6 ms·

What is an appropriate level of Basic Income?

54 points by mchusma 12y ago

asdfologist 12y ago
This is obviously wrong. I learned from HN that the poverty line in Silicon Valley is $120K, and your life is an utter failure if you work a 9-5 job.
gte910h 12y ago
12,000 for 316 million people is 3.8 trillion dollars. Total GDP was 16.8 trillion Total federal tax revenue was 2.8 trillion in 2013 This would be an enormous tax increase if it was the only tool used to provide income to people.
- ahomescu1 12y ago
  This assumes that you'd give BI to every citizen. One twist I haven't seen so far in any BI discussion is this: what if you only give BI to those who ask for it (but still with no strings attached)? I wonder how many people would bother. For example, why would Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg put in the effort, however small?
  - enoch_r 12y ago
    Say it takes 12 hours to apply for basic income each year... $1,000 an hour is still an absurdly good rate for all but the highest earners.
    - cheald 12y ago
      And the people earning more than $1000/hour can pay their $30/hour assistant to do it for them.
    - ahomescu1 12y ago
      Sure, but the marginal benefit is almost inexistent. When you have billions (or tens/hundreds of millions), an extra $12k is practically nothing. This makes me think of mail-in rebates for electronics, at a different scale. It's also weird to me to see an engineer making over $100k/yr to buy a hard-drive or GPU with a mail-in rebate, then put in the effort to send in the coupon to get that extra $10 back (I've done it myself, but I don't earn that much). To someone making >$6-8k/month, $10 is peanuts. That's also how I see this $12k for billionaires.
      - dllthomas 12y ago
        There aren't enough billionaires for this to translate into meaningful savings, if it's mostly billionaires who don't bother.
  - sp332 12y ago
    In general, I would expect rich people to sign up for it. Two reasons: First, they didn't get to be rich by passing up opportunities. Second, they hire people who work full-time to maximize their money, and those people will sign them up for this.
  - jjdro 12y ago
    so the top 10 percent or so that cant be troubled to pick up 12k laying on the ground would reduce it to 2.3 trillion? How about something worthwile and make the tax rate on income over 2 million (out of the air) to 90 percent like it was post WWII and use that to help pay for it.
    - ahomescu1 12y ago
      > so the top 10 percent or so that cant be troubled to pick up 12k laying on the ground would reduce it to 2.3 trillion? I don't know, that's what I was asking.
- rayiner 12y ago
  Most people would get most of their tax back, though, in the basic income payment. Break even would be like $68k.
  - marknutter 12y ago
    That raises the question - why bother taking those people's money in the first place?
    - sliverstorm 12y ago
      the argument is because that translates to tax credits, which basically means the exact system we have right now that everybody wants to scrap. So clearly we can't do that.
    - gte910h 12y ago
      One time a year payments (tax returns) have a different spending pattern than many times a year payments (welfare programs, and pension programs). The second pattern is the one that sustains people at the bottom edge of wealth. The former is what causes extra consumption. Additionally, poor people live in areas with literally no banks. Both of those alone justify a monthly payment method.
    - dllthomas 12y ago
      Well, you're not taking those people's money in the first place. The justification for including them in both calculations is so that there are no discontinuities in the system where producing a little more of value for others means taking home a lot less in resources for yourself (like many means-tested programs).
- gshubert17 12y ago
  An enormous tax increase only if you figure there would be no compensating decreases in government expenditures. Unemployment benefits (60B$), medicare (600B$), social security (800 B$), welfare benefits (300B$) are just a start. [1] That's just at the federal level; there are a lot of state expenses that would go away as well. And there would be a lot of administrative costs eliminated, and a lot of corporate welfare programs could be cut as well, because everyone would have access to basic income. [1] http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/us_welfare_spending_40.html http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/us_welfare_spending_40.h...
