5 ms·

Basic income or a negative income tax would be a better solution. Giving people free homes creates a perverse incentive.

Crake 13y ago
Yeah! Who doesn't love the homeless bum taking up four seats on the subway? We can't let such a valuable part of urban scenery disappear!
- Crito 13y ago
  'nostromo is advocating an alternative solution to homelessness, not advocating that we not address homelessness. The aim of his solution would still be to get people off of the streets. Your sarcasm, and comment in general, are misplaced.
  - Crake 13y ago
    People need to have it at least slightly together mentally to successfully rent a place, even if they have money. It seems like it would be more effective to provide the housing directly, given that inability to do this is part of why they are homeless in the first place (especially true in the case of mentally ill homeless). Many homeless have attributes that make them a turnoff to landlords, so even with a basic income, they might still end up on the streets.
    - Crito 13y ago
      That is a more reasonable response, since it actually addresses the idea. Anyway, there is certainly room for, and a need for, specialized social programs in a basic income scheme. However a major benefit of [basic income|negative income tax] is that they have the potential to prevent homelessness (particularly when coupled with universal healthcare). In theory basic income would greatly reduce the strain on specialized programs; the fewer people who become and stay homeless for long periods of time because of basic income, the fewer people need to be serviced by programs such as Utah's. Basic income treats an underlying cause (income inequality) instead of treating a symptom (people without homes). It may be necessary to stabilize the patient by treating the symptoms in the short term, but that only goes so far.
    - aeturnum 13y ago
      It's true that those same qualities may make them poor fits for this program. I don't know the details, but I'm sure there are rules about the housing (you can't damage it, etc) that may be barriers to some of the target population living in it. Many of the people who would have trouble paying rent every month will also have trouble staying within the rules of state-provided housing.
ams6110 13y ago
But giving people a free income doesn't create a perverse incentive?
- strlen 13y ago
  First, we already have such 'free income' in forms of various welfare programs and SSDI. This creates a whole number of issues, however. The problem to the perverse incentive problem, however, is not to remove the income when they get another source of income (as effectively it ammounts to a 100% tax!) -- while this may prove difficult to pass through any legislature, another approach could be to frame it as a progressive negative income tax. That said, this is a different problem than homelessness: the two causes are usually extremely expensive housing and mental illness rather than lack of work. Mental illness means the jobs aren't stable, but extremely expensive housing means that even if they have a job, they won't be able to have a normal home: I've noticed this pattern a lot in San Jose, there are many cases of people living in their cars, used RVs, using work/gym to shower, and so on... They actually have jobs but are unable to go through a credit check and come up with an initial deposit. This kind of housing solves both problems: the mentally ill have a stable address which makes it easier to follow through with a treatment problem; those who don't earn enough to get a place, can stay long enough to be able to save more, get a better paying job, and/or find roommates.
- Dylan16807 13y ago
  Free income to those without jobs is often arranged as to create perverse incentives. Free income period doesn't provide much in the way of incentives at all. So no it doesn't.
- yummyfajitas 13y ago
  According to this article it does - work is reduced by 13%. https://decorrespondent.nl/541/why-we-should-give-free-money-to-everyone/31639050894-e44e2c00 https://decorrespondent.nl/541/why-we-should-give-free-money... (Unfortunately no primary sources are cited for that claim, which is pretty common for articles on the topic.) A solution with similar benefits but minimal perverse incentives is the Basic Job - if you can't find a job the government will give you an unpleasant one at below minimum wage.
BrandonMarc 13y ago
We already have a negative income tax. The bottom 40% of earners pay -9% in taxes ... meaning, the top 60% pay 109% of taxes (this is entirely independent of other entitlements, welfare, etc ... this is just the income tax money moving to and fro) http://cnsnews.com/news/article/terence-p-jeffrey/cbotop-40-paid-1062-income-taxes-bottom-40-paid-91-got-average-18950 http://cnsnews.com/news/article/terence-p-jeffrey/cbotop-40-...

