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Managing how others manage money has it's own cost. I wouldn't be surprised if 50% of the assistance budget was allocated to making sure receivers spent it "the

by yardie 6y ago

Managing how others manage money has it's own cost. I wouldn't be surprised if 50% of the assistance budget was allocated to making sure receivers spent it "the right way." Between the applications, compliance, debit card fees, reimbursement schemes, and a completely separate financial network, that money is sucked out of a system supposedly designed to supposedly help people with money issues.

logicOnly 6y ago
If you talk to a social worker, you will be made aware that those in poverty likely cannot spend their own money wisely. There may be a rare exception, but there's a reason people are in poverty, and it's related to their money habits or addictions. I don't have a solution, but considering that 100% of money will go to drugs/gambling or 50% of the money goes to administration and 50% goes to living expenses- it sounds reasonable.
bnralt 6y ago
Indeed. One city nearby was spending ~$4,500 a month to feed and house families, but the conditions were fairly horrible (dilapidated shelters with communal bathrooms, poor food quality). Simply handing the families the cash would have been better. Of course, then you have other issues like welfare cutoffs and people from other municipalities coming to receive such benefits, problems that would be solved by a nationwide UBI.
- tachyonbeam 6y ago
  UBI might seem crazy to some people, but I'd like to remind everyone that governments worldwide effectively print trillions of dollars and use that money to inflate stock prices. Governments could instead distribute the money through UBI. The advantage, if you do that, is that people will spend that money on things they need. This seems better, to me, than keeping alive zombie companies that are "too big to fail" and contribute little to no value to society. If you give people UBI, they are voting with their wallets and giving money to companies that produce something useful. As for the national debt... When the government borrows money from a central bank, it's effectively borrowing money from itself. They might pretend otherwise, but central banks are effectively an arm of the government. The national debt is an artificial construct. Governments could eliminate it with the stroke of a pen.
  - phone8675309 6y ago
    > The national debt is an artificial construct. Governments could eliminate it with the stroke of a pen. Serious question: are there any modern sovereign defaults that don't have a decade or two of stagnation or regression associated with them?
- 737maxtw 6y ago
  There's also the unspoken issue... there are probably a decent number of people who profit off the current system that who do not want their meal ticket cut off. (Of course, this is ignoring the idea that UBI would possibly let them do something better with their lives, but humans are gonna human, right?)
bagacrap 6y ago
Yeah, but what happens when someone blows the free money on something besides basic needs, and still needs assistance with food/shelter/medicine/etc? Does society step in again and also provide "managed money" in that case?
- cortesoft 6y ago
  If they provide the money at regular intervals, than the person wouldn’t be out of money long even if they blow it all. My suggestion would be no, we don’t step in. I think for one, we overestimate the number of people who would not use the money for their needs first. I think if we found there were a lot of people who still needed help, we could create an assistance group that can help people find the help they need.
  - warkdarrior 6y ago
    So your solution to people spending all of their UBI money frivolously is to give them even more money? (instead of helping them spend it on, say, essentials)
    - stephen_g 6y ago
      Various studies have shown that (perhaps surprisingly) just giving people cash works better... I can't read the article (paywall) but I expect that's the point of this trial too. Of course, it would be good to it while also offering help with education, any substance abuse issues people might have, etc. but the paternalistic kind of "can't trust people on welfare to spend their own money" view just makes things worse. We've definitely seen it in Australia, they created a cashless debit card that locks out certain types of spending and trialled it in certain areas. It's been a massive failure, people not being able to get cash out to pay rent, it doesn't work in a lot of stores, forcing people to higher priced shops that are part of the system, the card has a lot of stigma attached to it so people are ashamed to use it, social outcomes are worse, and the administrative cost per person is about half as much as the actual annual amount given in welfare (!!) but the company that runs the scheme has links to the party that is in Government and donates to politicians so they're expanding the trials of scheme...

by yardie 6y ago

logicOnly 6y ago

If you talk to a social worker, you will be made aware that those in poverty likely cannot spend their own money wisely. There may be a rare exception, but there's a reason people are in poverty, and it's related to their money habits or addictions. I don't have a solution, but considering that 100% of money will go to drugs/gambling or 50% of the money goes to administration and 50% goes to living expenses- it sounds reasonable.

bnralt 6y ago

Indeed. One city nearby was spending ~$4,500 a month to feed and house families, but the conditions were fairly horrible (dilapidated shelters with communal bathrooms, poor food quality). Simply handing the families the cash would have been better. Of course, then you have other issues like welfare cutoffs and people from other municipalities coming to receive such benefits, problems that would be solved by a nationwide UBI.

tachyonbeam 6y ago
UBI might seem crazy to some people, but I'd like to remind everyone that governments worldwide effectively print trillions of dollars and use that money to inflate stock prices. Governments could instead distribute the money through UBI. The advantage, if you do that, is that people will spend that money on things they need. This seems better, to me, than keeping alive zombie companies that are "too big to fail" and contribute little to no value to society. If you give people UBI, they are voting with their wallets and giving money to companies that produce something useful. As for the national debt... When the government borrows money from a central bank, it's effectively borrowing money from itself. They might pretend otherwise, but central banks are effectively an arm of the government. The national debt is an artificial construct. Governments could eliminate it with the stroke of a pen.
- phone8675309 6y ago
  > The national debt is an artificial construct. Governments could eliminate it with the stroke of a pen. Serious question: are there any modern sovereign defaults that don't have a decade or two of stagnation or regression associated with them?
737maxtw 6y ago
There's also the unspoken issue... there are probably a decent number of people who profit off the current system that who do not want their meal ticket cut off. (Of course, this is ignoring the idea that UBI would possibly let them do something better with their lives, but humans are gonna human, right?)

bagacrap 6y ago

Yeah, but what happens when someone blows the free money on something besides basic needs, and still needs assistance with food/shelter/medicine/etc? Does society step in again and also provide "managed money" in that case?

cortesoft 6y ago
If they provide the money at regular intervals, than the person wouldn’t be out of money long even if they blow it all. My suggestion would be no, we don’t step in. I think for one, we overestimate the number of people who would not use the money for their needs first. I think if we found there were a lot of people who still needed help, we could create an assistance group that can help people find the help they need.
- warkdarrior 6y ago
  So your solution to people spending all of their UBI money frivolously is to give them even more money? (instead of helping them spend it on, say, essentials)
  - stephen_g 6y ago
    Various studies have shown that (perhaps surprisingly) just giving people cash works better... I can't read the article (paywall) but I expect that's the point of this trial too. Of course, it would be good to it while also offering help with education, any substance abuse issues people might have, etc. but the paternalistic kind of "can't trust people on welfare to spend their own money" view just makes things worse. We've definitely seen it in Australia, they created a cashless debit card that locks out certain types of spending and trialled it in certain areas. It's been a massive failure, people not being able to get cash out to pay rent, it doesn't work in a lot of stores, forcing people to higher priced shops that are part of the system, the card has a lot of stigma attached to it so people are ashamed to use it, social outcomes are worse, and the administrative cost per person is about half as much as the actual annual amount given in welfare (!!) but the company that runs the scheme has links to the party that is in Government and donates to politicians so they're expanding the trials of scheme...