  - nardi 12y ago
    No, enormous tax increase regardless, with a balanced budget. If tax revenues are currently $2.8 trillion, and basic income alone would cost $3.8 trillion, then even if government eliminates all other spending, taxes would still have to increase by $1 trillion in order to only pay for basic income. Edit: The US Government does run a deficit, but it was $680 billion in 2013. A deficit of $1-2 trillion would be new.
    - dllthomas 12y ago
      It's worth noting that increased economic activity would mean collecting more taxes even at the same rates. It's probably nonetheless true that, at the numbers given, there would have to be an enormous increase in tax rates - just trying to keep all the pieces in view.
  - JoshTriplett 12y ago
    > An enormous tax increase only if you figure there would be no compensating decreases in government expenditures. Unemployment benefits (60B$), medicare (600B$), social security (800 B$), welfare benefits (300B$) are just a start. That's one of the more compelling arguments for BI: it's more sensible than the piecemeal programs we have. And don't forget the various tax credits and deductions that could go away, too. If done well, BI could be revenue-neutral or better. But in practice, unless you delete all of those in the same bill that introduces basic income, you're going to find yourself stuck with both the basic income and those welfare programs.
dllthomas 12y ago
Only skimmed this, but as an aside, I think we should not index BI to inflation. A basic income higher than the economy can support seems likely to lead to inflation, and if that's the case then the real value of it will fall to something we can support, which seems a worthwhile safety valve.
- sanxiyn 12y ago
  Assuming this ensures BI not to overshoot the correct value, how do you ensure BI not to undershoot the correct value?
  - dllthomas 12y ago
    I don't have a specific proposal. It would seem less likely to have some sort of "spiral out of control" type risk, though, since we've already got a BI of zero. I should amend my previous statement, though - BI should track targeted inflation, it should not track actual inflation.
- chongli 12y ago
  Just tag the BI to a fraction of GDP; problem solved.
  - dllthomas 12y ago
    An interesting proposal, certainly. Have you carefully thought through the ramifications? (I've not yet, and I'm not hinting at anything, I'm just looking for more thoughts in the space).
    - chongli 12y ago
      I haven't! The exact fraction would have to be carefully researched, of course.
dsr_ 12y ago
$12K/year is equivalent to a 50 week, 40 hour job at $6/hour after taxes. If employment and social security taxes come to 20%, that implies an equivalent minimum wage of about $7.20/hour. The Federal minimum wage is $7.25/hour and is widely considered to be too low.
- waps 12y ago
  The real answer is : it doesn't matter, unless you set it way too high. The economy will adjust until the value of basic income is equivalent to a particular value. Now of course, what could happen is that you set it too high and we get massive inflation and dollar devaluation for a few months/years. The reverse should also be true. Because fitting within basic income will massively expand client base for companies, there might actually be devaluation if it's set too low. I think it's pretty obvious that one cannot choose the level of basic income. You can only do damage by choosing wrong. Given that it's currently zero, if you'd want to do this, start at a very low level (but still high enough to make companies want to provide services at that level), work out the kinks, and increase it over the course of a few years slowly until you see undesirable phenomena, then stop. Ideally, make this a state thing so regional differences can efficiently work.
  - pangram 12y ago
    Ideally you'd want to make it adaptive based on a variety of economic metrics -- set it to a particular level, watch the effects on the economy, and then adjust for the next year.
  - LockeWatts 12y ago
