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Activists push for guaranteed minimum income for Canadians

90 points by faraday 12y ago

caruana 12y ago
I continue to see this idea grow in merit. It definitely seems if the trend towards automation continues that governments around the world will have to start providing a minimum income level to all their citizens.
- derptacos 12y ago
  Well something will have to be done - as jobs become increasingly "automated". I'm curious if there will be a large tax increase...
transfire 12y ago
It certainly makes a lot of sense. Just consider the reduction in crime it could bring about. That alone is nearly enough to make it worth it. However, 20k is a bit too high. You don't want to discourage people from working altogether. After considerable thought, I think the equivalent of a part-time job at minimum wage makes the most sense.
- mhurron 12y ago
  > You don't want to discourage people from working altogether. 20k is basically poverty, you are not going to remove any desires at that level. > I think the equivalent of a part-time job at minimum wage makes the most sense. The idea is to make sure that when all else fails, you can still cover the necessities of life, things like eating and a place to sleep. Part-time minimum wage doesn't come close to that.
  - wyager 12y ago
    >Part-time minimum wage doesn't come close to that. Then who do you think is going to do the part-time minimum-wage jobs? No one. They can just get more money for doing nothing. Obviously, employers will start paying a lot more for part-time menial jobs, or go out of business. All of a sudden, Canadians will be asking "Why did everything get so expensive?" and "Why can't teens find jobs these days?"
    - harmegido 12y ago
      Well no, you wouldn't get more money for doing nothing. If you're unemployed with few skills, your options are this: 1) Stay unemployed and live off 20k/yr. 2) Work a min wage job and live off 40k/yr. Many people will choose option 2.
      - dmckeon 12y ago
        Also consider the cost of day care, for families of a single parent, or where both parents work. Plenty of numbers in: http://www.census.gov/prod/2013pubs/p70-135.pdf http://www.census.gov/prod/2013pubs/p70-135.pdf
    - lotharbot 12y ago
      > "who do you think is going to do the part-time minimum-wage jobs?" If "Basic Income" is implemented the way I understand it, the income from a part-time minimum wage job would stack on top of it (minus some amount of tax). The idea isn't that you make more by not working. The idea is that you can live (not very comfortably) without working, and that every bit of work you do marginally improves your income and therefore your comfort level. This makes part-time minimum-wage jobs a reasonable target for people who want slightly more amenities than they can afford at the basic income level.
      - wyager 12y ago
        >If "Basic Income" is implemented the way I understand it, the income from a part-time minimum wage job would stack on top of it (minus some amount of tax). Based on the comments here, I don't think this proposal is for basic income. Rather, if you already make more than 20K, you don't get anything.
  - randomdata 12y ago
    > 20k is basically poverty, you are not going to remove any desires at that level. Your milage may vary. Living in rural Canada, I calculated my expenditures to be under $20,000 last year. I don't feel I'm living in poverty at all (I have a developer's income if I want/need to spend more). My only concern is that $20K would not leave much room to save for the future, but if the income is guaranteed for the rest of your life, perhaps that is less of a concern?
  - jdjdmdo 12y ago
    This is simply wrong. How can you even say that? A family of four would get $80K, which is certainly not poverty level.
    - Spaztazim 12y ago
      Most implementations I've seen children under 18 don't get the full amount. See a lot of $15k adult $3-5k children under 18.
  - ovis 12y ago
    I lived in urban Vancouver on less than that for years. It wasn't pleasant, but food and housing were never a serious problem. Although, if I had had dependents, I would have needed more.
  - cpncrunch 12y ago
    20k is not poverty. I live in a luxury townhouse on Vancouver Island (aka paradise), paying $600/month for half the rent. My total outgoings are probably about $1200/month, so $20k would be more than enough to live on. Yes, you would pay more in Toronto, Calgary, Vancouver or Victoria, but if you're not working then you wouldn't need to live in those expensive cities. I think $15k would be a better figure, as it wouldn't let you live so comfortably and therefore there would still be an incentive to go out and work. McDonalds and Walmart would probably go out of business, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. We would be left with higher end restaurants where people are paid a good salary to work somewhere that they enjoy.
    - jdjdmdo 12y ago
      Wait, we should push the poor to spend at Whole Foods and dine at fine restaurants? How is making them spend a significantly higher percentage of their income on food a good thing again?
      - scott_karana 12y ago
        I think he meant that nobody would choose to work at places like Walmart and McDonalds, when they would be provided the same wage already; not that nobody would eat there. Though, when people aren't having to work dead-end jobs to survive, maybe they could take time to prepare food properly and cheaply instead of buying "convenient" $5 burgers?
      - cpncrunch 12y ago
        Yes, you have a good point. I think the price of everything would probably go up, so you might find that the basic income is suddenly not enough to live on. I think it's impossible to know for sure whether basic income would be financially viable unless you actually implement it.
  - Throwaway0812 12y ago
    20k will go a long way. If you're single, you can spend 1k/mo on an apartment, which will get you a furnished place with television and wifi in a number of Canadian cities, and even downtown in some bigger cities like Montreal. You can toss $100/wk to groceries which will allow you to eat great food, and use the remaining 5k for renting a car when you need it, traveling, going out, etc. If you're a couple, double that, $2k/mo will get you a wonderful place to stay. It'll be difficult to build a savings, or to have a few children, but it'll go a long way, and I think it'll highly discourage people from working after graduating. Now, I don't think everyone needs to work in our society, but that's another can of worms.
  - pbhjpbhj 12y ago
    20k CAD ~= 19k USD ~= 11k GBP ~= 14 EUR If this was per adult in the UK then I'd be getting a substantial income boost over what I'm earning at present.
    - BSousa 12y ago
      11k GBP is close to minimum wage no? May I ask what you do?
    - gnerd 12y ago
      I thought minimum wage was around £12k per year. Are you studying and/or only working part time?
    - DanBC 12y ago
