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Personally, I'd hope the system would absolutely tell them "tough shit". There's got to be a line where the safety net gives out, because someone is too expensi

Personally, I'd hope the system would absolutely tell them "tough shit". There's got to be a line where the safety net gives out, because someone is too expensive to help. That's where family and charity hopefully take over. At the same time, I think your instinct is right, and it's something I've never heard mentioned before. It's almost inevitably that there'll then be the "food security" fund, and the "housing guarantee" fund.... and then we've just recreated the existing system. That's the best argument against BI I've heard, and one I'd love to hear rebuttals to.

ryanmarsh 10y ago
Or we could teach them financial literacy. Kind of like how countries with socialized healthcare spend more on health education.
- st3v3r 10y ago
  But then you get a bunch of people who complain that high schools shouldn't be teaching that stuff. Of course, I feel that those who espouse that viewpoint are doing so because they benefit from having a large group of people lacking these skills.
  - ryanmarsh 10y ago
    My co-worker referred to financial literacy training as "basket weaving" and a "waste of public funds". So, yah.
- Kluny 10y ago
  Mind you, that would require financially literate teachers. I never had one, in all the years I was in school
- aianus 10y ago
  What makes you think a financial literacy class would succeed where math class and English class have failed? Financial literacy is nothing more than reading comprehension and some grade 8 arithmetic.
eanzenberg 10y ago
"Tough shit" sucks when parents blow their handout on lottery tickets and drugs, leaving their children in perpetual poverty.
- maxerickson 10y ago
  It would replace welfare programs, not all social services. If children are not being cared for, the state will still intervene.
  - eanzenberg 10y ago
    I thought BI would replace all social services. That's how its cost is justified?
    - Manishearth 10y ago
      Why is it justified when it replaces all, but not when it replaces some? It only needs to replace enough, not necessarily all.
      - PKop 10y ago
        Because all is more easily defined than some. Some is always some, even as the number of programs increases after the initial purge.
    - dragonwriter 10y ago
      > I thought BI would replace all social services. Most proponents of UBI see it as, at least eventually, replacing some range of existing government means- and/or behavior-tested benefit programs and, possibly, some age- or disability-tested ones (in the US, most advocates would probably include, at a minimum, EITC, General Assistance programs, SNAP, TANF, Section 8 housing subsidies; some would also include Child Tax Credit, Tuition and Student Loan related credits and deductions, Medicaid, Medicare, and/or Social Security.) I've never heard any advocate argue that it would replace all social services.
    - 10y ago
acgourley 10y ago
You'll find there are two voices for BI, the liberal and the liberatian. The liberal would prefer to keep universal healthcare and food programs and put cash on top, making the total distribution to the poor larger. The liberatian would prefer to simply move the complex paternalistic safety net into a simpler cash payment which doesn't disincentivize work while not increasing it's size. As an aside, if you pay attention you'll see the two types of people will squelch their vocalizations in the interest of a short term alliance in support of BI. Personally I believe the liberal position has both moral and practical superiority. It's going to be cheaper to make sure people have bread and vaccinations despite themselves than it's going to be to solve the resulting issues later.
- notahacker 10y ago
  The two types of people might squelch their vocalization when writing arguments in support of the BI. But both would vote in favour of the status quo against the other side's proposal if given the opportunity: liberals don't want a meagre BI to replace most of the welfare state and most existing low income tax credits and libertarians certainly don't want high taxes to pay for a generous BI in addition to most existing programmes.
  - acgourley 10y ago
    It's a serious problem, no doubt. I would still probably vote for a meager BI because I feel it's easier to turn the knob up later than it is to get everything done at once.
    - CWuestefeld 10y ago
      I appreciate your candor. But for the libertarian side of things (where I see it myself), I think there's a real fear that this would happen: we're being sold on a promise of greater efficiency, less space for corruption, etc., but in the end, we wind up bringing back in all that baggage anyway.
      - incongruity 10y ago
billmalarky 10y ago
