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Not only is means tested a barrier, but it also tends to lead to funding cliffs. My niece wound up being a case in point. She got a job offer for $0.20/hour m

by btilly 5y ago

Not only is means tested a barrier, but it also tends to lead to funding cliffs. My niece wound up being a case in point. She got a job offer for $0.20/hour more than would allow her to stay on food stamps. As a single mother of 3, she could not afford to go off of food stamps. The job she would have joined was a union job and so could not pay her anything other than the union rate. The result? She remained in a job that she was overqualified for and turned down the better job because she literally could not afford to take it. If you think that this is an argument for basic income, it is. And exactly because having it be not means tested avoids this kind of perverse incentive that helps trap people in poverty.

josephcsible 5y ago
A year ago, I would have agreed with this in its entirety. Today, I still agree with most of it, but I disagree with the last paragraph. If basic income isn't enough to survive on, then you'll still need some other services and so you'll still have the funding cliff. But if it is enough to survive on, then too many people who are capable of working will choose to instead just survive on it indefinitely.
- lostcolony 5y ago
  Survive. Not thrive. If someone is inclined to make it work on so minimal an amount even when able to make more, they won't be useful at a job anyway.
- yenwel 5y ago
  Well isn't the point of ubi that people less people could work. Productivity with automation has never been higher and we still work ourselves to death for less pay. We need to take the path of increased automation anyway since we've got some sort of ubi for the elderly population already. Now it's a burden for the young people. If we could automate a lot of basic needs like food production and processing, construction, transport etc you would have unlimited near costless basic needs met and provide for the elderly. Then it would just be panem et circenses but a bit more advanced and without the slavery and the need for empire building like the romans but just technological advancement and automation.
  - josephcsible 5y ago
    Yes, if we could automate away all of our low-skill jobs, then UBI would make more sense. But we haven't done that yet, so it doesn't yet.
    - turbinerneiter 5y ago
      There is an argument that low wages hold automation back by reducing cost pressure to automate, therefore UBI, since it would increase the cost of low-skill workers, would spur automation in that sector. I think it's a simple, logical argument, but I'm not sure if it would survive a collision with reality^^
    - Qwertious 5y ago
      You've got it backwards - low-skill jobs are done manually because low-skill labour is cheap. Low-skill labour is cheap because most people in it literally can't afford to not work. We don't need to automate away all our low-skill jobs: we could just pay the workers more. Most workers are paid well below the actual value of their productivity because they have a crappy BATNA, and there's no need for employers to pay much higher than the worker's BATNA. The more you pay the workers, the more profit in a machine that can replace min-wage workers, and the sooner a machine will be cheaper than the well-paid workers. You've got it backwards.
    - schmorptron 5y ago
      At the risk of sounding dumb: I agree fully with UBI and automating away menial jobs that don't bring people fulfillment. But what happens once we've done that? Do the top .1% just own all of the automation equipment and thus most of the industries? Do we need some way to commoditize that aspect then, (seize the means of automation?)? It's super hard to wrap one's head around this future where we have the challenge of preventing a few very rich from owning literally everything IMO
- Sophistifunk 5y ago
  > too many people who are capable of working will choose to instead just survive on it indefinitely So? We should have make-work jobs and force people to do them as punishment for being poor? Forcing people to go and do a menial job that doesn't really need doing just because you think it's character building is not a good way to run a healthy society.
  - josephcsible 5y ago
    Most unskilled jobs today are not "make-work" and do need doing.
    - Clewza313 5y ago
      In India, there's a job creation program that guarantees a paid job to anyone who wants it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Rural_Employment_Guarantee_Act,_2005 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Rural_Employment_Guar... Unsurprisingly, most of the job is the "dig a ditch today, fill it in tomorrow" variety.
      - josephcsible 5y ago
        If there's so few real jobs in India that that program actually makes sense to have, then maybe UBI does make sense there. But there's plenty of unfilled jobs in the US, so UBI doesn't make sense here.
        dragonwriter 5y ago
        > there’s plenty of unfilled jobs in the US, so UBI doesn’t make sense here. The point of UBI is to make it easier to fill productive jobs by (1) reducing the marginal disincentive to work posed by the funding structure of means-tested welfare, and (2) putting a bunch of people back into looking for productive jobs who are currently working in government welfare bureaucracy doing jobs that duplicate functions performed in the tax bureaucracy and/or serve the nonproductive purpose of maximizing the disincentive to additional work by welfare recipients.
- ta1234567890 5y ago
  > But if it is enough to survive on, then too many people who are capable of working will choose to instead just survive on it indefinitely. So what? I would argue that most people want to feel purpose in life. If they don’t work, they want to do something else to feel fulfilled, something to be looked up to for, something to feel good about doing. It could be art, a sport, maybe just gardening, picking up trash in their neighborhood or organizing local events/classes. Most retired people don’t just sit in front of the tv waiting to die, or become criminals because they don’t have a job. I think it would be amazing if most people didn’t have to work for a living. And only the people that want to work did so.
  - nverno 5y ago
    > So what? This is how the poor stay poor, and those who are "just broke" become poor. In fact, people who are working are much more likely to engage in other community activities and volunteer.
    - callmeal 5y ago
      >In fact, people who are working are much more likely to engage in other community activities and volunteer. I can definitely say that people who are forced to work with capricious scheduling, or those that have to work more than one job just to survive are a lot less likely to do that.
