A market's throughput is limited by the number of participating actors. If a large percentage of the population can't participate, the market's capability to price, evaluate and represent value is hindered.
UBI makes sense for a purpose of bringing more buyer's/actors to the game. It's especially useful considering our dependence on jobs as the primary activating mechanism shows strain under the troubles of scaling human coordination and hiring. In a sort of backwards way we get more jobs when more people can contribute to the flow of money.
However UBI doesn't solve the problem of debt still piping the cash back into the hands of banks and other financial institutions. What are these UBI checks going to be spent on? Rent that's too high? Student loans for indulgent tuition prices? Without blocking the pipes from the poor to the the actors with pipes of their own, these throughput problems aren't solved more than delayed.
An actor is still a single actor, so if one actor has an over aggregation of wealth and has trouble spending it effectively the potential of that wealth is wasted when at least some actors don't have enough.
So surely trillions of dollars of UBI injected directly into the hands of the poor will stimulate the economy. But for how long until the cash starts to aggregate again into slower pools of cash where throughput is limited? In a sense we almost want inflation if these "overaggregators" are so abundant, but only if the population is maintained at a base level of wealth relative to the inflation. Otherwise the rich, who probably got rich by being more effective with their money respond to the market changes faster and the UBI stimulation is only temporary.
But if UBI causes significant inflation, and the pipes going directly to every individual have enough back pressure, it could be a great situation where the overaggregators lose value to inflation as they struggle to spend or invest.
> However UBI doesn't solve the problem of debt still piping the cash back into the hands of banks and other financial institutions.
That isn't a problem it's expected to solve. It's a completely independent problem that already happens whether you have a UBI or not.
The solutions there are likewise independent. Build more housing so it isn't supply constrained and doesn't increase in price to consume any gains made by the working class. Stop issuing student loans (students now have a UBI and don't need them), because student loans inflate the cost of college relative to other things which loans aren't available for. A UBI doesn't do that because the money isn't only available when spend on college.
> An actor is still a single actor, so if one actor has an over aggregation of wealth and has trouble spending it effectively the potential of that wealth is wasted when at least some actors don't have enough.
That's not how money works. Money in a bank account isn't being "wasted" because it isn't consuming resources, and if hoarding is causing currency scarcity (i.e. deflation) then additional money can easily be printed.
> So surely trillions of dollars of UBI injected directly into the hands of the poor will stimulate the economy. But for how long until the cash starts to aggregate again into slower pools of cash where throughput is limited?
For as long as they keep getting the UBI. Where do you think the money to fund it would come from?
> Rent that's too high? Student loans for indulgent tuition prices?
I think these two example are to the point. They're really the only outsized debts that most people have that aren't just "generally need more money". They should be tackled separately in addition to general wealth distribution policies.
> If a large percentage of the population can't participate, the market's capability to price, evaluate and represent value is hindered.
Note, that the actors having roughly proportional buying power is also important. Having actors that control disproportionate amounts of wealth also hinders the market's capability to price. We need explicit measures against wealth accumulation if we wish to have functioning markets.
Good points! That is way Thomas Piketty says ubi is only an interesting start, but that we should go way longer to achieve more fair distribution of wealth.
Exactly... inflation with a UBI I think is not really a problem. Imagine 10% inflation and a $20K UBI. If you’re worth less than $200K, you come out ahead. It’s a very efficient (perhaps the most efficient?) means of flattening unequal wealth distribution (without distorting incentives).
The risk is perhaps a flight to an alternative currency without 10% inflation... but maybe the USD is in a fortunate position to withstand that.
That is not correct that in general the rich got rich by being more effective with their money. In the US social mobility is limited compared to other countries. How rich your parents are/were is more important than your intelligence.
Keep in mind this article largely restricts itself to considering direct cash transfers to people in low-medium developed countries. I would be careful about trying to generalise the conclusions to developed countries.