>It's almost inevitably that there'll then be the "food security" fund, and the "housing guarantee" fund Seems like basic income allows for this issue to be resolved by private organizations easier since cash is much more liquid than welfare/other government benefits. So basically what I'm getting at, is if you can't manage your own life, there will be a corporation that provides shelter, food, and basic necessities for you in exchange for 100% of your BI (cue comparisons with the for-profit prison industry). Those that are unfit for even this model (their special needs require more service than their BI can possibly cover) would be a small minority (assuming BI could cover basic but adequate care for the majority of the elderly) and I suspect they would need to be institutionalized if there were no family or charity organizations that could support them. Well that's my off-the-cuff zero-research opinion anyways.
- ffwd 10y ago
  Just as a tangential addon to this - I think if this were to happen, a computer with internet would have to be part of the basic necessities package. Maybe it's because I'm a nerd or the internet has had such a huge effect on me, but I feel with the internet and proper guidance to get tutorials, search things online and so on can really help those people produce things and learn. Without it, they might end up just roaming in the streets, doing drugs, maybe watch TV. Not to be cliche but I really feel like if people aren't introduced to the more "intellectual" side of life, they may never seek it themselves.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
nkrisc 10y ago
While I tentatively agree, I don't think BI in this manner could succeed without first setting people up for success. Financial education and the ability to manage finances is a crucial prerequisite skill that many who would qualify for BI might very well lack. We can't throw people in the deep end of the pool and say the ones who didn't drown learned to swim.
sliverstorm 10y ago
My knee-jerk reaction is to agree with you. However the problem with "tough shit" can be seen with the homeless today. The safety net doesn't give out, instead they fall onto the emergency services net, which does not have the option of not helping them, and is possibly the most expensive net of them all.
cc_wk 10y ago
If the holes of a safety net are large enough for a person to fall through, than it's not a safety net at all is it? If a tightrope walker is learning the skill, you want a safety-net that will catch them 100% of the time, until they don't need it anymore. A social safety net should be the same - relentlessly available. Personally, I'd be fine with overlooking what I would assume to be the small number of people who would shamelessly exploit it, because I'd like to think that basic dignity and self-respect would prevent that number from ever being very large. In other words, the system would need some functional slack and it should be funded adequately so that it's not considered a "scarce resource" and the slack can be generous. Myself, I'm ok if a system like this existed so that if I did have a problem family member, it wouldn't be assumed to be my responsibility to take care of them, and further, I don't like the idea of charities because it presumes benign wealthy people are available to fund them. It seems better, with social programs, to socialize the cost so that I can pay into a general fund so that it can be another-person (aka a professional)'s problem. "Someone being too expensive to help" ... that makes no real sense today given how much money is swirling around. It's just a matter of what you prioritize.
rsync 10y ago
"Personally, I'd hope the system would absolutely tell them "tough shit". There's got to be a line where the safety net gives out, because someone is too expensive to help." But see, that's why his is a trick question ... If the answer is "tough shit" then it's a concession that implementing BI (or anything like it) is simply adjusting the "tough shit dial" to a relatively different value. There's still a benefits ceiling, beyond which it's "tough shit". At that point it becomes difficult to justify any particular point on the tough shit dial - especially when todays tough shit was, four generations ago, essentially heaven on earth. No benefits at all is a rational position. Endless benefits, cradle to grave is also a rational position. Neither of them are self-contradictory or loony. You may disagree with either of them but neither of them are crazy. It's all of the bullshit in-between that is totally unworkable - both practically and theoretically. His question - and your answer - illustrate that very well.
- konschubert 10y ago
  > It's all of the bullshit in-between that is totally unworkable - both practically and theoretically. No. In most countries of the world, including the United states, limited social benefits exist. It is sometimes messy, it is sometimes unfair. But they are reality.
  - rsync 10y ago
    "No. In most countries of the world, including the United states, limited social benefits exist. It is sometimes messy, it is sometimes unfair. But they are reality." Yes, that is exactly my point and it is from knowledge of the US systems especially that that point is informed. It is my contention that they don't work - not just practically, on the ground, but even theoretically.