    - imtringued 5y ago
      People stay poor because there is no opportunity for them to stop being poor by working. If they were poor voluntarily then we wouldn't have to give a damn about them as we already did everything possible. If you gave a poor person the opportunity to become rich through work, would they still decide to stay poor? When you are being rewarded for hard work it is hard to grasp the concept that some not all people are being rewarded for hard work. Pretty much every entrepreneur falls into that trap. Everything they do can have a direct impact to their bottom line so they work hard and long hours. Meanwhile they wonder why their employees with low wages that are often below planned minimum wage increases do the bare minimum to not get fired. It is pretty obvious. They are going on a silent strike as that is the last drip of their bargaining power. We then get lessons that the poor are poor because of laziness.
- strken 5y ago
  "Enough to live on" isn't a great way to live, and I think people are plenty motivated by wanting a bit of discretionary spending. That said, there are other potential problems with UBI, like incentivising anyone on it to move to the most affordable cities, which are often already suffering from unemployment and underemployment.
- TameAntelope 5y ago
  > then too many people who are capable of working will choose to instead just survive on it indefinitely. Is this actually true? I feel like the research I've seen about this is mixed at best, and we really don't know if (meaningfully) fewer people would work if they didn't have to just to get by. Intuitively it may sound nice, but I wouldn't be surprised if there was a counterbalancing force at play, namely human curiosity and desire to do more than just, "get by".
- ryandrake 5y ago
  > But if it is enough to survive on, then too many people who are capable of working will choose to instead just survive on it indefinitely. This is one of the main benefits, if not the main benefit, of UBI. Someone’s survival is finally not dependent on working! Right now, shitty jobs pay crap, because people have to take some job or starve. If you took away the starve part, millions of people no longer have to put up with a shitty job. If it really had to be done, the employer would be forced to raise the wage in order to attract people to voluntarily take the job. If UBI took care of everyone’s basic needs, then wages would have to rise to make it worth it to do a now-optional job. Would you flip burgers for minimum wage if UBI allowed you to live in an apartment and eat? I wouldn’t, but I might do it for $40k/yr extra over UBI. This is a major goal of UBI, not a failure case.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > If basic income isn’t enough to survive on, then you’ll still need some other services and so you’ll still have the funding cliff. But if it is enough to survive on, then too many people who are capable of working will choose to instead just survive on it indefinitely. If it maxes out approximately where current means-tested welfare does, then it will be at a place where you wouldn’t need additional programs to acheive the same level of living possible for those with no outside income under current means-tested welfare. If, as UBI rather than means tested welfare, it also didn’t face the strong disincentive to additional income posed by the current “funding-cliff” effect of means-tested welfare, the obvious effect would be more people working who would under the current system be welfare-dependent, not less. Your analysis seems to be comparing it to a no-welfare position, but that’s not the system it is replacing.
- II2II 5y ago
  > But if it is enough to survive on, then too many people who are capable of working will choose to instead just survive on it indefinitely. If this turned out to be true, perhaps this says more about contemporary society than human nature. The tendency to offer low wages to replaceable workers, to force people into taking multiple jobs in order to survive, and to dictate a lower social status to some of the most essential roles in human society is bound to taint some people's impressions of work.
- callmeal 5y ago
  >But if it is enough to survive on, then too many people who are capable of working will choose to instead just survive on it indefinitely. And why is that a problem? I see it as a net benefit. The only people working will be those that want to work, and in my opinion it will reduce all the posturing and politics that go on in a workplace because people don't want to be there.
  - chii 5y ago
    > The only people working will be those that want to work and there wouldn't be enough of them to support the remaining. The "funding" of UBI have to come from a technological advance, such as effectively free energy, which powers automation in such a way that owners of these resources would not miss a small tax to pay for the bare minimum UBI.
- JoeAltmaier 5y ago
  I don't get it. Why the concern about what other people decide to do? They already get to live their lives without consulting us. The biggest roadblock to improving the standard of living of most people in America, is this suspicious impulse folks have of suspecting somebody might 'get away' with something. It's time to recognize this unworthy impulse and discard it.
  - II2II 5y ago
    The thing that bothers me is the presumption of laziness. There are plenty of people who are willing to work long and hard, yet are disenchanted with the exploitative nature of work as it stands today. Just think of all of the people who would like to start their own businesses or work for themselves[0], yet cannot afford to do so or cannot afford to absorb the risk. Part of the reason may be the implicit lessons we receive from a very young age. We must always be cautious of people who try to take advantage of us. It is a valuable less, because it is true, yet we seem to take it the wrong way. Rather than dealing with the criminal, the people who would defraud us, we treat everyone as criminal. [0] There is a particular group of peoples in my country who are often portrayed as being lazy or exploiting the system. In many, if not most, cases this prejudice is just plain wrong. Since many of those people live outside of the system, they perform types of work that many of us would not even consider: hunting for their own food (and everything that involves), cutting their own fuel wood, hauling their own garbage to the dump, and much more. None of that work involves a paycheck, so it doesn't count. That attitude is just plain wrong. (Not to mention the other problems with prejudices, such as it discounting those who do function within the rest of western society.)
stepanhruda 5y ago
