9 ms·

You have to be really careful about generalizing from "personally getting regular free money" to everyone getting it. Under a UBI, everyone, unconditionally[1],

by SilasX 7y ago

You have to be really careful about generalizing from "personally getting regular free money" to everyone getting it. Under a UBI, everyone, unconditionally[1], gets the free money. That has significantly different dynamics than you alone getting it. What happens to rents, for example? If everyone's income goes up, so does the rent. If everyone wanted to live in the same places, for the same reasons, and suddenly has higher incomes, they would bid up the rent, just as they do in well-paying urban areas. Would you be so comfortable if everyone used that free money and it established the bare minimum for living expenses? And before you say it -- yes, I know, the core problem there is actually rent eating up everyone's discretionary income, their "slack" -- hence why I advocate dealing with that problem first (not just rent, but every such eater -- healthcare, education, etc) before letting those things leech the UBI too [2]. [1] yes, yes, up to the age/citizenship eligibility requirements, you get the point [2] My earlier elucidation of this point: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22604788 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22604788

chillacy 7y ago
I'm not saying that rent won't go up, but depending on the UBI scheme it probably won't go up 1:1. Rent goes up because there are more people looking for a limited resource in urban areas: if you want to work in the city you must live near the city. A UBI that isn't tied to location makes it easier for people to live elsewhere, which reduces demand.
- toomuchtodo 7y ago
  On a smaller scale, we should see where older folks on Social Security live. They have a form of UBI and also usually don’t or can’t work.
  - luckylion 7y ago
    Or we could look at Germany. Our welfare system is largely unconditional. You're asked to find a job to pull your own weight, but you're not pushed too hard. You'll get an apartment, TV, utilities, health insurance and a few hundred euros a month for food & what ever you want to spend it on. If we did cut out the theoretical work-requirement and possibly stopped paying the rent and instead paid out money (but then quite a few people would fail to pay rent and we'd need another social program to cover them), this would be UBI. So far, I haven't seen the explosion in creativity, entrepreneurship, volunteering etc that's usually promised. On the other hand, we're up there fighting about the top position in OECD countries for total tax rate.
    - ChuckNorris89 7y ago
      >So far, I haven't seen the explosion in creativity, entrepreneurship, volunteering etc that's usually promised. That's because most people don't have the ambition and discipline of Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos and if given the chance would rather bum around their whole life instead of work. I see the same thing in Austria and so do my friends living in other wealthy European countries with strong social nets. Most people, if given easy access to welfare, would rather lower their standard of living to fit in that small sum of money and not do anything all day rather than use their free time to hustle, learn a new skill or build a business that will permit them a higher standard of living later on.
      - qmmmur 7y ago
        Shocking. People would rather enjoy life not working as hard as hustling (code for taking big risk without much payoff) to get more money to buy more stuff.
        lonelappde 7y ago
        Problem is, we'll never cure cancer if no one is motivated to solve hard problems.
        qmmmur 7y ago
        I'm not sure what your experience is but research is vastly different to commercial enterprise and there is a massive motivational difference between curing cancer and making CRUD apps to get your 'side hustle' on. In my experience in highly funded research groups that run outside out of traditional management (translation annoying and wasteful tertiary education administration) researchers that make an impact get on just fine and produce excellent results on a liveable wage and being given the space to do their jobs. In my mind, the highly masculine and overly aggressive capitalist mindset that competition == results is either untrue or false and discounts a wide range of motivations, personalities and skill sets which do things of interest or worth in intellectual jobs.