    - konschubert 10y ago
      Well, they aren't perfect. But it doesn't mean that they don't work at all. You are dismissing them because they aren't working perfectly. And I am saying that it is wrong to dismiss something just because it isn't perfect, especially if there is no better alternative.
logfromblammo 10y ago
A "payday loan" usurer would be all too happy to lend someone $1000 in cash, and then take $50 out of each of the next 52 weekly BI checks. I don't see a way to BI without significant buy in from Dept. of Agriculture and Dept. of HHS to provide some of the value of benefit as actual food and as gratis-rent, subsidized-utilities housing. Moving 100% of the benefit as cash leaves too much opportunity for middlemen to take a cut. The ways to do that range from straight-up charging you interest on advance loans secured by the benefit to charging slightly more for the goods and services typically consumed by poor people. So I don't see the same magnitude of cost savings as the idea-evangelists do. If anything, government payroll would probably expand in the short term, as it builds the infrastructure to provide non-cash benefits to citizens. The existing food aid programs use EBT cards that act like debit cards and just leverage the same grocery stores and farms that everyone else uses. BI would have to assemble 300 million fungible daily ration packages and truck them to distribution centers sized and located appropriately for the needs of the population. It would be like building the postal service all over again, except shipping identical 3000 kcal packages to somewhere within a 1.5 mile radius of every person in America, every day. (Then also ship the older, unclaimed packages to the pork farms.) The upside is that those jobs would be real, actually-do-something jobs instead of the bullshit, pencil-pusher, bureaucratic jobs that typically suck up some of the welfare budgets. The post office may have a bad reputation, but at the end of the day, they do have something to show for their work. Eventually, those jobs get replaced by robots, too. Just moving the money around is not going to be enough to satisfy the need. If all you do is cut checks, it may take decades for the supply chain to adapt, if ever. Food stamps have existed for a long time, and we still see "food deserts" in lower-income neighborhoods. Even the promise of having a local monopoly on rent-seeking the free government money has not motivated food distributors to set up shop in otherwise unprofitable areas.
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  > I don't see a way to BI without significant buy in from Dept. of Agriculture and Dept. of HHS to provide some of the value of benefit as actual food and as gratis-rent, subsidized-utilities housing. HHS doesn't provide gratis-rent, subsidized-utilities housing without BI. Section 8 is subsidized-rent (and even so has long waiting lists and behavioral controls, so that many people that are income qualified for it don't receive it.) > Moving 100% of the benefit as cash leaves too much opportunity for middlemen to take a cut. Actually, it eliminates lots of the opportunities for middle men to take cuts (starting with government bureaucrats and government contractors.) > The ways to do that range from straight-up charging you interest on advance loans secured by the benefit So, just make contracts to secure loans by UBI benefit void as contrary to public policy. You can pay people from the benefit, you can contract to pay people from the benefit, you can't provide a lien on the benefit to secure a loan, because the benefit cannot legally be seized from you. > to charging slightly more for the goods and services typically consumed by poor people. Price increases are an expected market effect that drive increased quantity supplied. It's not a bad thing. > So I don't see the same magnitude of cost savings as the idea-evangelists do. If anything, government payroll would probably expand in the short term, as it builds the infrastructure to provide non-cash benefits to citizens. Yes, in a phase-in approach that phases out other programs using eligibility calculations (where UBI counts as part of income) rather than a slash-and-burn implementation where UBI immediately replaces other programs, in the short term you'd have an additional program office with only caseload related reductions in the administration of other programs, until the UBI reached a level that entire programs could be eliminated because it became impossible to qualify for them. > BI would have to assemble 300 million fungible daily ration packages and truck them to distribution centers sized and located appropriately for the needs of the population. No, the whole point of BI is that its just money. "fungible daily ration packs" are not being built and trucked, monthly fixed-amount benefit checks are delivered (or electronically deposited.) [0] People use the money to buy services in the market. > Just moving the money around is not going to be enough to satisfy