Alternatively, the benefit can be on a decreasing curve / phased out to prevent these cliff situations?
- nerdponx 5y ago
  The conspiracy theory is that it's to deliberately keep people poor and suffering. Hanlon's razor and all, but it's hard to come up with another justification. Anyone work in government or know a lot about the relevant history? Is there a good reason why it works like this?
  - pydry 5y ago
    It disincentivizes people to ask for raises. That's a feature if you run a business. I'm skeptical of the idea that it was accidental.
- ironmagma 5y ago
  Isn’t a cliff simply a ramp with infinite slope? I would suspect the problem is that if we can’t tune something as simple as a step function correctly (which is just an x intercept), it seems even less likely we would be able to tune a ramp (more variables - x intercept and a slope, and that’s assuming it should even be linear instead of e.g. quadratic).
  - function_seven 5y ago
    Something as simple as “for each $1.00 you earn above the eligibility threshold, this benefit will decrease by $0.50.” would do the trick. For those close to the line, there would always be a benefit to accepting that slightly better job.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > Isn’t a cliff simply a ramp with infinite slope? I would suspect the problem is that if we can’t tune something as simple as a step function correctly (which is just an x intercept), it seems even less likely we would be able to tune a ramp (more variables - x intercept and a slope, and that’s assuming it should even be linear instead of e.g. quadratic). One of the challenges of tuning means-tested welfare phase-outs is that means-tested welfare consists of dozens of different programs, most of which have additional qualifications besides the means test, governed by different levels of government, often with different definitions of what income counts against the phaseout. UBI makes that simpler by consolidation.
hellnu 5y ago
It isn't. What gives her the right to have 3 kids without being able to take care of them and then expect others to pay for it? By that logic people will just have tons of kids and not bother anymore.
- kozd 5y ago
  Reagan, is that you?
  - hellnu 5y ago
    Asking people to be responsible for their own life is asked too much nowadays or what? What's the matter with you folks. If you fuck up, you deal with it, not society. Why should society pay for the mistakes of others? "Someone will fix it/Someone else will deal with it" will be the attitude of people then. Congrats you f'd society
- Cthulhu_ 5y ago
  What gives you the right to question why someone has X amount of kids? Why are you not more upset that she can't focus on raising her kids for example?
mjevans 5y ago
I __mostly__ agree. Though I disagree basic income, or even raising the minimum wage will have the intended effect. Intended effect: Increase the buying power of those who proportionately receive the greatest additional income. Likely real effect: The level of the tide rises, but the boat's don't change spots. The cost of rent and everything in the market goes up with the tide. The middle class, and even moderately well off professionals, get a quality of life and pay CUT (in effect, since they don't get the raise). The Rich who are rent-seeking, still get their rent and still win. I agree with the Star Trek lifestyle goals, but they get there by providing for all equally. It's the major capitol things (leaving federation space, energy intensive development projects, etc) which still require funds other than basic allocation.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- Qwertious 5y ago
  >The cost of rent and everything in the market goes up with the tide. The middle class, and even moderately well off professionals, get a quality of life and pay CUT (in effect, since they don't get the raise). I disagree - a UBI means that anyone who's able to live frugally may, at any time, retire. This gives enormous bargaining power to workers, as if the pay is too low then they can say "fuck it, I'm moving to <insert rural ghost town>, buying an abandoned house for $1, and living off my UBI". Not only does this put downward pressure on rent, it also encourages jobs to be more available in rural areas, as people will move to there for lower costs of living instead of moving away because it's unaffordable due to lack of jobs/UBI. Your wage is not determined by your productivity, it's determined by your bargaining power (your Best Alternative To Negotiated Agreement (BATNA) being the main one, but how unique your skills are determines your employer's BATNA). In other words, employers will employ you for any amount that still lets them make a profit off of your labour, but they will pay you the least they can get away with paying without you walking away. Some people literally can't afford to walk away, and they're the people who are paid dogshit wages. A UBI would let them walk away until their job calls them with a good offer.
  - 5y ago
kelnos 5y ago
I'm a fan of UBI, but I don't think this cliff phenomenon is an argument for it; it's an argument for gradual phase-outs instead of cliffs.
- strken 5y ago
  Gradual phase-outs are better than cliffs. That said, losing e.g. $5 of benefits per $10 you earn plus an income tax of e.g. 10% is the same as a marginal tax rate of 60% in terms of distorting the market. Flatter cliffs are less distortionary, and a UBI is what what happens when you take that concept to its limit.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > I’m a fan of UBI, but I don’t think this cliff phenomenon is an argument for it Yes it is. In fact, its the central argument advanced by advocates on both the left and right who have advocated UBI (or the equivalent-policy-under-a-different-name of "negative income tax".) > it’s an argument for gradual phase-outs instead of cliffs. Gradual phase-out (through the effect of income taxes, at the marginal tax rate set by the earned income) instead of cliffs (through traditional means-tested funding mechanism) is the central point of UBI. If you are a “fan of UBI” and you don’t understands UBIs central function and motivation, what is it exactly you are a fan of?
  - jlokier 5y ago
    I think the point is that gradual phase out instead of cliffs does not require UBI. It's a feature of UBI, but it can be done without UBI too.
    - dragonwriter 5y ago
      > I think the point is that gradual phase out instead of cliffs does not require UBI. Yeah, UBI is just “gradual phaseout” plus “eliminate duplication of function between the multiple welfare bureaucracies and between th aggregt of them and the tax bureaucracy”. You can in principal do the first without the second, if you have a strong ideological devotion to government waste, but since switching to a gradual phase-out, ceteris paribus, increases the cost for any given level of support for those most in need, realizing available efficiencies at the same time is kind of important for practicality.
