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The problem is that not everybody's costs are the same. A disabled person may have much higher living costs due to needing additional care and special equipment

by jiggy2011 13y ago

The problem is that not everybody's costs are the same. A disabled person may have much higher living costs due to needing additional care and special equipment to help them, they also have less chance of gaining employment in order to increase that income. Also consider costs of living/housing etc. For example an unemployed programmer might be better off staying somewhere like SF where costs are higher because they are more likely to get a job there. The risk would be that you ended up with low cost of living slum areas where the unemployed would congregate , separate from the productive economy.

dllthomas 13y ago
"The risk would be that you ended up with low cost of living slum areas where the unemployed would congregate , separate from the productive economy." But in this case, they would be able to offer each other money for providing each other services. Congregations of people would inherently be able to realize some demand, which is not presently the case (or that demand is filtered through bureaucrats).
- jiggy2011 13y ago
  Maybe, but the same could probably be said about the favelas in Brazil. It probably makes some sense to subsidize people to live in the area where there is currently the most opportunity for them.
  - dllthomas 13y ago
    "Maybe, but the same could probably be said about the favelas in Brazil." I'm not really sure what you are saying here. My understanding of the favelas is that there is a great deal of economic activity going on there, and a lot of people working actively to better their situations. Limited resources coupled with sparse, unequally applied regulation and rule of law leads to some bad situations, but those in the favelas are living in the favelas primarily to have access to the economic activity of the city. Resources go to the favelas only in proportion to the earning power of the residents, which dynamic basic income specifically changes, and it is this change specifically that I am saying is likely to produce better results. It's totally possible you were saying something I'm missing; if so, please clarify. "It probably makes some sense to subsidize people to live in the area where there is currently the most opportunity for them." Physical location matters, but it matters less than it ever has before. Ideally, we want more places with opportunity, not ever higher rents in SF and Manhattan.
jaibot 13y ago
Good points, especially the varying cost-of-living associated with medical conditions. The obvious gets-us-most-of-the-way-there solution is to have those costs covered by a generous healthcare system as a separate matter from guaranteed income. Living in SF is a good, like a car or a degree. All of those things help you get a job, but it should be up to you which of those you choose to invest in. Throwing in cost-of-living adjustments is equivalent to a guaranteed income except that the government requires you to spend $X on housing - it's strictly worse for everyone.
rattray 13y ago
Universal health care is prevalent in Europe and might alleviate the effect of 1). The situation you describe in 2) is the status quo, no? UBI would mean more money for those who've been looking for a job for a long time.
AnthonyMouse 13y ago
>The problem is that not everybody's costs are the same. A disabled person may have much higher living costs due to needing additional care and special equipment to help them, they also have less chance of gaining employment in order to increase that income. This would seem to be the case regardless of the type of government assistance provided. Suppose we provide enough that a disabled person can live a dignified, if spartan, life. Should we deny that same level of support to someone else, who may be more able to contribute to society, just because that person is not disabled? > Also consider costs of living/housing etc. For example an unemployed programmer might be better off staying somewhere like SF where costs are higher because they are more likely to get a job there. That's the reason why the cost of living/housing is higher there. Increasing government subsidies in areas with higher costs cause the costs to increase even more, because recipients of government assistance then have that money with which to pay, increasing demand without increasing supply and therefore raising prices. Meanwhile only the poorest of the poor remain in the lower subsidized areas because they can't afford to live in more desirable areas even with some government assistance, causing those areas to degrade even more. This is the same logic that leads to the mortgage interest tax credit which benefits mortgage lenders much more than homeowners (and screws over renters even more) -- you're subsidizing the sellers of housing and loans more than the buyers because you're increasing the demand rather than the supply. If you want to help the poor live in San Francisco, subsidize the construction of affordable new high density housing and mass transit there, so that the cost goes down rather than up. > The risk would be that you ended up with low cost of living slum areas where the unemployed would congregate, separate from the productive economy. That's what happens already. If anything a basic income can disrupt such behavior, because it allows people living in poorer areas to take better risks, and provides them an increased incentive to seek employment because taking a job doesn't result in the discontinuation of government benefits.
- jiggy2011 13y ago
  The point is more than a disabled person will require a higher subsidy to attain the same standard of living. The differences can be enormous. A non-disabled person can walk or cycle around the city to pick-up groceries whereas a disabled person might need a specially modified vehicle or may require the services of another person. Subsidizing everyone to the same amount as required by the most disabled of people would be unsustainable. I guess by the second point I mean the short term unemployed more than the "poor" per se. Consider a person who has just graduated from a university in SF and wants to remain there while they look for a job in SV. If they can't afford this , they might have to move to a poor area with less opportunity. Optimistically it might produce more opportunities elsewhere if there is an influx of educated people, but pessimistically it might mean that those who are independently wealthy are the only ones who can take the risk of living in SF.