the need. If all you do is cut checks, it may take decades for the supply chain to adapt, if ever. If you use a ramp-up UBI and phase-out of other programs (which is the only way you get the short-term surge of government workers you talk about), the supply chain can adapt slowly, and its not a program. > Food stamps have existed for a long time, and we still see "food deserts" in lower-income neighborhoods. Arguably, the restrictions around food stamps and the administrative cost of dealing with them contributes to that problem. > Even the promise of having a local monopoly on rent-seeking the free government money has not motivated food distributors to set up shop in otherwise unprofitable areas. Food deserts typically do not have no food stores, or even no food stores that sell some things that qualify for government food benefits. There are lots of specific concrete definitions used to identify food deserts, and they tend to focus on local availability of particular variety of selections or prices of particular options. Most food deserts have some (often small) food-selling stores, including ones that accept government food benefits. [0] Incidentally, a universal basic banking service would be a useful side-program along with UBI, reducing the problem of the unbanked.
hackuser 10y ago
> I'd hope the system would absolutely tell them "tough shit" So the more vulnerable you are, the more likely the system should fail? A critical system is poorly designed when it is more likely to fail when its function becomes more critical. Most people don't have problems because they are lazy, but because they have serious problems. Consider people with mental health issues, costly diseases (e.g., alcoholism), disabilities, people who are old and not functioning well, etc. If an elderly person is scammed out of their money, I don't feel 'tough shit' is a good response.
ekianjo 10y ago
> Personally, I'd hope the system would absolutely tell them "tough shit". There's got to be a line where the safety net gives out, because someone is too expensive to help. How about if they get a grave disease and need urgent treatments and related resources for that? Is medical treatment supposed to be free in the scenario of BI as well ? Because, THAT, we know how well it works (free medical coverage) in several countries where it's already applied.
danielweber 10y ago
You could create basic income as a family of associated benefits. For example, give everyone a housing voucher. They can only spend it on housing, with the assumption they will need to top up from other funds It would still be "universal" because everyone has it and you don't suffer clawbacks.
- djrogers 10y ago
  This would lead eventually to the system we have now, only larger (because it's not means tested). It also has huge supply-side economics problems: If you stipulate that every family can spend an extra $1000 on housing, rent will go up by $1000 pretty quickly, and housing prices will go up by whatever $1000/mo in mortgage payments will allow.
  - danielweber 10y ago
    In consumption-based positional goods, rents will always go up by whatever the basic income is. Because people are entering a zero-sum rat race for status. That's irrelevant to whether it's doled out as BI or as housing voucher. But in normal markets, people will still try to supply the good at the lowest cost and consumers will still try to gain it at the lowest price, and the market will find some midpoint. Moreover, if you can't make "universal housing vouchers" work, how are you going to make "universal basic income" work? The former is a much simpler problem.
alistproducer2 10y ago
HamNo over at gawker had a piece today outlining exactly this issue http://gawker.com/two-problems-with-universal-basic-income-1779646932 http://gawker.com/two-problems-with-universal-basic-income-1...
Tloewald 10y ago
I suspect that the problem would not be huge (but it would need addressing). The key would be making accessing the emergency safety net sufficiently unpleasant/inconvenient as to dissuade casual fraud. (The welfare equivalent of being put on hold.) The key questions in my mind are: (a) how do we prevent people borrowing against it? (b) what to do about kids of people who squander their basic entitlements, but it's not like the current system handles this issue well.
ksou32 10y ago
As is people sell food stamps. Single payer healthcare + UBI and the rest is up to you.
ksou32 10y ago
As is people sell food stamps. Single payer healthcare + UBI and the rest is up to you.
krashnburn200 10y ago
It's not actually that hard. People who prove they cannot manage their BI are required to participate in a managed BI program. The individual can chose from any/all licenced managers (or an individual/family member willing to accept the responsibility) who provide varying levels of service for a specified Percentage of your BI. Maybe an efficiency apartment with groceries delivered for 80%. Maybe a bunk in a dorm and a meal ticket for 50%. Even an individual who can't manage their own money can still chose a service based on their needs.