It stands to reason that unrestricted welfare would reduce hours worked in developed countries. This would be especially true for young adults with no dependents. Why work overtime at McDonalds when your rent is already paid up for the month and there are so many fun video games to play?
I think we just have to accept that UBI would give people that work undesirable/uninteresting jobs an off-ramp from the economy. The problem being that our economy depends on these people performing such jobs. Employers would have increase wages significantly above the UBI level in order to attract workers, but that would either erode the UBI through inflation or cause an inflationary spiral if the UBI were indexed.
I haven't heard a satisfactory explanation as to how UBI avoids these pitfalls.
I'd also point out that the current situation forces an "all or nothing" employment system. In Aus, if you're working part time you don't quality for any benefits, so the incentive to work while on unemployment is lowered.
However, with UBI, there _is_ incentive to work. You can double your income by taking up a part time job, instead of getting the same amount from working as you would from unemployment.
I'd also challenge you and say why do think reduced working hours is a bad thing?
Also, what about all the people with a lot of money who don't work?
All your arguments have been made before and discussed in depth.
> The problem being that our economy depends on these people performing such jobs.
The economy should serve the people. Shareholders may depend on it though :)
Your "inflationary spiral" theory is also unfounded, and has been shown previously.
> Why work overtime at McDonalds when your rent is already paid up for the month and there are so many fun video games to play?
This is a terrible strawman, but also maybe MCD should pay better or offer other incentives? They're not owed employees.
You hit the nail on the head, UBI would decrease how much people are locked into undesirable jobs. However, this is a feature, not a failure of the system. Currently, we have under-utilised talent with low economic mobility who have bills to pay.
There are more than enough unemployed people to fill any gaps created.
> Employers would have increase wages significantly above the UBI level in order to attract workers, but that would either erode the UBI through inflation or cause an inflationary spiral if the UBI were indexed.
Employers would not have to increase wages "significantly above the UBI level" because the UBI is paid in addition to wages. They might have to increase wages somewhat in order to convince people to do undesirable jobs, but isn't that a good thing?
It also makes automation of those jobs more profitable, which allows more people to do what they want to do instead of being forced into drudgery out of survival.
Meanwhile there is no obvious means for this to cause inflation because no additional money is inherently being created. There would merely be less income inequality because some money is transferred from executives and shareholders to workers when they have to pay higher wages.
The only real mechanism for inflation would be if you transferred money from people inclined to save it to people inclined to spend it immediately, but there is no way for that to consume the entire amount unless the supply of all goods and services is completely inelastic. Otherwise some of the money gets spent on things whose prices don't increase significantly with demand and you just get more production.
Meanwhile necessities with inelastic supply are evils in themselves, because it's nearly always an artificial barrier. If people had more money and housing supply is constrained then rents might go up, but the problem there isn't that people have more money, it's that housing supply is artificially constrained. A solution to one problem isn't defective just because it fails to solve a completely independent problem. We have to solve the other problem either way.
Perhaps it would also encourage managers to manage rather than dictate and command; and horrible, unruly customers would get a much faster "we're not serving you" response if some shame of a person caused an employee to quit right as they're ordering their meal.
There's something very real and very healthy about taking power away from those that shouldn't have that power; and abusive customers and failures of managers are some people that might do well to have their pegs knocked down a notch or two.
> we just have to accept that UBI would give people that work undesirable/uninteresting jobs an off-ramp from the economy. The problem being that our economy depends on these people performing such jobs.
I had to read your comment three times; it was unbelievable that somebody could ever hold such a revolting argument. You are saying that it is OK to keep large swaths of the population under the permanent menace of starvation, exposure and death from curable illnesses, lest they wouldn't have an incentive to pick your trash and serve you fast food. Dude, relax.
> I think we just have to accept that UBI would give people that work undesirable/uninteresting jobs an off-ramp from the economy.