      These are the UK minimum wage rates: https://www.gov.uk/national-minimum-wage-rates https://www.gov.uk/national-minimum-wage-rates 21 and over: £6.31 18 to 20: £5.03 Under 18: £3.72 Apprentice*: £2.68 * This rate is for apprentices aged 16 to 18 and those aged 19 or over who are in their first year. All other apprentices are entitled to the National Minimum Wage for their age. 6.31 * 40 * 52 = £13,124.80 per year - for over 20s. 5.03 * 40 * 52 = £10,462.40 per year - for 18 to 20 year olds. 3.72 * 40 * 52 = £7,737.60 per year - for under 18 year olds. I have no idea when tax credits or income support or housing benefit kick in. But if you're getting less than this you should probably speak to an advisor somewhere to make sure you're getting everything that you're entitled to.
      - pbhjpbhj 12y ago
        Lol, yes, doesn't apply to directors ... it's partly by choice, in that we've chosen a lifestyle that prefers family time over income. My point was more to indicate that it's quite possible to live comfortably on these sorts of incomes (we have a mortgage and run a car, have internet and a mobile phone contract, go out on trips, have holidays [not abroad], can afford occasional takeaways and meals out too, we're not destitute). Thanks for caring enough to give that information though.
- Hilyin 12y ago
  It has to be livable on in order to prevent the crime people are forced to do when they aren't making enough to live on though.
  - bayesianhorse 12y ago
    Is crime in Canada really motivated by basic subsistence? In developing countries, and in the US this is sometimes the case, but even then, there are "honest" opportunities which aren't that much worse.
    - arg01 12y ago
      There are multiple studies and meta studies presenting a link between inequality and crime. So even if it's not for basic subsistence it does appear that raising the lower end of society up could improve the crime rate. Though I admit that's not a comment on the reason for the crime. http://cjr.sagepub.com/content/18/2/182.abstract http://cjr.sagepub.com/content/18/2/182.abstract
- tomkin 12y ago
  I don't think 20k is too high. We're burning more money than that per person just to maintain programs to deal with poverty, homelessness, etc.
  - cpncrunch 12y ago
    But those programs only apply to a small proportion of the population. This would apply to everyone.
    - tomkin 12y ago
      I just assumed the article didn't address that properly. Simply because that number would be astronomical and not practical. It should only apply to those who require it, under a certain threshold.
      - nardi 12y ago
        That's not basic income. Basic income by its definition goes to everyone. That's what makes it an appealing substitute for minimum wage, welfare, etc.
        eru 12y ago
        People usually talk about basic income plus an adjustment in tax and the rest of welfare programs, to make it come out neutral for the average person.
      - tempestn 12y ago
        It has to apply to everyone or it doesn't work. Otherwise you would see a massive effective marginal tax level at whatever point it was cut off. (Even if ramped down, although to a lesser extent.) What could be done instead is that the entire tax structure is altered so that much of the cost of the basic income is spread over the entire middle and upper range of income tax brackets, such that the middle class end up in roughly the same situation they were before the GBI was introduced.
- Scoundreller 12y ago
  "You don't want to discourage people from working altogether." Employers needing employees will have to come up with something better than "come to work or starve" as an incentive. HNers should be familiar with a large number of methods.
trothamel 12y ago
As much as I like the idea of a basic income, it's hard to make the numbers work. Canada has 34,880,000 people in it, so a CAD 20,000 basic income would cost CAD 697,600,000,000. According to http://www.fin.gc.ca/afr-rfa/2013/report-rapport-eng.asp#a3 http://www.fin.gc.ca/afr-rfa/2013/report-rapport-eng.asp#a3, Canada's total government revenue (at the federal level) was CAD 256,600,000,000. So Canada would have to raise taxes by 170% to provide this basic income, and raise them again if they want to provide any of the services they do today. (National Defense, Healthcare, etc.)
- sb23 12y ago
  You're including people who do not need the wage - people who already have a job that pays higher than the $20k would not receive it.
  - ars 12y ago
    Is that the plan? Because that's not what basic income is. What you are describing also exists, but it has a different name (Welfare, Earned income credit, to list two examples).
    - sb23 12y ago
      Well, it seems it'd be impossible to literally pay every person in Canada $20k a year.
    - learc83 12y ago
      It's called Guaranteed Minimum Income, which is what this article was talking about, in contrast to Universal Basic Income.
  - hackerboos 12y ago
    And kids and retirees above the threshold and immigrants who don't qualify and and and... That population number dwindles when all these people are taken into account. Remember Canada has the youngest population in the G8 and could be the best candidate for this type of experiment.
bayesianhorse 12y ago
If an "unconditional basic income" is ever to be successful, it should be tried first in a small, wealthy country, before being implemented in bigger countries. Good candidates might be Switzerland, Norway, Iceland and so on. Big experiments have a tendency to fail catastrophically...
- juliangamble 12y ago
  It looks like the Swiss are giving this some serious consideration: http://themindunleashed.org/2014/03/swiss-pay-basic-income-2500-francs-per-month-every-adult.html http://themindunleashed.org/2014/03/swiss-pay-basic-income-2...
- eru 12y ago
  Don't we have federalism for that?
- throwwit 12y ago
  Gotta read the article... there were already pilot programs.
- grecy 12y ago
  See my other comment, Australia already has it.
  - gnerd 12y ago
    > See my other comment, Australia already has it. No, your other comment just mentioned the dole, which is NOT the same thing at all. Other countries have the dole, in fact, every country listed above in the comment that states they don't have guaranteed basic income, all have wide spread social protections including welfare (and often, quite a bit more wide spread than Australia, whether you see that as a good or a bad thing is up to you). Sometimes definitions vary from place to place, for instance in Australia you have to vote, it isn't a right you choose to exorcize like the world right is used elsewhere, it is a government mandated obligation, well similarly, in other places, welfare is not considered unconditional income, because well, it isn't. There are barriers to qualification and there are certainly strings attached (some places like the UK, the ASBO system coupled with the welfare system is used like a carrot on a stick with a donkey). TLDR: This is not about welfare, that exists even in 3rd world countries (although not always to the same degree) it is about unconditional basic income.
fidotron 12y ago
