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The more money you have - the less value a marginal dollar has. I think there would be a massive pressure to raise minimum wage. Why would you work for $7.50
by onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
The more money you have - the less value a marginal dollar has.
I think there would be a massive pressure to raise minimum wage.
Why would you work for $7.50 an hour and pay $1 in taxes - spending the majority of your day to make ~$50 - that doesn't buy much - and you don't have much time to spend it anyway?
When your options are either do that or be homeless and hungry - most people opt for work.
But when you have other options - spending your entire day to make $50 seems dramatically less appealing.
- vanviegen 5y agoYes, but not by raising minimum wage (in fact it would no longer be needed given a high enough UBI to make a living), but because employers would voluntarily raise wages, because they now need to compete against not working. Also, I think many menial jobs could be made a lot more pleasant with only a slight cut in productivity. Hurray for qualify of life!
- bryanlarsen 5y agoUBI might cover your food and rent, but it won't cover much past that. So if you want some beer money or a new videogame or whatever, you'll need to work. And since after UBI every dollar after taxes goes to luxuries, a low income provides a lot more luxuries than it does before UBI, so it's actually a lot more appealing to work -- you see the benefits directly.
- onlyrealcuzzo 5y agoAre you saying you'd be more encouraged to work to buy a video game than to not be homeless? Why wouldn't regular minimum wage workers just be homeless and spend their money on luxuries if this was the case?
- bryanlarsen 5y agoI'm saying that the work wouldn't be so mentally tedious. You're working because you want to be there because the reward is tangible. The difference between working because you have to and because you want to is massive, even if the work is the same.
- Sohcahtoa82 5y agoIf you're homeless, what luxuries are you buying? What use is buying the new video game if you don't have a place to put a TV to play it on?
- recursive 5y agoFor playing on your Nintendo Switch of course.
- Kim_Bruning 5y agoIf you're not stuck in a fight for survival, you have a lot more energy left over for other things, both less and more frivolous (like charity or games)
- buscoquadnary 5y agoWhat if the landlord and food companies just raise the prices now that they know people have at least X dollars a month to spend on rent and food. Then people start advocating for universal housing and universal food.
- tremon 5y agoExactly. You can't determine a baseline UBI amount without knowing the baseline cost of food and rent. And I'm perfectly ok with rent control. Housing is a basic necessity, after all -- at least in humane societies.
- bryanlarsen 5y agoHousing: UBI lets you move somewhere cheap, eliminating the leverage that landlords hold, letting housing prices go down. Food: Foods are commodities, meaning that the price is the marginal cost. The price of a bushel of rice is set by the buyer, not the seller.
- listenallyall 5y agoYou've learned nothing the past two years
- bryanlarsen 5y agoI didn't learn that food prices go up during a global drought because I knew that already.
- listenallyall 5y ago> landlord and food companies just raise the prices Which is exactly what has happened (in the US at least) as people received mini-UBI called "stimulus checks" and their bosses got PPP "loans" (that didn't need to be paid back)
- seanmcdirmid 5y agoThey can only do that if they collude, which is illegal. On the other hand, if food and rent are paid for mostly with UBI money, and supply was more elastic than demand, then prices would surely increase.
- aembleton 5y agoSo why not provide free food and homes? No need for money if it is just intended for these purposes. UBI would be a subsidy to landlords and supermarkets; who would cream off a profit.