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"Unemployed Americans are just unwilling to accept those jobs at a price low enough that people are willing to pay it." The whole point of BIG is that people w

"Unemployed Americans are just unwilling to accept those jobs at a price low enough that people are willing to pay it." The whole point of BIG is that people will begin accepting low-paying or even altruistic jobs once they won't lose social security over it. Everything they earn over BI is premium, why not snatch it?

yummyfajitas 13y ago
Let me emphasize that I'm not arguing for the current welfare system. I'm arguing that replacing it with a Basic Job is superior to both the current system and a Basic Income. Much like a Basic Income, a Basic Job also gives you an incentive to work. No work => no pay. People will accept a $10/hour house cleaning job because it's better than a $7.25/hour Basic Job. In contrast, with a Basic Income, the choice is $7.25/hour equivalent for watching TV, or maybe twice that for working hard. Many people will be happy to live without working. Additionally, society gains the benefit of the public works created by people working the Basic Job. We gain cleaner parks, better infrastructure, etc. (Unless you want to claim that US infrastructure is as good as it could possibly be...)
- guard-of-terra 13y ago
  Basic Job isn't a terrible idea mind you, it's just much more complex and fragile. It would require a lot of political will to constantly prune jobs that do more harm than good, jobs that are degrading and meaningless (think of painting park grass with green paint), have enough jobs so everyone technically have one, and USSR had this Basic Job thing, everybody had a job but nothing got done because you couldn't get fired from one and not get an equal one. So best-performing workers adopted habits of worse-performing ones. Who watches the workers? Does she earn the same $7.25? Another problem is corruption. Easier and prettier Basic Jobs would be lucrative, everybody wanting to have them, and you will have bribes and kickbacks for landing on one. If unwilling to participate in corruption, you will only have a choice of worst ones. Everything can be fixed but it's very hard in total.
  - cheald 13y ago
    It's worth reinforcing the point that a guaranteed job requires effectively zero economic output in order to receive a paycheck. If you are guaranteed a job, and we accept that people seek to maximize their income per unit of work done, then the maximization of that function is to do as little work as possible without losing the job. If you are guaranteed a job, then it effectively means that you can't be economically penalized for doing no work, so the most efficient personal approach is to just collect your paycheck and do no work. The threat of economic penalty for failing to work is an important incentive to actually contribute to economic output. I'm not sure why a basic job would be any better than a basic income since it would encourage people to collect income for no work performed, except that it would do so at risk and expense to the employer (and at damage to the employer's brand and reputation) rather than at expense to the tax paying populace as a whole.
    - yummyfajitas 13y ago
      I don't understand this. Why can't you be guaranteed a job, but you don't get paid if you don't do it? I don't see how paying people who refuse to work is a necessary part of a Basic Job Guarantee. Also, the purpose of this is for the unemployed to clean up and improve public parks, repair potholes and the like. Private employers are under no obligation to hire anyone.
      - guard-of-terra 13y ago
        A lot of unemployed are mentally ill, psychologically unstable or disabled people. How much oversight will you need to get any meaningful output from them? Yeah, they come and try to be useful, but they don't accomplish anything, you fire them, they either go to court or apply to another job they can't do. BIG solves this but Basic Job doesn't in the slightest.
        yummyfajitas 13y ago
        The mentally ill and disabled are simply a different problem. Handing $1200/month in free money to a schizophrenic is not a solution either.
- Jacqued 13y ago
  This seems to me like a disguised return of slave work. In my value system, forcing people to do unfulfilling work to be able to feed themselves is nowhere near a positive. Paying people to stay at home is not ideal, but it's the least terrible, just like democracy is the least terrible form of government we've experienced yet. And, with an education system that works, it contributes to solving the problem over generations. Plus, I don't see what the problem is with people not working, as long as society can support it. I'd rather support poor unemployed people than nearly anything else governments spend their cash on these days.
  - yummyfajitas 13y ago
    You either don't know what slavery is, or you didn't read what I wrote. No one is owned by anyone else. No one is forced to work. I'd rather support poor unemployed people and get new public works than simply support poor unemployed people.
    - rjsw 13y ago
      It may not be slavery but it sounds rather like a reinvention of the workhouse.
- vacri 13y ago
  The infrastructure around ensuring the Basic Jobs were available is not trivial. Finding tasks to do, providing transport, checking that job-takers were actually doing the requirements, managing staff (including things like providing uniforms) - these things are not small items on a grand scale. Basically you're talking about creating a new tier of low-paid public servants.