      - 7y ago
  - jacobr1 7y ago
    But also have interesting factors of health concerns (more likely to need nursing care, or need a home without stairs) and on the other side, many are more likely to have large savings. There are other factors like some wanting to live near children/grandchildren who are more likely to live in a high-cost area due to jobs. I'm not sure if all the balances out, but those on social security have plenty of different concerns than working-age folks.
    - toomuchtodo 7y ago
      > But also have interesting factors of health concerns (more likely to need nursing care, or need a home without stairs) and on the other side, many are more likely to have large savings. US statistics: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/05/04/baby-boomers-retirement/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/05/04/baby-boom... (Millions of baby boomers are getting caught in the country’s broken retirement system) https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/05/these-people-are-on-the-verge-of-retiring-and-they-have-nothing-saved.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/05/these-people-are-on-the-verg... (48 percent of American households over the age of 55 still have no retirement savings) https://www.cbpp.org/research/social-security/social-security-lifts-more-americans-above-poverty-than-any-other-program https://www.cbpp.org/research/social-security/social-securit... (Although most of those whom Social Security keeps out of poverty are elderly [14.8 million], 6.9 million are under age 65, including 1.2 million children) For our purposes, it's important that you scope to only those who are collecting only Social Security, and have no other retirement savings to closely model your average citizen collecting a potential UBI.
tehjoker 7y ago
We could always make renting above cost of construction and maintenance illegal and have the state build public housing, but this is unpopular with landlords and aspiring landlords.
- hpoe 7y ago
  The worked out super well in the Soviet Bloc and with section 8 housing.
  - lonelappde 7y ago
    Housing was one of the successes of Soviet system. Tall apartment buildings surrounded by parks.
- sokoloff 7y ago
  It's hardly surprising that people would object to what amounts to a public seizing of [the economic value of] their private property.
  - tehjoker 7y ago
    Well now that clarifies the contradiction between solving the housing problem for the majority of people and the interests of private property. :-/
nicbou 7y ago
Yes, this is the gap between "I wish everyone had this", and "UBI is a great idea". I don't know if the economics can scale to an entire population, but I really wish it did.
jusssi 7y ago
If there's tax progression, everyone's net income does not go up. That UBI money has to come from somewhere, and it comes from taxes. To fund the UBI, taxes will need to increase. So at some threshold level of income, flicking the UBI switch doesn't affect your net income. You get a same size of increase to your tax bill as you gain from the UBI benefit. Below the threshold you get a net increase, above it you get net decrease. Opinions differ on where that threshold would settle at (because with UBI the state could shut down some other benefits that are currently funded with tax money).
- ohmaigad 7y ago
  Unless this is applied only to the richest 1%, majority won't support UBI. I think that true UBI is something that is given to everyone (even the 1%) and everything else is abolished (unemployment, paid sick leave, pensions and all other social security benefits).
  - lonelappde 7y ago
    UBI instead of welfare is a libertarian theoretical that isn't gorunded is people's real life concerns or particularly relevant to realpolitik.
- CuriousSkeptic 7y ago
  This, and the other comment about rents going up, is why you should tax rent and not income.
  - aspenmayer 7y ago
    I have never heard of this concept, but I kind of like it on its face. Can you elaborate?
    - CuriousSkeptic 7y ago
      Just an extension of the land value tax really. See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_George https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_George
random314 7y ago
If there is UBI, you can move to places where rent is cheap, you don't have to be where the jobs are.
qmmmur 7y ago
Isn't it the case that if you earn over some minimum threshold you don't receive UBI? In which case it raises the bottom not the entire scale.

