6 ms·

So we take what we're currently spending and spread it out to everyone instead of just people who need it? Doesn't that mean that the people who need it the mo

So we take what we're currently spending and spread it out to everyone instead of just people who need it? Doesn't that mean that the people who need it the most will just get less than they're getting now? In other words, are people who are relying on current US welfare systems often using more than (say) 10k/year in total benefits, and giving them 10k in cash instead would actually reduce their total compensation? And if not, then how can the cost of our current welfare systems be comparable to UBI?

aninhumer 10y ago
You'd adjust the tax system to compensate for most of that. The idea is that it reduces administration costs, eliminates poverty traps, and reduces the stigma of unemployment.
- michaelt 10y ago
  Reducing administration costs and adjusting the tax system isn't going to help a disabled veteran who needs more than $10,000 to afford a wheelchair-adapted vehicle, or a quadriplegic who needs more than $10,000 to pay for a carer to visit them at work to help them use the toilet twice a day. I'm no expert in politics, but I think if their benefits were cut they would probably protest, and the protesters would look very sympathetic. And if we say "OK, we'll have some extra funding for legitimate expenses for the legitimately disabled" you're not going to be able to do away with administration costs.
  - aninhumer 10y ago
    I don't disagree. I'm not as cavalier about replacing all social support with basic income, and disability should probably remain separate. You won't completely eliminate administration costs, but not having to administer unemployment and pensions will help a lot. (And personally I see the other benefits as more important to society.)
  - WalterSear 10y ago
    This is a strawman. Basic income isn't some libertarian pipe dream of replacing the government with an ATM. Obviously there are many services that can't be replaced or eliminated.
  - ebalit 10y ago
    There is more problem with means testing than with needs testing. The government can subsidies wheelchair-adapted vehicles to cost as much as a normal vehicle. Why someone that doesn't need a special vehicle would use the subsidy? The normal car fit their needs for the same price! And it's not even accounting the more probable situation in which the subsidy doesn't cover all the cost difference.
- acchow 10y ago
  And allows you to eliminate minimum wage, so if a mom-and-pop shop wants someone stocking shelves at $2.50/hour and someone is willing to do that to supplement their (sufficient) minimum income, they can agree to that.
guard-of-terra 10y ago
Private donations can help those who need it the most. They'll have much less work anyway now that nobody is starving or homeless by lack of money, might as well focus.
douche 10y ago
The current US welfare system is such a complicated clusterfuck of fragmented programs that anything would be an improvement. The most insidious aspect is that it has all of these income cliffs where actually working and earning over a certain level means that you lose benefits, so that earning one dollar more may cost you thousands in lost benefits.
- hx87 10y ago
  That's a problem with government taxation and spending in general--it's what happens when you map one number to another using discontinuous lookup tables instead of continuous functions.
  - aninhumer 10y ago
    In what way is that a general problem with government taxation? There's no reason you can't make the tax function continuous, the US just doesn't.
smsm42 10y ago
I think most of practical basic income systems proposed don't actually go that far. I mean, theoretically the goal is to replace all welfare spending, maybe, but as said below, it may be hard to do practically, so most current proposals replace only portion of it, while leaving many targeted benefits intact. I don't feel currently informed enough to form opinion about whether this can work or not, so I'd be very curious about somebody trying it - preferably in some place where it won't hurt me if it fails in some unexpected way, like many social engineering projects had. Like in Japan :) Sorry, Japanese people, I know it's selfish from my side to want that. OTOH, if it works, you get a big win.
int_19h 10y ago
>> So we take what we're currently spending and spread it out to everyone instead of just people who need it? You would presumably couple it with a heavily progressive income tax, with the result that people higher up on the scale end up paying way more into the system than the basic income check they receive, and people at the bottom pay no tax at all. So the effective amount of welfare is directly linked to one's income or lack thereof. Also, UBI can replace most welfare, but not all. In particular, your example with the wheelchair - that sort of thing really ought to be covered by health insurance (which should be managed entirely by the government, or at least price-controlled).
- grahamburger 10y ago
  > You would presumably couple it with a heavily progressive income tax, with the result that people higher up on the scale end up paying way more into the system than the basic income check they receive, and people at the bottom pay no tax at all. So the effective amount of welfare is directly linked to one's income or lack thereof. This is one of the primary gripes that I have with UBI. You've just described means testing! "So the effective amount of welfare is directly linked to one's income or lack thereof." We've moved the means testing around a little bit, but it's still there, and it's still open to politicization. The right demands that the threshold between welfare givers / takers be lowered, the left argues it be raised, and we're right back where we started.
  - int_19h 10y ago
    > This is one of the primary gripes that I have with UBI. You've just described means testing! There's no way to avoid means testing - the money has to come from somewhere, and this inherently means that some people pay more money into the system than they receive from it. The point of UBI is to make this whole setup as transparent and low-overhead as possible. The nice thing about it is that, in theory, because the redistribution is basically regulated by just two knobs (size of the UBI check, and how progressive the taxes are), adjusting them is politically easy, and adjustment range is pretty much unlimited. I'm hopeful that it would result in fewer situations like the ongoing ACA "debate", where right wing just wants to sink it altogether and replace it with something else entirely, because they can't get where they want by tuning it. If we can get this to work, UBI would always be there, but more left-leaning or more right-leaning governments would simply adjust the knobs more or less gradually depending on how much "freeloading" they're okay with. And smooth adjustments are easier to adapt to, and cause less social upheaval (think of the shock to the society and the economy if Republicans somehow manage to repeal ACA, say, tomorrow...)

