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Universal income covering the very basic would still keep people making beyond minimum wage vulnerable. Paying meaningful money would be too expensive at scale

by mantas 3y ago

Universal income covering the very basic would still keep people making beyond minimum wage vulnerable. Paying meaningful money would be too expensive at scale. Then few jobs could pay meaningfully more than the universal income. Why work if you get +/- not working?

jupp0r 3y ago
Your understanding of universal income is broken. Everybody receives a monthly income, regardless of them working or not. The incentive to earn more by working is always there.
- SoftTalker 3y ago
  Not if employers are taxed so much to fund UBI that they hire fewer workers. The ability to work and earn more is contingent upon enough jobs existing. What would really happen is they would raise their prices to earn the amount of profit they deem necessary to be worth the trouble of being in business. Everything gets more expensive, and the UBI payments won't be enough to live on.
- mantas 3y ago
  People would still pay taxes ;) UBI is essentially a negative tax. If you make nothing - you get some money. If you make some - there's a breaking point somewhere where you pay more taxes than is UBI. If UBI was a cushy amount covering more than the bare basics, low-tier jobs would pay a very small premium over pure UBI.
candiddevmike 3y ago
Why work now at minimum wage if it won't get you out of poverty?
- clnq 3y ago
  UBI will just cause inflation so that you have to work to afford things again. No company will forgo an opportunity to raise prices when they can. Fiduciary responsibility to corporate boards has always been more important than morals or ethics. And easier to get sued over. So boards will demand growth, as they do, and that will include raising prices where people can afford it. Poverty will still be there, it will just cost more (nominally) to get out of it. The question you pose will remain with UBI, as will poverty. It might just get more extreme for anyone who gets disqualified from UBI for some reason (undocumented, etc). This problem has not been solved for UBI nor seen in small-scale trials. But there isn't a single rich country or region in the world where the retail prices have not adjusted to consumers' spending power.
- mantas 3y ago
  And people don't work at minimum wage if welfare is close enough to it. In my country it is rather popular to sit on welfare in countryside. Grow few berries to sell in local market for cash. Maybe help neighbour in a farm or construction for cash. At the end of the day you may stash more than minimum wage working few days a month.

by mantas 3y ago

jupp0r 3y ago

Your understanding of universal income is broken. Everybody receives a monthly income, regardless of them working or not. The incentive to earn more by working is always there.

SoftTalker 3y ago
Not if employers are taxed so much to fund UBI that they hire fewer workers. The ability to work and earn more is contingent upon enough jobs existing. What would really happen is they would raise their prices to earn the amount of profit they deem necessary to be worth the trouble of being in business. Everything gets more expensive, and the UBI payments won't be enough to live on.
mantas 3y ago
People would still pay taxes ;) UBI is essentially a negative tax. If you make nothing - you get some money. If you make some - there's a breaking point somewhere where you pay more taxes than is UBI. If UBI was a cushy amount covering more than the bare basics, low-tier jobs would pay a very small premium over pure UBI.

candiddevmike 3y ago

Why work now at minimum wage if it won't get you out of poverty?

clnq 3y ago
UBI will just cause inflation so that you have to work to afford things again. No company will forgo an opportunity to raise prices when they can. Fiduciary responsibility to corporate boards has always been more important than morals or ethics. And easier to get sued over. So boards will demand growth, as they do, and that will include raising prices where people can afford it. Poverty will still be there, it will just cost more (nominally) to get out of it. The question you pose will remain with UBI, as will poverty. It might just get more extreme for anyone who gets disqualified from UBI for some reason (undocumented, etc). This problem has not been solved for UBI nor seen in small-scale trials. But there isn't a single rich country or region in the world where the retail prices have not adjusted to consumers' spending power.
mantas 3y ago
And people don't work at minimum wage if welfare is close enough to it. In my country it is rather popular to sit on welfare in countryside. Grow few berries to sell in local market for cash. Maybe help neighbour in a farm or construction for cash. At the end of the day you may stash more than minimum wage working few days a month.