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Of course it has poverty traps. I live in the UK, where I get to see how the "workfare" programme creates poverty traps all the time. If you want to get out of

by nkoren 13y ago

Of course it has poverty traps. I live in the UK, where I get to see how the "workfare" programme creates poverty traps all the time. If you want to get out of poverty, a good way to do that is by getting more education and practicing skills that are valuable to employers. A Basic Job often conflicts with that. If you want to get out of poverty, a good way to do that is by taking part-time and piecemeal work to build up your experience. A Basic Job often conflicts with that. A government study of workfare programmes in the UK, Canada, and US[1] concluded that: "There is little evidence that workfare increases the likelihood of finding work. It can even reduce employment chances by limiting the time available for job search and by failing to provide the skills and experience valued by employers." Oftentimes the poor are those who most need to spend time taking care of children or the elderly -- types of work which are tremendously valuable to society despite not being part of the wage labour system. A basic job conflicts with that. Furthermore, Basic Job programmes have vast bureaucratic overhead and are far more expensive to implement than Basic Incomes. What you consistently miss in your argument against Basic Income is that it is something which everybody receives. Most people contribute to it, but all people receive a benefit from it. The "cost" is not the total cost of the programme, but the difference between what you pay and what you receive. 1: http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20130128102031/http://research.dwp.gov.uk/asd/asd5/rports2007-2008/rrep533.pdf http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20130128102031/htt...

yummyfajitas 13y ago
I don't understand - how does a Basic Job prevent you from either going to school or taking part time work? No one is obligated to work a Basic Job. It's just what you do if you are unable to find anything better. Basic Job programmes have vast bureaucratic overhead and are far more expensive to implement than Basic Incomes. Back of the envelope calculation, please. Incidentally, your study merely shows there is very little evidence of anything due to workfare being poorly implemented and rapidly abandoned. For example, NYC had only 2800 people on workfare in 2003. Additionally, it claims that about half of people on workfare don't actually work and merely loaf about the work site (but presumably continue receiving benefits). Obviously a BJ won't work if you turn it into a de-facto BI or welfare system.
- ThomPete 13y ago
  You cant live from a job that the government doesnt already consider worhthy of paying a salary for. It doesnt work and never have. Denmark tried this too it does nothing cause it doesnt solve the basic problem. There is not enough jobs for all of us and will increasingly be so. BI is the best solution we know of and we should try it.
- nkoren 13y ago
  > I don't understand - how does a Basic Job prevent you from either going to school or taking part time work? No one is obligated to work a Basic Job. It's just what you do if you are unable to find anything better. With this comment, it becomes difficult to see how you're arguing in good faith. If your Basic Job tells you to work at a particular time of day -- and classes and/or a part-time job are in the middle of this work schedule -- then they conflict. Sure, you can go to school and/or take the part-time job instead, but then you starve. How is it that you're incapable of understanding that this creates a conflict? > Back of the envelope calculation, please. Okay, using your straw-man scenario, there are 50M people requiring $20k worth of income. That costs $1T upfront (same as if we provided the $20k Basic Income to all 300M people). Now with our Basic Job, we're basically asking people to do work that they don't want to do -- since as you point out, if they're not closely supervised then they won't do the work. So let's assume we need a poorly-paid supervisor for every 12 basic-jobbers, a somewhat better-paid line manager for every 20 supervisors, a somewhat well-paid district manager for every 50 line managers, and an actually well-paid regional manager for every 100 district supervisors. Furthermore, lets assume that all these jobs come from the ranks of the currently-unemployed, so that they're not pure overhead but are providing support in and of themselves. Job description $/year No. of people Total cost Basic Jobber 20k 45,973,453 919.5B Supervisor 30k 3,831,121 114.9B Line Manager 40k 191,556 7.7B District Manager 60k 3,831 0.2B Regional Manager 100k 383 - ...This would be an overhead of about 4.2%, compared to the effectively zero overhead which a Basic Income requires (all you need for BI is one-time-only verification of citizenship, and careful monitoring of when people die so that the payments stop. You don't need to employ millions of people to do that). So this would cost roughly $420M more than an equivalent Basic Income program, while simultaneously preventing 50M people from doing something more useful with their lives.

by nkoren 13y ago

yummyfajitas 13y ago

I don't understand - how does a Basic Job prevent you from either going to school or taking part time work? No one is obligated to work a Basic Job. It's just what you do if you are unable to find anything better. Basic Job programmes have vast bureaucratic overhead and are far more expensive to implement than Basic Incomes. Back of the envelope calculation, please. Incidentally, your study merely shows there is very little evidence of anything due to workfare being poorly implemented and rapidly abandoned. For example, NYC had only 2800 people on workfare in 2003. Additionally, it claims that about half of people on workfare don't actually work and merely loaf about the work site (but presumably continue receiving benefits). Obviously a BJ won't work if you turn it into a de-facto BI or welfare system.

ThomPete 13y ago
You cant live from a job that the government doesnt already consider worhthy of paying a salary for. It doesnt work and never have. Denmark tried this too it does nothing cause it doesnt solve the basic problem. There is not enough jobs for all of us and will increasingly be so. BI is the best solution we know of and we should try it.
nkoren 13y ago
> I don't understand - how does a Basic Job prevent you from either going to school or taking part time work? No one is obligated to work a Basic Job. It's just what you do if you are unable to find anything better. With this comment, it becomes difficult to see how you're arguing in good faith. If your Basic Job tells you to work at a particular time of day -- and classes and/or a part-time job are in the middle of this work schedule -- then they conflict. Sure, you can go to school and/or take the part-time job instead, but then you starve. How is it that you're incapable of understanding that this creates a conflict? > Back of the envelope calculation, please. Okay, using your straw-man scenario, there are 50M people requiring $20k worth of income. That costs $1T upfront (same as if we provided the $20k Basic Income to all 300M people). Now with our Basic Job, we're basically asking people to do work that they don't want to do -- since as you point out, if they're not closely supervised then they won't do the work. So let's assume we need a poorly-paid supervisor for every 12 basic-jobbers, a somewhat better-paid line manager for every 20 supervisors, a somewhat well-paid district manager for every 50 line managers, and an actually well-paid regional manager for every 100 district supervisors. Furthermore, lets assume that all these jobs come from the ranks of the currently-unemployed, so that they're not pure overhead but are providing support in and of themselves. Job description $/year No. of people Total cost Basic Jobber 20k 45,973,453 919.5B Supervisor 30k 3,831,121 114.9B Line Manager 40k 191,556 7.7B District Manager 60k 3,831 0.2B Regional Manager 100k 383 - ...This would be an overhead of about 4.2%, compared to the effectively zero overhead which a Basic Income requires (all you need for BI is one-time-only verification of citizenship, and careful monitoring of when people die so that the payments stop. You don't need to employ millions of people to do that). So this would cost roughly $420M more than an equivalent Basic Income program, while simultaneously preventing 50M people from doing something more useful with their lives.