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> “The trolls I’ve been dealing with on social media and in real life have very racialized views of how this is going to work,” Mr. Tubbs said. “As the first bl

> “The trolls I’ve been dealing with on social media and in real life have very racialized views of how this is going to work,” Mr. Tubbs said. “As the first black mayor of this city, it would be very dangerous if the only people to get this were black.” > He wants to select participants who are most likely to spend their money wisely, generating stories of working poor people lifted by extra cash. Well, that's pretty worthless.

undersuit 8y ago
It's worthless if this is another one of the experiments that certain people always insist we need to actually validate Basic Income's tenets. It's brilliant if you're trying to demonstrate to people with deeply-held beliefs against BI that the principles actually work in real life.
dahdum 8y ago
It wouldn't really be UBI, but still worthwhile data for programs with work requirements. I'm rather fond of the idea of work based programs. For example, for every $1 of W2 income you earn you receive $1 bonus, up to a cap of say $7,500. This boosts wages on the low end and strongly encourages employment. Funding this through income taxes and you won't have to kill off risky / low profit small business with local living wage requirements.
- lalos 8y ago
  How would you structure that bonus if you get a promotion that takes you to 7,501? You would get an impressive pay cut. If you structure it like taxes where only the first 7.5k get doubled then a bunch of people that don't need it will also get free money making the program cost more.
  - Kalium 8y ago
    You're right! That would be a major concern and an incredibly serious flaw in such a program. Maybe the description could be parsed slightly differently? Some might read parent's description to be proposing a bonus on W2 income the a limit on the bonus only of $7,500. Thus an income greater than that receives the full bonus. The structural problem you have correctly identified thus does not arise!
    - PurpleBoxDragon 8y ago
      So everyone is getting an extra $7,500, assuming they make at least that much? How isn't that just a tax credit on W2 taxes? It would make sense to assume there is some cut off, and given how government cut offs work in the past, it would be reasonable to assume the cut off will be implemented in a fashion that creates a graph where sometimes raises will result in less pay, at least when combined with existing government aid programs.
      - Kalium 8y ago
        > So everyone is getting an extra $7,500, assuming they make at least that much? How isn't that just a tax credit on W2 taxes? Depends how it's implemented, probably. People react differently to larger paychecks and tax refunds, for example. And certainly people react differently if you call it a bonus, even if it is just a negative income tax that would please Friedman. > It would make sense to assume there is some cut off, and given how government cut offs work in the past, it would be reasonable to assume the cut off will be implemented in a fashion that creates a graph where sometimes raises will result in less pay, at least when combined with existing government aid programs. That's a completely, fully, absolutely 100% reasonable comment on how poorly implemented current government aid programs are far too often implemented. It might be a slightly less reasonable comment on the details as written of the proposition above.
        dahdum 8y ago
        I should clarify too the bonus should be paid along side W2 earnings as steadily as possible, not at the end of the year. End of year refunds / cash don’t help pay rent and groceries in June. The graph need not ever result in less pay, but Your rate per hour would decrease after the cap is earned out. Somewhat harebrained perhaps, I like Friedman’s negative income tax but also want to encourage both employment and small business growth.
        PurpleBoxDragon 8y ago
        >It might be a slightly less reasonable comment on the details as written of the proposition above. The more I think about it, the harder I think it is to create a program which doesn't result in this once combined with other programs. Any cutback, no matter how small, will be combined with all other cutbacks of all other programs, existing and future. As long as these benefits are independent, there is a that the sum of all the cutbacks will outweigh the raise that caused the cutbacks. Even if the max cutback was 10%, meaning it would take a 75k raise to remove all benefits, when combined with 9 other equally generous benefit programs and income tax you still end up with a loss. When adjusting for the phase out being for optics limiting how the phase out works (as all phase outs for optics would tend to look similar to meet similar expectations), the risk of a raise resulting in lost total income isn't easily dismissed.
- tomschlick 8y ago
  > It wouldn't really be UBI None of these "experiments" are. They all fail to simulate the biggest downfall of UBI which is that when you do it at scale, prices go up. It happens for all the same reasons that guaranteed student loans have driven up the cost of college in the past 30 years.
anchpop 8y ago
I agree. It's just any other welfare system unless it's distributed universally or randomly

undersuit 8y ago

It's worthless if this is another one of the experiments that certain people always insist we need to actually validate Basic Income's tenets. It's brilliant if you're trying to demonstrate to people with deeply-held beliefs against BI that the principles actually work in real life.

