3 ms·

That's almost by definition. If you take all the money currently being spent by programs targeted at the poor/needy and redistribute it among the entire popula

by ghkbrew 12y ago

That's almost by definition. If you take all the money currently being spent by programs targeted at the poor/needy and redistribute it among the entire population, the average amount that a poor person would receive will decrease. Attempting to do that would be political suicide. "You're taking money from the poor and giving it to the rich!" The only realistic way something like a GBI would be implemented were if there were means testing involved.

baddox 12y ago
> If you take all the money currently being spent by programs targeted at the poor/needy and redistribute it among the entire population, the average amount that a poor person would receive will decrease. I think the assumption is that the money you save by reducing the complexity of the welfare bureaucracy would be passed into the income itself. But I was assuming that the basic income system would give the same amount of total money to people currently receiving welfare benefits. My point was that among people currently receiving benefits, some portion of them would receive a lot less on basic income, even though the money received would be the same on average.
- justizin 12y ago
  Obviously you would want to design this in such a way that you do not decrease the average support to the poor, and while you would distribute it amongst the entire population, those of us with comfy incomes would have it recovered via taxes, by design. I would also expect it's possible to design a system that doesn't substantially reduce the income of existing welfare recipients. Most government programs seem to exclude people from other programs and it's a very complicated game to even know how to sign up for things. In fact, this is why my mother became a social worker, because she found it so difficult to get things like AFDC (replacement child support for families with deadbeat parents) and food stamps, even though we had a lot of advantages over other people who likely needed those things even more than we did. And sure, those jobs will disappear but in fact the turnover in a lot of these programs is very high, it's very tough to do this type of work for very long, few people spend an entire life working for a social service program, and those who do are often committing fraud - not to say there aren't certainly _some_ who do who work very hard and are honest.
- ghkbrew 12y ago
  > I think the assumption is that the money you save by reducing the complexity of the welfare bureaucracy would be passed into the income itself. Agreed, but there are currently many more people who aren't currently receiving benefits than those who are. Expecting to save multiples of the current expenditure by decreasing the bureaucracy is obviously unrealistic. > But I was assuming that the basic income system would give the same amount of total money to people currently receiving welfare benefits. Fair enough, I was trying to point out that achieving that would require either restricting those who receive the basic income or increasing taxes in order to keep the change revenue neutral. > My point was that among people currently receiving benefits, some portion of them would receive a lot less on basic income, even though the money received would be the same on average. Again, I agree, though I don't see that as a problem. Politically, I don't think there would be enough of those people to be a problem. And socially, they probably shouldn't be receiving that much more than the average anyway. I guess I wasn't so much arguing with you as using your comment to go off on a tangent :)

by ghkbrew 12y ago

baddox 12y ago

> If you take all the money currently being spent by programs targeted at the poor/needy and redistribute it among the entire population, the average amount that a poor person would receive will decrease. I think the assumption is that the money you save by reducing the complexity of the welfare bureaucracy would be passed into the income itself. But I was assuming that the basic income system would give the same amount of total money to people currently receiving welfare benefits. My point was that among people currently receiving benefits, some portion of them would receive a lot less on basic income, even though the money received would be the same on average.

justizin 12y ago
Obviously you would want to design this in such a way that you do not decrease the average support to the poor, and while you would distribute it amongst the entire population, those of us with comfy incomes would have it recovered via taxes, by design. I would also expect it's possible to design a system that doesn't substantially reduce the income of existing welfare recipients. Most government programs seem to exclude people from other programs and it's a very complicated game to even know how to sign up for things. In fact, this is why my mother became a social worker, because she found it so difficult to get things like AFDC (replacement child support for families with deadbeat parents) and food stamps, even though we had a lot of advantages over other people who likely needed those things even more than we did. And sure, those jobs will disappear but in fact the turnover in a lot of these programs is very high, it's very tough to do this type of work for very long, few people spend an entire life working for a social service program, and those who do are often committing fraud - not to say there aren't certainly _some_ who do who work very hard and are honest.
ghkbrew 12y ago
> I think the assumption is that the money you save by reducing the complexity of the welfare bureaucracy would be passed into the income itself. Agreed, but there are currently many more people who aren't currently receiving benefits than those who are. Expecting to save multiples of the current expenditure by decreasing the bureaucracy is obviously unrealistic. > But I was assuming that the basic income system would give the same amount of total money to people currently receiving welfare benefits. Fair enough, I was trying to point out that achieving that would require either restricting those who receive the basic income or increasing taxes in order to keep the change revenue neutral. > My point was that among people currently receiving benefits, some portion of them would receive a lot less on basic income, even though the money received would be the same on average. Again, I agree, though I don't see that as a problem. Politically, I don't think there would be enough of those people to be a problem. And socially, they probably shouldn't be receiving that much more than the average anyway. I guess I wasn't so much arguing with you as using your comment to go off on a tangent :)