ryanmarsh 10y ago

Or we could teach them financial literacy. Kind of like how countries with socialized healthcare spend more on health education.

st3v3r 10y ago
But then you get a bunch of people who complain that high schools shouldn't be teaching that stuff. Of course, I feel that those who espouse that viewpoint are doing so because they benefit from having a large group of people lacking these skills.
- ryanmarsh 10y ago
  My co-worker referred to financial literacy training as "basket weaving" and a "waste of public funds". So, yah.
Kluny 10y ago
Mind you, that would require financially literate teachers. I never had one, in all the years I was in school
aianus 10y ago
What makes you think a financial literacy class would succeed where math class and English class have failed? Financial literacy is nothing more than reading comprehension and some grade 8 arithmetic.

eanzenberg 10y ago

"Tough shit" sucks when parents blow their handout on lottery tickets and drugs, leaving their children in perpetual poverty.

maxerickson 10y ago
It would replace welfare programs, not all social services. If children are not being cared for, the state will still intervene.
- eanzenberg 10y ago
  I thought BI would replace all social services. That's how its cost is justified?
  - Manishearth 10y ago
    Why is it justified when it replaces all, but not when it replaces some? It only needs to replace enough, not necessarily all.
    - PKop 10y ago
      Because all is more easily defined than some. Some is always some, even as the number of programs increases after the initial purge.
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    > I thought BI would replace all social services. Most proponents of UBI see it as, at least eventually, replacing some range of existing government means- and/or behavior-tested benefit programs and, possibly, some age- or disability-tested ones (in the US, most advocates would probably include, at a minimum, EITC, General Assistance programs, SNAP, TANF, Section 8 housing subsidies; some would also include Child Tax Credit, Tuition and Student Loan related credits and deductions, Medicaid, Medicare, and/or Social Security.) I've never heard any advocate argue that it would replace all social services.
  - 10y ago

acgourley 10y ago

You'll find there are two voices for BI, the liberal and the liberatian. The liberal would prefer to keep universal healthcare and food programs and put cash on top, making the total distribution to the poor larger. The liberatian would prefer to simply move the complex paternalistic safety net into a simpler cash payment which doesn't disincentivize work while not increasing it's size. As an aside, if you pay attention you'll see the two types of people will squelch their vocalizations in the interest of a short term alliance in support of BI. Personally I believe the liberal position has both moral and practical superiority. It's going to be cheaper to make sure people have bread and vaccinations despite themselves than it's going to be to solve the resulting issues later.

notahacker 10y ago
The two types of people might squelch their vocalization when writing arguments in support of the BI. But both would vote in favour of the status quo against the other side's proposal if given the opportunity: liberals don't want a meagre BI to replace most of the welfare state and most existing low income tax credits and libertarians certainly don't want high taxes to pay for a generous BI in addition to most existing programmes.
- acgourley 10y ago
  It's a serious problem, no doubt. I would still probably vote for a meager BI because I feel it's easier to turn the knob up later than it is to get everything done at once.
  - CWuestefeld 10y ago
    I appreciate your candor. But for the libertarian side of things (where I see it myself), I think there's a real fear that this would happen: we're being sold on a promise of greater efficiency, less space for corruption, etc., but in the end, we wind up bringing back in all that baggage anyway.
    - incongruity 10y ago

billmalarky 10y ago

>It's almost inevitably that there'll then be the "food security" fund, and the "housing guarantee" fund Seems like basic income allows for this issue to be resolved by private organizations easier since cash is much more liquid than welfare/other government benefits. So basically what I'm getting at, is if you can't manage your own life, there will be a corporation that provides shelter, food, and basic necessities for you in exchange for 100% of your BI (cue comparisons with the for-profit prison industry). Those that are unfit for even this model (their special needs require more service than their BI can possibly cover) would be a small minority (assuming BI could cover basic but adequate care for the majority of the elderly) and I suspect they would need to be institutionalized if there were no family or charity organizations that could support them. Well that's my off-the-cuff zero-research opinion anyways.