aninhumer 10y ago

You'd adjust the tax system to compensate for most of that. The idea is that it reduces administration costs, eliminates poverty traps, and reduces the stigma of unemployment.

michaelt 10y ago
Reducing administration costs and adjusting the tax system isn't going to help a disabled veteran who needs more than $10,000 to afford a wheelchair-adapted vehicle, or a quadriplegic who needs more than $10,000 to pay for a carer to visit them at work to help them use the toilet twice a day. I'm no expert in politics, but I think if their benefits were cut they would probably protest, and the protesters would look very sympathetic. And if we say "OK, we'll have some extra funding for legitimate expenses for the legitimately disabled" you're not going to be able to do away with administration costs.
- aninhumer 10y ago
  I don't disagree. I'm not as cavalier about replacing all social support with basic income, and disability should probably remain separate. You won't completely eliminate administration costs, but not having to administer unemployment and pensions will help a lot. (And personally I see the other benefits as more important to society.)
- WalterSear 10y ago
  This is a strawman. Basic income isn't some libertarian pipe dream of replacing the government with an ATM. Obviously there are many services that can't be replaced or eliminated.
- ebalit 10y ago
  There is more problem with means testing than with needs testing. The government can subsidies wheelchair-adapted vehicles to cost as much as a normal vehicle. Why someone that doesn't need a special vehicle would use the subsidy? The normal car fit their needs for the same price! And it's not even accounting the more probable situation in which the subsidy doesn't cover all the cost difference.
acchow 10y ago
And allows you to eliminate minimum wage, so if a mom-and-pop shop wants someone stocking shelves at $2.50/hour and someone is willing to do that to supplement their (sufficient) minimum income, they can agree to that.

guard-of-terra 10y ago

Private donations can help those who need it the most. They'll have much less work anyway now that nobody is starving or homeless by lack of money, might as well focus.

douche 10y ago

The current US welfare system is such a complicated clusterfuck of fragmented programs that anything would be an improvement. The most insidious aspect is that it has all of these income cliffs where actually working and earning over a certain level means that you lose benefits, so that earning one dollar more may cost you thousands in lost benefits.

hx87 10y ago
That's a problem with government taxation and spending in general--it's what happens when you map one number to another using discontinuous lookup tables instead of continuous functions.
- aninhumer 10y ago
  In what way is that a general problem with government taxation? There's no reason you can't make the tax function continuous, the US just doesn't.

smsm42 10y ago

I think most of practical basic income systems proposed don't actually go that far. I mean, theoretically the goal is to replace all welfare spending, maybe, but as said below, it may be hard to do practically, so most current proposals replace only portion of it, while leaving many targeted benefits intact. I don't feel currently informed enough to form opinion about whether this can work or not, so I'd be very curious about somebody trying it - preferably in some place where it won't hurt me if it fails in some unexpected way, like many social engineering projects had. Like in Japan :) Sorry, Japanese people, I know it's selfish from my side to want that. OTOH, if it works, you get a big win.

int_19h 10y ago

>> So we take what we're currently spending and spread it out to everyone instead of just people who need it? You would presumably couple it with a heavily progressive income tax, with the result that people higher up on the scale end up paying way more into the system than the basic income check they receive, and people at the bottom pay no tax at all. So the effective amount of welfare is directly linked to one's income or lack thereof. Also, UBI can replace most welfare, but not all. In particular, your example with the wheelchair - that sort of thing really ought to be covered by health insurance (which should be managed entirely by the government, or at least price-controlled).

grahamburger 10y ago
> You would presumably couple it with a heavily progressive income tax, with the result that people higher up on the scale end up paying way more into the system than the basic income check they receive, and people at the bottom pay no tax at all. So the effective amount of welfare is directly linked to one's income or lack thereof. This is one of the primary gripes that I have with UBI. You've just described means testing! "So the effective amount of welfare is directly linked to one's income or lack thereof." We've moved the means testing around a little bit, but it's still there, and it's still open to politicization. The right demands that the threshold between welfare givers / takers be lowered, the left argues it be raised, and we're right back where we started.
- int_19h 10y ago
  > This is one of the primary gripes that I have with UBI. You've just described means testing! There's no way to avoid means testing - the money has to come from somewhere, and this inherently means that some people pay more money into the system than they receive from it. The point of UBI is to make this whole setup as transparent and low-overhead as possible. The nice thing about it is that, in theory, because the redistribution is basically regulated by just two knobs (size of the UBI check, and how progressive the taxes are), adjusting them is politically easy, and adjustment range is pretty much unlimited. I'm hopeful that it would result in fewer situations like the ongoing ACA "debate", where right wing just wants to sink it altogether and replace it with something else entirely, because they can't get where they want by tuning it. If we can get this to work, UBI would always be there, but more left-leaning or more right-leaning governments would simply adjust the knobs more or less gradually depending on how much "freeloading" they're okay with. And smooth adjustments are easier to adapt to, and cause less social upheaval (think of the shock to the society and the economy if Republicans somehow manage to repeal ACA, say, tomorrow...)