by SilasX 7y ago

chillacy 7y ago

I'm not saying that rent won't go up, but depending on the UBI scheme it probably won't go up 1:1. Rent goes up because there are more people looking for a limited resource in urban areas: if you want to work in the city you must live near the city. A UBI that isn't tied to location makes it easier for people to live elsewhere, which reduces demand.

toomuchtodo 7y ago
On a smaller scale, we should see where older folks on Social Security live. They have a form of UBI and also usually don’t or can’t work.
- luckylion 7y ago
  Or we could look at Germany. Our welfare system is largely unconditional. You're asked to find a job to pull your own weight, but you're not pushed too hard. You'll get an apartment, TV, utilities, health insurance and a few hundred euros a month for food & what ever you want to spend it on. If we did cut out the theoretical work-requirement and possibly stopped paying the rent and instead paid out money (but then quite a few people would fail to pay rent and we'd need another social program to cover them), this would be UBI. So far, I haven't seen the explosion in creativity, entrepreneurship, volunteering etc that's usually promised. On the other hand, we're up there fighting about the top position in OECD countries for total tax rate.
  - ChuckNorris89 7y ago
    >So far, I haven't seen the explosion in creativity, entrepreneurship, volunteering etc that's usually promised. That's because most people don't have the ambition and discipline of Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos and if given the chance would rather bum around their whole life instead of work. I see the same thing in Austria and so do my friends living in other wealthy European countries with strong social nets. Most people, if given easy access to welfare, would rather lower their standard of living to fit in that small sum of money and not do anything all day rather than use their free time to hustle, learn a new skill or build a business that will permit them a higher standard of living later on.
    - qmmmur 7y ago
      Shocking. People would rather enjoy life not working as hard as hustling (code for taking big risk without much payoff) to get more money to buy more stuff.
      - lonelappde 7y ago
        Problem is, we'll never cure cancer if no one is motivated to solve hard problems.
        qmmmur 7y ago
        I'm not sure what your experience is but research is vastly different to commercial enterprise and there is a massive motivational difference between curing cancer and making CRUD apps to get your 'side hustle' on. In my experience in highly funded research groups that run outside out of traditional management (translation annoying and wasteful tertiary education administration) researchers that make an impact get on just fine and produce excellent results on a liveable wage and being given the space to do their jobs. In my mind, the highly masculine and overly aggressive capitalist mindset that competition == results is either untrue or false and discounts a wide range of motivations, personalities and skill sets which do things of interest or worth in intellectual jobs.
    - 7y ago
- jacobr1 7y ago
  But also have interesting factors of health concerns (more likely to need nursing care, or need a home without stairs) and on the other side, many are more likely to have large savings. There are other factors like some wanting to live near children/grandchildren who are more likely to live in a high-cost area due to jobs. I'm not sure if all the balances out, but those on social security have plenty of different concerns than working-age folks.
  - toomuchtodo 7y ago
    > But also have interesting factors of health concerns (more likely to need nursing care, or need a home without stairs) and on the other side, many are more likely to have large savings. US statistics: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/05/04/baby-boomers-retirement/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/05/04/baby-boom... (Millions of baby boomers are getting caught in the country’s broken retirement system) https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/05/these-people-are-on-the-verge-of-retiring-and-they-have-nothing-saved.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/05/these-people-are-on-the-verg... (48 percent of American households over the age of 55 still have no retirement savings) https://www.cbpp.org/research/social-security/social-security-lifts-more-americans-above-poverty-than-any-other-program https://www.cbpp.org/research/social-security/social-securit... (Although most of those whom Social Security keeps out of poverty are elderly [14.8 million], 6.9 million are under age 65, including 1.2 million children) For our purposes, it's important that you scope to only those who are collecting only Social Security, and have no other retirement savings to closely model your average citizen collecting a potential UBI.

tehjoker 7y ago

We could always make renting above cost of construction and maintenance illegal and have the state build public housing, but this is unpopular with landlords and aspiring landlords.

hpoe 7y ago
The worked out super well in the Soviet Bloc and with section 8 housing.
- lonelappde 7y ago
  Housing was one of the successes of Soviet system. Tall apartment buildings surrounded by parks.
sokoloff 7y ago
It's hardly surprising that people would object to what amounts to a public seizing of [the economic value of] their private property.
- tehjoker 7y ago
  Well now that clarifies the contradiction between solving the housing problem for the majority of people and the interests of private property. :-/

nicbou 7y ago

Yes, this is the gap between "I wish everyone had this", and "UBI is a great idea". I don't know if the economics can scale to an entire population, but I really wish it did.

jusssi 7y ago

If there's tax progression, everyone's net income does not go up. That UBI money has to come from somewhere, and it comes from taxes. To fund the UBI, taxes will need to increase. So at some threshold level of income, flicking the UBI switch doesn't affect your net income. You get a same size of increase to your tax bill as you gain from the UBI benefit. Below the threshold you get a net increase, above it you get net decrease. Opinions differ on where that threshold would settle at (because with UBI the state could shut down some other benefits that are currently funded with tax money).

ohmaigad 7y ago
Unless this is applied only to the richest 1%, majority won't support UBI. I think that true UBI is something that is given to everyone (even the 1%) and everything else is abolished (unemployment, paid sick leave, pensions and all other social security benefits).
- lonelappde 7y ago
  UBI instead of welfare is a libertarian theoretical that isn't gorunded is people's real life concerns or particularly relevant to realpolitik.
CuriousSkeptic 7y ago
This, and the other comment about rents going up, is why you should tax rent and not income.
- aspenmayer 7y ago
  I have never heard of this concept, but I kind of like it on its face. Can you elaborate?
  - CuriousSkeptic 7y ago
    Just an extension of the land value tax really. See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_George https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_George

random314 7y ago

If there is UBI, you can move to places where rent is cheap, you don't have to be where the jobs are.

qmmmur 7y ago

Isn't it the case that if you earn over some minimum threshold you don't receive UBI? In which case it raises the bottom not the entire scale.