Reading about it, it is clear to me that one big reason why it was defeated is that there were not many limitations to the plan, the right wing made the point that many Europeans then would move to Switzerland.
I still think that the plan should be implemented in specific cases like when the ones losing their jobs have to demonstrate that they worked for more or equal to 5 years in a field and after getting unemployment for 2 years; the recipients should only show then that his/her trade is not likely to come back to the USA or the countries that implement such a plan or that the job has been eliminated by progress or regulations.
That’s a terrible proposal, economically. Assuming they are actually producing anything of value, that would drive wages down. It’s very similar in theory to the practice of making “vagrancy” a crime and throwing the unemployment on chain gangs.
Trying to get another perspective, I think a UBI would save the economy large amounts for crime reduction and mental health care spending, like for depression, as it’s often linked with financial problems -> worries about the job/future. Superiors who double as bullies in the workplace would have to change their strategy, as employees would be able to simply quit, if they are harrassed. The quality of life would increase for many. In the best case, society would change to the better, as people would lose fear of economic uncertainty, like they lost fear of epidemics thanks to modern medicine. And fear does help only radicals in the political landscape.
Some variation of the basic income is getting more and more tempting. The bottom line is that individual survival is the highest drive and right of all humans. Therefore, every human born into a society (not their choice) must have a way of surviving. Since 95+% of us aren’t on farms anymore, the vast majority of us do not have the ability to grow our own food to survive. To get food, the vast majority have to earn an income. However, this is not always possible, either in the short-term or the long-term. Additionally, children obviously don’t have the ability to earn income for food.
Given all this, the argument for a basic income seems more and more powerful in times of greater overall wealth and a great number of those in poverty. It seems to me that the argument will get even stronger if automation eventually greatly decreases the number of jobs employers in the country need as some predict.
There are certainly many arguments against it, some of which I agree with and some I don’t. One I don’t agree with is that a basic income will make a large number of people lazy. Work is a basic human tendency, so if it is being bred out of people to the point that they only work for monetary reward, it is a separate problem altogether. And I have not seen research suggesting that the welfare we have now makes more than an extreme minority of people lazy.
How are we going to pay for it (and how much will it cost)?
What do we do about people that gamble away all their money, or spend it on meth, or otherwise make bad decisions that leaves them destitute? Do we just let them starve / get evicted their home?
It will cost whatever we end up giving to people. There’s very little government waste involved in simply cutting checks. The question is how much we will save in welfare/SNAP/social security/etc and its associated means-testing bureaucracy, and how much will be new spending over and above that.
Not to mention how our economy will grow now that the next Einstein, Ford or Gates can focus on his education and starting his business rather than trying not to piss off the guy who allows him to feed himself and his family, as long as he comes in to work for minimum wage on a moment’s notice.
What do we do with those people now? I assume jail (or get the cops to harass them for being homeless and steal their blankets)? Now why would that problem change if we give people money first? The question is simply a red herring designed to play people’s prejudices against the idea.
It also ignores the fact that basic income isn’t a single check we give to people and say “hope you can make it last the rest of your life”. Someone who blows their income on meth this month will be out on the street, but next month they’ll be able to pay rent again, assuming they learned their lesson. And who knows? Maybe the meth addict lifestyle won’t be as enticing when you can afford to get an education, move out of the hills and find a job more rewarding than taking care of Grandpa’s health issues in return for groceries his social security check bought.
Prince Edward Island (PEI) up here in Canada is going to give universal basic income a try, so that will be another data point.
Personally, I think that UBI is inevitable. Going forward there will be an ever increasing number of people who will, through no fault of their own, be unemployable (unless you want to count being alive as their fault). As this number rises, something will have to be done and the answer will be either outlaw automation (and that won’t happen) or UBI.
You answered your own (1) upthread months ago: Taise Raxes as necessary.
As for (2), let me plug my own proposal (and watch it be booed down again).
Do NOT provide most of the basic income in the form of cash. Instead provide free or subsidized services to all who want them — free healthcare, free childcare, subsidized housing, subsidized college education, and some sort of program for free or subsidized food.
This addresses the problem you point out in your (2), and addresses other problems as well: region-dependent cost of living is no longer an issue, the careful ID screening to prevent fraud in cash programs may not longer be necessary. And, since many citizens would be uninterested in the subsidized housing, etc. the cost of the program would be much less (though partial subsidies or tax rebates might be provided to avoid the associated benefits cliff).
My problem with this … who decides what housing is free or subsidized? Which childcare facilities are covered? The potential for corruption to get on the subsidized list and exponentially increase your sales would be enormous. (Donate to my campaign, and I’ll make sure your childcare facility goes on the list is an easy example.)
In short, this idea isn’t basic income, it’s a socialist government turned up to 11. Not that that socialism is inherently bad, but it’s not a basic income. You are assuming that you know how the money should be used better than the people receiving it.
Why are you assuming that everyone who is destitute is there because of bad decisions? That’s a nice job poverty shaming, and a terrible argument against a basic income.
No. I’m assuming that people with children are more likely to need childcare (and more likely to need financial help in general) than people who don’t have them. I’m assuming the people with the aptitude and desire to attend college are more likely to need financial help at college than people who are unable to attend college for other reasons. Note that the cheap or free childcare will often be just what a worker, especially single mother, needs to get gainful employment. Similarly, subsidized college works toward better employment.