It's fairly interesting the way this idea, and similar ones, connect some of the more intelligent fringe people from both right and left ends of the spectrum. Famously Friedman's answer to what would be better than minimum wage was a negative income tax bracket, and Nixon, of all people, almost implemented it.
- tempestn 12y ago
  How exactly would a negative tax bracket work? Taken literally, this would mean that up to a certain income level, the government would pay you an amount proportional to how much you make. Presumably what it actually means is that you would be paid inversely proportional to how much you make. At first glance it seems to me that this would have one of the same problems as the current system, which a guaranteed basic income is intended to solve - a high effective marginal tax rate at low (or no) income levels. (Unless the payment actually is positively proportional to earnings, in which case it has the obvious problem that it provides less benefit to those who need it most.) Either way, I'm not clear on how this would be superior to a fixed guaranteed income with adjustments to the current tax rates such that the middle class end up with approximately the same after-tax total income.
  - cdcarter 12y ago
    Negative income tax is just an implementation detail. This idea is not in competition with GMI, it's a restatement of it, showing how it can exist on the far right as well as the far left. Per the reputable wikipedia: "Negative income taxes can implement a basic income or supplement a guaranteed minimum income system. In a negative income tax system, people earning a certain income level would owe no taxes; those earning more than that would pay a proportion of their income above that level; and those below that level would receive a payment of a proportion of their shortfall, which is the amount their income falls below that level."
    - tempestn 12y ago
      OK, that matches what I was thinking. The trick is that to make it equivalent to basic income, the threshold level you describe would be different from the equivalent basic income level. For example, if you take a basic income system with a $20k guaranteed minimum income - if you tried to recreate that with a negative tax bracket and a threshold of $20k, you would need to pay 100% of the shortfall. And even then, you would effectively have a 100% marginal tax rate; until you make $20k there is no financial incentive to work at all. Instead, to get the equivalent of a $20k GBI, you would need to do something like, set a $40k threshold, with a negative tax of 50% of your shortfall. So at 0 income you get $20k. (And at 10k income you get 15k in negative tax, for a total of 25k, etc.) Of course, your marginal tax in that example is still very high at 50%. To make the marginal tax rate low, which is desirable at low income levels, you would either need to set a very high threshold, or more likely, have multiple negative tax brackets at different rates. What I still fail to see is how this is "better" than a standard guaranteed income. It just seems like people will find it much more confusing than providing a fixed amount to everyone and having positive tax brackets as we do already (albeit different ones).
ppereira 12y ago
I once calculated the tax implications of a basic income where everyone received a lump sum paid for by a flat income tax. A basic income at the current welfare rate seemed to be easily achievable. I seem to recall that a 20k basic income was at the upper limit of what would be achievable without an exorbitant income tax rate. Many comments on the web are dismissive of a basic income because they simply multiply the per-person dollar figure by the total population and say that it is way too expensive. One needs to look at the current distribution of income, the existing level of welfare and subsidies, and the progressive income tax schedule to compute how much the basic income is likely to cost. The final pre-tax distribution of income will also change, but that is much more difficult to estimate. This idea dates back to at least Thomas Paine's Agrarian Justice and is supported by many (at least 1/2 a dozen) nobel prize winning economists. A basic income is interesting to study and has many compelling features, but it is complicated enough that it is not possible to easily debate its overall merit via comments on hacker news.
- forrestthewoods 12y ago
  I'd genuinely like to see your numbers because I've not seen a single napkin math calculation that makes is even remotely feasible. (for the United States)
  - eru 12y ago
    In Europe it's entirely feasible, if your whole goal is to more or less keep the same post-tax, post-welfare distribution of income. You just do away with the traditional combination of means tested welfare and means tested taxes, and replace it with means testing for the taxes only. In the US that would also be possible, but the level of basic income you arrive at might be bloody low. I don't know the data. At least, you'd save on bureaucracy.
    - learc83 12y ago
      >In the US that would also be possible, but the level of basic income you arrive at might be bloody low. Why would that be? The US has a significantly higher GDP per capita than every European country except Norway, Luxemburg, and maybe Switzerland (depending on who you ask). If you're talking about limiting it to current social welfare expenditures, the US spends about 20% of GDP on social welfare [1], and many European countries spend close to 30%. But since our GDP per capita is so much higher it should come out fairly close per person. [1] http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/social-issues-migration-health/government-social-spending_20743904-table1 http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/social-issues-migration-health/...
RivieraKid 12y ago
BI is a change of how money is redistributed in society – it would lead to some people becoming poorer and other people becoming equally richer. I'm quite sceptical about BI because I haven't seen any analysis that would answer the question who exactly would get richer / poorer and how much. Unemployed people get money from the government in Canada – will they get more or less after implementation of BI? What about teachers, software developers, bus drivers, lawyers, etc? AFAIK, the main claimed benefits of BI are: – The system would be simpler and cheaper. True, but only negligably. – It removes disincentives to work. I'm not convinced about this, you could argue the opposite is true actually.
- learc83 12y ago
