6 ms·

I have yet to see any UBI proposal that would wholly replace someone's income, so no, I don't think low skill workers would be any more likely to just up and qu

I have yet to see any UBI proposal that would wholly replace someone's income, so no, I don't think low skill workers would be any more likely to just up and quit. People often live to the extent of their means, so they'll still need a job.

rchaud 7y ago
Nobody would agree to a UBI threshold that is equal to the median income. UBI proposals are far lower, closer to $10k/yr than $45k. It should be enough to cover the bare necessities of survival, like not starving. 10k won't be enough to cover housing in many markets.
- JoshTriplett 7y ago
  I'd argue for something around $20k-30k/year. Don't index it to the median income; index it to the cost of living in around 80% of cities (ignoring outliers like Silicon Valley and Manhattan). High enough that you can absolutely live on it, including housing.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - EpicEng 7y ago
    Ignoring the trillions of dollars that would cost, what makes you believe that housing costs wouldn't inflate dramatically? Supply isn't magically going to boom and people all of a sudden have more spending power.
    - JoshTriplett 7y ago
      > Ignoring the trillions of dollars that would cost (Most reasonable proposals I've seen for UBI include an assumption, stated or unstated, of drastically reduced administrative costs and costs of numerous other more specific programs for both aid and employment. And that also ignores other secondary effects. For the moment, let's treat that as a tangent, please, though.) > Supply isn't magically going to boom Not overnight, no. And not without some fixes in housing regulation. (That's also another reason to avoid indexing it to ridiculously-high-cost-of-living areas.) But in general there's no fundamental reason supply can't increase to match demand. Also, right now supply has a massive constraint created by "proximity to work". If people have a lot more flexibility about where and how they work, the economics of "where do people live" changes drastically.
  - chr1 7y ago
    It may be better to index it to the percentage of total income tax paid by everybody to prevent feedback loops, when higher ubi increases cost of living, increasing ubi and eventually driving the whole economy off the cliff. Something like a tax return but calculated not as a percentage of the persons tax but of mean tax. It can start as a very small percentage at the start (1% ~ 1K/year) and then grow as other social payments are folded into it.
    - gizmo686 7y ago
      That still produces a feedback loop. When the economy goes down, people recieve less UBI and therefore spend less, slowing down the economy more. Over the short/medium term, ww want UBI inversly correlated to total income tax (which I would expect is correlated with total economic health), so it can serve a dual purpose as an economic stimulus. Setting the UBI should be a matter of monetery policy set by the Fed, within parameters set by Congress.
      - chr1 7y ago
        If economy goes down and you keep printing money not backed by anything, the value of the money goes down and you end up with hyperinflation like in Venezuela or Zimbabwe. So that's a very useful feedback loop: if too many people decide that they want to do art instead of driving trucks, the total income tax will go down, decreasing ubi and making more people to work. If someone invents self driving trucks and starts to get huge profits, ubi goes up, helping the drivers to live while they learn new useful skill.
        gizmo686 7y ago
        Over the long term, maybe. Over the short term, recessions are still not going to be caused by changes in aggregate behavior; they will continue to be caused by business cycles, so we want to have counter-cyclic forces.
        chr1 7y ago
        I believe with fixed 20k UBI, that is increasing when income tax decreases, the hyperinflation would happen very quickly (1-2 year) much quicker than the business cycles. But even if i am wrong it is better to start with small and conservative UBI scheme to be safe.
MontyCarloHall 7y ago
>I have yet to see any UBI proposal that would wholly replace someone's income Agreed, but partially replacing someone's income would result in a net reduction of hours worked (if UBI is equivalent to half my full-time salary, then why not just work half the hours?) This would still result in a net loss in human productivity and therefore still spur investment into automation.
- EpicEng 7y ago
  That assumes employers are fine with employing twice the number of people. Who says you're going to be able to chose your hours?
fwip 7y ago
Okay, I'll propose it. We should have UBI that is at least sufficient to wholly replace the income of low-paid workers. I think $20,000 a year is a nice round number to start a discussion at.
- Fjolsvith 7y ago
  Next we need to figure out how to replace the low-paid workers who just retired.
  - fwip 7y ago
    Pay them medium wages, or make the job suck less. If a job sucks to work at, you should pay the workers more. Giving low-paid workers the freedom to not work levels the playing field. In the classic supply/demand curve, the supply of labor is relatively fixed under the "you must work to live" model. With UBI, the supply of labor and the demand for labor will act in concert to determine a new, fairer price.
    - Fjolsvith 7y ago
      As a business owner, I will tell you that the cost of the higher wages will not be paid by my business. It will get passed on to customers who can spend a little extra UBI to help support the "you don't have to work to live" populace.

rchaud 7y ago

Nobody would agree to a UBI threshold that is equal to the median income. UBI proposals are far lower, closer to $10k/yr than $45k. It should be enough to cover the bare necessities of survival, like not starving. 10k won't be enough to cover housing in many markets.