yummyfajitas 13y ago

Let me emphasize that I'm not arguing for the current welfare system. I'm arguing that replacing it with a Basic Job is superior to both the current system and a Basic Income. Much like a Basic Income, a Basic Job also gives you an incentive to work. No work => no pay. People will accept a $10/hour house cleaning job because it's better than a $7.25/hour Basic Job. In contrast, with a Basic Income, the choice is $7.25/hour equivalent for watching TV, or maybe twice that for working hard. Many people will be happy to live without working. Additionally, society gains the benefit of the public works created by people working the Basic Job. We gain cleaner parks, better infrastructure, etc. (Unless you want to claim that US infrastructure is as good as it could possibly be...)

guard-of-terra 13y ago
Basic Job isn't a terrible idea mind you, it's just much more complex and fragile. It would require a lot of political will to constantly prune jobs that do more harm than good, jobs that are degrading and meaningless (think of painting park grass with green paint), have enough jobs so everyone technically have one, and USSR had this Basic Job thing, everybody had a job but nothing got done because you couldn't get fired from one and not get an equal one. So best-performing workers adopted habits of worse-performing ones. Who watches the workers? Does she earn the same $7.25? Another problem is corruption. Easier and prettier Basic Jobs would be lucrative, everybody wanting to have them, and you will have bribes and kickbacks for landing on one. If unwilling to participate in corruption, you will only have a choice of worst ones. Everything can be fixed but it's very hard in total.
- cheald 13y ago
  It's worth reinforcing the point that a guaranteed job requires effectively zero economic output in order to receive a paycheck. If you are guaranteed a job, and we accept that people seek to maximize their income per unit of work done, then the maximization of that function is to do as little work as possible without losing the job. If you are guaranteed a job, then it effectively means that you can't be economically penalized for doing no work, so the most efficient personal approach is to just collect your paycheck and do no work. The threat of economic penalty for failing to work is an important incentive to actually contribute to economic output. I'm not sure why a basic job would be any better than a basic income since it would encourage people to collect income for no work performed, except that it would do so at risk and expense to the employer (and at damage to the employer's brand and reputation) rather than at expense to the tax paying populace as a whole.
  - yummyfajitas 13y ago
    I don't understand this. Why can't you be guaranteed a job, but you don't get paid if you don't do it? I don't see how paying people who refuse to work is a necessary part of a Basic Job Guarantee. Also, the purpose of this is for the unemployed to clean up and improve public parks, repair potholes and the like. Private employers are under no obligation to hire anyone.
    - guard-of-terra 13y ago
      A lot of unemployed are mentally ill, psychologically unstable or disabled people. How much oversight will you need to get any meaningful output from them? Yeah, they come and try to be useful, but they don't accomplish anything, you fire them, they either go to court or apply to another job they can't do. BIG solves this but Basic Job doesn't in the slightest.
      - yummyfajitas 13y ago
        The mentally ill and disabled are simply a different problem. Handing $1200/month in free money to a schizophrenic is not a solution either.
Jacqued 13y ago
This seems to me like a disguised return of slave work. In my value system, forcing people to do unfulfilling work to be able to feed themselves is nowhere near a positive. Paying people to stay at home is not ideal, but it's the least terrible, just like democracy is the least terrible form of government we've experienced yet. And, with an education system that works, it contributes to solving the problem over generations. Plus, I don't see what the problem is with people not working, as long as society can support it. I'd rather support poor unemployed people than nearly anything else governments spend their cash on these days.
- yummyfajitas 13y ago
  You either don't know what slavery is, or you didn't read what I wrote. No one is owned by anyone else. No one is forced to work. I'd rather support poor unemployed people and get new public works than simply support poor unemployed people.
  - rjsw 13y ago
    It may not be slavery but it sounds rather like a reinvention of the workhouse.
vacri 13y ago
The infrastructure around ensuring the Basic Jobs were available is not trivial. Finding tasks to do, providing transport, checking that job-takers were actually doing the requirements, managing staff (including things like providing uniforms) - these things are not small items on a grand scale. Basically you're talking about creating a new tier of low-paid public servants.