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Spain to Roll Out Permanent Universal Basic Income ‘Soon’
- serpix 7y agoI fully expect this to spread quickly to other European countries as well.
- Proven 7y agoMaybe, but it won't last long.
- StartupTree 7y agoNo country in Europe is implementing or planning to implement UBI. You have been consuming propaganda.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- willyt 7y agoSNP and Greens in Scotland are considering it. Its unlikely to pass the 'study' stage though until Scotland gains full control of taxation and benefits.
- StartupTree 7y agoMany left-wing parties in Europe are considering it, to gain support from progressive wings. However none of these parties have the political power to implement such a thing.
- ThrowawayR2 7y agoSeems to be called out as misleading clickbait by Spanish HN readers in a different post? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22791458 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22791458
- fartcannon 7y agoFinally, ideas that don't just generate money can be explored.
- jerzyt 7y agoThis is going to be a social experiment on an unprecedented scale. And it will be impossible to roll back, after we learn all the unintended consequences.
- save_ferris 7y agoThis seems inevitable given the widespread economic devastation that COVID-19 has wrought. Nobody really knows what the long-term economic outlook is, or effective the recovery is going to be, but it's going to have to be orders of magnitude more effective than the early coronavirus response was in order to get us anywhere close to what "normal" looked like before the virus. This animated graph of historical unemployment claims data from the 60's through March 2020 really emphasized how big of an impact this disease has had in the US, and it's unsettling.[0] 0: https://twitter.com/SteveStuWill/status/1246577148220989440?s=20 https://twitter.com/SteveStuWill/status/1246577148220989440?...
- Someone 7y agoI would think neither the “universal” nor the “permanent” parts would be inevitable. Some problems with the “universal” in universal basic income are: a) the money must come from somewhere. Realistically, certainly the top half, income-wise, will have to pay more in taxes than they receive in UBI. So, a lot of it will just be pumping around money; to those paying those taxes, that may feel like they’re worse of than when there’s ‘just’ social security. b) if you want to go for “UBI replaces all of social security”, it will have to be high. If you don’t want to do that, you can’t have the cost savings of doing away with the whole apparatus of determining who should get how much in social security.
- grecy 7y agoThis is fantastic, finally we'll get some real-world results so we can see the consequences (good and bad) of UBI at a very large scale and we can put an end to all the speculation about what it might (or might not) do. Much like legalizing weed here in Canada - it's not about making the perfect decision and going with it, it's about at least trying to improve something. Maybe in 5 or 10 years we'll look back and decide it didn't improve stuff and we'll roll it back, but that's OK. We tried and we learned.
- rstupek 7y agoThe idea that any government program ever get's rolled back contradicts the reality though. I'm not aware of many, if any, program which ever gets cancelled by the government. Most "cuts" to a program involve cutting the rate of growth of the program
- jazzyjackson 7y agoAlcohol Prohibition is, of course, a pretty dramatic example. It's basically what constitutional amendments are for, changing our mind after realizing the consequences of law.
- psadri 7y agoThe current situation is not normal. People are forced into unemployment to control the outbreak. I completely agree that governments need to step in and provide support during this artificially induced economic coma. But I’m not sure any observations would apply to UBI in a normal mode of economy.
- grecy 7y agoIf they make the UBI permanent, then in 5 or 10 years (assuming the world is put back together by then) we'll have excellent observations of how it functions in "normal" mode.
- mytailorisrich 7y ago
- eanzenberg 7y agoNever waste a good catastrophe, I guess
- tomerico 7y agoCan someone enlighten me on where would the money come from? Spain annual revenue from taxes seems to be $320B a. If they spent all of it on UBI, it would translate to just $500 a month a person.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- kolinko 7y agoAverage net monthly salary in spain is €1200. €500, assuming access to a house and free healthcare would allow for an extremely frugal life - also, keep in mind that many people would still work, so there would be money on top of that. But, like you said - €500 would reduce their budget to zero. I imagine UBI would be less for underaged - say €150/month (which is what government pays for every child in Poland btw). This reduced the budget requirements by, say 20% - so, they’d need around 260B. Then, with UBI, you can dismantle parts of the retirement system. I couldn’t find the proper figures for Spain, but in Poland it is a half of the government spending or something like this. If Spain is similar, then they’d save €100-200B on this p/a. That’s still 100-200B short, but you can generate extra savings by getting rid of unemployment benefits and some other social safety nets. Also, Spain’s budget is €400B, not €320B from what I found (https://www.statista.com/statistics/275333/government-revenue-and-spending-in-spain/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/275333/government-revenu...). I’m not sure it’s feasible, but it’s not totally crazy either.
