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I don't think UBI is ever the answer and the article hints at that. Giving the low paid workers 'bargaining power' doesn't negate the points OP made. Flooding t

I don't think UBI is ever the answer and the article hints at that. Giving the low paid workers 'bargaining power' doesn't negate the points OP made. Flooding the economy with free money to everyone also doesn't hold up to actual analysis. The US has 300M+ people, even $1000 a month to each person is utterly unrealistic in terms of our GDP. The answer is highly targeted programs that increase general prosperity. Money for cheaper energy, better services, public works, public transportation, more housing and favorable investments in future technologies are what drive prosperity. Make people as a whole less motivated to work is the antithesis of economic prosperity.

lmm 5y ago
Targeted programs don't generally work; they rely on the idea that whoever is doing the targeting can predict the future better than everyone else, which isn't usually true. > Make people as a whole less motivated to work is the antithesis of economic prosperity. Making people as a whole less trapped in dead-end jobs is great for economic prosperity. We know that people are more productive once they have a safety net that lets them take risk, e.g. there's a huge bump in people starting their own businesses - a big economic positive on average, but risky - once they hit the medicaid eligibility age. Or taking the time to retrain and switch careers - again, positive on average, but something a lot of people can't afford or don't dare to take the risk of.
- dbsmith83 5y ago
  > Targeted programs don't generally work; they rely on the idea that whoever is doing the targeting can predict the future better than everyone else, which isn't usually true. What are you saying? That most government programs aren't working? Please share the data.
- RhodoGSA 5y ago
  I don't have to be able to predict the future more than everyone else to vastly expand water reservoir's, increase education, build solar/wind/fission, public works... also, i've seen HN comments do extremely complex calculations about delta V but no one seems to do that math for UBI. what's 300m * $1000 a month? and 1,000 still doesn't cut it in most major cities.
dgoldstein0 5y ago
> The US has 300M+ people, even $1000 a month to each person is utterly unrealistic in terms of our GDP. Except that this isn't how UBI should be implemented. An easy way to do it is to change Federal income taxes. Make $0/year? your tax bill is -$12000. Make $10000? perhaps it's now -$10000. And at some point - probably $40000 or $50000, it's 0, and then after that you pay gradually increasing taxes, the way it currently works. so in other words, you don't have to give this cash to all 300M people. T(Though you do need to account for the fact that having this option available will change people's life choices, if we're going to estimate the funding needed) Probably we'd also need to raise taxes somewhere to fund it - increasing marginal tax rates for higher tax brackets, possibly coupled with some new tax brackets at the upper end, seems like a possible answer.
- yerwhat01010 5y ago
  You just described a "negative income tax", which isn't the same thing as UBI.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > You just described a “negative income tax”, which isn’t the same thing as UBI. A negative income tax is exactly the same thing as a UBI in a system that also has progressive income taxes.
    - nottorp 5y ago
      See the post above about the niece who couldn't take a better paying job because then she wouldn't qualify for food stamps...
      - jlokier 5y ago
        The niece couldn't take the better paying job due to a "cliff" - the abrupt loss of food stamps due to a tiny increase in income. If it was gradual withdrawal rather than a cliff, she could afford to take the job. The UK's Universal Credit is supposed to be gradual and therefore work out to everyone's benefit. But in practice it has few of the good qualities of either UBI or negative taxation. Universal Credit has plenty of nasty cliffs, complicated rules and cruel penalties that push unlucky people deeply into poverty, and it also has an extremely heavy administration cost - every employer must file everyone's individual employment taxes every few weeks online and face heavy fines for getting anything wrong or being a day late.
sunshineforever 5y ago
As a low end worker, I have actually seen this happen from the stimulus checks alone. Many places in my town raises wages because they can't find people to work for pennies anymore.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  Stimulus payments (particularly, the enhanced jobless benefits) are not like UBI, they are essentially means-tested welfare. Like means-tested welfare, you lose them rapidly by gaining outside income, eliminating (or reducing) the benefit of the first big chunk of outside income you gain if you are currently receiving them. That’s exactly the perverse incentive in means-tested welfare that UBI removes, you “lose” benefits only at the rate of marginal taxation, which (especially at the low end) is much slower than the rate at which means-tested welfare programs reduce benefits with additional income, making additional income opportunities more attractive to pursue for UBI recipients than means-tested welfare recipients.
  - cies 5y ago
    This is something I find many UBI opponents do not understand. And you explain it very well. Thanks.
  - jacobr1 5y ago
    Another way to look at it: For a low-wage earner today, the choice is: * Don't work, get $300/week * Work, get $400/week Depending upon circumstances, many find the former option better. But UBI is proposing an option like this: * Don't work, get $300/week * Work, get $280 + $400/week With this kind tradeoff, many more will chose latter option.
marcus_holmes 5y ago
> Make people as a whole less motivated to work is the antithesis of economic prosperity. People don't stop working if you give them basic income. They do stop working two or three jobs to make ends meet. This is good, because it kills people. They do stop doing the shitty underpaid jobs that no-one wants to do if they can possibly avoid it. This is good. Those jobs need to be redesigned because they're shitty. There are many happy garbage removalists out there, or cleaners, or retail clerks. It's not necessarily the nature of the work that makes a job shitty, it's often the incidental bullshit around it that makes it shitty. Making employers as a whole less motivated to keep their employees happy is the antithesis of basic human respect, and needs to be changed. We have to get out of this bullshit Protestant Work Ethic mindset that work is about suffering and that we get paid a salary to compensate for that suffering. Work is what gives our lives meaning. For some of us, that meaning is found in climbing the corporate ladder, others enjoy serving food, others have a sense of satisfaction from their cleaning gig. If the only reason you work is because you're paid to do it, find another line of work. No-one deserves that kind of misery.
