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Of course taxes would need to be raised. In the USA households worth 1 million or more own 79% of all household wealth in the country. The bottom 50% in the U

• notatoad 6y ago
  > would you prefer navigating a dozen programs to handle food, phones, heating, internet, baby clothes etc. or i would rather just take the money. but are we really suggesting that all social programs should be cut and replaced with cash handouts? what happens when somebody does take that cash, spends it non-essentials, and then can't feed or house themselves or their children? do we just let them starve or freeze to death, because we've already given them cash? i'm not against a basic income, but i think it needs to be secondary to universal basic housing, universal basic nutrition, and universal basic healthcare.
  • 5thaccount 6y ago
    > what happens when somebody does take that cash, spends it non-essentials That's the least worrying aspect of a UBI, IMHO. Charities will always exist to fill some of these gaps, and the extremes are always there. The most worrying aspect is that UBI likely exacerbates inequality, between those who are naturally driven and those who are not. It also likely leads to a recession, and fairly quickly at that. https://www.chrisstucchio.com/blog/2019/basic_income_reduces_employment.html https://www.chrisstucchio.com/blog/2019/basic_income_reduces... has a good summary, but this part is telling: > The net result on labor supply is the following: > - Husbands reduced their labor supply by about 7% in the 3-year treatment group and by 12-13% in the 5 year treatment group. > - Wives reduced their labor supply by about 15% in the 3-year treatment group and by 21-27% in the 5 year treatment group. > - Single mothers reduced their labor supply between 15 and 30%. The effects of a UBI on work likely mean an acceleration of automation. the > 10% drop in hours is likely most pronounced at the bottom, and many companies will replace that with robots, which leads to even less hours and trouble for many people even entering the workforce. A UBI likely benefits people who have a short term problem in service of a long-term goal. Think college student studying law or medicine. I think a UBI is ideal in Kenya, Uganda or the Congo, where many driven, capable people are held back by a system where almost no one succeeds. I think it is less likely to lead to a positive change in the west, and is likely to exacerbate inequality and lead to those who make just UBI, and those who make a lot more.
  • ihumanable 6y ago
    A lot of UBI schemes do basically just say that UBI replaces all the other social programs. This is one of the ways UBI can deliver some efficiency, replacing dozens of programs with their staffs and their means testing with a simple flat payment. The administration of such a system is pretty straightforward, each person gets a check every period. As a society there is a desire to provide people with a backstop for basic necessities because if someone can't earn a wage then they could starve to death and as a people we decided that citizens starving in the streets would be bad, or at least destabilizing. Similarly, people freezing to death or cooking to death in the elements, also bad, better provide some kind of shelter. There is a real question about the transition period, if you gave people a UBI and they decided to blow it on drugs and were starving, should you give them additional assistance. To the hypothetical person that would choose drugs over food and shelter, there are two ways of looking at it. One way to look at it is as a public health issue. People that would willingly choose drugs / alcohol / etc over survival likely need some kind of substance abuse treatment, not food / shelter / etc. If you can't survive off of UBI the most likely reason is that something is wrong and instead of just providing more money (in whatever form) we should provide that person with the actual treatment they need to become a functioning member of society. Another way to look at it is that it's personal choice. Society provides each person enough money to live. People can choose to live long simple lives or they can have a few drug-fueled months, it's not our place to tell people how they should experience their short time on Earth. Each citizen has the freedom to live whatever life they want, everyone has the means to live a reasonable life, and some will choose not to. I fall into the first camp of thought. The person so addicted to drugs / alcohol / etc that they would choose to spend all their UBI on that over their own survival isn't actually being helped by giving them food and shelter. It just enabled them to continue existing with their substance abuse problem. UBI could free up the resources needed to meaningfully treat people that are incapable of caring for themselves by reducing the amount of time spent managing funds given to the vast majority of people that when given money use it in the expected fashion. There will always be the people that want to blow all their money on their vice of choice and also refuse to get treatment because they like that lifestyle. To them I would say, good luck, it's not how I choose to live my life, but who am I to say what's right for you. There will likely still be private organization, churches, outreach groups, advocates, etc for these people.
• nickff 6y ago
  UBI would have to be paid for with taxes on incomes (or spending) not wealth, and incomes are much more evenly distributed, so everyone currently paying taxes would have to pay substantially more. If you try to pay for UBI with wealth taxes, your funding stream will rapidly dry up. I am not saying it is impossible, I am just saying that UBI would not be paid for by the ultra-wealthy, and it's not clear that the middle-classes want to pay for UBI.