If this means that my socialist program pays thousands of $ for childcare and education, but not one penny toward the drugs and gambling another citizen might prefer to spend “his” money on, I plead guilty as charged.
People would be free to spend the cash they earn (and a small stipend as part of the program) however they wish.
Details of the best way to accredit childcare facilities is left as an exercise. Yes, if you assume that any such government regulation will inevitably be corrupt then … we may as well all give up and move to Somalia.
septimus, I’m going to argue a bit against your proposal 2#:
I think it is **better **to give the basic income in the form of cash rather than subsidizing services, because otherwise a lot of people would miss out on things - a single childless person who doesn’t plan to go to college has no need for free childcare or free college, and so wouldn’t benefit from that, whereas cash benefits everyone regardless of age/gender/parenthood/medical condition, etc. A 22-year old single childless person can benefit from a Basic Income Check just like a 45-year old parent of three children. The proposal that you suggest would create resentment among people who feel that they are “missing out” on something.
In fact, “subsidized services” is not an “income” at all - income is only income if it’s something that tangibly increases your bank account, etc. It would be like an employer giving his employees discount coupons and claiming that he is paying them a salary.
Also, I don’t think that giving services for free is a good thing - it encourages a throwaway attitude. I’m all in favor of super-cheap tuition or super-cheap healthcare, but “totally free” really makes for waste, carelessness, and a frivolous attitude by consumers.
And you’re also assuming that people with childcare needs will not spend their money on childcare and that people who want to go to college won’t spend their money on college. Why? This is the problem basic income is trying to fix. The government does not know how to take care of me and my family better than me and my family. If they just want to subsidize day cares and colleges they can do that without me even being involved.
But if your goal is to actually improve the lives of the poor, the number one way to do that is to let them decide how. Why give them food stamps when the big problem they face is unreliable transportation? Why fix their car when it drives okay and what they really need is to buy Christmas presents for their kids? Why give them money for college when they already got a scholarship and what they really need is a roof over their head during their final semester of high school?
Why do conservatives talk a big game about the free market and the invisible hand but when it comes time to help poor people they all become huge planned economy fans?
Basic income would be a double bladed sword against low level criminality.
the carrot - less need to resort to petty theft/crime to survive/thrive
the stick - if you DO engage in crime, or are locked up, your basic income is docked for the month or put towards the costs of any incarceration.
Influence on homelessness/panhandling
The carrot - less need to resort to literally begging in the streets to survive
the stick - for the able bodies homeless population (not the mentally ill) we crack down on sleeping in public and pan handling FAR harder than would be humane if there was no other income source for people that occupy the “untouchable” class of American society.
Total federal tax revenue each year ~4.6 trillion dollars
Assuming you have all ~300 million people in the US 12k per year at around a thousand dollars per month, that would total 2.6 trillion.
But that is not what we’d do, 0-18 or 0-21 = no basic income, it starts once you become an adult.
Further, many schemes start to claw back the benefits once you get to a certain income level.
Say the first 30k of earnings you get the full 12k per year, after that it goes down at some rate to as low as only 6k per year (The Charles Murray style plan), in this scheme you ALWAYS earn more by working more, even if you are wealthy you get SOMETHING, but not as much. There is zero incentive once you are making 30k to go below that level. You want to give up a 5k per year raise to 35k because you might get 11k over the year of basic income vs 12k?
TL:DR, it would cost way less than 3.6 trillion dollars a year, people currently getting or slated to get social security would get that instead, but eventually, everything would be replaced by a UBI, including things like food stamps, unemployment insurance, etc etc.
The top income tax rate is 39.6%. For $9.03 trillion in adjusted gross income this come out to be $3.58 trillion dollars if you tax at that rate.Thus you have $2.35 trillion dollars currently lost by exemptions, deductions, lower tax rates for most income.
So you replace the current set of progressive rates/exemptions/deductions with a 39.6% tax rate and your basic income.
[Note adjusted gross income will be a little higher because you also get rid of some of the deductions in that calculation that is calculated]
The government already spends a massive amount on income transfer programs; you delete much of that. And you pay children less that adults.
Perhaps someone can do the math of exactly what level of basic income just this would produce–without a higher than the current 39.6% rate–but it would be substantial. And this gives you the same amount of revenue as now for the other government programs.
We do as we’ve always done with people who make bad choices, we help them by relying on family and friends and civic institutions. But here is one key difference with a UBI. EVERYONE knows that that person who made bad choices and is out of work with no work income stream, is still getting a check next month. Now you have more people with their own basic incomes, helping a relative get on their feet and applying social pressure to make better choices with the full knowledge that they are NOT totally helpless, and everyone else knows it.
And if they can’t behave after repeated interventions and chronic mismanagement and go homeless, I say lock them up and remove them from the streets, take their basic income to pay for incarceration until they shape up.
This is key, just paying for services gives money to the rentiers and not the people themselves.
The way to tackle regional differences in housing is to loosen city restrictions on increased housing stock. Make it easier and cheaper to move to city environments, and then make it easier for the rurals to move into the surburbs.
And on a more basic level, I’d rather have people gain more earnings to survive and thrive than just provide for sustenance. The only thing that can do is make it easier to survive, but a basic income can actually help people thrive economically. Take two people would would qualify for housing assistance as a couple living together vs having a basic income. Two checks boosting income on top of working is far more freeing than a single housing subsidy.