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If somebody wants to work, shouldn't we make it possible for them? The point of a basic income is that it allows people to work. Because it's unconditional (at
by scarmig 13y ago
If somebody wants to work, shouldn't we make it possible for them?
The point of a basic income is that it allows people to work. Because it's unconditional (at least in the variant I support), there are no marginal disincentive effects.
If you want to call having people dig holes and fill them back in "work," okay, fine. But at that point I don't see why we shouldn't just call simply living a job and call it a day, because at least that way people can focus on valuable economic tasks that a government can't necessarily see or effectively plan.
And it's harder to attack because it is universal and unconditional. Compare foodstamps and Medicaid to a program that's available to all income classes, such as, say, Medicare or Social Security. One class is constantly attacked, while attacking the other ends political careers.
- yummyfajitas 13y agoBecause it's unconditional (at least in the variant I support), there are no marginal disincentive effects. If you believe in diminishing marginal utility, there certainly are. Compare foodstamps and Medicaid to a program that's available to all income classes, such as, say, Medicare or Social Security. These programs are not universal - no one under 65 receives them. Those programs are popular because the beneficiaries of redistribution vote for them at high rates, while the people being redistributed from vote at lower rates. It's nothing but a standard "pay some people to vote for us" scheme.
- ZeroGravitas 13y agoIsn't the point that many unemployment benefits actually penalize people for taking a job? i.e. it's the difference between the marginal utility falling towards 0 as you earn/receive more money and the the utility being below 0 as you are punished for working by having welfare equal to more than you have earned taken away.
- yummyfajitas 13y agoIt's not actually that bad. Your consumption is basically flat as you go from $0k/year to $20k/year earned income. http://www.chrisstucchio.com/blog/2011/why_the_poor_dont_work.html http://www.chrisstucchio.com/blog/2011/why_the_poor_dont_wor...
- ZeroGravitas 13y agoI don't have a strong disagreement with his overall point, but think there's some strange data leading to those values. The families (average 1.7 people) earning less than $5,000 per year, seem to better educated, "whiter" and have more cars and homes than you might expect when compared with other earning levels. One possibility is that these data are skewed by small business owners that made a loss that year. Together those who earn less than 5K actually have an average income of -2,500 and list average self-employment income at -8,000 dollars.
- yummyfajitas 13y agoInteresting. If true, this would skew the numbers I cite and basically every other poverty number out there.
- nhaehnle 13y ago> If you want to call having people dig holes and fill them back in "work," okay, fine. Well, it is work, but it's not what I want people to do. Why on earth would you assume that that is what I want? Whatever happened to giving the benefit of the doubt, and perhaps showing some curiosity as to what the other person really intends? I have explained that a bit in response to another comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5936103 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5936103