# Guranteed annual income--conservative option **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 11, 2015, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guranteed-annual-income-conservative-option/722289 "2015-06-11T20:44:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2015, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guranteed-annual-income-conservative-option/722289/21 "2015-06-14T18:57:54Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > I’m not convinced of this. If people are broke, we _want_ them moving to Boonies, where their money will go farther. Of course, it’s tough for people whose family and friends are not in Boonies. Do we really want all the poor people concentrated out in the boonies? Where there’s no public transit and there’s little access to libraries, free museums, and more importantly, jobs? I’d much rather be urban poor than rural poor. I am in favor of guaranteed income. I think it would mitigate societal harm as more jobs become automated. But I do wonder about the downsides. If working essentially became optional for everyon, then who will step up to do the dirty/disgusting jobs? ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2015, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guranteed-annual-income-conservative-option/722289/22 "2015-06-14T19:05:21Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > If working essentially became optional for everyon, then who will step up to do the dirty/disgusting jobs? Not a problem! The free market would take care of that. Lowest wage levels might rise (as low-skilled workers are able to afford leisure) but _that’s good_ (outside plutocratic views). ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2015, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guranteed-annual-income-conservative-option/722289/23 "2015-06-14T19:11:09Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > Currently, people on welfare are taxed at 100% of any income earned up to the welfare amount. They are also not permitted to enroll in courses or even do volunteer work (either of which might help get them off welfare). Where? I’ve never heard of a welfare program that barred recipients from going to school. Quite the opposite, in many cases. I’ve been a long-time proponent of Basic Income. As it’s usually heard of from the kooky to far left, a conservative take on it is interesting. ---
**Author:** ![HelenGawn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a88e4f/32.png) [@HelenGawn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HelenGawn)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2015, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guranteed-annual-income-conservative-option/722289/24 "2015-06-14T20:33:19Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > I’m not convinced of this. If people are broke, we _want_ them moving to Boonies, where their money will go farther. Of course, it’s tough for people whose family and friends are not in Boonies. I’d always worried about the problem of variable costs of living in different locations, but this is a very good point. Also, the economy in Boonie will improve by having more people spending money, creating jobs. ---
**Author:** ![HoneyBadgerDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/honeybadgerdc/32/1033_2.png) [@HoneyBadgerDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HoneyBadgerDC)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2015, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guranteed-annual-income-conservative-option/722289/25 "2015-06-14T20:40:25Z")
I don’t know if it is a california thing or a federal thing but I know of several folks who are on General relief which is about $200.00 per month in cash and $200.00 in food stamps. It will keep you alive. ---
**Author:** ![HoneyBadgerDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/honeybadgerdc/32/1033_2.png) [@HoneyBadgerDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HoneyBadgerDC)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2015, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guranteed-annual-income-conservative-option/722289/26 "2015-06-14T20:45:49Z")
Any incentive not to work will be taken advanatge of. This does nothing but take away from the truly deserving welfare recipients. If a deserving person could make a few bucks on the side I would rather just see them keep it. ``` Something I have heard more times than I would have liked to is " I can only work under the table because I get a check". I would crack down on welfare hard enough that people thought twice about getting too many tatoos or having too many children or wearing rediculous clothing and hair styles. I would like to see honest people who cannot work through no fault of their own be able to live with some dignity. ``` ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2015, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guranteed-annual-income-conservative-option/722289/27 "2015-06-14T20:48:31Z")
> [@HoneyBadgerDC](#): > > Any incentive not to work will be taken advanatge of. By some, but I doubt it’s more than a small percentage. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2015, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guranteed-annual-income-conservative-option/722289/28 "2015-06-14T20:51:27Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > By some, but I doubt it’s more than a small percentage. HoneyBadger don’t care! ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2015, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guranteed-annual-income-conservative-option/722289/29 "2015-06-14T21:26:52Z")
The results of the famous Seattle Income Maintenance/Denver Income Maintenance Experiments (well known as [SIME/DIME](http://aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/SIME-DIME83/report.htm#Conclusions)) are instructive. People work less, their relationships break up more, and they tend not to engage in work-related education, which depressed their earnings even after the experiment ended. This is not to say everyone will simply live off the dole, just that more of them will than do under current welfare structures. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2015, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guranteed-annual-income-conservative-option/722289/30 "2015-06-14T22:19:24Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > The results of the famous Seattle Income Maintenance/Denver Income Maintenance Experiments (well known as [SIME/DIME](http://aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/SIME-DIME83/report.htm#Conclusions)) are instructive. People work less, their relationships break up more, and they tend not to engage in work-related education, which depressed their earnings even after the experiment ended. This is not to say everyone will simply live off the dole, just that more of them will than do under current welfare structures. > > Regards, > Shodan What were the marginal rates in those experiments? Many schemes allow recipients to keep only 50% of wages; i.e. nominal take-home pay of $10/hour becomes just %5/hr as the subsidy is removed. I and others in the thread have proposed _no means testing_. Incentives are very different when the recipient keeps all his wages. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2015, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guranteed-annual-income-conservative-option/722289/31 "2015-06-15T01:23:54Z")
