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There are two problems with universal basic income: 1/ Many people think UBI is a great idea but everybody imagines something else. This makes discussing UBI v

There are two problems with universal basic income: 1/ Many people think UBI is a great idea but everybody imagines something else. This makes discussing UBI very difficult. 2/ Regardless of what version of UBI you personally support, it is probably not a good idea to give money to those who don't need it. Sooner or later people will realize that what they really want is tax/benefit reform, not universal basic income. REAL NUMBERS HERE -> Check out this process flow diagram: https://www.lucidchart.com/documents/view/87d3102c-5b89-4001-9929-346873d19571# https://www.lucidchart.com/documents/view/87d3102c-5b89-4001...

addicted 9y ago
What’s the reasoning behind #2?
- dandare 9y ago
  Becuase you first have to take the money from those who earned it.
  - akvadrako 9y ago
    You are missing the whole point of UBI - because it's unconditional it doesn't discourage working.
    - dandare 9y ago
      I don't understand your comment, I never said it discourages working.
      - akvadrako 9y ago
        You suggested giving it only to those who need it, which makes it conditional.
        dandare 9y ago
        I don't understand your logic. I never said UBI discourages working.
drdaeman 9y ago
> Everybody thinks UBI is a great idea Irrespective of anyone's personal opinion, I'm absolutely sure it's not everybody. And there are valid reasons for this - but every opponent also imagines something different, just as proponents do.
- dandare 9y ago
  Fixed.
- benjohnson 9y ago
  I don't want it - I have a real knack of stretching money and I could very well see myself becoming lazy if given a dependable source of unearned income.
  - spacehome 9y ago
    Look no further than the Financial Independence movement for more evidence than you'd ever need. It's made up of people who basically are creating their own personal basic income, and while some do work to pass the time, a goodly percentage do no economically meaningful work again.
    - dwild 9y ago
      Except that was the goal of the one that did this to themselves and they made it not to "survive" but to live the life they want. UBI should be fixed to a survivable life style. You get the minimum, no luxury. I'm pretty sure that movement fix their income to a bit higher than that, to an amount that at least allow them a bit of luxury (restaurant is one). It was also their goal, not working of working to pass the time. As a counter point, look at anyone that make more than 100 000$ a year. They have much more than needed, yet can still works insane hours. Is it that they ALWAYS NEED more money or simply that's what they want to do and having more money is an extension to it? Workaholic exist...
  - icebraining 9y ago
    Fine, then you can personally refuse it :)
icebraining 9y ago
Define "give" and "don't need it" :) I think UBI necessarily implies a tax raise. If you give a rich person $1000 in UBI and raise their effective tax bill by $3000, are you actually giving them money?
hvidgaard 9y ago
It depends on what the starting point is. In Denmark every single person have tax deduction. For persons over 18 that is currently 46.000 DKK. In addition there is a host of other deductions and benefits for various situations. UBI would replace some/many of those, so it would in essence be a tax reform. It still doesn't capture the majority of economic activity the state is involved in, but it would make a lot of things significantly simpler.
magduf 9y ago
>2/ Regardless of what version of UBI you personally support, it is probably not a good idea to give money to those who don't need it. Wrong. The system doesn't work if you don't give people to money who don't need it: the administrative requirements of assessing who and who doesn't need it, and then policing all this, is just too high. This is the reason UBI was invented in the first place! It's very simple: you give the same money to everyone, even if they're a billionaire. To make up for this, you raise the taxes a commensurate amount on the people who don't need it (and more for the really rich people, because the idea is wealth redistribution). So someone making $100k, for instance, obviously doesn't need a handout, so you raise their taxes that same amount so they're paying back in taxes what they're getting from the UBI, and netting zero. It's much easier to do this than to have thousands of government workers auditing everyone to make sure they aren't "cheating" by receiving money they're not qualified for, which is what we do with current welfare schemes. >Sooner or later people will realize that what they really want is tax/benefit reform No, tax reform doesn't do anything to reduce the administrative burden of current welfare systems. UBI does. Less money you pay out for unnecessary government office workers is more money you can end up giving to people in need, and society will be better off with those government workers finding more productive professions which might actually generate more wealth and taxable income, instead of just being a drain on taxpayers.
- dandare 9y ago
  Thank you for proving my point. And now look at the numbers in my diagram, the administrative costs are negligible compared to the cost of giving money to those who don't need it.
  - ghaff 9y ago
    And, in the US, the administrative overhead is apparently less than about 10%, [1] which you're not actually going to completely eliminate unless you plan to cut pretty much all social support programs other than sticking money in a bank account every month. [1] https://www.cbpp.org/research/romneys-charge-that-most-federal-low-income-spending-goes-for-overhead-and-bureaucrats-is https://www.cbpp.org/research/romneys-charge-that-most-feder...
patrickthebold 9y ago
The US gives social security to nearly everyone, including people who "don't need it". This was intentional. The idea being it's harder to take away a benefit that everyone enjoys, and fairly easy to take away benefits solely for "the poor".
- briandear 9y ago
  The US doesn’t “give” it to nearly everyone — you get a benefit as a proportion of your contribution. If you never contribute to social security, you don’t get the benefit.
  - spacehome 9y ago
    It's not directly proportional. Low lifetime earners get proportionally more back than high lifetime earners. It has the effect of a wealth transfer from high earners to low earners.
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    > The US doesn’t “give” it to nearly everyone — you get a benefit as a proportion of your contribution. It's not proportional to even the wage-indexed total of contributions, because of bend points. (And because it's actually based on qualifying wages, not contributions, and the relationship between the two has not been constant over time.)
bryanlarsen 9y ago
It is an excellent idea to give money to people who don't need it. That's the whole point of UBI. There are some other good arguments in other replies, so I won't reiterate those, but add another: peace of mind. Suppose you make $50K and support a family on that. At that level you don't need UBI, but you don't have any buffer. You get a UBI cheque every month, but the increased taxes take away most of it. Now suppose something comes up at work that makes it intolerable. You know that it's going to be pretty difficult to prove that to the unemployment office, so without UBI you'd just grin and bear it to keep food on the table. But you see those UBI cheques coming regularly so you know they won't stop. You now have the freedom to quit your job and look for another one without starving your children.
- geezerjay 9y ago
  > It is an excellent idea to give money to people who don't need it. How do you conclude that taking money away from those who worked for it and need it and giving it away to those who don't want it is a good idea?
spacehome 9y ago
You have to give the money to people who don't need it, otherwise it becomes a powerful disincentive to working or earning income. That's what differentiates UBI from welfare and also what makes it so expensive.
krzat 9y ago
People who pay more taxes than UB are essentialy people who do not receive UB.
rickdg 9y ago
What I read from the diagram is that we are looking towards an horizon where corporations can keep increasing profits while employing less people and there is nothing we can do about it. Do we simply have to accept that economic growth ultimately benefits fewer and fewer people? Or do you simply believe that somehow jobs will never disappear?
- el_cid 9y ago
  There is still a LOT of value that people can bring to the table. Instead of paying everyone for nothing, why not pay them for creating value (volunteer in various projects, local agriculture, studying, etc)