  Guaranteed Minimum Income and Basic Income are 2 different things (this article discusses GMI). GMI means that you will get enough money to bring your income up to X (in this case $20k.) BI means that every citizen gets Y dollars per year unconditionally. GMI is only a net benefit if you make less than X. BI is more complicated because you have to decide at what income level should the BI be income neutral, i.e., how much do you have to make before the BI you're receiving and the extra income taxes you're paying are equal. > I haven't seen any analysis that would answer the question who exactly would get richer / poorer and how much. The reason you haven't heard this is because it's completely up to the implementation details. If for example the government decided that for people making $50k a year the BI should be income neutral, then it would be a net benefit for all people under $50k and a net detriment for everyone over that. >What about teachers, software developers, bus drivers, lawyers, etc? In this hypothetical scenario some teachers, software developers, bus drivers, and lawyers would benefit, and some wouldn't. >It removes disincentives to work. I'm not convinced about this, you could argue the opposite is true actually. This is only true for BI, not GMI. GMI adds a huge disincentive to work for less than (or close to) whatever the guaranteed minimum is set at.
- electromagnetic 12y ago
  It depends on what type of BI is implemented. This is around current minimum wage rates, so it could easily mean doing away with basic disability, welfare, and the government pension. I would say you're naive of the costs if you think the system change would only be negligibly beneficial. There's the distribution costs, the evaluation costs, then there's the investigators to make sure people aren't scamming the system. For every system. You've got disability, welfare, unemployment and pension investigators to make sure everyone is getting what they're supposed to and to make sure no ones scamming the system. You can't scam basic income. It removes disincentives to work, in that without welfare systems there's no disadvantage to work, and there's no advantage to trying to scam the system. It does also do the contrary. It incentivized people not to work, at least for shitty employers. You can't be an assholr to a minimum wage employee when they can leave and still afford rent and food. It also provides income for people to start up businesses (this has been shown in BI trials currently ongoing in India), which when we have high unemployment rates amongst youths I can only see this as beneficial. What's better for society, an 18 year old doing busy work making coffee for people too lazy to make their own or do you want them writing apps, starting lawn care companies, etc.
thatusertwo 12y ago
20k would be great, I could cover my rent and have a few hundred dollars a month left over. Thats not a lot, but its enough to assure I can continue to live an not have to worry about what would happen if my job vanished, or an emergency came up that prevented me or my girlfriend from working.
- Scoundreller 12y ago
  I think that's the beauty of the concept. At the end of the day, most people's lives won't change much. The welfare client will have roughly the same amount of wealth. The middle-class earner will have the same level of wealth. The power comes from: a) Removing the bureaucracy of having both a progressive tax system (you make more, you pay more) and a redundant means tested benefits system (you make more, you get less) b) Having security of the basic needs of life, regardless of what happens.
Scoundreller 12y ago
I think a "guaranteed minimum income" can be re-phrased as "Giving everyone, at no charge, the things they'll be dead without in a week (food, water, shelter), but it's up to you to buy them on the open market". I've never understood why one has to pay for the bare essentials, while piles of other things, like health care, transportation, parks, police, fire, etc. are highly/wholly subsidized through general taxes. We already provide health care at no charge in most nations with reasonable efficiency, leaving one less reason for people to put up with crummy employers and removing the bureaucracy of proving that you need something that you, well, need. I like the idea of extending that path.
- deleted 12y ago
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- logicchains 12y ago
  Many would argue that the government is less efficient at providing various goods. Where I live in Australia, for instance, public schools and hospitals are generally regarded as being inferior to privately run ones. In such circumstances it is more efficient for the government to give poor/unemployed people money to purchase these things on the private market. When the government has a monopoly on providing a service, they face no competition, which reduces their incentive to provide a quality service. Some services however, such as roads, are seen as natural monopolies, meaning even if privately owned they would still be a monopoly. In such cases people look more favourably upon government ownership as a government monopoly is seen as superior to a private monopoly.
  - Scoundreller 12y ago
    Do the private hospitals and schools actually have better outcomes, after controlling for the initially better socioeconomic status of their users? I'm sure if you do a survey, the private organizations come out ahead, but people will recognize and give good ratings to a nicer looking building with prettier people running it, even if the results are poor, as long as they aren't drastically poor. But yes, for many things, giving people cash would be better than directly providing the service. Monopolies, price takers, perfect competition (and I think one other) are well identified in economics, but regulators still allow harmful monopolies left-and-right, while intervening in highly-competitive markets for seemingly no reason.
grecy 12y ago
Australia already has basically this. It's called 'welfare', but anyone that doesn't have a job gets a touch over $1000AUD/mo (so just over $12kUSD/year) for life [1]. It doesn't matter if you've never had a job, or have, or whatever. They will encourage you to get a job, and you might have to work a little bit to get that money, but you'll get it. If you've got a partner, or dependent(s), you'll get more. Likely if you're living on this, you also qualify for Rent Assistance, which means more money. You also get paid like this while going to University. Australia has been doing this for decades (my Goole-fu fails me for the exact number of years), and it appears to be perfectly financially viable. Read more about Australia's policy at [2] [1] http://www.humanservices.gov.au/customer/services/centrelink/newstart-allowance http://www.humanservices.gov.au/customer/services/centrelink... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unemployment_benefits#Australia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unemployment_benefits#Australia
- rjtavares 12y ago
  You are saying that the benefic is reserved to those that don't have a job. That is not an unconditional income.
  - grecy 12y ago
    Well, it's only cancelled completely if you earn too much money. So let's say you earn $5k/year, you'll get the dole to top you up to $12k/year. So you get a guaranteed income.
- gnerd 12y ago
  Lots of countries have that and I don't think Australia implemented any of those measures first. I think what is being discussed here is guaranteed unconditional income, not the dole.
  - grecy 12y ago
    > I think what is being discussed here is guaranteed unconditional income, not the dole. For all intents and purposes, there is no difference.