    Ideally, make this a state thing so regional differences can efficiently work. The problem with this strategy is it creates massive disparities between states, as the burden of caring for the poor will be disproportionately shifted to the progressive states providing a basic income, while the conservative states don't need to pay for anything. Furthermore, state governments don't have anywhere near the tax base or cash reserves to implement a basic income. This can only be done on the Federal level. A UBI provides mobility to citizens by not trying their source of food to their location. If a UBI can't support you in San Francisco or New York, you have the ability to move to where it will. There's no need to have this be a state thing, except to screw up the program.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
gnarbarian 12y ago
$0
transfire 12y ago
An important factor has been overlooked in this analysis: synergy. Individuals with low income live with other people. When a group of people all start receiving a BI, their spending power will be more then the simple sum b/c they share and buy in bulk. Therefore the BI does not need to be quite as high as one might otherwise think. I have thought about the appropriate level of BI for years. The best I have been able to determine is that it should be pegged to half the minimum wage, i.e. equivalent to a 20 hour job at minimum wage, which works out to about $600/mo. I believe this strikes the right balance between work incentive and poverty prevention and also lies within the potential budget of the government at approx. $1.5 trillion per year.
- dionidium 12y ago
  Which explains why this bit FTA isn't strange at all: "The 2014 US Poverty line is $11,670/year for an individual, and ~$4,060 for each additional person.3 It is strange to assume that some humans can live off of $11,670 and others can live off of $4,060."
- LockeWatts 12y ago
  An important factor has been overlooked in this analysis: synergy. Individuals with low income live with other people. You make the assumption that they should be required to live with other people. When a group of people all start receiving a BI, their spending power will be more then the simple sum b/c they share and buy in bulk. So do rich couples. This is a non-sensical argument. I'd rather not keep repeating how wrong you are, but suffice to say, nobody lives on $600/month in America. Your number is simply unintelligent.
Mister_Snuggles 12y ago
Canada tried this as an experiment for a few years. While the Wikipedia[0] article is light on information, there are links to meatier sources. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mincome http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mincome
sanxiyn 12y ago
One interesting consequence is that this gives a good way to value US (or any other nation) citizenship. Clearly, US citizenship is extremely valuable, but hard to value because it's not traded in free market. With BI, you can estimate its value as a portfolio with monthly payout of monthly BI. This works even if BI is unused, since BI is supposed to be equivalent of existing welfare programs. If there was any doubt, this also proves equal opportunity does not exist. Just by being born to a particular nation, which is random, you get an extremely large head start.
adharmad 12y ago
A consequence of providing basic income to everyone could be rise in prices of consumer goods. This already happens in the housing market and the education market, where house prices and college fees increase as cheap money comes in the market.
- dllthomas 12y ago
  I think the fact that the money for college and the money for houses can't be used for other things has a huge impact on the dynamics, along with the fact that both housing and college are often purchased (partly) as display of wealth and the fact that both are oversold as investment. Which isn't to say we'd see no change in the price level, but rather that we'd mostly only see that where costs of production actually rise - otherwise, competition will still hold prices down.
  - LockeWatts 12y ago
    How is an education purchased as a display of wealth? Education is the single most efficient way to raise your standard of living compared to that of your parents.
    - dllthomas 12y ago
      There is no question that much education and much housing is purchased for entirely practical reasons, and I'm not asserting otherwise. That is not incompatible with them sometimes serving as displays of wealth - a need for my children to go to the best schools, whatever the cost (of which tuition plays only a part, to be sure).