> [@Habeed](#): > > Why can’t we have a guaranteed job instead? The problem with a guaranteed job is that if it’s guaranteed, you don’t have to do more than pretend to work to keep it. However, I’d like to see something close to this: that rather than the competing and more or less contradictory goals of [Humphrey-Hawkins](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humphrey%E2%80%93Hawkins_Full_Employment_Act) (which was \*intended \*to be a full-employment bill but got gutted in the drafting), the Fed’s mandate should clearly be defined as one of attempting to come as close to full employment as possible without creating a self-perpetuating wage-price spiral. And during such times as interest rates were up against the zero lower bound, the Administration would have built-in authorization to increase infrastructure spending by up to 3% of GDP per year, to be financed by borrowing, with no additional Congressional approval required. People would still have to get regular jobs, and could be fired from them if they didn’t perform, but the Federal Reserve would be required to pursue full employment first, and the Executive would have tools to do the job in situations (like now) where interest rates really needed to go negative in order to stimulate a recovery. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2015, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guranteed-annual-income-conservative-option/722289/32 "2015-06-15T13:53:38Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > What were the marginal rates in those experiments? Many schemes allow recipients to keep only 50% of wages; i.e. nominal take-home pay of $10/hour becomes just %5/hr as the subsidy is removed. > > I and others in the thread have proposed _no means testing_. Incentives are very different when the recipient keeps all his wages. Well, the OP said > [@](#): > > And that if you earn money, this guaranteed income be gradually taxed away. But gradually only in order not to discourage people from working if they can. which is pretty much what the SIME/DIME tested. And it is not quite a nitpick, but a nominal hourly wage of $10 does not become $5 an hour. It stays $10 an hour - it just doesn’t go to $15 ($10 per hour + $5 per hour in subsidy). SIME/DIME was a guaranteed minimum income, in that nobody ever went below the115% of the poverty line. But you are correct - incentives are different if everyone just gets $X per year and regular tax rates kick in on any income you earn. What it would amount to would be to reduce everyone’s taxable income base by X amount. As ever, the devil would be in the details - how much does everyone get, do we eliminate any deductions, what are the starting tax rates, etc. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2015, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guranteed-annual-income-conservative-option/722289/33 "2015-06-15T14:01:01Z")
Properly implemented, Basic Income solves quite a few economic issues. For one thing, it would likely cost less than the massive, complicated, bureaucracy-heavy and generally unsatisfactory in all ways “welfare” system. Barring the Zombie Apocalypse, the triumph of the Ultra-Right or the Second Coming, we are going to have those costs in some form - why not make it simple, as free from overhead cost as possible and non-demeaning? Throw in the endless money we spend trying to “create” and “support” employment, and I’d bet it would be a net savings, long-term. There are not ever going to be self-supporting/family-supporting jobs for everyone again - the postwar era was an anomaly, not normality, and we’ve doubled in population since then while the number of meaningful jobs continues to decline for many reasons. Basic income meets both the social responsibility for the well-being of all citizens and opens many possibilities for meaningful, useful employment for a worker pool less than “every adult.” ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2015, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guranteed-annual-income-conservative-option/722289/34 "2015-06-15T14:11:08Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > There are not ever going to be self-supporting/family-supporting jobs for everyone again… The guaranteed income idea assumes that there are going to be enough jobs available that will support not only the worker and his or her family, but a bunch of other people as well. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2015, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guranteed-annual-income-conservative-option/722289/35 "2015-06-15T14:23:38Z")
So… if there aren’t enough jobs what are the surplus workers supposed to do? Go off in a corner and quietly starve? Somehow I don’t think that’s going to happen. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2015, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guranteed-annual-income-conservative-option/722289/36 "2015-06-15T14:33:42Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > So… if there aren’t enough jobs what are the surplus workers supposed to do? Go off in a corner and quietly starve? Somehow I don’t think that’s going to happen. If ‘not enough jobs’ turns out to be a long-term thing, rather than something that happens in recessions but goes away as the economy picks up, we need to spread the work around so that everybody can work. Shorten the work week, make time-and-a-half for overtime apply to everyone, give everyone four weeks’ paid vacation and a decent amount of paid sick leave, stuff like that. ---
**Author:** ![runningdude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e9c0ed/32.png) [@runningdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/runningdude)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2015, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guranteed-annual-income-conservative-option/722289/37 "2015-06-15T14:55:14Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > I don’t like the idea of guaranteed minimum income. First, it has to vary by area, since subsistence income for Boonies, TX is enough for only a few days in NYC. Second, you don’t know what the recipients will spend it on. > > I don’t mind government (that is, local government) -provided service that includes food, clothing and housing. You live in the government complex, you eat in the government cafeteria and you can pick up clothing in the government dispensary. All basic but adequate. Nothing that you would be very comfortable living on forever. Very strict policing in the housing to make it safe, even if it involves lack of privacy and restricting some rights - by entering you agree to such conditions. > > I would impose no income-testing on such services. If you want to live in conditions like that while earning $100K in your job - go ahead. I don’t expect people to want to do that. You are describing communism. We do not do things like that in America. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2015, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guranteed-annual-income-conservative-option/722289/38 "2015-06-15T15:10:09Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > The guaranteed income idea assumes that there are going to be enough jobs available that will support not only the worker and his or her family, but a bunch of other people as well. You are assuming the implementation of Basic Income without any other changes, which is not possible. Nor is income tax the sole revenue stream for such a program. Your bumper sticker dismissal is nonsense. ---
**Author:** ![CinnamonBabka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/bbce88/32.png) [@CinnamonBabka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CinnamonBabka)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2015, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guranteed-annual-income-conservative-option/722289/39 "2015-06-15T16:20:08Z")
I’d quit my job if I had a guaranteed basic income. I’d imagine a lot of similarly skilled labor would do the same. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2015, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guranteed-annual-income-conservative-option/722289/40 "2015-06-15T16:22:26Z")
What is your definition of a basic income? Why would you quit? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guranteed-annual-income-conservative-option/722289.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guranteed-annual-income-conservative-option/722289.md?page=3)