- neilwilson 5y ago
  "People don't stop working if you give them basic income." They do, or we wouldn't have any retired people. "Basic income" is just another way of saying "receive a state pension at 18". The alternative is obvious - ensure that everybody can always sell their labour hours at a fixed rate. If you have to give up your hours to earn money, then that is the same as everybody else. There is no longer a differential between the "unemployed rate" and the "employed rate" which eliminates the rate per hour 'dead zone' required to attract people from "doing nothing" to "doing something".
  - marcus_holmes 5y ago
    > They do, or we wouldn't have any retired people. A lot of retired people still work, despite not needing the income. > the rate per hour 'dead zone' required to attract people from "doing nothing" to "doing something". There's this myth again. People don't need to be attracted from "doing nothing". The default state of people isn't sitting around on their porch drinking beer. I mean, don't get me wrong, that's fun for a while, but it's not a long-term occupation. The default state of people is doing useful work that gives their lives meaning. We don't need to be "attracted" to that. That's the default.
hvidgaard 5y ago
It's not supposed to be $1000 to each and everyone just like that. That's be too much for pretty much any government. But imagine that you give $1000 to a person without a job. Then said person gets a job and for every $1 they earn, you subtract $0.5 (or any other fraction that makes sense) from the UBI. When that person earns $2000 they do not get any more UBI. The majority of people with a job is not going to get any UBI, but they have that security should they lose their job. It will also be targeted at the people who earn the least amount of money.
- slavik81 5y ago
  This is the definition of UBI (from Wikipedia): > Universal basic income (UBI), also called unconditional basic income [...] is a sociopolitical financial transfer concept in which all citizens of a given population regularly receive a legally stipulated and equal financial grant paid by the government without a means test. Adding a means test to ensure that only some people receive the income would make it non-universal. You're describing a classic unemployment welfare system, but proponents of UBI argue that a universal income is simpler to administer and creates fewer perverse incentives.
  - balfirevic 5y ago
    People would still pay taxes on income. If the taxes you pay are larger than the UBI amount then you effectively don't receive it any more, even if it's accounted in the way that you receive $1000 UBI and then pay $1000 (or $2000 or $5000) in taxes.
barrkel 5y ago
In pretty much every developed economy, the government spends between 30% and 50% of GDP. The US economy is $21 trillion. $1000 per month for 300 M people is $3.6 trillion, or about 17%. It's within the realm of a political choice. And of course the US doesn't actually have 300 M people over 18, 20% are under 16.
- jacobr1 5y ago
  And also consider, that UBI would be clawed back via taxes for the majority of the population. And consider that social security is already accounted in the current spending. The number is feasible for the US, though it would be one of the larger spending programs ever conceived. But not impossible.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > And consider that social security is already accounted in the current spending. Social security is not means-tested welfare.
    - jacobr1 5y ago
      I presume that if we had a UBI, then we wouldn't also have social security (or social security would be a smaller layer on top of SS). If that is the case, then my point was that we can ignore the individuals currently receiving SS when accounting for the net additional costs of UBI.
      - dragonwriter 5y ago
        > I presume that if we had a UBI, then we wouldn't also have social security Why do you presume that? Its common for UBI advocates to advocate it (at least as it matures) replacing means-tested benefits; its a lot less common for them to advocate it replacing other things, including earned benefits.
        jacobr1 5y ago
imtringued 5y ago
UBI isn't a solution to poverty. Anyone who thinks that hasn't understood the underlying problems the "free market" and hence capitalism suffers from. I have come to the realization that a perfectly free market is impossible as human nature and psychology dictates its self destruction. What is needed is a free market without the self destructive behavior. The five biggest candidates: export/import surpluses, excessive cash hoarding, rent seeking and cash inheritance [0]. The solution to these problems can involve a UBI but the UBI is never meant to achieve poverty reduction or provide bargaining power or whatever specific goal UBI proponents have in mind. It is merely a fair distribution mechanism. Think of a speeding ticket whose payment is then used for a UBI. The point isn't that suddenly everyone can afford more things. The point is that a fine is a good punishment for a minor offense but the proceeds should not be used to fund the government lest it starts enforcing the law for the sake of government funding. You can solve these 5 problems with taxation and fines and then redistribute the proceeds to everyone. The benefit will not come from the UBI, it will come from the fact that we cease self destructive behavior. Without the self destructive behavior we will be richer in real terms without engaging in a single hour of work. In other words, UBI is a good idea but not as a replacement for unemployment benefits. [0] Cash represents a debt that society owes to the holder of the cash. Such a thing should never be inherited or held onto for long periods of time. If someone were to decide to spend all their money on stocks or gold and let their children inherit these tangibles, they would be acting in an exemplary manner as property should not be touched. As money represents the future property of others (it is not your property yet), it must not pass on.
- Chris2048 5y ago
  People can trade cash for property, so the "debt that society owes to the holder" is transferrable. As such, why can't people transfer cash to their descendants directly? What's the point of trading it for property, which can then be traded back to cash anyway?