EdwardDiego 5y ago
Yep, I used to work for my country's social security department, and personally moved from "stealing to survive" to "getting by on social security" to "it's a shit job that pays shit, but it's better than the dole" to eventually a comfortable low six figures salary. And it sucks whenever you approach the edge of the assistance thresholds. I was always grateful for the assistance, but it was always stressful when you were in the "just over the threshold" area. And when I was working with people receiving assistance, managing that transition was critical in getting people into work. I used to phrase it as "yep, you're only going to earn $20 a week more than the dole working fulltime in this job, but in three years, if you stayed on the dole, you'd still only be on the dole. Odds are you'll be doing far better after 3 years of working." Policy makers are trying to minimise the impact of them, but people not receiving assistance expect those who are to be subject to strong limits.
- sokoloff 5y ago
  As someone who’d be paying rather than receiving these benefits, I’d much rather there be a smooth curve that scales down benefits aligned with income, but anything that creates a sharp distinctive to be productive offends me a lot more than spending a few extra hundred dollars per net tax payer.
TaylorAlexander 5y ago
It is an argument for economic reforms. Whether that means UBI or something else is another matter. There is a good thread here about UBI and it’s pros and cons so I will mention another possible avenue: improve worker ownership in the means of production. My favorite incarnation of this is that proposed by Richard Wolff: make the necessary changes so that a sizable fraction of the firms in the economy are cooperatives. Specifically cooperatives where the workers in the firm are also in control of the firm and it’s direction. With control of the firm, they can vote for certain benefits at no direct cost, and thus don’t need as much cash. Now UBI and worker ownership of the means of production can be combined, but I thought I’d mention the latter as a possible alternative solution to be considered when talking about solving structural economic problems.
elcomet 5y ago
That's an argument for "progressive" support, and against the threshold effect, not for basic income. There should be no hard threshold, social support should be linear, and be reduced with the more money you earn. Like taxes but in reverse.
- foolmeonce 5y ago
  The best way to do taxes' progressive support in reverse is to give everyone basic income, food stamps, and insurance and then offset that in the progressive tax rate. Aside from removing stigma from using the universal minimums it solves the problem of losing 3X your income when combining separate state food program, city housing, and medical programs. That remains a problem even when individual programs move away from thresholds.
  - david-gpu 5y ago
    People would prefer to choose how to allocate their income rather than forcing them to allocate a certain percentage to food via food stamps. Also, in the same way that a universal basic income removes a layer of bureaucratic overhead, having universal healthcare also removes the burden of middlepeople handling insurance claims.
  - alex_smart 5y ago
    How do you suppose basic income can work in countries like India that don't have the resources that are available to a first world country? Even 2 dollars a day of basic income would complete exhaust the government budget.
    - MrsPeaches 5y ago
      India does have something akin to basic income for rural households. Fair, it's not just free money but it is a guarantee of at least 100 days of work a year. https://www.uclg-cisdp.org/en/observatory/mahatma-gandhi-national-rural-employment-guarantee-act https://www.uclg-cisdp.org/en/observatory/mahatma-gandhi-nat...
pc86 5y ago
This is an argument for a lot of things - progressive support structures, a robust social safety net run by people who know what they're doing as opposed of bureaucrats, maybe even against full-time employment earning you less than food stamp levels of income. But even as a supporter of UBI I don't see how this is an argument for that unless you ignore 5 or 6 other, simpler fixes.
DoreenMichele 5y ago
I'm not pro UBI. But I did jot down a half baked thought not hugely long ago that we ought to dramatically reduce the barriers to food stamps for any and all Americans who want them.
tomjen3 5y ago
That is an argument for having a support system with a curve that is an always and anywhere differentiable, so that we don't get perverse cases like your niece (hope she is doing better now, btw).
MisterBastahrd 5y ago
You probably don't know the half of it. One of the things about public services in the US is that they are punitive in nature. They are designed to make you feel terrible about yourself and give you as big a hassle as possible. If you're a low wage employee, you might need food stamps, cash assistance, housing assistance, child care assistance, and medical assistance. Every single one of those is a different government agency with a 9-5 schedule that doesn't do weekends or federal holidays. Did your day care for your 2 kids forget to give you a form to fill out? Well then, when your child care has lapsed, have fun waiting 3-6 months for slots to open up. No, we don't care that you have a job which is why they're in daycare to begin with. Have fun with our antiquated automated service in which you wait 2 hours to talk to someone for 5 minutes in order to get a code to call back every week to check on the status of your case. Rinse and repeat that for every state agency and program. Keeping up with state benefits is a 10 hour a week job if you have kids, and that's if everything is going okay. On top of everything else, one of the reasons poor kids tend to have worse outcomes is because their parents are consistently stressed out from virtually every direction. If it's not the crappy job, it's the social services people. If it isn't the social services people, it's the stress of parenting adults.
jkmcf 5y ago
Your comment prompted me to think basic income should supplement the difference between your salary and some acceptable wage for the locale -- specifically addressing housing, medical, and food. This would encourage people to have a job, even a "bad" one, and hopefully assuage the "free money" detractors. I'm mostly scared they'll try to implement a home run solution, screw it up, and then retard society for the near future.
mdavis6890 5y ago
I think I know exactly the right way to do a UBI, so I created a brief write-up. I'm interested in feedback: https://m-davis.com/blog/?p=43 https://m-davis.com/blog/?p=43

