probably make different decisions than if I did. There really is no way to test basic income without simply implementing it.

diyseguy 10y ago
Oooh, yikes, this could become an incentive for people to have tons of kids - so they can get more basic income.
- arcanus 10y ago
  > this could become an incentive for people to have tons of kids Or, alternatively, to have fewer kids, if they were planning (as many parents in the USA do) to provide financial support for college to those children.
  - Alupis 10y ago
    > Or, alternatively, to have fewer kids, if they were planning (as many parents in the USA do) to provide financial support for college to those children. How's that? Every BI plan I've heard floated around starts paying out when a person reaches 18 years of age (absolutely college age). So, as soon as a child goes to university, they get BI, and parents don't have to afford a single expense. Seems to alleviate the burden of having a child in that age range.
    - cwp 10y ago
      Only if they go to a college with no tuition.
      - Alupis 10y ago
        > Only if they go to a college with no tuition Tuition is due a few times a year (usually twice, but some systems are quarterly). If the student gets a BI every month, there should be no issue affording tuition, in addition to living expenses.
        dragonwriter 10y ago
        > Tuition is due a few times a year (usually twice, but some systems are quarterly). If the student gets a BI every month, there should be no issue affording tuition, in addition to living expenses. Tuition, fees, books, etc., together at many institutions are, annually, is near or even greater than the total amount of annual per-person UBI in many proposals I've seen.
      - zanny 10y ago
        I can easily imagine plenty of state schools would trade UBI for room, board, and tuition for the brightest students. For the rest? We need more trade schools today, and we are talking about something theoretical at least years away and probably decades, when we will hopefully be past the ancient university model of tremendous expense and most people are taking courses online or through trade schools at very little cost.
    - sampo 10y ago
      > So, as soon as a child goes to university, they get BI, and parents don't have to afford a single expense. There are countries where university tuition is free, and the state also pays student benefits to every student, which makes it financially possible to study without receiving money from your parents. Those countries tend to have lower birth rates than USA.
    - dragonwriter 10y ago
      > So, as soon as a child goes to university, they get BI, and parents don't have to afford a single expense. Most near-term UBI proposals (and all plausible ones) wouldn't pay all living expenses in most college communities + the costs of actually attending college, so the idea that having BI available to college-age recipients would alleviate all parental burdens of college-age offspring is, well, sheer fantasy.
tdaltonc 10y ago
Just because the government says it will be "forever" doesn't mean it will. When thinking about planing the multi-generational prosperity of your family (something few people do to any serious degree) you can't take the perpetual existence of this-or-that political institution as granted.
- zanny 10y ago
  Which should be just fine under UBI, where you shouldn't be getting anything for children in the first place. Children are not adults, and are not treated like adults for the vast majority of social contracts, and UBI is certainly one of them - we have no expectation today of children to make any income whatsoever now, but to be provided for by their parents. If parents would only be on UBI, that is not enough to provide for kids, but that is a reflection of negligence on the part of the parents. It is certainly an endemic problem we need solutions for in that the poor, the most promiscuous population, is also the one that cannot afford their own children, but we certainly do not want to give them any incentives to have more kids. Children should absolutely be an expense to the parents, because the parents decided to have them, and unless we need kids (at which point the state can start subsidizing procreation in almost any way they want) we need to maintain strong (and much better than we have) adoption and orphanage faculties, but not excuse bad parents in any way who make irresponsible immature decisions like reproducing without any financial means to care for their own.
  - Mz 10y ago
    If parents would only be on UBI, that is not enough to provide for kids, but that is a reflection of negligence on the part of the parents. Scenario: Single mom of a child with special needs who is devotedly taking care of said child and does not have time to also work for money. One of my fears with UBI is that I am hearing ideas posited that men will no longer be made responsible for things like child support or alimony because, hey, the woman gets a check anyway. And I think this is incredibly, seriously problematic. Please do not make such sweeping statements about parents. Parenting is a very tough thing and money alone hardly makes one a decent parent. Studies have shown that there is as much neglect and abuse (and addiction) in rich neighborhood as in the ghetto. The best parents are typically middle class. They have consistently made choices to try to balance the need for money (which takes time) and the need to spend substantial time with their child(ren) in order to raise them.