- sanxiyn 12y ago
  Rise in prices of housing and education is largely due to their investment-like nature. You won't be able to sell food as a great investment to the future.
Chevalier 12y ago
Wouldn't the idea of Basic Jobs be more feasible than Basic Income? HN is populated by people who love their work and would do it for free, given the luxury... but speaking from a legal background, other careers SUCK. Most lawyers I know would happily embrace Basic Income in exchange for sleep, family, and lifetime security. If the alternative to attorney life were picking up trash or scrubbing toilets as part of the Basic Jobs program, the workers who pay for Basic Income/Jobs might be less likely to stop producing wealth in the name of leisure. I say this as a liberal who very much supports the idea of reduced work hours, mandatory vacations, and so on in a European vein... but there has to be middle ground between indolence and workaholism. Particularly when faced with the possible creation of a dependent underclass with little else to do but knock out kids they can't support.
- dllthomas 12y ago
  I don't think it would be better. At the risk of excessive snark... In exchange for your feeling of superiority making the underclasses earn their bread, you're getting political wrangling over what the jobs should be and tremendous misallocation of labor as the jobs aren't the best thing those people can be doing with their time, we take up the time they could be putting into making themselves more fit for more interesting (and more useful and better paying) jobs, and we do nothing to free people to work on projects they're passionate about which may have a harder time capturing value produced (unless a bureaucrat has specifically blessed them).
- ahomescu1 12y ago
  My idea of an alternative would be Basic Land: everyone who is poor/starving can get some free fertile land to work (enough to sustain a family). That way, they can become self-sufficient and live off their own work. There are some extra issues with this, but I think they can be fixed. One would be housing: the land would also have to come with a house, and maybe transportation.
  - gte910h 12y ago
    While farmland is incredibly cheap in the US, small farms are on a boom-bust cycle basically tied to luck and the weather. Modern farming is also very dirty to the surrounding watershed.
sjwright 12y ago
> For reference, the US Poverty Line is $11,670 and the US currently spends an average of $20,610/year per individual below the poverty line to combat poverty. That seems -- on the face of it at least -- to be a remarkable statistic. The citation is: http://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/PA694.pdf http://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/PA694.pdf It notes that a large portion of poverty spending is Medicaid, which is completely unsurprising given the dire state of US health care for the less fortunate.
grondilu 12y ago
Why is this on Hacker News?
joesmo 12y ago
"For reference, the US Poverty Line is $11,670 ... The net result of these problems means that the official US Poverty rate is not really sensible measurement of poverty in the US. ... So implementing Basic Income at this amount [$12,000] would immediately eliminate poverty in the US." This doesn't make sense. The current poverty line is two to three times below what it should be. Implementing a $12k a year basic income would only end poverty in theory based on the current definition and amount which is "not really sensible measurement of poverty in the US." It's impossible to deduce which of the mutually exclusive statements the authors agree with, although it seems to be that that the current US Poverty rate is actually a very accurate measurement of poverty in the US, off by only $330 from what is "not poverty." "We feel there is very little necessary transportation today that is not related to work or entertainment, so is therefore excluded." So this idea is based on the assumption that people on basic income should forget about finding a job in most of America, at least the parts without free or low-cost mass transit (pretty much all of it). Most of these people will never have a chance to work again. What about trips to the doctor or the supermarket. The authors are just completely out of touch with American reality here.