I think it just sets a floor on the wages of such undesirable jobs. And if the new wage to attract labor is higher than the marginal product of the worker, it’s likely that the job goes away rather than experiencing wage-driven inflation. In the worst case, this would simply lead to reduced output. In a best case the higher wage demanded would make capital investment more attractive, as it would improve the productivity of employees.
> Why work overtime at McDonalds when your rent is already paid up for the month and there are so many fun video games to play?
It's funny, people say that. But what would you do, personally? If I offered you just over your rent to stay home... would you... stay home? I know I wouldn't. People derive their sense of self-worth from a combination of intrinsic and extrinsic factors, and derive a lot of their social validation from their coworkers.
Personally, I could retire on a beach and do nothing for the next 60 years. That sounds shit though. I mean, it sounds great when I hate my boss, but about five minutes later, it sounds pretty shit.
> Employers would have increase wages significantly above the UBI level in order to attract workers
It also must be considered that many categories of jobs currently can’t be filled without some form of immigration because the existing social safety net of charities and government benefits never makes picking strawberries or meat cutting preferable to unemployment.
> Why work overtime at McDonalds when your rent is already paid up for the month and there are so many fun video games to play?
So you can afford more video games? Or a new, locally-made bike? Or any one of the other myriad nice things that we can get in exchange for money?
If you're a reasonably engaged software dev (like many on this site) it probably only takes you 10 hours a week to cover basic costs of living in an entry level apartment. Why would you work more than 10 hours?
> A 2019 study found "a 14% increase in substance-abuse incidents the day after the [Alaska Permanent Fund] payment and a 10% increase over the following four weeks. This is partially offset by a 8% decrease in property crime, with no changes in violent crimes.
If you've ever worked at a mcdonalds in the past ten years, you'll know that all the "work" is done by cooking machines and most of the humans are just packaging and assembling warmed up frozen food. There's a lot of admin, cleaning and customer facing that goes into it too.
I honestly believe if you wanted to, it is conceptually easy to fully automate mcdonalds, kfc & dominos (ect).
It still reamins to be seen if universal basic income would make videogames the most common daytime activity among adults. The reason ubi experiments in India shows good results, may be that video games are unavailable in the Indian countryside. It also may be that small villages in India has strong communities. Communities with strong social control, that won’t allow it’s inhabitants that receive ubi to spend it all on alcohol. In the western world, there is much less social control. Still it reamins to be seen if peope receiving ubi, will choose to find meaning in video games, flipping burgers or do something good for themselves or the community.
I think you also have to take into account the political sustainability of a policy though. It might be better for a poor person to get $2 cash than $2 of bread. But the $2 cash handout will be perennially opposed by some voters. The program eligibility will be slashed, the program will be a political football at election times, etc... while the bread program will be mostly noncontroversial and allowed to operate in peace.
The political argument in favor of universal basic income stresses the importance of the universal.
That is, when the argument is "the others are getting cash", some will oppose it. But if it's "we all get cash", the opposition is less.
In America, Social Security straight up gives up cash to ALL older Americans. Assuming you live long enough, you'll get Social Security. It's not immune but it remains popular. Indeed, efforts to cut back on Social Security are framed as attempts to "save" it and keep the program solvent.
In contrast, food stamps, welfare, and unemployment benefits are very much on the chopping block year after year, their recipients stereotyped as "welfare queens" trying to cheat the system.
> But the $2 cash handout will be perennially opposed by some voters. The program eligibility will be slashed, the program will be a political football at election times, etc... while the bread program will be mostly noncontroversial and allowed to operate in peace.
It's completely the opposite. You have to call the cash a tax credit and give it to everyone. Then no one can get rid of it because nobody wants a tax hike.
As soon as you start having eligibility restrictions or purchasing restrictions or effort-based gatekeeping, it reduces the number of people who benefit from the program, which is how it gets ruined or dismantled once the number of beneficiaries are no longer enough people that politicians have to care about them.