by btilly 5y ago

josephcsible 5y ago

A year ago, I would have agreed with this in its entirety. Today, I still agree with most of it, but I disagree with the last paragraph. If basic income isn't enough to survive on, then you'll still need some other services and so you'll still have the funding cliff. But if it is enough to survive on, then too many people who are capable of working will choose to instead just survive on it indefinitely.

lostcolony 5y ago
Survive. Not thrive. If someone is inclined to make it work on so minimal an amount even when able to make more, they won't be useful at a job anyway.
yenwel 5y ago
Well isn't the point of ubi that people less people could work. Productivity with automation has never been higher and we still work ourselves to death for less pay. We need to take the path of increased automation anyway since we've got some sort of ubi for the elderly population already. Now it's a burden for the young people. If we could automate a lot of basic needs like food production and processing, construction, transport etc you would have unlimited near costless basic needs met and provide for the elderly. Then it would just be panem et circenses but a bit more advanced and without the slavery and the need for empire building like the romans but just technological advancement and automation.
- josephcsible 5y ago
  Yes, if we could automate away all of our low-skill jobs, then UBI would make more sense. But we haven't done that yet, so it doesn't yet.
  - turbinerneiter 5y ago
    There is an argument that low wages hold automation back by reducing cost pressure to automate, therefore UBI, since it would increase the cost of low-skill workers, would spur automation in that sector. I think it's a simple, logical argument, but I'm not sure if it would survive a collision with reality^^
  - Qwertious 5y ago
    You've got it backwards - low-skill jobs are done manually because low-skill labour is cheap. Low-skill labour is cheap because most people in it literally can't afford to not work. We don't need to automate away all our low-skill jobs: we could just pay the workers more. Most workers are paid well below the actual value of their productivity because they have a crappy BATNA, and there's no need for employers to pay much higher than the worker's BATNA. The more you pay the workers, the more profit in a machine that can replace min-wage workers, and the sooner a machine will be cheaper than the well-paid workers. You've got it backwards.
  - schmorptron 5y ago
    At the risk of sounding dumb: I agree fully with UBI and automating away menial jobs that don't bring people fulfillment. But what happens once we've done that? Do the top .1% just own all of the automation equipment and thus most of the industries? Do we need some way to commoditize that aspect then, (seize the means of automation?)? It's super hard to wrap one's head around this future where we have the challenge of preventing a few very rich from owning literally everything IMO
Sophistifunk 5y ago
> too many people who are capable of working will choose to instead just survive on it indefinitely So? We should have make-work jobs and force people to do them as punishment for being poor? Forcing people to go and do a menial job that doesn't really need doing just because you think it's character building is not a good way to run a healthy society.
- josephcsible 5y ago
  Most unskilled jobs today are not "make-work" and do need doing.
  - Clewza313 5y ago
    In India, there's a job creation program that guarantees a paid job to anyone who wants it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Rural_Employment_Guarantee_Act,_2005 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Rural_Employment_Guar... Unsurprisingly, most of the job is the "dig a ditch today, fill it in tomorrow" variety.
    - josephcsible 5y ago
      If there's so few real jobs in India that that program actually makes sense to have, then maybe UBI does make sense there. But there's plenty of unfilled jobs in the US, so UBI doesn't make sense here.
      - dragonwriter 5y ago
        > there’s plenty of unfilled jobs in the US, so UBI doesn’t make sense here. The point of UBI is to make it easier to fill productive jobs by (1) reducing the marginal disincentive to work posed by the funding structure of means-tested welfare, and (2) putting a bunch of people back into looking for productive jobs who are currently working in government welfare bureaucracy doing jobs that duplicate functions performed in the tax bureaucracy and/or serve the nonproductive purpose of maximizing the disincentive to additional work by welfare recipients.
ta1234567890 5y ago
> But if it is enough to survive on, then too many people who are capable of working will choose to instead just survive on it indefinitely. So what? I would argue that most people want to feel purpose in life. If they don’t work, they want to do something else to feel fulfilled, something to be looked up to for, something to feel good about doing. It could be art, a sport, maybe just gardening, picking up trash in their neighborhood or organizing local events/classes. Most retired people don’t just sit in front of the tv waiting to die, or become criminals because they don’t have a job. I think it would be amazing if most people didn’t have to work for a living. And only the people that want to work did so.
- nverno 5y ago
  > So what? This is how the poor stay poor, and those who are "just broke" become poor. In fact, people who are working are much more likely to engage in other community activities and volunteer.
  - callmeal 5y ago
    >In fact, people who are working are much more likely to engage in other community activities and volunteer. I can definitely say that people who are forced to work with capricious scheduling, or those that have to work more than one job just to survive are a lot less likely to do that.
  - imtringued 5y ago
