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>What is so wrong with giving the unemployed a JOB rather than just money? Who decides what jobs are available? Who decide who gets which jobs? By giving a jo

by indrax 12y ago

>What is so wrong with giving the unemployed a JOB rather than just money? Who decides what jobs are available? Who decide who gets which jobs? By giving a job instead of money, you are using up a significant chunk of the labor pool. You need an additional chunk to figure out how to allocate it, and are then relying on them to allocate it well. To build something, you are also paying for and using up capital. By giving money, people are free to use their time in whatever way is most valuable to them, only using up the resources they need to live, and those resources get allocated by market forces.

JoeAltmaier 12y ago
Giving money is currently costing more for the administration than the money given out. So not any better? Giving a job is incentive to get your own job - if you give awful jobs like shoveling sludge or picking up highways.
- dragonwriter 12y ago
  > Giving money is currently costing more for the administration than the money given out. The administrative cost in giving money in status quo benefit programs is tied up in means-testing, use-enforcement, behavior-testing, etc. -- making sure that all the variable inputs that control who gets which benefits, how much of those benefits they get, and how those benefits can be used. That's the whole problem unconditional basic income solves. You have very simple qualified class (all citizens or all legal residents, whatever is chosen as the target population), everyone in the class gets the same benefit, and there are no use restrictions associated with the benefit. Administrative overhead eliminated neatly -- and at the same time, the perverse incentives that go with the same restrictions that the administrative costs go to enforcing are also eliminated.
  - AnimalMuppet 12y ago
    > Administrative overhead eliminated neatly Most administrative overhead eliminated neatly. Fraud prevention remains. (Keeping dead people off the rolls, and duplicate entries, and so on.)
  - crdoconnor 12y ago
    >The administrative cost in giving money in status quo benefit programs is tied up in means-testing, use-enforcement, behavior-testing, etc. -- making sure that all the variable inputs that control who gets which benefits, how much of those benefits they get, and how those benefits can be used. That's the whole problem unconditional basic income solves. It's also a problem solved by a job guarantee. There is no need to create elaborate tests to see if the welfare job seeker is really looking for work. If they want a job, the state can provide it. If they don't want a job, no welfare. With basic income or a job guarantee you will still need additional welfare (and means testing) for the disabled simply because they require more resources than a regular unemployed joe and really cannot work. Those means testing things would crop up again even if you created a basic income tomorrow because the protestant work ethic so deeply embedded in our culture would create a political imperative for it to happen. Politicians would get to work corrupting it straight away.
    - Matumio 12y ago
      I think the main benefit of an unconditional basic income, however small, is exactly to help us getting over the worst of protestant work ethic. Do we really need to make existential threats to people who don't accept the work that the government thinks they should be doing? If something really needs to be done, you can increase the pay until somebody does it.
      - crdoconnor 12y ago
        >I think the main benefit of an unconditional basic income, however small, is exactly to help us getting over the worst of protestant work ethic. Well, that presents you with a chicken/egg situation because for it to have any hope of becoming reality you will need to convince everybody (the majority of Americans) who believe that everybody should pull their weight. >Do we really need to make existential threats to people who don't accept the work that the government thinks they should be doing? Do we need to? No. Do I agree with you? Yes. But, most people think that it is a moral imperative that you should have to work for a living and we live in a kind of Democracy, so... Until that part of our culture changes to accommodate we won't get basic income. At the moment we're making existential threats to people who don't accept the work that the private sector (i.e. democratically unaccountable 1%) thinks that should be doing. All I'm saying is that the government should provide decent jobs so that the 1% have to compete with the government and provide better jobs than they currently do.
crdoconnor 12y ago
>Who decides what jobs are available? Who decide who gets which jobs? Your questions can be answered by looking at what happened in the 1930s. The government decided that things like the triborough bridge and the lincoln tunnel, airports, dams, new schools etc. would be a net benefit to our society. They were. >By giving a job instead of money, you are using up a significant chunk of the labor pool. Yes, it is using up a significant chunk of the labor pool that is currently idle. >You need an additional chunk to figure out how to allocate it, and are then relying on them to allocate it well. Exactly like we had in the 1930s with the PWA. Which worked. >To build something, you are also paying for and using up capital. Damn right. ZIRP and asset bubbles all over the place are not forming today because we have too little available capital. They happening because we have an excess of it. >By giving money, people are free to use their time in whatever way is most valuable to them, only using up the resources they need to live, and those resources get allocated by market forces. Those same market forces that didn't build the triborough bridge or the hoover dam but which did cause a massive overbuild of useless McMansions in Las Vegas and a glut of payday loans? Sorry, I'm not convinced by arguments that appeal to the dogma that market forces are god and governments always suck at resource allocation. It's a fairy tale.