Make it so that everybody below the 51st percentile income is a net beneficiary and the program is locked in.
There’s so many head games that goes into US politics that seems pointless. Democrats in particular compromise with themselves so much before even offering something to republicans before compromising even more.
Republicans pretty much never do that, it’s just boom, let’s give big tax cuts to the rich or stop all immigration.
Left side of the US needs to boldly actually fight for things rather than step my step planning out what “seems reasonable to republicans”, it’s just a bad losing idea, go boldly with what’s the moral and reasonable thing.
I do not believe "some voters" will motivate the politicians. Instead it is the bread manufacturers, farms, importers, and every other large business with enough weight to convince politicians that a bread coupon is better for Americans than cash. Unsurprisingly they do this with cash not coupons.
Actually the reverse. UBI is very much a neo-libral approved thing, as they have now concentrated so much of the wealth and left so little that the bottom is threatening to fall out of the system that for them is a perpetual money printing machine. So they would rather give a tiny amount to the serfs to prevent them from revolting. And unlike a loafof bread, they can still seduce them to spend their UBI check on conspicuous consumption, then blaming them for 'irresponsible spending' so their own conscience about their greed is appeased as 'if we gave them more money they would just spend it on more beer and a larger TV'.
This is the wrong argument I would say. If its economically the correct policy then all parties should be saying it and convincing the non-believers about the efficacy of the solution. Unfortunately there is no integrity in politics to do the right thing these days and so this will never happen. One party just opposes the other party's positions irrespective of whether they are good or not. Democrats are at least a bit better in that regard, they would not oppose the proposal outright, instead they try to criticize the implementation. Republicans on the other hand would argue (in unison) that killing babies is alright if the democrats say it's wrong.
This kind of logic could be applied to any major social change in the past few centuries. It's always less friction to maintain status quo. And then change happens and everybody forgets about it. Is anybody perennially opposed to women suffrage anymore? Or is it a subject of a political football?
This is an american perspective. In the UK, people are proud to be "on the dole" and very few support restricting it.
EDIT: Of course brits will still look for work. My point is that Ive seen brits in talk shows audiences talk about taking public assistence without thinking of themselves as "bad people" the way American conservatives would. The desire to eliminate all public assistance is absent in Europe. Don't mean to offend brits, I think you guys have the right attitude here. Take assistance if you need it and dont needlessly refuse to help others.
This is not an article about UBI. It’s interesting that all if the comments are about the usefulness of UBI, while this article is merely about the efficacy of delivering aid in kind vs in cash.
Shouldn't firefighters compete to see who can spend the least amount of money putting out fires? Shouldn't health insurance agencies compete to see who can spend the least on healing people? Until we get these things straight why would he want to have the government spend money or making infrastructure stronger? After all, government spending is bad, right?
What happens if people who receive UBI still need assistance? Do we ignore them and say "should have spent your UBI better"? Do we support them with existing or new welfare systems?
I think this is off base, at least if we're talking about the US. The central problem is high prices for housing, healthcare and education. The first step to solving that problem is research: we need to figure out the right theory of cost disease, its causes and prevention. Scott made a start here: https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/02/09/considerations-on-cost... Once we fix it (by regulation if need be), and these goods become appropriately cheap, poor people will have much less trouble getting by. Whereas if you don't fix it, and instead give money to people, the mysterious force that extracts that money into rising housing/healthcare/education costs will just learn to extract a little more, and you're back where you started.
Our idea are vending machines for jobs. Everybody who looks for work or medicinal assistance gets help in less than 30 seconds. The hypothesis behind BIM is proximity: For some people, it is too complicated to follow a routine to pick-up a job.
We have some forms of this, such as the earned income tax credit, but it doesn’t go nearly far enough.
I like the the idea of a reverse income tax at the lower levels and wish it was more popular, but it needs to be done in a way that it doesn’t discourage earning more money.