Crake 13y ago

Yeah! Who doesn't love the homeless bum taking up four seats on the subway? We can't let such a valuable part of urban scenery disappear!

Crito 13y ago
'nostromo is advocating an alternative solution to homelessness, not advocating that we not address homelessness. The aim of his solution would still be to get people off of the streets. Your sarcasm, and comment in general, are misplaced.
- Crake 13y ago
  People need to have it at least slightly together mentally to successfully rent a place, even if they have money. It seems like it would be more effective to provide the housing directly, given that inability to do this is part of why they are homeless in the first place (especially true in the case of mentally ill homeless). Many homeless have attributes that make them a turnoff to landlords, so even with a basic income, they might still end up on the streets.
  - Crito 13y ago
    That is a more reasonable response, since it actually addresses the idea. Anyway, there is certainly room for, and a need for, specialized social programs in a basic income scheme. However a major benefit of [basic income|negative income tax] is that they have the potential to prevent homelessness (particularly when coupled with universal healthcare). In theory basic income would greatly reduce the strain on specialized programs; the fewer people who become and stay homeless for long periods of time because of basic income, the fewer people need to be serviced by programs such as Utah's. Basic income treats an underlying cause (income inequality) instead of treating a symptom (people without homes). It may be necessary to stabilize the patient by treating the symptoms in the short term, but that only goes so far.
  - aeturnum 13y ago
    It's true that those same qualities may make them poor fits for this program. I don't know the details, but I'm sure there are rules about the housing (you can't damage it, etc) that may be barriers to some of the target population living in it. Many of the people who would have trouble paying rent every month will also have trouble staying within the rules of state-provided housing.

ams6110 13y ago

But giving people a free income doesn't create a perverse incentive?

strlen 13y ago
First, we already have such 'free income' in forms of various welfare programs and SSDI. This creates a whole number of issues, however. The problem to the perverse incentive problem, however, is not to remove the income when they get another source of income (as effectively it ammounts to a 100% tax!) -- while this may prove difficult to pass through any legislature, another approach could be to frame it as a progressive negative income tax. That said, this is a different problem than homelessness: the two causes are usually extremely expensive housing and mental illness rather than lack of work. Mental illness means the jobs aren't stable, but extremely expensive housing means that even if they have a job, they won't be able to have a normal home: I've noticed this pattern a lot in San Jose, there are many cases of people living in their cars, used RVs, using work/gym to shower, and so on... They actually have jobs but are unable to go through a credit check and come up with an initial deposit. This kind of housing solves both problems: the mentally ill have a stable address which makes it easier to follow through with a treatment problem; those who don't earn enough to get a place, can stay long enough to be able to save more, get a better paying job, and/or find roommates.
Dylan16807 13y ago
Free income to those without jobs is often arranged as to create perverse incentives. Free income period doesn't provide much in the way of incentives at all. So no it doesn't.
yummyfajitas 13y ago
According to this article it does - work is reduced by 13%. https://decorrespondent.nl/541/why-we-should-give-free-money-to-everyone/31639050894-e44e2c00 https://decorrespondent.nl/541/why-we-should-give-free-money... (Unfortunately no primary sources are cited for that claim, which is pretty common for articles on the topic.) A solution with similar benefits but minimal perverse incentives is the Basic Job - if you can't find a job the government will give you an unpleasant one at below minimum wage.

BrandonMarc 13y ago

We already have a negative income tax. The bottom 40% of earners pay -9% in taxes ... meaning, the top 60% pay 109% of taxes (this is entirely independent of other entitlements, welfare, etc ... this is just the income tax money moving to and fro) http://cnsnews.com/news/article/terence-p-jeffrey/cbotop-40-paid-1062-income-taxes-bottom-40-paid-91-got-average-18950 http://cnsnews.com/news/article/terence-p-jeffrey/cbotop-40-...