54 points by mchusma 12y ago

This is obviously wrong. I learned from HN that the poverty line in Silicon Valley is $120K, and your life is an utter failure if you work a 9-5 job.

gte910h 12y ago

12,000 for 316 million people is 3.8 trillion dollars. Total GDP was 16.8 trillion Total federal tax revenue was 2.8 trillion in 2013 This would be an enormous tax increase if it was the only tool used to provide income to people.

ahomescu1 12y ago
This assumes that you'd give BI to every citizen. One twist I haven't seen so far in any BI discussion is this: what if you only give BI to those who ask for it (but still with no strings attached)? I wonder how many people would bother. For example, why would Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg put in the effort, however small?
- enoch_r 12y ago
  Say it takes 12 hours to apply for basic income each year... $1,000 an hour is still an absurdly good rate for all but the highest earners.
  - cheald 12y ago
    And the people earning more than $1000/hour can pay their $30/hour assistant to do it for them.
  - ahomescu1 12y ago
    Sure, but the marginal benefit is almost inexistent. When you have billions (or tens/hundreds of millions), an extra $12k is practically nothing. This makes me think of mail-in rebates for electronics, at a different scale. It's also weird to me to see an engineer making over $100k/yr to buy a hard-drive or GPU with a mail-in rebate, then put in the effort to send in the coupon to get that extra $10 back (I've done it myself, but I don't earn that much). To someone making >$6-8k/month, $10 is peanuts. That's also how I see this $12k for billionaires.
    - dllthomas 12y ago
      There aren't enough billionaires for this to translate into meaningful savings, if it's mostly billionaires who don't bother.
- sp332 12y ago
  In general, I would expect rich people to sign up for it. Two reasons: First, they didn't get to be rich by passing up opportunities. Second, they hire people who work full-time to maximize their money, and those people will sign them up for this.
- jjdro 12y ago
  so the top 10 percent or so that cant be troubled to pick up 12k laying on the ground would reduce it to 2.3 trillion? How about something worthwile and make the tax rate on income over 2 million (out of the air) to 90 percent like it was post WWII and use that to help pay for it.
  - ahomescu1 12y ago
    > so the top 10 percent or so that cant be troubled to pick up 12k laying on the ground would reduce it to 2.3 trillion? I don't know, that's what I was asking.
rayiner 12y ago
Most people would get most of their tax back, though, in the basic income payment. Break even would be like $68k.
- marknutter 12y ago
  That raises the question - why bother taking those people's money in the first place?
  - sliverstorm 12y ago
    the argument is because that translates to tax credits, which basically means the exact system we have right now that everybody wants to scrap. So clearly we can't do that.
  - gte910h 12y ago
    One time a year payments (tax returns) have a different spending pattern than many times a year payments (welfare programs, and pension programs). The second pattern is the one that sustains people at the bottom edge of wealth. The former is what causes extra consumption. Additionally, poor people live in areas with literally no banks. Both of those alone justify a monthly payment method.
  - dllthomas 12y ago
    Well, you're not taking those people's money in the first place. The justification for including them in both calculations is so that there are no discontinuities in the system where producing a little more of value for others means taking home a lot less in resources for yourself (like many means-tested programs).
gshubert17 12y ago
An enormous tax increase only if you figure there would be no compensating decreases in government expenditures. Unemployment benefits (60B$), medicare (600B$), social security (800 B$), welfare benefits (300B$) are just a start. [1] That's just at the federal level; there are a lot of state expenses that would go away as well. And there would be a lot of administrative costs eliminated, and a lot of corporate welfare programs could be cut as well, because everyone would have access to basic income. [1] http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/us_welfare_spending_40.html http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/us_welfare_spending_40.h...
- nardi 12y ago
  No, enormous tax increase regardless, with a balanced budget. If tax revenues are currently $2.8 trillion, and basic income alone would cost $3.8 trillion, then even if government eliminates all other spending, taxes would still have to increase by $1 trillion in order to only pay for basic income. Edit: The US Government does run a deficit, but it was $680 billion in 2013. A deficit of $1-2 trillion would be new.
  - dllthomas 12y ago
    It's worth noting that increased economic activity would mean collecting more taxes even at the same rates. It's probably nonetheless true that, at the numbers given, there would have to be an enormous increase in tax rates - just trying to keep all the pieces in view.
- JoshTriplett 12y ago
  > An enormous tax increase only if you figure there would be no compensating decreases in government expenditures. Unemployment benefits (60B$), medicare (600B$), social security (800 B$), welfare benefits (300B$) are just a start. That's one of the more compelling arguments for BI: it's more sensible than the piecemeal programs we have. And don't forget the various tax credits and deductions that could go away, too. If done well, BI could be revenue-neutral or better. But in practice, unless you delete all of those in the same bill that introduces basic income, you're going to find yourself stuck with both the basic income and those welfare programs.

dllthomas 12y ago

Only skimmed this, but as an aside, I think we should not index BI to inflation. A basic income higher than the economy can support seems likely to lead to inflation, and if that's the case then the real value of it will fall to something we can support, which seems a worthwhile safety valve.

sanxiyn 12y ago
Assuming this ensures BI not to overshoot the correct value, how do you ensure BI not to undershoot the correct value?
- dllthomas 12y ago
  I don't have a specific proposal. It would seem less likely to have some sort of "spiral out of control" type risk, though, since we've already got a BI of zero. I should amend my previous statement, though - BI should track targeted inflation, it should not track actual inflation.
chongli 12y ago
Just tag the BI to a fraction of GDP; problem solved.
- dllthomas 12y ago
  An interesting proposal, certainly. Have you carefully thought through the ramifications? (I've not yet, and I'm not hinting at anything, I'm just looking for more thoughts in the space).
  - chongli 12y ago
    I haven't! The exact fraction would have to be carefully researched, of course.