addicted 9y ago

What’s the reasoning behind #2?

dandare 9y ago
Becuase you first have to take the money from those who earned it.
- akvadrako 9y ago
  You are missing the whole point of UBI - because it's unconditional it doesn't discourage working.
  - dandare 9y ago
    I don't understand your comment, I never said it discourages working.
    - akvadrako 9y ago
      You suggested giving it only to those who need it, which makes it conditional.
      - dandare 9y ago
        I don't understand your logic. I never said UBI discourages working.

drdaeman 9y ago

> Everybody thinks UBI is a great idea Irrespective of anyone's personal opinion, I'm absolutely sure it's not everybody. And there are valid reasons for this - but every opponent also imagines something different, just as proponents do.

dandare 9y ago
Fixed.
benjohnson 9y ago
I don't want it - I have a real knack of stretching money and I could very well see myself becoming lazy if given a dependable source of unearned income.
- spacehome 9y ago
  Look no further than the Financial Independence movement for more evidence than you'd ever need. It's made up of people who basically are creating their own personal basic income, and while some do work to pass the time, a goodly percentage do no economically meaningful work again.
  - dwild 9y ago
    Except that was the goal of the one that did this to themselves and they made it not to "survive" but to live the life they want. UBI should be fixed to a survivable life style. You get the minimum, no luxury. I'm pretty sure that movement fix their income to a bit higher than that, to an amount that at least allow them a bit of luxury (restaurant is one). It was also their goal, not working of working to pass the time. As a counter point, look at anyone that make more than 100 000$ a year. They have much more than needed, yet can still works insane hours. Is it that they ALWAYS NEED more money or simply that's what they want to do and having more money is an extension to it? Workaholic exist...
- icebraining 9y ago
  Fine, then you can personally refuse it :)

icebraining 9y ago

Define "give" and "don't need it" :) I think UBI necessarily implies a tax raise. If you give a rich person $1000 in UBI and raise their effective tax bill by $3000, are you actually giving them money?