    People stay poor because there is no opportunity for them to stop being poor by working. If they were poor voluntarily then we wouldn't have to give a damn about them as we already did everything possible. If you gave a poor person the opportunity to become rich through work, would they still decide to stay poor? When you are being rewarded for hard work it is hard to grasp the concept that some not all people are being rewarded for hard work. Pretty much every entrepreneur falls into that trap. Everything they do can have a direct impact to their bottom line so they work hard and long hours. Meanwhile they wonder why their employees with low wages that are often below planned minimum wage increases do the bare minimum to not get fired. It is pretty obvious. They are going on a silent strike as that is the last drip of their bargaining power. We then get lessons that the poor are poor because of laziness.
strken 5y ago
"Enough to live on" isn't a great way to live, and I think people are plenty motivated by wanting a bit of discretionary spending. That said, there are other potential problems with UBI, like incentivising anyone on it to move to the most affordable cities, which are often already suffering from unemployment and underemployment.
TameAntelope 5y ago
> then too many people who are capable of working will choose to instead just survive on it indefinitely. Is this actually true? I feel like the research I've seen about this is mixed at best, and we really don't know if (meaningfully) fewer people would work if they didn't have to just to get by. Intuitively it may sound nice, but I wouldn't be surprised if there was a counterbalancing force at play, namely human curiosity and desire to do more than just, "get by".
ryandrake 5y ago
> But if it is enough to survive on, then too many people who are capable of working will choose to instead just survive on it indefinitely. This is one of the main benefits, if not the main benefit, of UBI. Someone’s survival is finally not dependent on working! Right now, shitty jobs pay crap, because people have to take some job or starve. If you took away the starve part, millions of people no longer have to put up with a shitty job. If it really had to be done, the employer would be forced to raise the wage in order to attract people to voluntarily take the job. If UBI took care of everyone’s basic needs, then wages would have to rise to make it worth it to do a now-optional job. Would you flip burgers for minimum wage if UBI allowed you to live in an apartment and eat? I wouldn’t, but I might do it for $40k/yr extra over UBI. This is a major goal of UBI, not a failure case.
dragonwriter 5y ago
> If basic income isn’t enough to survive on, then you’ll still need some other services and so you’ll still have the funding cliff. But if it is enough to survive on, then too many people who are capable of working will choose to instead just survive on it indefinitely. If it maxes out approximately where current means-tested welfare does, then it will be at a place where you wouldn’t need additional programs to acheive the same level of living possible for those with no outside income under current means-tested welfare. If, as UBI rather than means tested welfare, it also didn’t face the strong disincentive to additional income posed by the current “funding-cliff” effect of means-tested welfare, the obvious effect would be more people working who would under the current system be welfare-dependent, not less. Your analysis seems to be comparing it to a no-welfare position, but that’s not the system it is replacing.
II2II 5y ago
> But if it is enough to survive on, then too many people who are capable of working will choose to instead just survive on it indefinitely. If this turned out to be true, perhaps this says more about contemporary society than human nature. The tendency to offer low wages to replaceable workers, to force people into taking multiple jobs in order to survive, and to dictate a lower social status to some of the most essential roles in human society is bound to taint some people's impressions of work.
callmeal 5y ago
>But if it is enough to survive on, then too many people who are capable of working will choose to instead just survive on it indefinitely. And why is that a problem? I see it as a net benefit. The only people working will be those that want to work, and in my opinion it will reduce all the posturing and politics that go on in a workplace because people don't want to be there.
- chii 5y ago
  > The only people working will be those that want to work and there wouldn't be enough of them to support the remaining. The "funding" of UBI have to come from a technological advance, such as effectively free energy, which powers automation in such a way that owners of these resources would not miss a small tax to pay for the bare minimum UBI.
JoeAltmaier 5y ago
I don't get it. Why the concern about what other people decide to do? They already get to live their lives without consulting us. The biggest roadblock to improving the standard of living of most people in America, is this suspicious impulse folks have of suspecting somebody might 'get away' with something. It's time to recognize this unworthy impulse and discard it.
- II2II 5y ago
  The thing that bothers me is the presumption of laziness. There are plenty of people who are willing to work long and hard, yet are disenchanted with the exploitative nature of work as it stands today. Just think of all of the people who would like to start their own businesses or work for themselves[0], yet cannot afford to do so or cannot afford to absorb the risk. Part of the reason may be the implicit lessons we receive from a very young age. We must always be cautious of people who try to take advantage of us. It is a valuable less, because it is true, yet we seem to take it the wrong way. Rather than dealing with the criminal, the people who would defraud us, we treat everyone as criminal. [0] There is a particular group of peoples in my country who are often portrayed as being lazy or exploiting the system. In many, if not most, cases this prejudice is just plain wrong. Since many of those people live outside of the system, they perform types of work that many of us would not even consider: hunting for their own food (and everything that involves), cutting their own fuel wood, hauling their own garbage to the dump, and much more. None of that work involves a paycheck, so it doesn't count. That attitude is just plain wrong. (Not to mention the other problems with prejudices, such as it discounting those who do function within the rest of western society.)