dllthomas 13y ago

"The risk would be that you ended up with low cost of living slum areas where the unemployed would congregate , separate from the productive economy." But in this case, they would be able to offer each other money for providing each other services. Congregations of people would inherently be able to realize some demand, which is not presently the case (or that demand is filtered through bureaucrats).

jiggy2011 13y ago
Maybe, but the same could probably be said about the favelas in Brazil. It probably makes some sense to subsidize people to live in the area where there is currently the most opportunity for them.
- dllthomas 13y ago
  "Maybe, but the same could probably be said about the favelas in Brazil." I'm not really sure what you are saying here. My understanding of the favelas is that there is a great deal of economic activity going on there, and a lot of people working actively to better their situations. Limited resources coupled with sparse, unequally applied regulation and rule of law leads to some bad situations, but those in the favelas are living in the favelas primarily to have access to the economic activity of the city. Resources go to the favelas only in proportion to the earning power of the residents, which dynamic basic income specifically changes, and it is this change specifically that I am saying is likely to produce better results. It's totally possible you were saying something I'm missing; if so, please clarify. "It probably makes some sense to subsidize people to live in the area where there is currently the most opportunity for them." Physical location matters, but it matters less than it ever has before. Ideally, we want more places with opportunity, not ever higher rents in SF and Manhattan.

jaibot 13y ago

Good points, especially the varying cost-of-living associated with medical conditions. The obvious gets-us-most-of-the-way-there solution is to have those costs covered by a generous healthcare system as a separate matter from guaranteed income. Living in SF is a good, like a car or a degree. All of those things help you get a job, but it should be up to you which of those you choose to invest in. Throwing in cost-of-living adjustments is equivalent to a guaranteed income except that the government requires you to spend $X on housing - it's strictly worse for everyone.

rattray 13y ago

Universal health care is prevalent in Europe and might alleviate the effect of 1). The situation you describe in 2) is the status quo, no? UBI would mean more money for those who've been looking for a job for a long time.

AnthonyMouse 13y ago

>The problem is that not everybody's costs are the same. A disabled person may have much higher living costs due to needing additional care and special equipment to help them, they also have less chance of gaining employment in order to increase that income. This would seem to be the case regardless of the type of government assistance provided. Suppose we provide enough that a disabled person can live a dignified, if spartan, life. Should we deny that same level of support to someone else, who may be more able to contribute to society, just because that person is not disabled? > Also consider costs of living/housing etc. For example an unemployed programmer might be better off staying somewhere like SF where costs are higher because they are more likely to get a job there. That's the reason why the cost of living/housing is higher there. Increasing government subsidies in areas with higher costs cause the costs to increase even more, because recipients of government assistance then have that money with which to pay, increasing demand without increasing supply and therefore raising prices. Meanwhile only the poorest of the poor remain in the lower subsidized areas because they can't afford to live in more desirable areas even with some government assistance, causing those areas to degrade even more. This is the same logic that leads to the mortgage interest tax credit which benefits mortgage lenders much more than homeowners (and screws over renters even more) -- you're subsidizing the sellers of housing and loans more than the buyers because you're increasing the demand rather than the supply. If you want to help the poor live in San Francisco, subsidize the construction of affordable new high density housing and mass transit there, so that the cost goes down rather than up. > The risk would be that you ended up with low cost of living slum areas where the unemployed would congregate, separate from the productive economy. That's what happens already. If anything a basic income can disrupt such behavior, because it allows people living in poorer areas to take better risks, and provides them an increased incentive to seek employment because taking a job doesn't result in the discontinuation of government benefits.

jiggy2011 13y ago
The point is more than a disabled person will require a higher subsidy to attain the same standard of living. The differences can be enormous. A non-disabled person can walk or cycle around the city to pick-up groceries whereas a disabled person might need a specially modified vehicle or may require the services of another person. Subsidizing everyone to the same amount as required by the most disabled of people would be unsustainable. I guess by the second point I mean the short term unemployed more than the "poor" per se. Consider a person who has just graduated from a university in SF and wants to remain there while they look for a job in SV. If they can't afford this , they might have to move to a poor area with less opportunity. Optimistically it might produce more opportunities elsewhere if there is an influx of educated people, but pessimistically it might mean that those who are independently wealthy are the only ones who can take the risk of living in SF.