There is very little real unemployment in America. Most people just think themselves too good to cut lawns, chop meat, pick fruit, fillet fish, or work on a factory line.
Why would we want to enable snobbery?
Let’s have UBI when there actually are no jobs. Not when there are just no fun jobs.
As in they buy things they need? What else are they gonna do, not eat and die? If you are really poor you basically have no choice to only buy what you need. The problem is, once they are in a slightly better situation, they probably won't start investing that money or opening a business, because they don't need to. The problem is psychological, and "grants" just patronize poor people from the start, preventing them form seeing themselves as their own primary benefactor.
I find this extremely politically biased. It states right from the start "The bulk of transfers are spent on food anyway", like that is a good thing. UN's policies are antiquated. The world's poor mostly have malnutrition (not undernourishment) and it's getting out of control. They want to apply cookie cutter policies for both sub-Saharan Africa and poor people in the rest of the world.
I'd support a system like this if the money was spent mostly on healthy food and durable goods. But I fear a blunt money giveaway will exacerbate the existing problems.
Do you ever wonder why so many evil corporations support democrats/labour/etc? Handouts get votes, and as long as handouts get spent mostly in things these corporations sell it's all good. Think junk food, rent (landowners), non-durable goods (mobile, shoes, clothing), gasoline, alcohol, and tobacco. It's a feedback loop of well meaning but lazy left wing politics and the worst of Capitalism.
Or... _just stop taxing them to death_ and leave the money in their pockets. Removing 15%-35% of their income forcefully, skimming a bunch off the top, then returning a small percentage of it isn't an efficient system. Likewise "just print more money" devalues what little savings they have and promotes paycheck-to-paycheck behavior, enslaving them systemically.
Of course, I'd personally like to see this taken further, and see a) welfare programs in kind in general replaced with cash, and then b) taxpayer funding of same replaced by charitable giving (quite the opposite to the UBI folks, and motivated by quite a different morality). This feels like quite a viable transition to me.
I prefer the term freedom money rather than universal basic income. I seriously believe that most people when given the responsibility and the opportunities that universal basic would gives, would choose to improve both their own lives and others. People would probably choose not to do work that is considered harmful for the environment, like chopping down rainforests. When introducing ubi, governments would probably at the same time encourage people to take part in voluntary activities rather than playing videgames.
[+] [-] mrdoops|5 years ago|reply
UBI makes sense for a purpose of bringing more buyer's/actors to the game. It's especially useful considering our dependence on jobs as the primary activating mechanism shows strain under the troubles of scaling human coordination and hiring. In a sort of backwards way we get more jobs when more people can contribute to the flow of money.
However UBI doesn't solve the problem of debt still piping the cash back into the hands of banks and other financial institutions. What are these UBI checks going to be spent on? Rent that's too high? Student loans for indulgent tuition prices? Without blocking the pipes from the poor to the the actors with pipes of their own, these throughput problems aren't solved more than delayed.
An actor is still a single actor, so if one actor has an over aggregation of wealth and has trouble spending it effectively the potential of that wealth is wasted when at least some actors don't have enough.
So surely trillions of dollars of UBI injected directly into the hands of the poor will stimulate the economy. But for how long until the cash starts to aggregate again into slower pools of cash where throughput is limited? In a sense we almost want inflation if these "overaggregators" are so abundant, but only if the population is maintained at a base level of wealth relative to the inflation. Otherwise the rich, who probably got rich by being more effective with their money respond to the market changes faster and the UBI stimulation is only temporary.
But if UBI causes significant inflation, and the pipes going directly to every individual have enough back pressure, it could be a great situation where the overaggregators lose value to inflation as they struggle to spend or invest.
[+] [-] AnthonyMouse|5 years ago|reply
That isn't a problem it's expected to solve. It's a completely independent problem that already happens whether you have a UBI or not.
