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Yes, and if I redefine all errors as successes my program has no bugs. Back in reality, my application is not meeting business needs, and BI is still wasting a

Yes, and if I redefine all errors as successes my program has no bugs. Back in reality, my application is not meeting business needs, and BI is still wasting a bunch of money on people who don't need it. Means-testing reduces the marginal benefit to finding additional income, encouraging a culture of dependence. And any type of conditional benefit scheme creates an incentive for fraud where the benefits of fraud outweigh the expected cost of committing it. A Basic Job Guarantee (if you need a job real bad, the government gives you a real bad job) does not create incentives for fraud. EITC also has minimal incentives for fraud.

dragonwriter 10y ago
> A Basic Job Guarantee (if you need a job real bad, the government gives you a real bad job) does not create incentives for fraud. No one needs a job. People need good and services, which (in a system that is basically market structured) income is a means to provide. A job isn't a need, its multiple steps removed from needs. A "Basic Job" labor army programming is a reasonable means of providing stability in income, currency in marketable skills, and providing for infrastructure and other public needs during a short-term disruption in the private economy negatively effecting employment that does not involve a long-term transformation in the nature of the economy and the kinds of work likely to be in demand. Its a very bad way of dealing with long-term structural unemployment, providing a social safety net during a period of substantial transformation of the jobs in demand which either makes people permanently unemployable or requires substantial time devoted to retraining to regain employability for displaced workers, etc. Its a good component of a set of policies to address the Great Depression, but not for an economic revolution driven by automation and other developments. > EITC also has minimal incentives for fraud. Sure, because EITC has a fairly gradual falloff of benefits with increasing income at the top end (and because, though risk of getting caught may be fairly low, sanctions for tax fraud are very steep), it creates only a fairly mild incentive to fraud through concealed outside income. Certainly, rolling all primarily means-tested (but not mainly conditioned on other needs) social benefit programs into EITC, both raising the cap and broadening the range appropriately, and keeping the fairly mild fall-off at the top would substantially reduce overall complexity, and reduce incentives for fraud, at the cost of directing less funds to the neediest at the bottom (due to the phase-in part at the bottom end of the scale with EITC.) Of course, the only differences between an EITC and a UBI funded (insofar as funds are needed beyond those from replaced means-tested programs) increased high-end taxes in a progressive income tax system is: (1) EITC doesn't reach the bottom end of the distribution as effectively, due to the phase-in, (2) EITC is effectively (other than as mentioned in #1) equivalent to a UBI funded by an increased tax on a narrow range of income toward the low (but not absolute bottom) end of the scale (the range at which the UBI phases out.) rather than one funded by an increased tax at the top end of the scale, as in most UBI proposals. UBI is basically EITC with those two problems fixed.
- yummyfajitas 10y ago
  But we don't have long term structural unemployment. Robots didn't take our jobs. https://www.chrisstucchio.com/blog/2016/robots_didnt_take_our_jobs.html https://www.chrisstucchio.com/blog/2016/robots_didnt_take_ou... We actually currently have a scarcity of labor and BI makes this problem worse (about twice as bad as the great recession did). http://public.econ.duke.edu/~erw/197/forget-cea%20(2).pdf http://public.econ.duke.edu/~erw/197/forget-cea%20(2).pdf EITC increases incentives to work as does a basic job guarantee. Welfare and BI have the opposite effect.
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    > But we don't have long term structural unemployment. No, we have (arguably) the early phases of an economic revolution with rapid changes in the kinds of jobs in demand (which is the other thing I mentioned), long-term structural unemployment is a speculated future issue, both of those (as short and longer term concerns) are issues that are usually cited as motivations for UBI (personally, I'm more interested in the former than the latter, at least in the form of "unemployment" in the strict sense, rather than "decline in the relative value of the median hour of labor".) You can disagree that either is something we ought to address, but by (earlier in the thread) presenting an alternative solution to BI, you are implicitly agreeing with the problem it is being offered to solve. > We actually currently have a scarcity of labor If we had a simple scarcity of labor, you'd see rapid, across the board increases in the market clearing cost of labor, you do not. We may have a scarcity of certain skills, but that's a problem that while a mature UBI addresses (by making it more possible for people to take time for retraining in the hope of future wage gains), a Basic Job as you have proposed does not. > and BI makes this problem worse (about twice as bad as the great recession did). The great recession didn't produce a scarcity of labor, it produced a surplus of labor. So "makes this problem worse (about twice as bad as the great recession did)" is simply incoherent. Anyhow, the experiment you point to is not a BI, its a Minimum Income (a traditional, means-tested welfare program, with a 50% fall-off for outside income and the associated reduced incentive for outside income-earning activities, including work -- the central problem with means-tested benefit programs that UBI is directed at solving.) Claiming that an experiment with the exact feature of traditional, means-tested welfare programs that UBI proponents point to as a reduced incentive to work that shows that such a program does, in fact, reduce work by some specific amount as proof that a UBI at the same level would reduce incentive to work by the same amount is unjustifiable. > EITC increases incentives to work EITC increases incentive to earn additional income within a narrow range at the bottom, has no effect on incentives just above that range for another narrow range, and then decreases incentives to earn additional income within another narrow range, and then has no additional effect above that range. It increases the incentives for work at a minimal income, and somewhat decreases the incentives for moving beyond that for people who can achieve that but don't see a path to a very large increase. > Welfare and BI have the opposite effect. Even granting, arguendo, that that's true, the key issue in evaluating proposals to replace means-tested welfare programs with BI is the relative effect of the means-tested programs replaced vs. the BI replacement.
dllthomas 10y ago
> A Basic Job Guarantee (if you need a job real bad, the government gives you a real bad job) does not create incentives for fraud. Are you sure about that? For recipients, there is potential to slack off while still receiving pay. Possibly to the point of doing other work (under the table? for their own household?). While this can be construed as still comparing favorably to BI ("at least we're getting some work out of some of them") it is not at all the same as there being no opportunity for fraud. Meanwhile, there is tremendous potential for abuse and fraud by those giving out the basic jobs. A long running program whose criteria for success is "employ a lot of people at marginally useful things" is a large pile of money just waiting to be spent on making improvements that especially benefit the connected few.
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  > Meanwhile, there is tremendous potential for abuse and fraud by those giving out the basic jobs. A long running program whose criteria for success is "employ a lot of people at marginally useful things" is a large pile of money just waiting to be spent on making improvements that especially benefit the connected few. A point well-illustrated, in fiction, in The Green Mile.