dahdum 8y ago

It wouldn't really be UBI, but still worthwhile data for programs with work requirements. I'm rather fond of the idea of work based programs. For example, for every $1 of W2 income you earn you receive $1 bonus, up to a cap of say $7,500. This boosts wages on the low end and strongly encourages employment. Funding this through income taxes and you won't have to kill off risky / low profit small business with local living wage requirements.

lalos 8y ago
How would you structure that bonus if you get a promotion that takes you to 7,501? You would get an impressive pay cut. If you structure it like taxes where only the first 7.5k get doubled then a bunch of people that don't need it will also get free money making the program cost more.
- Kalium 8y ago
  You're right! That would be a major concern and an incredibly serious flaw in such a program. Maybe the description could be parsed slightly differently? Some might read parent's description to be proposing a bonus on W2 income the a limit on the bonus only of $7,500. Thus an income greater than that receives the full bonus. The structural problem you have correctly identified thus does not arise!
  - PurpleBoxDragon 8y ago
    So everyone is getting an extra $7,500, assuming they make at least that much? How isn't that just a tax credit on W2 taxes? It would make sense to assume there is some cut off, and given how government cut offs work in the past, it would be reasonable to assume the cut off will be implemented in a fashion that creates a graph where sometimes raises will result in less pay, at least when combined with existing government aid programs.
    - Kalium 8y ago
      > So everyone is getting an extra $7,500, assuming they make at least that much? How isn't that just a tax credit on W2 taxes? Depends how it's implemented, probably. People react differently to larger paychecks and tax refunds, for example. And certainly people react differently if you call it a bonus, even if it is just a negative income tax that would please Friedman. > It would make sense to assume there is some cut off, and given how government cut offs work in the past, it would be reasonable to assume the cut off will be implemented in a fashion that creates a graph where sometimes raises will result in less pay, at least when combined with existing government aid programs. That's a completely, fully, absolutely 100% reasonable comment on how poorly implemented current government aid programs are far too often implemented. It might be a slightly less reasonable comment on the details as written of the proposition above.
      - dahdum 8y ago
        I should clarify too the bonus should be paid along side W2 earnings as steadily as possible, not at the end of the year. End of year refunds / cash don’t help pay rent and groceries in June. The graph need not ever result in less pay, but Your rate per hour would decrease after the cap is earned out. Somewhat harebrained perhaps, I like Friedman’s negative income tax but also want to encourage both employment and small business growth.
      - PurpleBoxDragon 8y ago
        >It might be a slightly less reasonable comment on the details as written of the proposition above. The more I think about it, the harder I think it is to create a program which doesn't result in this once combined with other programs. Any cutback, no matter how small, will be combined with all other cutbacks of all other programs, existing and future. As long as these benefits are independent, there is a that the sum of all the cutbacks will outweigh the raise that caused the cutbacks. Even if the max cutback was 10%, meaning it would take a 75k raise to remove all benefits, when combined with 9 other equally generous benefit programs and income tax you still end up with a loss. When adjusting for the phase out being for optics limiting how the phase out works (as all phase outs for optics would tend to look similar to meet similar expectations), the risk of a raise resulting in lost total income isn't easily dismissed.
tomschlick 8y ago
> It wouldn't really be UBI None of these "experiments" are. They all fail to simulate the biggest downfall of UBI which is that when you do it at scale, prices go up. It happens for all the same reasons that guaranteed student loans have driven up the cost of college in the past 30 years.

anchpop 8y ago

I agree. It's just any other welfare system unless it's distributed universally or randomly