ffwd 10y ago
Just as a tangential addon to this - I think if this were to happen, a computer with internet would have to be part of the basic necessities package. Maybe it's because I'm a nerd or the internet has had such a huge effect on me, but I feel with the internet and proper guidance to get tutorials, search things online and so on can really help those people produce things and learn. Without it, they might end up just roaming in the streets, doing drugs, maybe watch TV. Not to be cliche but I really feel like if people aren't introduced to the more "intellectual" side of life, they may never seek it themselves.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

nkrisc 10y ago

While I tentatively agree, I don't think BI in this manner could succeed without first setting people up for success. Financial education and the ability to manage finances is a crucial prerequisite skill that many who would qualify for BI might very well lack. We can't throw people in the deep end of the pool and say the ones who didn't drown learned to swim.

sliverstorm 10y ago

My knee-jerk reaction is to agree with you. However the problem with "tough shit" can be seen with the homeless today. The safety net doesn't give out, instead they fall onto the emergency services net, which does not have the option of not helping them, and is possibly the most expensive net of them all.

cc_wk 10y ago

If the holes of a safety net are large enough for a person to fall through, than it's not a safety net at all is it? If a tightrope walker is learning the skill, you want a safety-net that will catch them 100% of the time, until they don't need it anymore. A social safety net should be the same - relentlessly available. Personally, I'd be fine with overlooking what I would assume to be the small number of people who would shamelessly exploit it, because I'd like to think that basic dignity and self-respect would prevent that number from ever being very large. In other words, the system would need some functional slack and it should be funded adequately so that it's not considered a "scarce resource" and the slack can be generous. Myself, I'm ok if a system like this existed so that if I did have a problem family member, it wouldn't be assumed to be my responsibility to take care of them, and further, I don't like the idea of charities because it presumes benign wealthy people are available to fund them. It seems better, with social programs, to socialize the cost so that I can pay into a general fund so that it can be another-person (aka a professional)'s problem. "Someone being too expensive to help" ... that makes no real sense today given how much money is swirling around. It's just a matter of what you prioritize.

rsync 10y ago

"Personally, I'd hope the system would absolutely tell them "tough shit". There's got to be a line where the safety net gives out, because someone is too expensive to help." But see, that's why his is a trick question ... If the answer is "tough shit" then it's a concession that implementing BI (or anything like it) is simply adjusting the "tough shit dial" to a relatively different value. There's still a benefits ceiling, beyond which it's "tough shit". At that point it becomes difficult to justify any particular point on the tough shit dial - especially when todays tough shit was, four generations ago, essentially heaven on earth. No benefits at all is a rational position. Endless benefits, cradle to grave is also a rational position. Neither of them are self-contradictory or loony. You may disagree with either of them but neither of them are crazy. It's all of the bullshit in-between that is totally unworkable - both practically and theoretically. His question - and your answer - illustrate that very well.

konschubert 10y ago
> It's all of the bullshit in-between that is totally unworkable - both practically and theoretically. No. In most countries of the world, including the United states, limited social benefits exist. It is sometimes messy, it is sometimes unfair. But they are reality.
- rsync 10y ago
  "No. In most countries of the world, including the United states, limited social benefits exist. It is sometimes messy, it is sometimes unfair. But they are reality." Yes, that is exactly my point and it is from knowledge of the US systems especially that that point is informed. It is my contention that they don't work - not just practically, on the ground, but even theoretically.
  - konschubert 10y ago
    Well, they aren't perfect. But it doesn't mean that they don't work at all. You are dismissing them because they aren't working perfectly. And I am saying that it is wrong to dismiss something just because it isn't perfect, especially if there is no better alternative.