The solutions there are likewise independent. Build more housing so it isn't supply constrained and doesn't increase in price to consume any gains made by the working class. Stop issuing student loans (students now have a UBI and don't need them), because student loans inflate the cost of college relative to other things which loans aren't available for. A UBI doesn't do that because the money isn't only available when spend on college.
> An actor is still a single actor, so if one actor has an over aggregation of wealth and has trouble spending it effectively the potential of that wealth is wasted when at least some actors don't have enough.
That's not how money works. Money in a bank account isn't being "wasted" because it isn't consuming resources, and if hoarding is causing currency scarcity (i.e. deflation) then additional money can easily be printed.
> So surely trillions of dollars of UBI injected directly into the hands of the poor will stimulate the economy. But for how long until the cash starts to aggregate again into slower pools of cash where throughput is limited?
For as long as they keep getting the UBI. Where do you think the money to fund it would come from?
[+] [-] nicoburns|5 years ago|reply
I think these two example are to the point. They're really the only outsized debts that most people have that aren't just "generally need more money". They should be tackled separately in addition to general wealth distribution policies.
> If a large percentage of the population can't participate, the market's capability to price, evaluate and represent value is hindered.
Note, that the actors having roughly proportional buying power is also important. Having actors that control disproportionate amounts of wealth also hinders the market's capability to price. We need explicit measures against wealth accumulation if we wish to have functioning markets.
[+] [-] thomasfl|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zhoujianfu|5 years ago|reply
The risk is perhaps a flight to an alternative currency without 10% inflation... but maybe the USD is in a fortunate position to withstand that.
[+] [-] mountainboot|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] scoopertrooper|5 years ago|reply
It stands to reason that unrestricted welfare would reduce hours worked in developed countries. This would be especially true for young adults with no dependents. Why work overtime at McDonalds when your rent is already paid up for the month and there are so many fun video games to play?
I think we just have to accept that UBI would give people that work undesirable/uninteresting jobs an off-ramp from the economy. The problem being that our economy depends on these people performing such jobs. Employers would have increase wages significantly above the UBI level in order to attract workers, but that would either erode the UBI through inflation or cause an inflationary spiral if the UBI were indexed.
I haven't heard a satisfactory explanation as to how UBI avoids these pitfalls.
[+] [-] PudgePacket|5 years ago|reply
Firstly, this probably isn't correct, see this recent report from Finland: https://twitter.com/rcbregman/status/1258336749828419584
I'd also point out that the current situation forces an "all or nothing" employment system. In Aus, if you're working part time you don't quality for any benefits, so the incentive to work while on unemployment is lowered. However, with UBI, there _is_ incentive to work. You can double your income by taking up a part time job, instead of getting the same amount from working as you would from unemployment.
I'd also challenge you and say why do think reduced working hours is a bad thing?
Also, what about all the people with a lot of money who don't work?
All your arguments have been made before and discussed in depth.
> The problem being that our economy depends on these people performing such jobs.
The economy should serve the people. Shareholders may depend on it though :)
Your "inflationary spiral" theory is also unfounded, and has been shown previously.
> Why work overtime at McDonalds when your rent is already paid up for the month and there are so many fun video games to play?
This is a terrible strawman, but also maybe MCD should pay better or offer other incentives? They're not owed employees.
[+] [-] ntSean|5 years ago|reply
There are more than enough unemployed people to fill any gaps created.
[+] [-] AnthonyMouse|5 years ago|reply
Employers would not have to increase wages "significantly above the UBI level" because the UBI is paid in addition to wages. They might have to increase wages somewhat in order to convince people to do undesirable jobs, but isn't that a good thing?
It also makes automation of those jobs more profitable, which allows more people to do what they want to do instead of being forced into drudgery out of survival.
Meanwhile there is no obvious means for this to cause inflation because no additional money is inherently being created. There would merely be less income inequality because some money is transferred from executives and shareholders to workers when they have to pay higher wages.