JoshTriplett 7y ago
I'd argue for something around $20k-30k/year. Don't index it to the median income; index it to the cost of living in around 80% of cities (ignoring outliers like Silicon Valley and Manhattan). High enough that you can absolutely live on it, including housing.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- EpicEng 7y ago
  Ignoring the trillions of dollars that would cost, what makes you believe that housing costs wouldn't inflate dramatically? Supply isn't magically going to boom and people all of a sudden have more spending power.
  - JoshTriplett 7y ago
    > Ignoring the trillions of dollars that would cost (Most reasonable proposals I've seen for UBI include an assumption, stated or unstated, of drastically reduced administrative costs and costs of numerous other more specific programs for both aid and employment. And that also ignores other secondary effects. For the moment, let's treat that as a tangent, please, though.) > Supply isn't magically going to boom Not overnight, no. And not without some fixes in housing regulation. (That's also another reason to avoid indexing it to ridiculously-high-cost-of-living areas.) But in general there's no fundamental reason supply can't increase to match demand. Also, right now supply has a massive constraint created by "proximity to work". If people have a lot more flexibility about where and how they work, the economics of "where do people live" changes drastically.
- chr1 7y ago
  It may be better to index it to the percentage of total income tax paid by everybody to prevent feedback loops, when higher ubi increases cost of living, increasing ubi and eventually driving the whole economy off the cliff. Something like a tax return but calculated not as a percentage of the persons tax but of mean tax. It can start as a very small percentage at the start (1% ~ 1K/year) and then grow as other social payments are folded into it.
  - gizmo686 7y ago
    That still produces a feedback loop. When the economy goes down, people recieve less UBI and therefore spend less, slowing down the economy more. Over the short/medium term, ww want UBI inversly correlated to total income tax (which I would expect is correlated with total economic health), so it can serve a dual purpose as an economic stimulus. Setting the UBI should be a matter of monetery policy set by the Fed, within parameters set by Congress.
    - chr1 7y ago
      If economy goes down and you keep printing money not backed by anything, the value of the money goes down and you end up with hyperinflation like in Venezuela or Zimbabwe. So that's a very useful feedback loop: if too many people decide that they want to do art instead of driving trucks, the total income tax will go down, decreasing ubi and making more people to work. If someone invents self driving trucks and starts to get huge profits, ubi goes up, helping the drivers to live while they learn new useful skill.
      - gizmo686 7y ago
        Over the long term, maybe. Over the short term, recessions are still not going to be caused by changes in aggregate behavior; they will continue to be caused by business cycles, so we want to have counter-cyclic forces.
        chr1 7y ago
        I believe with fixed 20k UBI, that is increasing when income tax decreases, the hyperinflation would happen very quickly (1-2 year) much quicker than the business cycles. But even if i am wrong it is better to start with small and conservative UBI scheme to be safe.

MontyCarloHall 7y ago

>I have yet to see any UBI proposal that would wholly replace someone's income Agreed, but partially replacing someone's income would result in a net reduction of hours worked (if UBI is equivalent to half my full-time salary, then why not just work half the hours?) This would still result in a net loss in human productivity and therefore still spur investment into automation.

EpicEng 7y ago
That assumes employers are fine with employing twice the number of people. Who says you're going to be able to chose your hours?

fwip 7y ago

Okay, I'll propose it. We should have UBI that is at least sufficient to wholly replace the income of low-paid workers. I think $20,000 a year is a nice round number to start a discussion at.

Fjolsvith 7y ago
Next we need to figure out how to replace the low-paid workers who just retired.
- fwip 7y ago
  Pay them medium wages, or make the job suck less. If a job sucks to work at, you should pay the workers more. Giving low-paid workers the freedom to not work levels the playing field. In the classic supply/demand curve, the supply of labor is relatively fixed under the "you must work to live" model. With UBI, the supply of labor and the demand for labor will act in concert to determine a new, fairer price.
  - Fjolsvith 7y ago
    As a business owner, I will tell you that the cost of the higher wages will not be paid by my business. It will get passed on to customers who can spend a little extra UBI to help support the "you don't have to work to live" populace.