diyseguy 10y ago

Oooh, yikes, this could become an incentive for people to have tons of kids - so they can get more basic income.

arcanus 10y ago
> this could become an incentive for people to have tons of kids Or, alternatively, to have fewer kids, if they were planning (as many parents in the USA do) to provide financial support for college to those children.
- Alupis 10y ago
  > Or, alternatively, to have fewer kids, if they were planning (as many parents in the USA do) to provide financial support for college to those children. How's that? Every BI plan I've heard floated around starts paying out when a person reaches 18 years of age (absolutely college age). So, as soon as a child goes to university, they get BI, and parents don't have to afford a single expense. Seems to alleviate the burden of having a child in that age range.
  - cwp 10y ago
    Only if they go to a college with no tuition.
    - Alupis 10y ago
      > Only if they go to a college with no tuition Tuition is due a few times a year (usually twice, but some systems are quarterly). If the student gets a BI every month, there should be no issue affording tuition, in addition to living expenses.
      - dragonwriter 10y ago
        > Tuition is due a few times a year (usually twice, but some systems are quarterly). If the student gets a BI every month, there should be no issue affording tuition, in addition to living expenses. Tuition, fees, books, etc., together at many institutions are, annually, is near or even greater than the total amount of annual per-person UBI in many proposals I've seen.
    - zanny 10y ago
      I can easily imagine plenty of state schools would trade UBI for room, board, and tuition for the brightest students. For the rest? We need more trade schools today, and we are talking about something theoretical at least years away and probably decades, when we will hopefully be past the ancient university model of tremendous expense and most people are taking courses online or through trade schools at very little cost.
  - sampo 10y ago
    > So, as soon as a child goes to university, they get BI, and parents don't have to afford a single expense. There are countries where university tuition is free, and the state also pays student benefits to every student, which makes it financially possible to study without receiving money from your parents. Those countries tend to have lower birth rates than USA.
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    > So, as soon as a child goes to university, they get BI, and parents don't have to afford a single expense. Most near-term UBI proposals (and all plausible ones) wouldn't pay all living expenses in most college communities + the costs of actually attending college, so the idea that having BI available to college-age recipients would alleviate all parental burdens of college-age offspring is, well, sheer fantasy.

tdaltonc 10y ago

Just because the government says it will be "forever" doesn't mean it will. When thinking about planing the multi-generational prosperity of your family (something few people do to any serious degree) you can't take the perpetual existence of this-or-that political institution as granted.

zanny 10y ago
Which should be just fine under UBI, where you shouldn't be getting anything for children in the first place. Children are not adults, and are not treated like adults for the vast majority of social contracts, and UBI is certainly one of them - we have no expectation today of children to make any income whatsoever now, but to be provided for by their parents. If parents would only be on UBI, that is not enough to provide for kids, but that is a reflection of negligence on the part of the parents. It is certainly an endemic problem we need solutions for in that the poor, the most promiscuous population, is also the one that cannot afford their own children, but we certainly do not want to give them any incentives to have more kids. Children should absolutely be an expense to the parents, because the parents decided to have them, and unless we need kids (at which point the state can start subsidizing procreation in almost any way they want) we need to maintain strong (and much better than we have) adoption and orphanage faculties, but not excuse bad parents in any way who make irresponsible immature decisions like reproducing without any financial means to care for their own.
- Mz 10y ago
  If parents would only be on UBI, that is not enough to provide for kids, but that is a reflection of negligence on the part of the parents. Scenario: Single mom of a child with special needs who is devotedly taking care of said child and does not have time to also work for money. One of my fears with UBI is that I am hearing ideas posited that men will no longer be made responsible for things like child support or alimony because, hey, the woman gets a check anyway. And I think this is incredibly, seriously problematic. Please do not make such sweeping statements about parents. Parenting is a very tough thing and money alone hardly makes one a decent parent. Studies have shown that there is as much neglect and abuse (and addiction) in rich neighborhood as in the ghetto. The best parents are typically middle class. They have consistently made choices to try to balance the need for money (which takes time) and the need to spend substantial time with their child(ren) in order to raise them.