- onlyrealcuzzo 7y agoIf average monthly salary is €1200, that would mean the Spanish Government would need to tax close to 41% of your income to give everyone a €500 distribution. Considering that not everyone works -- the percentage is probably closer to 55%+. But let's be optimistic... Even if you plan on only taking income from the top 0.1%, that's not going to get you very far. You'd have to take 100% of that just to come up with 10% of the total UBI distributions. That means, you're pretty much back at square one. Everyone gets 36%+ their income taken in taxes, and then they roughly get it right back, with an extra €25 or so added on (best case, more realistically, you'd probably come out €50 behind). I don't see how the average person benefits from this? I only see how this benefits people who don't work, and incentivizes more people to not work. You can't say that you can pay for this with existing taxes. If you use all your existing tax revenue for UBI, how are you going to fund everything the government actually does?
- victornomad 7y agoI'm spaniard, and havent read anything alike on the Spanish news. What they want is to roll at some point some budget for affected bussiness but thats all... but isnt any different of what other EU countries are doing at the moment. My suspect is that Spain relies heavily on turism, which is affected in the short term and probably in the long term, so people will have to find another source of income otherwise they wont be able to sustain their families. Probably there will be some bugdet for that sector, but everything is just speculative atm.
- perfunctory 7y ago> I'm spaniard, and havent read anything alike on the Spanish news. There is a link in the article (I don't speak Spanish though). They refer to the Economy Minister Nadia Calvino. https://www.lasexta.com/programas/el-objetivo/noticias/nadia-calvino-vamos-a-implementar-lo-antes-posible-el-ingreso-minimo-vital_202004055e8a498a237979000147f3f7.html https://www.lasexta.com/programas/el-objetivo/noticias/nadia...
- Audiophilip 7y ago>I'm spaniard, and havent read anything alike on the Spanish news. The article has a link to this Spanish article (and an embedded video), I'm curious, does it contradict the statements of the Forbes article? https://www.lasexta.com/programas/el-objetivo/noticias/nadia-calvino-vamos-a-implementar-lo-antes-posible-el-ingreso-minimo-vital_202004055e8a498a237979000147f3f7.html https://www.lasexta.com/programas/el-objetivo/noticias/nadia...
- capableweb 7y agoNot really, but imagine that one senator in the US says they like to support UBI, there is still a lot of work that has to go through to actually make it work and has to have support behind it. General consensus in Spain is that this proposal don't have enough support to actually go through, but the world media is reporting like it's already been passed and will for sure happen. It hasn't.
- bilbo0s 7y ago
- tomerico 7y agoCan someone enlighten me on where would the money come from? Spain annual revenue from taxes seems was $320B in 2019. If they spent all of it on UBI, it would translate to just $500 a month a person.
- banads 7y agoAre you sure? 320,000,000,000 / 47,000,000 = 6808.51
- williamdclt 7y ago6808.51 / 12 = 567.37 :)
- gorbypark 7y ago$6808 per year is about $567/mo.
- nathell 7y agoNow divide by 12, and it's in the $500pm ballpark.
- leetcrew 7y agoand 6808 / 12 ~= 500
- sweeneyrod 7y agoUBI can be taxed as Income.
- thatguy0900 7y agoWhat would be the point of the government giving people a check only to immediately take some back as taxes? Why not just give less?
- sweeneyrod 7y agoYou could certainly do that, but it might be logistically easier to just calculate it when taxes are filed. I'm not sure how different governments treat existing taxable benefits.
- api 7y agoMaybe we'll realize through this pandemic that a huge number of existing jobs are bullshit and totally unnecessary and finally start transitioning to a basic income.
- QuesnayJr 7y agoMaybe when this proposal meets with disaster, we'll then realize that most jobs exist for a reason, and that society is an incredibly complex system that can't be rationalized on the basis of five minutes' thought.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- jalk 7y agoWill be interesting to see what ‘universal’ means, mainly in relation to other EU citizens. The debate boils down: “Are those migrant workers from eastern member states really entitled to those benefits?”
- bilbo0s 7y agoBet any money the answer will be "No".
- mytailorisrich 7y agoThere is not much discussion on this because EU law is very clear on EU citizens' rights and this is something taken very seriously.
- StartupTree 7y agoIt's a fake news story, therefore the definition of the word "universal" is meaningless.
- rhacker 7y agoUBI seems to be taking off. I don't think they will ever call the US stimulus check "UBI" due to the political climate, but wow. I think the scariest thing is not doing anything right now.
- StartupTree 7y agoUBI isn't being implemented anywhere. And there are no plans to. Saying it is "taking off" does not appear to be accurate.
- kolinko 7y agoIn Poland we have a partial UBI - each family gets €150/month per every child, regardless of their income. Average salary is €900.
- StartupTree 7y agoChild Welfare Benefit is completely different to UBI.
- hkai 7y agoIf that news is true, they may probably put this plan on hold for a few years until the financial damage from the stay at home thing is over. Or perhaps I misunderstand where that heap of money will come from at the height of the financial crisis.
- StartupTree 7y agoIt was a fake news story.
- hkai 7y agoWow. The credibility of Forbes...