dsr_ 12y ago

$12K/year is equivalent to a 50 week, 40 hour job at $6/hour after taxes. If employment and social security taxes come to 20%, that implies an equivalent minimum wage of about $7.20/hour. The Federal minimum wage is $7.25/hour and is widely considered to be too low.

waps 12y ago
The real answer is : it doesn't matter, unless you set it way too high. The economy will adjust until the value of basic income is equivalent to a particular value. Now of course, what could happen is that you set it too high and we get massive inflation and dollar devaluation for a few months/years. The reverse should also be true. Because fitting within basic income will massively expand client base for companies, there might actually be devaluation if it's set too low. I think it's pretty obvious that one cannot choose the level of basic income. You can only do damage by choosing wrong. Given that it's currently zero, if you'd want to do this, start at a very low level (but still high enough to make companies want to provide services at that level), work out the kinks, and increase it over the course of a few years slowly until you see undesirable phenomena, then stop. Ideally, make this a state thing so regional differences can efficiently work.
- pangram 12y ago
  Ideally you'd want to make it adaptive based on a variety of economic metrics -- set it to a particular level, watch the effects on the economy, and then adjust for the next year.
- LockeWatts 12y ago
  Ideally, make this a state thing so regional differences can efficiently work. The problem with this strategy is it creates massive disparities between states, as the burden of caring for the poor will be disproportionately shifted to the progressive states providing a basic income, while the conservative states don't need to pay for anything. Furthermore, state governments don't have anywhere near the tax base or cash reserves to implement a basic income. This can only be done on the Federal level. A UBI provides mobility to citizens by not trying their source of food to their location. If a UBI can't support you in San Francisco or New York, you have the ability to move to where it will. There's no need to have this be a state thing, except to screw up the program.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

gnarbarian 12y ago

transfire 12y ago

An important factor has been overlooked in this analysis: synergy. Individuals with low income live with other people. When a group of people all start receiving a BI, their spending power will be more then the simple sum b/c they share and buy in bulk. Therefore the BI does not need to be quite as high as one might otherwise think. I have thought about the appropriate level of BI for years. The best I have been able to determine is that it should be pegged to half the minimum wage, i.e. equivalent to a 20 hour job at minimum wage, which works out to about $600/mo. I believe this strikes the right balance between work incentive and poverty prevention and also lies within the potential budget of the government at approx. $1.5 trillion per year.

dionidium 12y ago
Which explains why this bit FTA isn't strange at all: "The 2014 US Poverty line is $11,670/year for an individual, and ~$4,060 for each additional person.3 It is strange to assume that some humans can live off of $11,670 and others can live off of $4,060."
LockeWatts 12y ago
An important factor has been overlooked in this analysis: synergy. Individuals with low income live with other people. You make the assumption that they should be required to live with other people. When a group of people all start receiving a BI, their spending power will be more then the simple sum b/c they share and buy in bulk. So do rich couples. This is a non-sensical argument. I'd rather not keep repeating how wrong you are, but suffice to say, nobody lives on $600/month in America. Your number is simply unintelligent.

Mister_Snuggles 12y ago

Canada tried this as an experiment for a few years. While the Wikipedia[0] article is light on information, there are links to meatier sources. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mincome http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mincome

sanxiyn 12y ago

One interesting consequence is that this gives a good way to value US (or any other nation) citizenship. Clearly, US citizenship is extremely valuable, but hard to value because it's not traded in free market. With BI, you can estimate its value as a portfolio with monthly payout of monthly BI. This works even if BI is unused, since BI is supposed to be equivalent of existing welfare programs. If there was any doubt, this also proves equal opportunity does not exist. Just by being born to a particular nation, which is random, you get an extremely large head start.

adharmad 12y ago

A consequence of providing basic income to everyone could be rise in prices of consumer goods. This already happens in the housing market and the education market, where house prices and college fees increase as cheap money comes in the market.