90 points by faraday 12y ago

I continue to see this idea grow in merit. It definitely seems if the trend towards automation continues that governments around the world will have to start providing a minimum income level to all their citizens.

derptacos 12y ago
Well something will have to be done - as jobs become increasingly "automated". I'm curious if there will be a large tax increase...

transfire 12y ago

It certainly makes a lot of sense. Just consider the reduction in crime it could bring about. That alone is nearly enough to make it worth it. However, 20k is a bit too high. You don't want to discourage people from working altogether. After considerable thought, I think the equivalent of a part-time job at minimum wage makes the most sense.

mhurron 12y ago
> You don't want to discourage people from working altogether. 20k is basically poverty, you are not going to remove any desires at that level. > I think the equivalent of a part-time job at minimum wage makes the most sense. The idea is to make sure that when all else fails, you can still cover the necessities of life, things like eating and a place to sleep. Part-time minimum wage doesn't come close to that.
- wyager 12y ago
  >Part-time minimum wage doesn't come close to that. Then who do you think is going to do the part-time minimum-wage jobs? No one. They can just get more money for doing nothing. Obviously, employers will start paying a lot more for part-time menial jobs, or go out of business. All of a sudden, Canadians will be asking "Why did everything get so expensive?" and "Why can't teens find jobs these days?"
  - harmegido 12y ago
    Well no, you wouldn't get more money for doing nothing. If you're unemployed with few skills, your options are this: 1) Stay unemployed and live off 20k/yr. 2) Work a min wage job and live off 40k/yr. Many people will choose option 2.
    - dmckeon 12y ago
      Also consider the cost of day care, for families of a single parent, or where both parents work. Plenty of numbers in: http://www.census.gov/prod/2013pubs/p70-135.pdf http://www.census.gov/prod/2013pubs/p70-135.pdf
  - lotharbot 12y ago
    > "who do you think is going to do the part-time minimum-wage jobs?" If "Basic Income" is implemented the way I understand it, the income from a part-time minimum wage job would stack on top of it (minus some amount of tax). The idea isn't that you make more by not working. The idea is that you can live (not very comfortably) without working, and that every bit of work you do marginally improves your income and therefore your comfort level. This makes part-time minimum-wage jobs a reasonable target for people who want slightly more amenities than they can afford at the basic income level.
    - wyager 12y ago
      >If "Basic Income" is implemented the way I understand it, the income from a part-time minimum wage job would stack on top of it (minus some amount of tax). Based on the comments here, I don't think this proposal is for basic income. Rather, if you already make more than 20K, you don't get anything.
- randomdata 12y ago
  > 20k is basically poverty, you are not going to remove any desires at that level. Your milage may vary. Living in rural Canada, I calculated my expenditures to be under $20,000 last year. I don't feel I'm living in poverty at all (I have a developer's income if I want/need to spend more). My only concern is that $20K would not leave much room to save for the future, but if the income is guaranteed for the rest of your life, perhaps that is less of a concern?
- jdjdmdo 12y ago
  This is simply wrong. How can you even say that? A family of four would get $80K, which is certainly not poverty level.
  - Spaztazim 12y ago
    Most implementations I've seen children under 18 don't get the full amount. See a lot of $15k adult $3-5k children under 18.
- ovis 12y ago
  I lived in urban Vancouver on less than that for years. It wasn't pleasant, but food and housing were never a serious problem. Although, if I had had dependents, I would have needed more.
- cpncrunch 12y ago
  20k is not poverty. I live in a luxury townhouse on Vancouver Island (aka paradise), paying $600/month for half the rent. My total outgoings are probably about $1200/month, so $20k would be more than enough to live on. Yes, you would pay more in Toronto, Calgary, Vancouver or Victoria, but if you're not working then you wouldn't need to live in those expensive cities. I think $15k would be a better figure, as it wouldn't let you live so comfortably and therefore there would still be an incentive to go out and work. McDonalds and Walmart would probably go out of business, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. We would be left with higher end restaurants where people are paid a good salary to work somewhere that they enjoy.
  - jdjdmdo 12y ago
    Wait, we should push the poor to spend at Whole Foods and dine at fine restaurants? How is making them spend a significantly higher percentage of their income on food a good thing again?
    - scott_karana 12y ago
      I think he meant that nobody would choose to work at places like Walmart and McDonalds, when they would be provided the same wage already; not that nobody would eat there. Though, when people aren't having to work dead-end jobs to survive, maybe they could take time to prepare food properly and cheaply instead of buying "convenient" $5 burgers?
    - cpncrunch 12y ago
      Yes, you have a good point. I think the price of everything would probably go up, so you might find that the basic income is suddenly not enough to live on. I think it's impossible to know for sure whether basic income would be financially viable unless you actually implement it.
- Throwaway0812 12y ago
  20k will go a long way. If you're single, you can spend 1k/mo on an apartment, which will get you a furnished place with television and wifi in a number of Canadian cities, and even downtown in some bigger cities like Montreal. You can toss $100/wk to groceries which will allow you to eat great food, and use the remaining 5k for renting a car when you need it, traveling, going out, etc. If you're a couple, double that, $2k/mo will get you a wonderful place to stay. It'll be difficult to build a savings, or to have a few children, but it'll go a long way, and I think it'll highly discourage people from working after graduating. Now, I don't think everyone needs to work in our society, but that's another can of worms.
- pbhjpbhj 12y ago
  20k CAD ~= 19k USD ~= 11k GBP ~= 14 EUR If this was per adult in the UK then I'd be getting a substantial income boost over what I'm earning at present.
  - BSousa 12y ago
    11k GBP is close to minimum wage no? May I ask what you do?
  - gnerd 12y ago
    I thought minimum wage was around £12k per year. Are you studying and/or only working part time?
  - DanBC 12y ago
    These are the UK minimum wage rates: https://www.gov.uk/national-minimum-wage-rates https://www.gov.uk/national-minimum-wage-rates 21 and over: £6.31 18 to 20: £5.03 Under 18: £3.72 Apprentice*: £2.68 * This rate is for apprentices aged 16 to 18 and those aged 19 or over who are in their first year. All other apprentices are entitled to the National Minimum Wage for their age. 6.31 * 40 * 52 = £13,124.80 per year - for over 20s. 5.03 * 40 * 52 = £10,462.40 per year - for 18 to 20 year olds. 3.72 * 40 * 52 = £7,737.60 per year - for under 18 year olds. I have no idea when tax credits or income support or housing benefit kick in. But if you're getting less than this you should probably speak to an advisor somewhere to make sure you're getting everything that you're entitled to.
    - pbhjpbhj 12y ago
      Lol, yes, doesn't apply to directors ... it's partly by choice, in that we've chosen a lifestyle that prefers family time over income. My point was more to indicate that it's quite possible to live comfortably on these sorts of incomes (we have a mortgage and run a car, have internet and a mobile phone contract, go out on trips, have holidays [not abroad], can afford occasional takeaways and meals out too, we're not destitute). Thanks for caring enough to give that information though.
Hilyin 12y ago
It has to be livable on in order to prevent the crime people are forced to do when they aren't making enough to live on though.
- bayesianhorse 12y ago
  Is crime in Canada really motivated by basic subsistence? In developing countries, and in the US this is sometimes the case, but even then, there are "honest" opportunities which aren't that much worse.
  - arg01 12y ago
    There are multiple studies and meta studies presenting a link between inequality and crime. So even if it's not for basic subsistence it does appear that raising the lower end of society up could improve the crime rate. Though I admit that's not a comment on the reason for the crime. http://cjr.sagepub.com/content/18/2/182.abstract http://cjr.sagepub.com/content/18/2/182.abstract
tomkin 12y ago
I don't think 20k is too high. We're burning more money than that per person just to maintain programs to deal with poverty, homelessness, etc.
- cpncrunch 12y ago
  But those programs only apply to a small proportion of the population. This would apply to everyone.
  - tomkin 12y ago
    I just assumed the article didn't address that properly. Simply because that number would be astronomical and not practical. It should only apply to those who require it, under a certain threshold.
    - nardi 12y ago
      That's not basic income. Basic income by its definition goes to everyone. That's what makes it an appealing substitute for minimum wage, welfare, etc.
      - eru 12y ago
        People usually talk about basic income plus an adjustment in tax and the rest of welfare programs, to make it come out neutral for the average person.
    - tempestn 12y ago
      It has to apply to everyone or it doesn't work. Otherwise you would see a massive effective marginal tax level at whatever point it was cut off. (Even if ramped down, although to a lesser extent.) What could be done instead is that the entire tax structure is altered so that much of the cost of the basic income is spread over the entire middle and upper range of income tax brackets, such that the middle class end up in roughly the same situation they were before the GBI was introduced.
Scoundreller 12y ago
"You don't want to discourage people from working altogether." Employers needing employees will have to come up with something better than "come to work or starve" as an incentive. HNers should be familiar with a large number of methods.

