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But most of the basic jobs are going to be makework jobs with minimal economic value. Things that have economic utility approximately equal to (and possibly les

But most of the basic jobs are going to be makework jobs with minimal economic value. Things that have economic utility approximately equal to (and possibly less than) sitting on your couch and watching Netflix. Really? Fixing our crumbling infrastructure isn't valuable? Providing childcare to working mothers is useless? Glad to know there is nothing useful the govt can possibly do with more labor. But then the basic job falls on its face because people will too often choose the basic job which is easier to get, has more stability, may be easier to do, etc. This can be resolved by making BJ suck and pay below min wage. The Basic Income doesn't have those problems because in that case the income from the Real Job supplements the Basic Income instead of replacing it, so you get compensated for the amount that getting a real job is worse than not getting one. On the other hand, you seem to be ignoring the third option: watch TV all day while collecting money. We already know that free money (typically in the form of welfare and unemployment) induces this behavior. As for the arithmetic, the question is this: ...BI is far and far more expensive than unemployment benefit: BI is also paid to people who work. Maybe some BI advocate should try to convince me but to me it looks like this will far outset the advantage above. Your calculations seem to work in your hypothetical society. Do they work on something approximating reality?

AnthonyMouse 10y ago
> Really? Fixing our crumbling infrastructure isn't valuable? Building infrastructure isn't unskilled labor so can't be used as a basic job. Moreover, the fact that the government sometimes needs to hire people to do things doesn't mean they can't do that but only when things actually need doing, and then independently have a basic income. > Providing childcare to working mothers is useless? This is what I'm talking about. Let's take some mothers who need to provide for their children and give them jobs digging ditches and filling them back in, then pay some strangers to watch their children while they're doing it. Might it be better to allow mothers to be paid when they take care of their own children? > Glad to know there is nothing useful the govt can possibly do with more labor. This is the most basic flaw in the basic job. The government is not qualified to decide this. It's the fallacy of the centrally planned economy that the government is better at allocating labor than individuals. > This can be resolved by making BJ suck and pay below min wage. In which case you can't give people jobs doing economically productive things because you have to give them jobs that are more demeaning and loathsome than jobs doing economically productive things, and then they can't actually live on wages below minimum wage so you still need the existing welfare system. > On the other hand, you seem to be ignoring the third option: watch TV all day while collecting money. We already know that free money (typically in the form of welfare and unemployment) induces this behavior. ...when getting a job causes you to lose the welfare or unemployment benefits. > As for the arithmetic, the question is this: ...BI is far and far more expensive than unemployment benefit: BI is also paid to people who work. Maybe some BI advocate should try to convince me but to me it looks like this will far outset the advantage above. If the average person pays $10,000 more in taxes to fund a basic income and then receives the $10,000 basic income, it didn't cost them $10,000, it's just a no-op. > Your calculations seem to work in your hypothetical society. Do they work on something approximating reality? Please specify what part of the calculations you find unrealistic. Obviously the numbers there are chosen to balance exactly so that nobody loses or gains anything and in practice throwing out a huge system with complicated rules and then replacing it with something simpler is going to have winners and losers. But the general principle that wealthier people pay more taxes than they receive benefits and poorer people receive more benefits than they pay taxes will continue to hold and the result will be lower marginal tax rates on effectively everyone (or, if BI is large enough that the new system is more redistributive than the existing one, everyone other than high income people).
- yummyfajitas 10y ago
  Building infrastructure isn't unskilled labor so can't be used as a basic job. FDR did exactly that. Let's take some mothers who need to provide for their children and give them jobs digging ditches and filling them back in, then pay some strangers to watch their children while they're doing it. Might it be better to allow mothers to be paid when they take care of their own children? Or, lets have one mother watch 4 children - her own and those of 3 strangers. This is a common arrangement in most of the world. Are Americans just somehow less capable than Indians, Mexicans, Peruvians and South Africans? Please specify what part of the calculations you find unrealistic. Obviously the numbers there are chosen to balance exactly So now take the actual distribution of income in the US (rather than a hypothetical one) and calculate what numbers would be necessary to balance exactly.
  - AnthonyMouse 10y ago
    > FDR did exactly that. And a lot of those people died. "Building infrastructure" is also not a long-term plan. We need it right now because we haven't seriously invested in infrastructure in three generations, but if we spent 10 years building all new bridges then we would be good for another three generations again. Which would be great, but then what? > Or, lets have one mother watch 4 children - her own and those of 3 strangers. This is a common arrangement in most of the world. Are Americans just somehow less capable than Indians, Mexicans, Peruvians and South Africans? Which the mother receiving the basic income can still do in return for money or favors or in kind services. But with the basic job, at some point the government says we have enough people providing daycare and you're digging ditches all day even if you would prefer to be raising your kids. And notice how those arrangements work in other countries (and here for that matter) -- you watch all the kids today, someone else watches all the kids tomorrow. When you're not watching the kids you're washing clothes or doing errands or preparing food. And people tend to be much happier when they're doing that kind of work for their own families and communities than doing it for rude strangers at minimum wage. > So now take the actual distribution of income in the US (rather than a hypothetical one) and calculate what numbers would be necessary to balance exactly. OK, let's see. Mean household income is $72,641, there are 122,952K households so total income is $8,931,356,232K, therefore providing a $10,000 basic income for 245M adults would require a flat tax rate of ~27.43%. Or if you like a progressive tax then maybe a 20% bracket and a 30% bracket. And that rate is an overestimate because it doesn't include any revenue from corporate taxes.

