8 ms·
> The problem is that a basic income to (say) the 150m people in the civilian labor force x the ~$23k poverty line income would be about $3.4 trillion There's
by phaemon 11y ago
> The problem is that a basic income to (say) the 150m people in the civilian labor force x the ~$23k poverty line income would be about $3.4 trillion
There's no need to introduce it all at once. Call it a "Citizen's Dividend" instead of a "Basic Income" and start it at around $30 a week. This can replace a lot of lower welfare payments and, given to everybody - not just workers, would only cost $450 billion or so.
It can also be used to introduce more money into the supply and gives you much finer grained control over inflation, for example. It can slowly be increased up until it becomes enough of a basic income for some people (not everyone would be happy with the same level of income, obviously).
As a concept, it also promotes the idea that you're an active member of society. As your society becomes wealthier, you benefit directly. There are a lot of pluses to the general idea.
- avn2109 11y ago>> "Call it a "Citizen's Dividend..." This definitely needs to be called the "America Permanent Fund," and be explicitly marketed as a scaled-up Alaska Permanent Fund[0], which is a hilariously popular basic (small) income program that literally no one has opposed ever, no matter what. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Permanent_Fund#Dividends_and_spending http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Permanent_Fund#Dividends...
- dhd415 11y agoThere's a huge difference between the Alaska Permanent Fund that was established primarily with oil revenue windfalls and augmented with surpluses in boom years and a basic income program that would be funded by increased taxes.
- avn2109 11y agoHuge policy and economic backend difference, definitely. But for propaganda/marketing purposes, to the common man these are the same program. It's the government giving you free money and that's all that should ever be in the talking points.
- sillygoose 11y agoOr you could call it something like "Free Money Forever", because that's what its proponents seem to think they'd be getting, as if the money didn't have to come from somewhere. How many people have any clue as to where tax revenues come from? How many understand that other people have to earn that money first? How many understand that if the people who earn money are burdened with much higher taxes to pay for someone else's BI, a lot of them them will just stop working because fuck that? How would that affect the burden on the remaining earners? Please just think about it for a while.
- avn2109 11y agoThe moral hazard you've described is definitely a thing, and it would be silly to expect 0 slippage in the labor market after BI introduction, but I guess the claim is that we already spend so much on inefficient social welfare programs that if we just killed them all and gave the money to the people directly that it would be better for literally everyone involved. And it is an elegant sort of solution; after all, cutting out the middleman is the American way.
- sillygoose 11y agoDecades of increasingly large and seemingly free lunches have gotten us to a point where people actually think there is such a thing. But there isn't. The money has always had to come from somewhere, and it's always had consequences. It's just that the consequences can't be swept under the rug anymore, and soon even the most fervent propaganda will fail to convince the masses that everything is alright and the economy is recovering (when in reality it's not, and it's not).
- icebraining 11y agoWhat's the evidence that the weak state of the economy is caused by those "free lunches"?
- sillygoose 11y ago