trothamel 12y ago

As much as I like the idea of a basic income, it's hard to make the numbers work. Canada has 34,880,000 people in it, so a CAD 20,000 basic income would cost CAD 697,600,000,000. According to http://www.fin.gc.ca/afr-rfa/2013/report-rapport-eng.asp#a3 http://www.fin.gc.ca/afr-rfa/2013/report-rapport-eng.asp#a3, Canada's total government revenue (at the federal level) was CAD 256,600,000,000. So Canada would have to raise taxes by 170% to provide this basic income, and raise them again if they want to provide any of the services they do today. (National Defense, Healthcare, etc.)

sb23 12y ago
You're including people who do not need the wage - people who already have a job that pays higher than the $20k would not receive it.
- ars 12y ago
  Is that the plan? Because that's not what basic income is. What you are describing also exists, but it has a different name (Welfare, Earned income credit, to list two examples).
  - sb23 12y ago
    Well, it seems it'd be impossible to literally pay every person in Canada $20k a year.
  - learc83 12y ago
    It's called Guaranteed Minimum Income, which is what this article was talking about, in contrast to Universal Basic Income.
- hackerboos 12y ago
  And kids and retirees above the threshold and immigrants who don't qualify and and and... That population number dwindles when all these people are taken into account. Remember Canada has the youngest population in the G8 and could be the best candidate for this type of experiment.

bayesianhorse 12y ago

If an "unconditional basic income" is ever to be successful, it should be tried first in a small, wealthy country, before being implemented in bigger countries. Good candidates might be Switzerland, Norway, Iceland and so on. Big experiments have a tendency to fail catastrophically...

juliangamble 12y ago
It looks like the Swiss are giving this some serious consideration: http://themindunleashed.org/2014/03/swiss-pay-basic-income-2500-francs-per-month-every-adult.html http://themindunleashed.org/2014/03/swiss-pay-basic-income-2...
eru 12y ago
Don't we have federalism for that?
throwwit 12y ago
Gotta read the article... there were already pilot programs.
grecy 12y ago
See my other comment, Australia already has it.
- gnerd 12y ago
  > See my other comment, Australia already has it. No, your other comment just mentioned the dole, which is NOT the same thing at all. Other countries have the dole, in fact, every country listed above in the comment that states they don't have guaranteed basic income, all have wide spread social protections including welfare (and often, quite a bit more wide spread than Australia, whether you see that as a good or a bad thing is up to you). Sometimes definitions vary from place to place, for instance in Australia you have to vote, it isn't a right you choose to exorcize like the world right is used elsewhere, it is a government mandated obligation, well similarly, in other places, welfare is not considered unconditional income, because well, it isn't. There are barriers to qualification and there are certainly strings attached (some places like the UK, the ASBO system coupled with the welfare system is used like a carrot on a stick with a donkey). TLDR: This is not about welfare, that exists even in 3rd world countries (although not always to the same degree) it is about unconditional basic income.