logfromblammo 10y ago

A "payday loan" usurer would be all too happy to lend someone $1000 in cash, and then take $50 out of each of the next 52 weekly BI checks. I don't see a way to BI without significant buy in from Dept. of Agriculture and Dept. of HHS to provide some of the value of benefit as actual food and as gratis-rent, subsidized-utilities housing. Moving 100% of the benefit as cash leaves too much opportunity for middlemen to take a cut. The ways to do that range from straight-up charging you interest on advance loans secured by the benefit to charging slightly more for the goods and services typically consumed by poor people. So I don't see the same magnitude of cost savings as the idea-evangelists do. If anything, government payroll would probably expand in the short term, as it builds the infrastructure to provide non-cash benefits to citizens. The existing food aid programs use EBT cards that act like debit cards and just leverage the same grocery stores and farms that everyone else uses. BI would have to assemble 300 million fungible daily ration packages and truck them to distribution centers sized and located appropriately for the needs of the population. It would be like building the postal service all over again, except shipping identical 3000 kcal packages to somewhere within a 1.5 mile radius of every person in America, every day. (Then also ship the older, unclaimed packages to the pork farms.) The upside is that those jobs would be real, actually-do-something jobs instead of the bullshit, pencil-pusher, bureaucratic jobs that typically suck up some of the welfare budgets. The post office may have a bad reputation, but at the end of the day, they do have something to show for their work. Eventually, those jobs get replaced by robots, too. Just moving the money around is not going to be enough to satisfy the need. If all you do is cut checks, it may take decades for the supply chain to adapt, if ever. Food stamps have existed for a long time, and we still see "food deserts" in lower-income neighborhoods. Even the promise of having a local monopoly on rent-seeking the free government money has not motivated food distributors to set up shop in otherwise unprofitable areas.

dragonwriter 10y ago
> I don't see a way to BI without significant buy in from Dept. of Agriculture and Dept. of HHS to provide some of the value of benefit as actual food and as gratis-rent, subsidized-utilities housing. HHS doesn't provide gratis-rent, subsidized-utilities housing without BI. Section 8 is subsidized-rent (and even so has long waiting lists and behavioral controls, so that many people that are income qualified for it don't receive it.) > Moving 100% of the benefit as cash leaves too much opportunity for middlemen to take a cut. Actually, it eliminates lots of the opportunities for middle men to take cuts (starting with government bureaucrats and government contractors.) > The ways to do that range from straight-up charging you interest on advance loans secured by the benefit So, just make contracts to secure loans by UBI benefit void as contrary to public policy. You can pay people from the benefit, you can contract to pay people from the benefit, you can't provide a lien on the benefit to secure a loan, because the benefit cannot legally be seized from you. > to charging slightly more for the goods and services typically consumed by poor people. Price increases are an expected market effect that drive increased quantity supplied. It's not a bad thing. > So I don't see the same magnitude of cost savings as the idea-evangelists do. If anything, government payroll would probably expand in the short term, as it builds the infrastructure to provide non-cash benefits to citizens. Yes, in a phase-in approach that phases out other programs using eligibility calculations (where UBI counts as part of income) rather than a slash-and-burn implementation where UBI immediately replaces other programs, in the short term you'd have an additional program office with only caseload related reductions in the administration of other programs, until the UBI reached a level that entire programs could be eliminated because it became impossible to qualify for them. > BI would have to assemble 300 million fungible daily ration packages and truck them to distribution centers sized and located appropriately for the needs of the population. No, the whole point of BI is that its just money. "fungible daily ration packs" are not being built and trucked, monthly fixed-amount benefit checks are delivered (or electronically deposited.) [0] People use the money to buy services in the market. > Just moving the money around is not going to be enough to satisfy the need. If all you do is cut checks, it may take decades for the supply chain to adapt, if ever. If you use a ramp-up UBI and phase-out of other programs (which is the only way you get the short-term surge of government workers you talk about), the supply chain can adapt slowly, and its not a program. > Food stamps have existed for a long time, and we still see "food deserts" in lower-income neighborhoods. Arguably, the restrictions around food stamps and the administrative cost of dealing with them contributes to that problem. > Even the promise of having a local monopoly on rent-seeking the free government money has not motivated food distributors to set up shop in otherwise unprofitable areas. Food deserts typically do not have no food stores, or even no food stores that sell some things that qualify for government food benefits. There are lots of specific concrete definitions used to identify food deserts, and they tend to focus on local availability of particular variety of selections or prices of particular options. Most food deserts have some (often small) food-selling stores, including ones that accept government food benefits. [0] Incidentally, a universal basic banking service would be a useful side-program along with UBI, reducing the problem of the unbanked.