lmm 5y ago

Targeted programs don't generally work; they rely on the idea that whoever is doing the targeting can predict the future better than everyone else, which isn't usually true. > Make people as a whole less motivated to work is the antithesis of economic prosperity. Making people as a whole less trapped in dead-end jobs is great for economic prosperity. We know that people are more productive once they have a safety net that lets them take risk, e.g. there's a huge bump in people starting their own businesses - a big economic positive on average, but risky - once they hit the medicaid eligibility age. Or taking the time to retrain and switch careers - again, positive on average, but something a lot of people can't afford or don't dare to take the risk of.

dbsmith83 5y ago
> Targeted programs don't generally work; they rely on the idea that whoever is doing the targeting can predict the future better than everyone else, which isn't usually true. What are you saying? That most government programs aren't working? Please share the data.
RhodoGSA 5y ago
I don't have to be able to predict the future more than everyone else to vastly expand water reservoir's, increase education, build solar/wind/fission, public works... also, i've seen HN comments do extremely complex calculations about delta V but no one seems to do that math for UBI. what's 300m * $1000 a month? and 1,000 still doesn't cut it in most major cities.

dgoldstein0 5y ago

> The US has 300M+ people, even $1000 a month to each person is utterly unrealistic in terms of our GDP. Except that this isn't how UBI should be implemented. An easy way to do it is to change Federal income taxes. Make $0/year? your tax bill is -$12000. Make $10000? perhaps it's now -$10000. And at some point - probably $40000 or $50000, it's 0, and then after that you pay gradually increasing taxes, the way it currently works. so in other words, you don't have to give this cash to all 300M people. T(Though you do need to account for the fact that having this option available will change people's life choices, if we're going to estimate the funding needed) Probably we'd also need to raise taxes somewhere to fund it - increasing marginal tax rates for higher tax brackets, possibly coupled with some new tax brackets at the upper end, seems like a possible answer.