fidotron 12y ago

It's fairly interesting the way this idea, and similar ones, connect some of the more intelligent fringe people from both right and left ends of the spectrum. Famously Friedman's answer to what would be better than minimum wage was a negative income tax bracket, and Nixon, of all people, almost implemented it.

tempestn 12y ago
How exactly would a negative tax bracket work? Taken literally, this would mean that up to a certain income level, the government would pay you an amount proportional to how much you make. Presumably what it actually means is that you would be paid inversely proportional to how much you make. At first glance it seems to me that this would have one of the same problems as the current system, which a guaranteed basic income is intended to solve - a high effective marginal tax rate at low (or no) income levels. (Unless the payment actually is positively proportional to earnings, in which case it has the obvious problem that it provides less benefit to those who need it most.) Either way, I'm not clear on how this would be superior to a fixed guaranteed income with adjustments to the current tax rates such that the middle class end up with approximately the same after-tax total income.
- cdcarter 12y ago
  Negative income tax is just an implementation detail. This idea is not in competition with GMI, it's a restatement of it, showing how it can exist on the far right as well as the far left. Per the reputable wikipedia: "Negative income taxes can implement a basic income or supplement a guaranteed minimum income system. In a negative income tax system, people earning a certain income level would owe no taxes; those earning more than that would pay a proportion of their income above that level; and those below that level would receive a payment of a proportion of their shortfall, which is the amount their income falls below that level."
  - tempestn 12y ago
    OK, that matches what I was thinking. The trick is that to make it equivalent to basic income, the threshold level you describe would be different from the equivalent basic income level. For example, if you take a basic income system with a $20k guaranteed minimum income - if you tried to recreate that with a negative tax bracket and a threshold of $20k, you would need to pay 100% of the shortfall. And even then, you would effectively have a 100% marginal tax rate; until you make $20k there is no financial incentive to work at all. Instead, to get the equivalent of a $20k GBI, you would need to do something like, set a $40k threshold, with a negative tax of 50% of your shortfall. So at 0 income you get $20k. (And at 10k income you get 15k in negative tax, for a total of 25k, etc.) Of course, your marginal tax in that example is still very high at 50%. To make the marginal tax rate low, which is desirable at low income levels, you would either need to set a very high threshold, or more likely, have multiple negative tax brackets at different rates. What I still fail to see is how this is "better" than a standard guaranteed income. It just seems like people will find it much more confusing than providing a fixed amount to everyone and having positive tax brackets as we do already (albeit different ones).

ppereira 12y ago

I once calculated the tax implications of a basic income where everyone received a lump sum paid for by a flat income tax. A basic income at the current welfare rate seemed to be easily achievable. I seem to recall that a 20k basic income was at the upper limit of what would be achievable without an exorbitant income tax rate. Many comments on the web are dismissive of a basic income because they simply multiply the per-person dollar figure by the total population and say that it is way too expensive. One needs to look at the current distribution of income, the existing level of welfare and subsidies, and the progressive income tax schedule to compute how much the basic income is likely to cost. The final pre-tax distribution of income will also change, but that is much more difficult to estimate. This idea dates back to at least Thomas Paine's Agrarian Justice and is supported by many (at least 1/2 a dozen) nobel prize winning economists. A basic income is interesting to study and has many compelling features, but it is complicated enough that it is not possible to easily debate its overall merit via comments on hacker news.

forrestthewoods 12y ago
I'd genuinely like to see your numbers because I've not seen a single napkin math calculation that makes is even remotely feasible. (for the United States)
- eru 12y ago
  In Europe it's entirely feasible, if your whole goal is to more or less keep the same post-tax, post-welfare distribution of income. You just do away with the traditional combination of means tested welfare and means tested taxes, and replace it with means testing for the taxes only. In the US that would also be possible, but the level of basic income you arrive at might be bloody low. I don't know the data. At least, you'd save on bureaucracy.
  - learc83 12y ago
    >In the US that would also be possible, but the level of basic income you arrive at might be bloody low. Why would that be? The US has a significantly higher GDP per capita than every European country except Norway, Luxemburg, and maybe Switzerland (depending on who you ask). If you're talking about limiting it to current social welfare expenditures, the US spends about 20% of GDP on social welfare [1], and many European countries spend close to 30%. But since our GDP per capita is so much higher it should come out fairly close per person. [1] http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/social-issues-migration-health/government-social-spending_20743904-table1 http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/social-issues-migration-health/...