by indrax 12y ago

JoeAltmaier 12y ago

Giving money is currently costing more for the administration than the money given out. So not any better? Giving a job is incentive to get your own job - if you give awful jobs like shoveling sludge or picking up highways.

dragonwriter 12y ago
> Giving money is currently costing more for the administration than the money given out. The administrative cost in giving money in status quo benefit programs is tied up in means-testing, use-enforcement, behavior-testing, etc. -- making sure that all the variable inputs that control who gets which benefits, how much of those benefits they get, and how those benefits can be used. That's the whole problem unconditional basic income solves. You have very simple qualified class (all citizens or all legal residents, whatever is chosen as the target population), everyone in the class gets the same benefit, and there are no use restrictions associated with the benefit. Administrative overhead eliminated neatly -- and at the same time, the perverse incentives that go with the same restrictions that the administrative costs go to enforcing are also eliminated.
- AnimalMuppet 12y ago
  > Administrative overhead eliminated neatly Most administrative overhead eliminated neatly. Fraud prevention remains. (Keeping dead people off the rolls, and duplicate entries, and so on.)
- crdoconnor 12y ago
  >The administrative cost in giving money in status quo benefit programs is tied up in means-testing, use-enforcement, behavior-testing, etc. -- making sure that all the variable inputs that control who gets which benefits, how much of those benefits they get, and how those benefits can be used. That's the whole problem unconditional basic income solves. It's also a problem solved by a job guarantee. There is no need to create elaborate tests to see if the welfare job seeker is really looking for work. If they want a job, the state can provide it. If they don't want a job, no welfare. With basic income or a job guarantee you will still need additional welfare (and means testing) for the disabled simply because they require more resources than a regular unemployed joe and really cannot work. Those means testing things would crop up again even if you created a basic income tomorrow because the protestant work ethic so deeply embedded in our culture would create a political imperative for it to happen. Politicians would get to work corrupting it straight away.
  - Matumio 12y ago
    I think the main benefit of an unconditional basic income, however small, is exactly to help us getting over the worst of protestant work ethic. Do we really need to make existential threats to people who don't accept the work that the government thinks they should be doing? If something really needs to be done, you can increase the pay until somebody does it.
    - crdoconnor 12y ago
      >I think the main benefit of an unconditional basic income, however small, is exactly to help us getting over the worst of protestant work ethic. Well, that presents you with a chicken/egg situation because for it to have any hope of becoming reality you will need to convince everybody (the majority of Americans) who believe that everybody should pull their weight. >Do we really need to make existential threats to people who don't accept the work that the government thinks they should be doing? Do we need to? No. Do I agree with you? Yes. But, most people think that it is a moral imperative that you should have to work for a living and we live in a kind of Democracy, so... Until that part of our culture changes to accommodate we won't get basic income. At the moment we're making existential threats to people who don't accept the work that the private sector (i.e. democratically unaccountable 1%) thinks that should be doing. All I'm saying is that the government should provide decent jobs so that the 1% have to compete with the government and provide better jobs than they currently do.

crdoconnor 12y ago

>Who decides what jobs are available? Who decide who gets which jobs? Your questions can be answered by looking at what happened in the 1930s. The government decided that things like the triborough bridge and the lincoln tunnel, airports, dams, new schools etc. would be a net benefit to our society. They were. >By giving a job instead of money, you are using up a significant chunk of the labor pool. Yes, it is using up a significant chunk of the labor pool that is currently idle. >You need an additional chunk to figure out how to allocate it, and are then relying on them to allocate it well. Exactly like we had in the 1930s with the PWA. Which worked. >To build something, you are also paying for and using up capital. Damn right. ZIRP and asset bubbles all over the place are not forming today because we have too little available capital. They happening because we have an excess of it. >By giving money, people are free to use their time in whatever way is most valuable to them, only using up the resources they need to live, and those resources get allocated by market forces. Those same market forces that didn't build the triborough bridge or the hoover dam but which did cause a massive overbuild of useless McMansions in Las Vegas and a glut of payday loans? Sorry, I'm not convinced by arguments that appeal to the dogma that market forces are god and governments always suck at resource allocation. It's a fairy tale.