dllthomas 12y ago
I think the fact that the money for college and the money for houses can't be used for other things has a huge impact on the dynamics, along with the fact that both housing and college are often purchased (partly) as display of wealth and the fact that both are oversold as investment. Which isn't to say we'd see no change in the price level, but rather that we'd mostly only see that where costs of production actually rise - otherwise, competition will still hold prices down.
- LockeWatts 12y ago
  How is an education purchased as a display of wealth? Education is the single most efficient way to raise your standard of living compared to that of your parents.
  - dllthomas 12y ago
    There is no question that much education and much housing is purchased for entirely practical reasons, and I'm not asserting otherwise. That is not incompatible with them sometimes serving as displays of wealth - a need for my children to go to the best schools, whatever the cost (of which tuition plays only a part, to be sure).
sanxiyn 12y ago
Rise in prices of housing and education is largely due to their investment-like nature. You won't be able to sell food as a great investment to the future.

Chevalier 12y ago

Wouldn't the idea of Basic Jobs be more feasible than Basic Income? HN is populated by people who love their work and would do it for free, given the luxury... but speaking from a legal background, other careers SUCK. Most lawyers I know would happily embrace Basic Income in exchange for sleep, family, and lifetime security. If the alternative to attorney life were picking up trash or scrubbing toilets as part of the Basic Jobs program, the workers who pay for Basic Income/Jobs might be less likely to stop producing wealth in the name of leisure. I say this as a liberal who very much supports the idea of reduced work hours, mandatory vacations, and so on in a European vein... but there has to be middle ground between indolence and workaholism. Particularly when faced with the possible creation of a dependent underclass with little else to do but knock out kids they can't support.

dllthomas 12y ago
I don't think it would be better. At the risk of excessive snark... In exchange for your feeling of superiority making the underclasses earn their bread, you're getting political wrangling over what the jobs should be and tremendous misallocation of labor as the jobs aren't the best thing those people can be doing with their time, we take up the time they could be putting into making themselves more fit for more interesting (and more useful and better paying) jobs, and we do nothing to free people to work on projects they're passionate about which may have a harder time capturing value produced (unless a bureaucrat has specifically blessed them).
ahomescu1 12y ago
My idea of an alternative would be Basic Land: everyone who is poor/starving can get some free fertile land to work (enough to sustain a family). That way, they can become self-sufficient and live off their own work. There are some extra issues with this, but I think they can be fixed. One would be housing: the land would also have to come with a house, and maybe transportation.
- gte910h 12y ago
  While farmland is incredibly cheap in the US, small farms are on a boom-bust cycle basically tied to luck and the weather. Modern farming is also very dirty to the surrounding watershed.

sjwright 12y ago

> For reference, the US Poverty Line is $11,670 and the US currently spends an average of $20,610/year per individual below the poverty line to combat poverty. That seems -- on the face of it at least -- to be a remarkable statistic. The citation is: http://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/PA694.pdf http://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/PA694.pdf It notes that a large portion of poverty spending is Medicaid, which is completely unsurprising given the dire state of US health care for the less fortunate.

grondilu 12y ago

Why is this on Hacker News?

joesmo 12y ago

"For reference, the US Poverty Line is $11,670 ... The net result of these problems means that the official US Poverty rate is not really sensible measurement of poverty in the US. ... So implementing Basic Income at this amount [$12,000] would immediately eliminate poverty in the US." This doesn't make sense. The current poverty line is two to three times below what it should be. Implementing a $12k a year basic income would only end poverty in theory based on the current definition and amount which is "not really sensible measurement of poverty in the US." It's impossible to deduce which of the mutually exclusive statements the authors agree with, although it seems to be that that the current US Poverty rate is actually a very accurate measurement of poverty in the US, off by only $330 from what is "not poverty." "We feel there is very little necessary transportation today that is not related to work or entertainment, so is therefore excluded." So this idea is based on the assumption that people on basic income should forget about finding a job in most of America, at least the parts without free or low-cost mass transit (pretty much all of it). Most of these people will never have a chance to work again. What about trips to the doctor or the supermarket. The authors are just completely out of touch with American reality here.