dragonwriter 10y ago

> A Basic Job Guarantee (if you need a job real bad, the government gives you a real bad job) does not create incentives for fraud. No one needs a job. People need good and services, which (in a system that is basically market structured) income is a means to provide. A job isn't a need, its multiple steps removed from needs. A "Basic Job" labor army programming is a reasonable means of providing stability in income, currency in marketable skills, and providing for infrastructure and other public needs during a short-term disruption in the private economy negatively effecting employment that does not involve a long-term transformation in the nature of the economy and the kinds of work likely to be in demand. Its a very bad way of dealing with long-term structural unemployment, providing a social safety net during a period of substantial transformation of the jobs in demand which either makes people permanently unemployable or requires substantial time devoted to retraining to regain employability for displaced workers, etc. Its a good component of a set of policies to address the Great Depression, but not for an economic revolution driven by automation and other developments. > EITC also has minimal incentives for fraud. Sure, because EITC has a fairly gradual falloff of benefits with increasing income at the top end (and because, though risk of getting caught may be fairly low, sanctions for tax fraud are very steep), it creates only a fairly mild incentive to fraud through concealed outside income. Certainly, rolling all primarily means-tested (but not mainly conditioned on other needs) social benefit programs into EITC, both raising the cap and broadening the range appropriately, and keeping the fairly mild fall-off at the top would substantially reduce overall complexity, and reduce incentives for fraud, at the cost of directing less funds to the neediest at the bottom (due to the phase-in part at the bottom end of the scale with EITC.) Of course, the only differences between an EITC and a UBI funded (insofar as funds are needed beyond those from replaced means-tested programs) increased high-end taxes in a progressive income tax system is: (1) EITC doesn't reach the bottom end of the distribution as effectively, due to the phase-in, (2) EITC is effectively (other than as mentioned in #1) equivalent to a UBI funded by an increased tax on a narrow range of income toward the low (but not absolute bottom) end of the scale (the range at which the UBI phases out.) rather than one funded by an increased tax at the top end of the scale, as in most UBI proposals. UBI is basically EITC with those two problems fixed.