The only real mechanism for inflation would be if you transferred money from people inclined to save it to people inclined to spend it immediately, but there is no way for that to consume the entire amount unless the supply of all goods and services is completely inelastic. Otherwise some of the money gets spent on things whose prices don't increase significantly with demand and you just get more production.
Meanwhile necessities with inelastic supply are evils in themselves, because it's nearly always an artificial barrier. If people had more money and housing supply is constrained then rents might go up, but the problem there isn't that people have more money, it's that housing supply is artificially constrained. A solution to one problem isn't defective just because it fails to solve a completely independent problem. We have to solve the other problem either way.
[+] [-] t-writescode|5 years ago|reply
There's something very real and very healthy about taking power away from those that shouldn't have that power; and abusive customers and failures of managers are some people that might do well to have their pegs knocked down a notch or two.
[+] [-] enriquto|5 years ago|reply
I had to read your comment three times; it was unbelievable that somebody could ever hold such a revolting argument. You are saying that it is OK to keep large swaths of the population under the permanent menace of starvation, exposure and death from curable illnesses, lest they wouldn't have an incentive to pick your trash and serve you fast food. Dude, relax.
[+] [-] JackFr|5 years ago|reply
I think it just sets a floor on the wages of such undesirable jobs. And if the new wage to attract labor is higher than the marginal product of the worker, it’s likely that the job goes away rather than experiencing wage-driven inflation. In the worst case, this would simply lead to reduced output. In a best case the higher wage demanded would make capital investment more attractive, as it would improve the productivity of employees.
[+] [-] arcticbull|5 years ago|reply
It's funny, people say that. But what would you do, personally? If I offered you just over your rent to stay home... would you... stay home? I know I wouldn't. People derive their sense of self-worth from a combination of intrinsic and extrinsic factors, and derive a lot of their social validation from their coworkers.
Personally, I could retire on a beach and do nothing for the next 60 years. That sounds shit though. I mean, it sounds great when I hate my boss, but about five minutes later, it sounds pretty shit.
[+] [-] MattGaiser|5 years ago|reply
It also must be considered that many categories of jobs currently can’t be filled without some form of immigration because the existing social safety net of charities and government benefits never makes picking strawberries or meat cutting preferable to unemployment.
[+] [-] taneq|5 years ago|reply
So you can afford more video games? Or a new, locally-made bike? Or any one of the other myriad nice things that we can get in exchange for money?
If you're a reasonably engaged software dev (like many on this site) it probably only takes you 10 hours a week to cover basic costs of living in an entry level apartment. Why would you work more than 10 hours?
[+] [-] grecy|5 years ago|reply
They've been doing this for a long time, and have avoided those pitfalls you hypothesize about.
NOTE: It's more than that now with COVID-19, I'm giving the "normal times" number.
[+] [-] spyckie2|5 years ago|reply
This is a legitimate question to ask.
[+] [-] iovrthoughtthis|5 years ago|reply
See ”The effects of cash transfers on adult labor market outcomes” https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s40176-018-0131-9
[+] [-] tspike|5 years ago|reply
Couldn't another possibility besides inflation be that this incentivizes automation (which can have deflationary effects)?
[+] [-] friendlybus|5 years ago|reply
I honestly believe if you wanted to, it is conceptually easy to fully automate mcdonalds, kfc & dominos (ect).
[+] [-] thomasfl|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ponker|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] andrewfong|5 years ago|reply
That is, when the argument is "the others are getting cash", some will oppose it. But if it's "we all get cash", the opposition is less.
In America, Social Security straight up gives up cash to ALL older Americans. Assuming you live long enough, you'll get Social Security. It's not immune but it remains popular. Indeed, efforts to cut back on Social Security are framed as attempts to "save" it and keep the program solvent.
In contrast, food stamps, welfare, and unemployment benefits are very much on the chopping block year after year, their recipients stereotyped as "welfare queens" trying to cheat the system.