RivieraKid 12y ago

BI is a change of how money is redistributed in society – it would lead to some people becoming poorer and other people becoming equally richer. I'm quite sceptical about BI because I haven't seen any analysis that would answer the question who exactly would get richer / poorer and how much. Unemployed people get money from the government in Canada – will they get more or less after implementation of BI? What about teachers, software developers, bus drivers, lawyers, etc? AFAIK, the main claimed benefits of BI are: – The system would be simpler and cheaper. True, but only negligably. – It removes disincentives to work. I'm not convinced about this, you could argue the opposite is true actually.

learc83 12y ago
Guaranteed Minimum Income and Basic Income are 2 different things (this article discusses GMI). GMI means that you will get enough money to bring your income up to X (in this case $20k.) BI means that every citizen gets Y dollars per year unconditionally. GMI is only a net benefit if you make less than X. BI is more complicated because you have to decide at what income level should the BI be income neutral, i.e., how much do you have to make before the BI you're receiving and the extra income taxes you're paying are equal. > I haven't seen any analysis that would answer the question who exactly would get richer / poorer and how much. The reason you haven't heard this is because it's completely up to the implementation details. If for example the government decided that for people making $50k a year the BI should be income neutral, then it would be a net benefit for all people under $50k and a net detriment for everyone over that. >What about teachers, software developers, bus drivers, lawyers, etc? In this hypothetical scenario some teachers, software developers, bus drivers, and lawyers would benefit, and some wouldn't. >It removes disincentives to work. I'm not convinced about this, you could argue the opposite is true actually. This is only true for BI, not GMI. GMI adds a huge disincentive to work for less than (or close to) whatever the guaranteed minimum is set at.
electromagnetic 12y ago
It depends on what type of BI is implemented. This is around current minimum wage rates, so it could easily mean doing away with basic disability, welfare, and the government pension. I would say you're naive of the costs if you think the system change would only be negligibly beneficial. There's the distribution costs, the evaluation costs, then there's the investigators to make sure people aren't scamming the system. For every system. You've got disability, welfare, unemployment and pension investigators to make sure everyone is getting what they're supposed to and to make sure no ones scamming the system. You can't scam basic income. It removes disincentives to work, in that without welfare systems there's no disadvantage to work, and there's no advantage to trying to scam the system. It does also do the contrary. It incentivized people not to work, at least for shitty employers. You can't be an assholr to a minimum wage employee when they can leave and still afford rent and food. It also provides income for people to start up businesses (this has been shown in BI trials currently ongoing in India), which when we have high unemployment rates amongst youths I can only see this as beneficial. What's better for society, an 18 year old doing busy work making coffee for people too lazy to make their own or do you want them writing apps, starting lawn care companies, etc.

thatusertwo 12y ago

20k would be great, I could cover my rent and have a few hundred dollars a month left over. Thats not a lot, but its enough to assure I can continue to live an not have to worry about what would happen if my job vanished, or an emergency came up that prevented me or my girlfriend from working.

Scoundreller 12y ago
I think that's the beauty of the concept. At the end of the day, most people's lives won't change much. The welfare client will have roughly the same amount of wealth. The middle-class earner will have the same level of wealth. The power comes from: a) Removing the bureaucracy of having both a progressive tax system (you make more, you pay more) and a redundant means tested benefits system (you make more, you get less) b) Having security of the basic needs of life, regardless of what happens.

Scoundreller 12y ago

I think a "guaranteed minimum income" can be re-phrased as "Giving everyone, at no charge, the things they'll be dead without in a week (food, water, shelter), but it's up to you to buy them on the open market". I've never understood why one has to pay for the bare essentials, while piles of other things, like health care, transportation, parks, police, fire, etc. are highly/wholly subsidized through general taxes. We already provide health care at no charge in most nations with reasonable efficiency, leaving one less reason for people to put up with crummy employers and removing the bureaucracy of proving that you need something that you, well, need. I like the idea of extending that path.

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logicchains 12y ago
Many would argue that the government is less efficient at providing various goods. Where I live in Australia, for instance, public schools and hospitals are generally regarded as being inferior to privately run ones. In such circumstances it is more efficient for the government to give poor/unemployed people money to purchase these things on the private market. When the government has a monopoly on providing a service, they face no competition, which reduces their incentive to provide a quality service. Some services however, such as roads, are seen as natural monopolies, meaning even if privately owned they would still be a monopoly. In such cases people look more favourably upon government ownership as a government monopoly is seen as superior to a private monopoly.
- Scoundreller 12y ago
  Do the private hospitals and schools actually have better outcomes, after controlling for the initially better socioeconomic status of their users? I'm sure if you do a survey, the private organizations come out ahead, but people will recognize and give good ratings to a nicer looking building with prettier people running it, even if the results are poor, as long as they aren't drastically poor. But yes, for many things, giving people cash would be better than directly providing the service. Monopolies, price takers, perfect competition (and I think one other) are well identified in economics, but regulators still allow harmful monopolies left-and-right, while intervening in highly-competitive markets for seemingly no reason.

grecy 12y ago

Australia already has basically this. It's called 'welfare', but anyone that doesn't have a job gets a touch over $1000AUD/mo (so just over $12kUSD/year) for life [1]. It doesn't matter if you've never had a job, or have, or whatever. They will encourage you to get a job, and you might have to work a little bit to get that money, but you'll get it. If you've got a partner, or dependent(s), you'll get more. Likely if you're living on this, you also qualify for Rent Assistance, which means more money. You also get paid like this while going to University. Australia has been doing this for decades (my Goole-fu fails me for the exact number of years), and it appears to be perfectly financially viable. Read more about Australia's policy at [2] [1] http://www.humanservices.gov.au/customer/services/centrelink/newstart-allowance http://www.humanservices.gov.au/customer/services/centrelink... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unemployment_benefits#Australia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unemployment_benefits#Australia

rjtavares 12y ago
You are saying that the benefic is reserved to those that don't have a job. That is not an unconditional income.
- grecy 12y ago
  Well, it's only cancelled completely if you earn too much money. So let's say you earn $5k/year, you'll get the dole to top you up to $12k/year. So you get a guaranteed income.
gnerd 12y ago
Lots of countries have that and I don't think Australia implemented any of those measures first. I think what is being discussed here is guaranteed unconditional income, not the dole.
- grecy 12y ago
  > I think what is being discussed here is guaranteed unconditional income, not the dole. For all intents and purposes, there is no difference.