yerwhat01010 5y ago
You just described a "negative income tax", which isn't the same thing as UBI.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > You just described a “negative income tax”, which isn’t the same thing as UBI. A negative income tax is exactly the same thing as a UBI in a system that also has progressive income taxes.
  - nottorp 5y ago
    See the post above about the niece who couldn't take a better paying job because then she wouldn't qualify for food stamps...
    - jlokier 5y ago
      The niece couldn't take the better paying job due to a "cliff" - the abrupt loss of food stamps due to a tiny increase in income. If it was gradual withdrawal rather than a cliff, she could afford to take the job. The UK's Universal Credit is supposed to be gradual and therefore work out to everyone's benefit. But in practice it has few of the good qualities of either UBI or negative taxation. Universal Credit has plenty of nasty cliffs, complicated rules and cruel penalties that push unlucky people deeply into poverty, and it also has an extremely heavy administration cost - every employer must file everyone's individual employment taxes every few weeks online and face heavy fines for getting anything wrong or being a day late.

sunshineforever 5y ago

As a low end worker, I have actually seen this happen from the stimulus checks alone. Many places in my town raises wages because they can't find people to work for pennies anymore.

dragonwriter 5y ago
Stimulus payments (particularly, the enhanced jobless benefits) are not like UBI, they are essentially means-tested welfare. Like means-tested welfare, you lose them rapidly by gaining outside income, eliminating (or reducing) the benefit of the first big chunk of outside income you gain if you are currently receiving them. That’s exactly the perverse incentive in means-tested welfare that UBI removes, you “lose” benefits only at the rate of marginal taxation, which (especially at the low end) is much slower than the rate at which means-tested welfare programs reduce benefits with additional income, making additional income opportunities more attractive to pursue for UBI recipients than means-tested welfare recipients.
- cies 5y ago
  This is something I find many UBI opponents do not understand. And you explain it very well. Thanks.
- jacobr1 5y ago
  Another way to look at it: For a low-wage earner today, the choice is: * Don't work, get $300/week * Work, get $400/week Depending upon circumstances, many find the former option better. But UBI is proposing an option like this: * Don't work, get $300/week * Work, get $280 + $400/week With this kind tradeoff, many more will chose latter option.

marcus_holmes 5y ago

> Make people as a whole less motivated to work is the antithesis of economic prosperity. People don't stop working if you give them basic income. They do stop working two or three jobs to make ends meet. This is good, because it kills people. They do stop doing the shitty underpaid jobs that no-one wants to do if they can possibly avoid it. This is good. Those jobs need to be redesigned because they're shitty. There are many happy garbage removalists out there, or cleaners, or retail clerks. It's not necessarily the nature of the work that makes a job shitty, it's often the incidental bullshit around it that makes it shitty. Making employers as a whole less motivated to keep their employees happy is the antithesis of basic human respect, and needs to be changed. We have to get out of this bullshit Protestant Work Ethic mindset that work is about suffering and that we get paid a salary to compensate for that suffering. Work is what gives our lives meaning. For some of us, that meaning is found in climbing the corporate ladder, others enjoy serving food, others have a sense of satisfaction from their cleaning gig. If the only reason you work is because you're paid to do it, find another line of work. No-one deserves that kind of misery.

neilwilson 5y ago
"People don't stop working if you give them basic income." They do, or we wouldn't have any retired people. "Basic income" is just another way of saying "receive a state pension at 18". The alternative is obvious - ensure that everybody can always sell their labour hours at a fixed rate. If you have to give up your hours to earn money, then that is the same as everybody else. There is no longer a differential between the "unemployed rate" and the "employed rate" which eliminates the rate per hour 'dead zone' required to attract people from "doing nothing" to "doing something".
- marcus_holmes 5y ago
  > They do, or we wouldn't have any retired people. A lot of retired people still work, despite not needing the income. > the rate per hour 'dead zone' required to attract people from "doing nothing" to "doing something". There's this myth again. People don't need to be attracted from "doing nothing". The default state of people isn't sitting around on their porch drinking beer. I mean, don't get me wrong, that's fun for a while, but it's not a long-term occupation. The default state of people is doing useful work that gives their lives meaning. We don't need to be "attracted" to that. That's the default.