[+] [-] AnthonyMouse|5 years ago|reply
It's completely the opposite. You have to call the cash a tax credit and give it to everyone. Then no one can get rid of it because nobody wants a tax hike.
As soon as you start having eligibility restrictions or purchasing restrictions or effort-based gatekeeping, it reduces the number of people who benefit from the program, which is how it gets ruined or dismantled once the number of beneficiaries are no longer enough people that politicians have to care about them.
Make it so that everybody below the 51st percentile income is a net beneficiary and the program is locked in.
[+] [-] marricks|5 years ago|reply
Republicans pretty much never do that, it’s just boom, let’s give big tax cuts to the rich or stop all immigration.
Left side of the US needs to boldly actually fight for things rather than step my step planning out what “seems reasonable to republicans”, it’s just a bad losing idea, go boldly with what’s the moral and reasonable thing.
[+] [-] huragok|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] syphilis2|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] PeterStuer|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yalogin|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] perfunctory|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] drapred7|5 years ago|reply
EDIT: Of course brits will still look for work. My point is that Ive seen brits in talk shows audiences talk about taking public assistence without thinking of themselves as "bad people" the way American conservatives would. The desire to eliminate all public assistance is absent in Europe. Don't mean to offend brits, I think you guys have the right attitude here. Take assistance if you need it and dont needlessly refuse to help others.
[+] [-] JackFr|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Antecedent|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dvduval|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _Microft|5 years ago|reply
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/free-money-might-be-...
[+] [-] lolsal|5 years ago|reply
I'm genuinely curious.
[+] [-] known|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mydongle|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cousin_it|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] perfunctory|5 years ago|reply
> In low and middle income country settings, cash transfers also mostly do not affect whether, or how much, people work.
[+] [-] tbstbstbs|5 years ago|reply
Our idea are vending machines for jobs. Everybody who looks for work or medicinal assistance gets help in less than 30 seconds. The hypothesis behind BIM is proximity: For some people, it is too complicated to follow a routine to pick-up a job.
[+] [-] 3fe9a03ccd14ca5|5 years ago|reply
I like the the idea of a reverse income tax at the lower levels and wish it was more popular, but it needs to be done in a way that it doesn’t discourage earning more money.
[+] [-] blargmaster33|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] Antecedent|5 years ago|reply
Why would we want to enable snobbery?
Let’s have UBI when there actually are no jobs. Not when there are just no fun jobs.
[+] [-] proc0|5 years ago|reply
As in they buy things they need? What else are they gonna do, not eat and die? If you are really poor you basically have no choice to only buy what you need. The problem is, once they are in a slightly better situation, they probably won't start investing that money or opening a business, because they don't need to. The problem is psychological, and "grants" just patronize poor people from the start, preventing them form seeing themselves as their own primary benefactor.
[+] [-] alecco|5 years ago|reply
I'd support a system like this if the money was spent mostly on healthy food and durable goods. But I fear a blunt money giveaway will exacerbate the existing problems.
Do you ever wonder why so many evil corporations support democrats/labour/etc? Handouts get votes, and as long as handouts get spent mostly in things these corporations sell it's all good. Think junk food, rent (landowners), non-durable goods (mobile, shoes, clothing), gasoline, alcohol, and tobacco. It's a feedback loop of well meaning but lazy left wing politics and the worst of Capitalism.
Think about it.
[+] [-] exabrial|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] duncan_bayne|5 years ago|reply
Austrians have been saying for years that State calculation to achieve desired economic outcomes is doomed to failure ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_calculation_problem). This just seems like a special case of that.
Of course, I'd personally like to see this taken further, and see a) welfare programs in kind in general replaced with cash, and then b) taxpayer funding of same replaced by charitable giving (quite the opposite to the UBI folks, and motivated by quite a different morality). This feels like quite a viable transition to me.
[+] [-] thomasfl|5 years ago|reply