AnthonyMouse 10y ago

> Really? Fixing our crumbling infrastructure isn't valuable? Building infrastructure isn't unskilled labor so can't be used as a basic job. Moreover, the fact that the government sometimes needs to hire people to do things doesn't mean they can't do that but only when things actually need doing, and then independently have a basic income. > Providing childcare to working mothers is useless? This is what I'm talking about. Let's take some mothers who need to provide for their children and give them jobs digging ditches and filling them back in, then pay some strangers to watch their children while they're doing it. Might it be better to allow mothers to be paid when they take care of their own children? > Glad to know there is nothing useful the govt can possibly do with more labor. This is the most basic flaw in the basic job. The government is not qualified to decide this. It's the fallacy of the centrally planned economy that the government is better at allocating labor than individuals. > This can be resolved by making BJ suck and pay below min wage. In which case you can't give people jobs doing economically productive things because you have to give them jobs that are more demeaning and loathsome than jobs doing economically productive things, and then they can't actually live on wages below minimum wage so you still need the existing welfare system. > On the other hand, you seem to be ignoring the third option: watch TV all day while collecting money. We already know that free money (typically in the form of welfare and unemployment) induces this behavior. ...when getting a job causes you to lose the welfare or unemployment benefits. > As for the arithmetic, the question is this: ...BI is far and far more expensive than unemployment benefit: BI is also paid to people who work. Maybe some BI advocate should try to convince me but to me it looks like this will far outset the advantage above. If the average person pays $10,000 more in taxes to fund a basic income and then receives the $10,000 basic income, it didn't cost them $10,000, it's just a no-op. > Your calculations seem to work in your hypothetical society. Do they work on something approximating reality? Please specify what part of the calculations you find unrealistic. Obviously the numbers there are chosen to balance exactly so that nobody loses or gains anything and in practice throwing out a huge system with complicated rules and then replacing it with something simpler is going to have winners and losers. But the general principle that wealthier people pay more taxes than they receive benefits and poorer people receive more benefits than they pay taxes will continue to hold and the result will be lower marginal tax rates on effectively everyone (or, if BI is large enough that the new system is more redistributive than the existing one, everyone other than high income people).

yummyfajitas 10y ago
Building infrastructure isn't unskilled labor so can't be used as a basic job. FDR did exactly that. Let's take some mothers who need to provide for their children and give them jobs digging ditches and filling them back in, then pay some strangers to watch their children while they're doing it. Might it be better to allow mothers to be paid when they take care of their own children? Or, lets have one mother watch 4 children - her own and those of 3 strangers. This is a common arrangement in most of the world. Are Americans just somehow less capable than Indians, Mexicans, Peruvians and South Africans? Please specify what part of the calculations you find unrealistic. Obviously the numbers there are chosen to balance exactly So now take the actual distribution of income in the US (rather than a hypothetical one) and calculate what numbers would be necessary to balance exactly.
- AnthonyMouse 10y ago
  > FDR did exactly that. And a lot of those people died. "Building infrastructure" is also not a long-term plan. We need it right now because we haven't seriously invested in infrastructure in three generations, but if we spent 10 years building all new bridges then we would be good for another three generations again. Which would be great, but then what? > Or, lets have one mother watch 4 children - her own and those of 3 strangers. This is a common arrangement in most of the world. Are Americans just somehow less capable than Indians, Mexicans, Peruvians and South Africans? Which the mother receiving the basic income can still do in return for money or favors or in kind services. But with the basic job, at some point the government says we have enough people providing daycare and you're digging ditches all day even if you would prefer to be raising your kids. And notice how those arrangements work in other countries (and here for that matter) -- you watch all the kids today, someone else watches all the kids tomorrow. When you're not watching the kids you're washing clothes or doing errands or preparing food. And people tend to be much happier when they're doing that kind of work for their own families and communities than doing it for rude strangers at minimum wage. > So now take the actual distribution of income in the US (rather than a hypothetical one) and calculate what numbers would be necessary to balance exactly. OK, let's see. Mean household income is $72,641, there are 122,952K households so total income is $8,931,356,232K, therefore providing a $10,000 basic income for 245M adults would require a flat tax rate of ~27.43%. Or if you like a progressive tax then maybe a 20% bracket and a 30% bracket. And that rate is an overestimate because it doesn't include any revenue from corporate taxes.