hvidgaard 9y ago

It depends on what the starting point is. In Denmark every single person have tax deduction. For persons over 18 that is currently 46.000 DKK. In addition there is a host of other deductions and benefits for various situations. UBI would replace some/many of those, so it would in essence be a tax reform. It still doesn't capture the majority of economic activity the state is involved in, but it would make a lot of things significantly simpler.

magduf 9y ago

>2/ Regardless of what version of UBI you personally support, it is probably not a good idea to give money to those who don't need it. Wrong. The system doesn't work if you don't give people to money who don't need it: the administrative requirements of assessing who and who doesn't need it, and then policing all this, is just too high. This is the reason UBI was invented in the first place! It's very simple: you give the same money to everyone, even if they're a billionaire. To make up for this, you raise the taxes a commensurate amount on the people who don't need it (and more for the really rich people, because the idea is wealth redistribution). So someone making $100k, for instance, obviously doesn't need a handout, so you raise their taxes that same amount so they're paying back in taxes what they're getting from the UBI, and netting zero. It's much easier to do this than to have thousands of government workers auditing everyone to make sure they aren't "cheating" by receiving money they're not qualified for, which is what we do with current welfare schemes. >Sooner or later people will realize that what they really want is tax/benefit reform No, tax reform doesn't do anything to reduce the administrative burden of current welfare systems. UBI does. Less money you pay out for unnecessary government office workers is more money you can end up giving to people in need, and society will be better off with those government workers finding more productive professions which might actually generate more wealth and taxable income, instead of just being a drain on taxpayers.

dandare 9y ago
Thank you for proving my point. And now look at the numbers in my diagram, the administrative costs are negligible compared to the cost of giving money to those who don't need it.
- ghaff 9y ago
  And, in the US, the administrative overhead is apparently less than about 10%, [1] which you're not actually going to completely eliminate unless you plan to cut pretty much all social support programs other than sticking money in a bank account every month. [1] https://www.cbpp.org/research/romneys-charge-that-most-federal-low-income-spending-goes-for-overhead-and-bureaucrats-is https://www.cbpp.org/research/romneys-charge-that-most-feder...

patrickthebold 9y ago

The US gives social security to nearly everyone, including people who "don't need it". This was intentional. The idea being it's harder to take away a benefit that everyone enjoys, and fairly easy to take away benefits solely for "the poor".

briandear 9y ago
The US doesn’t “give” it to nearly everyone — you get a benefit as a proportion of your contribution. If you never contribute to social security, you don’t get the benefit.
- spacehome 9y ago
  It's not directly proportional. Low lifetime earners get proportionally more back than high lifetime earners. It has the effect of a wealth transfer from high earners to low earners.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > The US doesn’t “give” it to nearly everyone — you get a benefit as a proportion of your contribution. It's not proportional to even the wage-indexed total of contributions, because of bend points. (And because it's actually based on qualifying wages, not contributions, and the relationship between the two has not been constant over time.)

bryanlarsen 9y ago

It is an excellent idea to give money to people who don't need it. That's the whole point of UBI. There are some other good arguments in other replies, so I won't reiterate those, but add another: peace of mind. Suppose you make $50K and support a family on that. At that level you don't need UBI, but you don't have any buffer. You get a UBI cheque every month, but the increased taxes take away most of it. Now suppose something comes up at work that makes it intolerable. You know that it's going to be pretty difficult to prove that to the unemployment office, so without UBI you'd just grin and bear it to keep food on the table. But you see those UBI cheques coming regularly so you know they won't stop. You now have the freedom to quit your job and look for another one without starving your children.

geezerjay 9y ago
> It is an excellent idea to give money to people who don't need it. How do you conclude that taking money away from those who worked for it and need it and giving it away to those who don't want it is a good idea?

spacehome 9y ago

You have to give the money to people who don't need it, otherwise it becomes a powerful disincentive to working or earning income. That's what differentiates UBI from welfare and also what makes it so expensive.

krzat 9y ago

People who pay more taxes than UB are essentialy people who do not receive UB.

rickdg 9y ago

What I read from the diagram is that we are looking towards an horizon where corporations can keep increasing profits while employing less people and there is nothing we can do about it. Do we simply have to accept that economic growth ultimately benefits fewer and fewer people? Or do you simply believe that somehow jobs will never disappear?

el_cid 9y ago
There is still a LOT of value that people can bring to the table. Instead of paying everyone for nothing, why not pay them for creating value (volunteer in various projects, local agriculture, studying, etc)