stepanhruda 5y ago

Alternatively, the benefit can be on a decreasing curve / phased out to prevent these cliff situations?

nerdponx 5y ago
The conspiracy theory is that it's to deliberately keep people poor and suffering. Hanlon's razor and all, but it's hard to come up with another justification. Anyone work in government or know a lot about the relevant history? Is there a good reason why it works like this?
- pydry 5y ago
  It disincentivizes people to ask for raises. That's a feature if you run a business. I'm skeptical of the idea that it was accidental.
ironmagma 5y ago
Isn’t a cliff simply a ramp with infinite slope? I would suspect the problem is that if we can’t tune something as simple as a step function correctly (which is just an x intercept), it seems even less likely we would be able to tune a ramp (more variables - x intercept and a slope, and that’s assuming it should even be linear instead of e.g. quadratic).
- function_seven 5y ago
  Something as simple as “for each $1.00 you earn above the eligibility threshold, this benefit will decrease by $0.50.” would do the trick. For those close to the line, there would always be a benefit to accepting that slightly better job.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > Isn’t a cliff simply a ramp with infinite slope? I would suspect the problem is that if we can’t tune something as simple as a step function correctly (which is just an x intercept), it seems even less likely we would be able to tune a ramp (more variables - x intercept and a slope, and that’s assuming it should even be linear instead of e.g. quadratic). One of the challenges of tuning means-tested welfare phase-outs is that means-tested welfare consists of dozens of different programs, most of which have additional qualifications besides the means test, governed by different levels of government, often with different definitions of what income counts against the phaseout. UBI makes that simpler by consolidation.

hellnu 5y ago

It isn't. What gives her the right to have 3 kids without being able to take care of them and then expect others to pay for it? By that logic people will just have tons of kids and not bother anymore.

kozd 5y ago
Reagan, is that you?
- hellnu 5y ago
  Asking people to be responsible for their own life is asked too much nowadays or what? What's the matter with you folks. If you fuck up, you deal with it, not society. Why should society pay for the mistakes of others? "Someone will fix it/Someone else will deal with it" will be the attitude of people then. Congrats you f'd society
Cthulhu_ 5y ago
What gives you the right to question why someone has X amount of kids? Why are you not more upset that she can't focus on raising her kids for example?

mjevans 5y ago

I __mostly__ agree. Though I disagree basic income, or even raising the minimum wage will have the intended effect. Intended effect: Increase the buying power of those who proportionately receive the greatest additional income. Likely real effect: The level of the tide rises, but the boat's don't change spots. The cost of rent and everything in the market goes up with the tide. The middle class, and even moderately well off professionals, get a quality of life and pay CUT (in effect, since they don't get the raise). The Rich who are rent-seeking, still get their rent and still win. I agree with the Star Trek lifestyle goals, but they get there by providing for all equally. It's the major capitol things (leaving federation space, energy intensive development projects, etc) which still require funds other than basic allocation.

deleted 5y ago
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Qwertious 5y ago
>The cost of rent and everything in the market goes up with the tide. The middle class, and even moderately well off professionals, get a quality of life and pay CUT (in effect, since they don't get the raise). I disagree - a UBI means that anyone who's able to live frugally may, at any time, retire. This gives enormous bargaining power to workers, as if the pay is too low then they can say "fuck it, I'm moving to <insert rural ghost town>, buying an abandoned house for $1, and living off my UBI". Not only does this put downward pressure on rent, it also encourages jobs to be more available in rural areas, as people will move to there for lower costs of living instead of moving away because it's unaffordable due to lack of jobs/UBI. Your wage is not determined by your productivity, it's determined by your bargaining power (your Best Alternative To Negotiated Agreement (BATNA) being the main one, but how unique your skills are determines your employer's BATNA). In other words, employers will employ you for any amount that still lets them make a profit off of your labour, but they will pay you the least they can get away with paying without you walking away. Some people literally can't afford to walk away, and they're the people who are paid dogshit wages. A UBI would let them walk away until their job calls them with a good offer.
- 5y ago

kelnos 5y ago

I'm a fan of UBI, but I don't think this cliff phenomenon is an argument for it; it's an argument for gradual phase-outs instead of cliffs.

strken 5y ago
Gradual phase-outs are better than cliffs. That said, losing e.g. $5 of benefits per $10 you earn plus an income tax of e.g. 10% is the same as a marginal tax rate of 60% in terms of distorting the market. Flatter cliffs are less distortionary, and a UBI is what what happens when you take that concept to its limit.
dragonwriter 5y ago
> I’m a fan of UBI, but I don’t think this cliff phenomenon is an argument for it Yes it is. In fact, its the central argument advanced by advocates on both the left and right who have advocated UBI (or the equivalent-policy-under-a-different-name of "negative income tax".) > it’s an argument for gradual phase-outs instead of cliffs. Gradual phase-out (through the effect of income taxes, at the marginal tax rate set by the earned income) instead of cliffs (through traditional means-tested funding mechanism) is the central point of UBI. If you are a “fan of UBI” and you don’t understands UBIs central function and motivation, what is it exactly you are a fan of?
- jlokier 5y ago
  I think the point is that gradual phase out instead of cliffs does not require UBI. It's a feature of UBI, but it can be done without UBI too.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > I think the point is that gradual phase out instead of cliffs does not require UBI. Yeah, UBI is just “gradual phaseout” plus “eliminate duplication of function between the multiple welfare bureaucracies and between th aggregt of them and the tax bureaucracy”. You can in principal do the first without the second, if you have a strong ideological devotion to government waste, but since switching to a gradual phase-out, ceteris paribus, increases the cost for any given level of support for those most in need, realizing available efficiencies at the same time is kind of important for practicality.

