I’m still not seeing any actual numbers here.
Some will, but absolutely nowhere near the level of people needed to keep working to keep a society running. Automation of the sort that you describe is not going to arrive for a long while yet to come.
This is my question, too. Inevitably, there will be some people who will foolishly deplete their stipend on foolish expenses, or, worse yet, intentionally game the system by refusing to spend their money on necessities of life and then in essence holding society hostage - “I put my UBI stipend in an interest-earning trust fund that doesn’t permit me to touch it until 20 years from now. Now give me more money for food or else I’ll starve.”
Eventually we’d be back at Square One, as we would need UBI + welfare for those who could not or would not spend their UBI wisely.
No to means testing. The “U” in UBI stands for “universal” and Bill Gates is a citizen, too. Besides, we’re going to tax the crap out of his income bracket to help pay for this.
I’m pretty sure that’s because none of the advocates want to acknowledge that it’s hideously expensive.
The problem with means testing as it’s usually practiced is that there’s a rigid cut-off point and the person goes from full assistance to zero with literally a one dollar too much increase in income resulting a hit of thousands of dollars.
Some here recently had this happen with his ACA subsidy. A few dollars over and several hundred monthly went away.
I would like to know how many people in this thread have actually been on welfare?
I have. It’s totally degrading. I was crying for help to get a job and 13 “professionals” told me to go on disability. No encouragement whatsoever.
Giving every one free money would make that worse.
It’s not just expensive, it’s impossible. You can’t pay everyone an amount equivalent to a minimum ‘living’ income out of taxes that are ultimately sourced from a portion of everyone’s income - welfare only works (where it does work) because people who need it are a minority compared to working taxpayers.
It is the function of government to try to organise and concentrate expenditure where it is needed and where it is effective, not to spread it around evenly, including all the places where it is not needed or effective.
I’d like to see those numbers as well.
How much is the UBI going to be, how much are we going to tax incomes above the UBI, at what point do those taxes kick in, etc.
Especially what will be the effect on marginal earnings. Say the UBI is $30K. No one in his right mind is going to take a job paying less that 30K even if the government kicks in to make up the difference. Work and get $30K, or don’t work, and get $30K. And, if the UBI is $30K, someone offering a job paying $35K is looking to hire people who are willing to work for $5K a year. There might be some number of people willing to do that, but I would bet it isn’t a large number.
See the famous Seattle Income Maintenance Project/Denver Income Maintenance Project, aka the SIME/DIME experiment. It caused people to work less, go to school less, and broke up their marriages more, and the effects grew stronger the longer the experiment went on.
TANSTAAFL. Somebody’s gotta pay the bills.
Regards,
Shodan
Means testing could be accomplished by a huge marginal tax rate on the first say $50,000 of income such that the benefit goes away at that income level. Now that’s just to accomplish the means testing: actually paying for it would require trillions of dollars a year which would have to come from debt or taxes on the rich.
There are several efficiencies in a UBI that would partly make up for some people not wanting to work. You could lay off all the people involved in means-testing in the various social assistance programs, as well as consolidate them into one agency to save on overhead. Some of them would be able to contribute elsewhere to the economy. This would be a net benefit to the economy even though fewer people would be working, since the “job of means-testing” is still being accomplished, just the answer is always “yes”. In effect, their job has been automated, so any additional things they can produce by finding other jobs is a bonus to the economy.
Another plus is that you could eliminate or greatly reduce the minimum wage. Right now it is needed to keep money flowing through the economy and supporting a basic living standard, but the cost of some jobs not being done. This would be a marginal boost to the economy as well.
However, I agree with those upthread who said the government would also need to supply minimal housing and food provision: my reason for that is that otherwise the inflation in basic rent and goods produced by a UBI would make the original income worth much less. A public option for these things, costing around the UBI at a maximum, would ensure everyone a minimum standard of living.
I may be mistaken here, but the concept of the UBI, AIUI, is that you get your UBI no matter whether you are working or not. So people still have plenty of incentive to work. If your UBI is $30k, and an employer is offering you a $37k job, you get both sources of income, for a combined $67,000-a-year income.
Now if the UBI is something you ***forfeit ***by working a job, then, of course, plenty of people would choose not to work at all.
Yes, any earned income would be in addition to the basic income. Shodan appears to be misunderstanding the concept at the most basic level.
Wikipedia offers this description for UBI:
That’s sort of “the vision”, right? Everyone can live the Star Trek life, pursuing their interests, whether that be art, science, or goofing off in the holodeck all day, without having to worry about where their next meal is going to come from, or how the bills are going to get paid.
Today, the USA is home to an estimated 327 million people. The Census Bureau’s poverty threshold for an individual under 65 is $12,752. 65+ is $11,756. Let’s round that off to a nice even $12,000, or $1,000 per person per month to lift everyone out of poverty. A bit of quick arithmetic tells me that 327,000,000 * $12,000 would come to a total of $3.9T per year, or roughly the entire federal budget for 2017.
Well, that’s a problem. We could start by paring down our definition of “universal” to be less-inclusive. Let’s exclude everyone under 18 (~24%) and everyone who is not a citizen (~7%). Those changes save us roughly $1.2T, which is a good start, but the remaining ~$2.7T is still more than we spend today on SS and all other federal welfare programs combined today, by roughly double. Where would we get the money to do this?
Also, keep in mind that we haven’t yet allocated a single dime to administer this program. Given that government bureaucracies typically operate with inefficiencies that would make private organizations blush, you can expect the total bill for $1000 / month / [del]person[/del] adult citizen to be significantly higher.
Have you worked for a Really Big Company? I have. They have mind bogglingly stupid levels of inefficiency.
I’ve worked with both very large companies and various government organizations as a consultant. Admittedly, I’m not reviewing their books or performing audits, but my personal experience has been that government is typically less-efficient than the private sector, by a significant margin.
Does any part of this plan involve price-freezing so that the market doesn’t adjust to all that extra money going to everybody?
I think calling it a “plan” is being overly-generous, but no, I haven’t heard anyone pair the idea with price-freezing.
Fair point, so it depends on how UBI is implemented. The necessity of raising taxes enormously means, however, that the marginal value of earnings above the UBI are reduced.
I need to see the numbers. If I make $90K a year, and get $30K, what is the tax rate on the $90K? Does this replace Medicare, Medicaid, and/or Social Security? How much effort is wasted in sending the $30K to Bill Gates, and then taxing it back again?
Regards,
Shodan
“For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.”
-H. L. Mencken
This also applies to all flat tax proposals.
The other problem would be that an increase in taxes would lead to an increase in tax avoidance both through loopholes and outright fraud, but otherwise I agree with you. I have no problem with Bill Gates getting his 30K government stipend along with everyone else if it is accompanied by a million dollar tax hike.
Probably a lot less than figuring out who should get what under the current system. Bill Gates is going to fill out a tax form under any circumstances, and the IRS seems to have no problem sending out refund checks through mail or e-transfer.