hvidgaard 5y ago

It's not supposed to be $1000 to each and everyone just like that. That's be too much for pretty much any government. But imagine that you give $1000 to a person without a job. Then said person gets a job and for every $1 they earn, you subtract $0.5 (or any other fraction that makes sense) from the UBI. When that person earns $2000 they do not get any more UBI. The majority of people with a job is not going to get any UBI, but they have that security should they lose their job. It will also be targeted at the people who earn the least amount of money.

slavik81 5y ago
This is the definition of UBI (from Wikipedia): > Universal basic income (UBI), also called unconditional basic income [...] is a sociopolitical financial transfer concept in which all citizens of a given population regularly receive a legally stipulated and equal financial grant paid by the government without a means test. Adding a means test to ensure that only some people receive the income would make it non-universal. You're describing a classic unemployment welfare system, but proponents of UBI argue that a universal income is simpler to administer and creates fewer perverse incentives.
- balfirevic 5y ago
  People would still pay taxes on income. If the taxes you pay are larger than the UBI amount then you effectively don't receive it any more, even if it's accounted in the way that you receive $1000 UBI and then pay $1000 (or $2000 or $5000) in taxes.

barrkel 5y ago

In pretty much every developed economy, the government spends between 30% and 50% of GDP. The US economy is $21 trillion. $1000 per month for 300 M people is $3.6 trillion, or about 17%. It's within the realm of a political choice. And of course the US doesn't actually have 300 M people over 18, 20% are under 16.

jacobr1 5y ago
And also consider, that UBI would be clawed back via taxes for the majority of the population. And consider that social security is already accounted in the current spending. The number is feasible for the US, though it would be one of the larger spending programs ever conceived. But not impossible.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > And consider that social security is already accounted in the current spending. Social security is not means-tested welfare.
  - jacobr1 5y ago
    I presume that if we had a UBI, then we wouldn't also have social security (or social security would be a smaller layer on top of SS). If that is the case, then my point was that we can ignore the individuals currently receiving SS when accounting for the net additional costs of UBI.
    - dragonwriter 5y ago
      > I presume that if we had a UBI, then we wouldn't also have social security Why do you presume that? Its common for UBI advocates to advocate it (at least as it matures) replacing means-tested benefits; its a lot less common for them to advocate it replacing other things, including earned benefits.
      - jacobr1 5y ago

imtringued 5y ago

UBI isn't a solution to poverty. Anyone who thinks that hasn't understood the underlying problems the "free market" and hence capitalism suffers from. I have come to the realization that a perfectly free market is impossible as human nature and psychology dictates its self destruction. What is needed is a free market without the self destructive behavior. The five biggest candidates: export/import surpluses, excessive cash hoarding, rent seeking and cash inheritance [0]. The solution to these problems can involve a UBI but the UBI is never meant to achieve poverty reduction or provide bargaining power or whatever specific goal UBI proponents have in mind. It is merely a fair distribution mechanism. Think of a speeding ticket whose payment is then used for a UBI. The point isn't that suddenly everyone can afford more things. The point is that a fine is a good punishment for a minor offense but the proceeds should not be used to fund the government lest it starts enforcing the law for the sake of government funding. You can solve these 5 problems with taxation and fines and then redistribute the proceeds to everyone. The benefit will not come from the UBI, it will come from the fact that we cease self destructive behavior. Without the self destructive behavior we will be richer in real terms without engaging in a single hour of work. In other words, UBI is a good idea but not as a replacement for unemployment benefits. [0] Cash represents a debt that society owes to the holder of the cash. Such a thing should never be inherited or held onto for long periods of time. If someone were to decide to spend all their money on stocks or gold and let their children inherit these tangibles, they would be acting in an exemplary manner as property should not be touched. As money represents the future property of others (it is not your property yet), it must not pass on.

Chris2048 5y ago
People can trade cash for property, so the "debt that society owes to the holder" is transferrable. As such, why can't people transfer cash to their descendants directly? What's the point of trading it for property, which can then be traded back to cash anyway?