EdwardDiego 5y ago

Yep, I used to work for my country's social security department, and personally moved from "stealing to survive" to "getting by on social security" to "it's a shit job that pays shit, but it's better than the dole" to eventually a comfortable low six figures salary. And it sucks whenever you approach the edge of the assistance thresholds. I was always grateful for the assistance, but it was always stressful when you were in the "just over the threshold" area. And when I was working with people receiving assistance, managing that transition was critical in getting people into work. I used to phrase it as "yep, you're only going to earn $20 a week more than the dole working fulltime in this job, but in three years, if you stayed on the dole, you'd still only be on the dole. Odds are you'll be doing far better after 3 years of working." Policy makers are trying to minimise the impact of them, but people not receiving assistance expect those who are to be subject to strong limits.

sokoloff 5y ago
As someone who’d be paying rather than receiving these benefits, I’d much rather there be a smooth curve that scales down benefits aligned with income, but anything that creates a sharp distinctive to be productive offends me a lot more than spending a few extra hundred dollars per net tax payer.

TaylorAlexander 5y ago

It is an argument for economic reforms. Whether that means UBI or something else is another matter. There is a good thread here about UBI and it’s pros and cons so I will mention another possible avenue: improve worker ownership in the means of production. My favorite incarnation of this is that proposed by Richard Wolff: make the necessary changes so that a sizable fraction of the firms in the economy are cooperatives. Specifically cooperatives where the workers in the firm are also in control of the firm and it’s direction. With control of the firm, they can vote for certain benefits at no direct cost, and thus don’t need as much cash. Now UBI and worker ownership of the means of production can be combined, but I thought I’d mention the latter as a possible alternative solution to be considered when talking about solving structural economic problems.

elcomet 5y ago

That's an argument for "progressive" support, and against the threshold effect, not for basic income. There should be no hard threshold, social support should be linear, and be reduced with the more money you earn. Like taxes but in reverse.

foolmeonce 5y ago
The best way to do taxes' progressive support in reverse is to give everyone basic income, food stamps, and insurance and then offset that in the progressive tax rate. Aside from removing stigma from using the universal minimums it solves the problem of losing 3X your income when combining separate state food program, city housing, and medical programs. That remains a problem even when individual programs move away from thresholds.
- david-gpu 5y ago
  People would prefer to choose how to allocate their income rather than forcing them to allocate a certain percentage to food via food stamps. Also, in the same way that a universal basic income removes a layer of bureaucratic overhead, having universal healthcare also removes the burden of middlepeople handling insurance claims.
- alex_smart 5y ago
  How do you suppose basic income can work in countries like India that don't have the resources that are available to a first world country? Even 2 dollars a day of basic income would complete exhaust the government budget.
  - MrsPeaches 5y ago
    India does have something akin to basic income for rural households. Fair, it's not just free money but it is a guarantee of at least 100 days of work a year. https://www.uclg-cisdp.org/en/observatory/mahatma-gandhi-national-rural-employment-guarantee-act https://www.uclg-cisdp.org/en/observatory/mahatma-gandhi-nat...

pc86 5y ago

This is an argument for a lot of things - progressive support structures, a robust social safety net run by people who know what they're doing as opposed of bureaucrats, maybe even against full-time employment earning you less than food stamp levels of income. But even as a supporter of UBI I don't see how this is an argument for that unless you ignore 5 or 6 other, simpler fixes.

DoreenMichele 5y ago

I'm not pro UBI. But I did jot down a half baked thought not hugely long ago that we ought to dramatically reduce the barriers to food stamps for any and all Americans who want them.

tomjen3 5y ago

That is an argument for having a support system with a curve that is an always and anywhere differentiable, so that we don't get perverse cases like your niece (hope she is doing better now, btw).

MisterBastahrd 5y ago

You probably don't know the half of it. One of the things about public services in the US is that they are punitive in nature. They are designed to make you feel terrible about yourself and give you as big a hassle as possible. If you're a low wage employee, you might need food stamps, cash assistance, housing assistance, child care assistance, and medical assistance. Every single one of those is a different government agency with a 9-5 schedule that doesn't do weekends or federal holidays. Did your day care for your 2 kids forget to give you a form to fill out? Well then, when your child care has lapsed, have fun waiting 3-6 months for slots to open up. No, we don't care that you have a job which is why they're in daycare to begin with. Have fun with our antiquated automated service in which you wait 2 hours to talk to someone for 5 minutes in order to get a code to call back every week to check on the status of your case. Rinse and repeat that for every state agency and program. Keeping up with state benefits is a 10 hour a week job if you have kids, and that's if everything is going okay. On top of everything else, one of the reasons poor kids tend to have worse outcomes is because their parents are consistently stressed out from virtually every direction. If it's not the crappy job, it's the social services people. If it isn't the social services people, it's the stress of parenting adults.

jkmcf 5y ago

Your comment prompted me to think basic income should supplement the difference between your salary and some acceptable wage for the locale -- specifically addressing housing, medical, and food. This would encourage people to have a job, even a "bad" one, and hopefully assuage the "free money" detractors. I'm mostly scared they'll try to implement a home run solution, screw it up, and then retard society for the near future.

mdavis6890 5y ago

I think I know exactly the right way to do a UBI, so I created a brief write-up. I'm interested in feedback: https://m-davis.com/blog/?p=43 https://m-davis.com/blog/?p=43