hackuser 10y ago

> I'd hope the system would absolutely tell them "tough shit" So the more vulnerable you are, the more likely the system should fail? A critical system is poorly designed when it is more likely to fail when its function becomes more critical. Most people don't have problems because they are lazy, but because they have serious problems. Consider people with mental health issues, costly diseases (e.g., alcoholism), disabilities, people who are old and not functioning well, etc. If an elderly person is scammed out of their money, I don't feel 'tough shit' is a good response.

ekianjo 10y ago

> Personally, I'd hope the system would absolutely tell them "tough shit". There's got to be a line where the safety net gives out, because someone is too expensive to help. How about if they get a grave disease and need urgent treatments and related resources for that? Is medical treatment supposed to be free in the scenario of BI as well ? Because, THAT, we know how well it works (free medical coverage) in several countries where it's already applied.

danielweber 10y ago

You could create basic income as a family of associated benefits. For example, give everyone a housing voucher. They can only spend it on housing, with the assumption they will need to top up from other funds It would still be "universal" because everyone has it and you don't suffer clawbacks.

djrogers 10y ago
This would lead eventually to the system we have now, only larger (because it's not means tested). It also has huge supply-side economics problems: If you stipulate that every family can spend an extra $1000 on housing, rent will go up by $1000 pretty quickly, and housing prices will go up by whatever $1000/mo in mortgage payments will allow.
- danielweber 10y ago
  In consumption-based positional goods, rents will always go up by whatever the basic income is. Because people are entering a zero-sum rat race for status. That's irrelevant to whether it's doled out as BI or as housing voucher. But in normal markets, people will still try to supply the good at the lowest cost and consumers will still try to gain it at the lowest price, and the market will find some midpoint. Moreover, if you can't make "universal housing vouchers" work, how are you going to make "universal basic income" work? The former is a much simpler problem.

alistproducer2 10y ago

HamNo over at gawker had a piece today outlining exactly this issue http://gawker.com/two-problems-with-universal-basic-income-1779646932 http://gawker.com/two-problems-with-universal-basic-income-1...

Tloewald 10y ago

I suspect that the problem would not be huge (but it would need addressing). The key would be making accessing the emergency safety net sufficiently unpleasant/inconvenient as to dissuade casual fraud. (The welfare equivalent of being put on hold.) The key questions in my mind are: (a) how do we prevent people borrowing against it? (b) what to do about kids of people who squander their basic entitlements, but it's not like the current system handles this issue well.

ksou32 10y ago

As is people sell food stamps. Single payer healthcare + UBI and the rest is up to you.

ksou32 10y ago

As is people sell food stamps. Single payer healthcare + UBI and the rest is up to you.

krashnburn200 10y ago

It's not actually that hard. People who prove they cannot manage their BI are required to participate in a managed BI program. The individual can chose from any/all licenced managers (or an individual/family member willing to accept the responsibility) who provide varying levels of service for a specified Percentage of your BI. Maybe an efficiency apartment with groceries delivered for 80%. Maybe a bunk in a dorm and a meal ticket for 50%. Even an individual who can't manage their own money can still chose a service based on their needs.