yummyfajitas 10y ago
But we don't have long term structural unemployment. Robots didn't take our jobs. https://www.chrisstucchio.com/blog/2016/robots_didnt_take_our_jobs.html https://www.chrisstucchio.com/blog/2016/robots_didnt_take_ou... We actually currently have a scarcity of labor and BI makes this problem worse (about twice as bad as the great recession did). http://public.econ.duke.edu/~erw/197/forget-cea%20(2).pdf http://public.econ.duke.edu/~erw/197/forget-cea%20(2).pdf EITC increases incentives to work as does a basic job guarantee. Welfare and BI have the opposite effect.
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  > But we don't have long term structural unemployment. No, we have (arguably) the early phases of an economic revolution with rapid changes in the kinds of jobs in demand (which is the other thing I mentioned), long-term structural unemployment is a speculated future issue, both of those (as short and longer term concerns) are issues that are usually cited as motivations for UBI (personally, I'm more interested in the former than the latter, at least in the form of "unemployment" in the strict sense, rather than "decline in the relative value of the median hour of labor".) You can disagree that either is something we ought to address, but by (earlier in the thread) presenting an alternative solution to BI, you are implicitly agreeing with the problem it is being offered to solve. > We actually currently have a scarcity of labor If we had a simple scarcity of labor, you'd see rapid, across the board increases in the market clearing cost of labor, you do not. We may have a scarcity of certain skills, but that's a problem that while a mature UBI addresses (by making it more possible for people to take time for retraining in the hope of future wage gains), a Basic Job as you have proposed does not. > and BI makes this problem worse (about twice as bad as the great recession did). The great recession didn't produce a scarcity of labor, it produced a surplus of labor. So "makes this problem worse (about twice as bad as the great recession did)" is simply incoherent. Anyhow, the experiment you point to is not a BI, its a Minimum Income (a traditional, means-tested welfare program, with a 50% fall-off for outside income and the associated reduced incentive for outside income-earning activities, including work -- the central problem with means-tested benefit programs that UBI is directed at solving.) Claiming that an experiment with the exact feature of traditional, means-tested welfare programs that UBI proponents point to as a reduced incentive to work that shows that such a program does, in fact, reduce work by some specific amount as proof that a UBI at the same level would reduce incentive to work by the same amount is unjustifiable. > EITC increases incentives to work EITC increases incentive to earn additional income within a narrow range at the bottom, has no effect on incentives just above that range for another narrow range, and then decreases incentives to earn additional income within another narrow range, and then has no additional effect above that range. It increases the incentives for work at a minimal income, and somewhat decreases the incentives for moving beyond that for people who can achieve that but don't see a path to a very large increase. > Welfare and BI have the opposite effect. Even granting, arguendo, that that's true, the key issue in evaluating proposals to replace means-tested welfare programs with BI is the relative effect of the means-tested programs replaced vs. the BI replacement.

dllthomas 10y ago

> A Basic Job Guarantee (if you need a job real bad, the government gives you a real bad job) does not create incentives for fraud. Are you sure about that? For recipients, there is potential to slack off while still receiving pay. Possibly to the point of doing other work (under the table? for their own household?). While this can be construed as still comparing favorably to BI ("at least we're getting some work out of some of them") it is not at all the same as there being no opportunity for fraud. Meanwhile, there is tremendous potential for abuse and fraud by those giving out the basic jobs. A long running program whose criteria for success is "employ a lot of people at marginally useful things" is a large pile of money just waiting to be spent on making improvements that especially benefit the connected few.

dragonwriter 10y ago
> Meanwhile, there is tremendous potential for abuse and fraud by those giving out the basic jobs. A long running program whose criteria for success is "employ a lot of people at marginally useful things" is a large pile of money just waiting to be spent on making improvements that especially benefit the connected few. A point well-illustrated, in fiction, in The Green Mile.