This, I feel, is the major issue. To coin a phrase, give a man a fish and you’ll feed him for a day; give a man enough money to buy a fish and he might spend it on cigarettes.
Some people are poor and intelligent. Hand them money and they could live on it. Other people, however, are poor and stupid. Their problem is not just a lack of money but also a lack of the ability to handle money. Give them money and they’re still going to be poor after they’ve spent it. These people would be better off with a public program that provided free meals and free shelter.
Yeah, but the people paying more into the system can afford price increases. What keeps prices low is the folks on the low end of the spectrum. McD’s could raise prices 25% and any rich people who already eat there will probably still eat there.
What matters is what happens to the stuff poor people have to buy. As someone already noted, if every landlord knows that ALL their tenants have more money, they are going to raise the rents. Maybe luxury yachts don’t see a price increase, but that doesn’t affect poor people.
Even if you define ‘rich’ as basically most of the population this will still be the case. Prices have, after all, risen steadily (I still remember when a cheese burger from McD’s was a quarter, and even adjusting for inflation that’s still pretty cheap) yet there are still long lines at the local McD’s every day when I drive by (don’t eat there myself…the burgers today are like cardboard).
I’ve always thought all adults should be guaranteed a bed for the night, enough calories to survive, clothing to protect against the elements and access to basic medical care. So bed, fed, med and keds if you like. Anything else should be up to the person’s hard work and basic innate skills. That sounds fair to me.
I think the lion in the room is: what do we do when there are no longer menial jobs for people?
I know many on this board like to dismiss arguments about automation taking jobs, frequently with “When we got cars, the horse whip makers just shifted to making tires” or some other pithy phrase. And it is true that over the course of history, many technological innovations have created jobs, or allowed people to move from one job to another relatively easily (for example, a farmhand can become an assembly line worker relatively easily).
But eventually I think a lot of automation will reach the point where we won’t need large swaths of jobs. Truck drivers and taxi drivers will get replaced by driverless vehicles. Factories will continue to automate and lay off workers. Fast food will get replaced by automats. Office paperpushers will get replaced by a program.
We’ve already seen this to an extent. It won’t happen this year, probably not in 5 years, maybe not in 10 years, and 20 years from now it’s not guaranteed. But it will come. And when half the population doesn’t have the skills to be in demand, what do we do with them then?
That’s where basic income will come into play. I’d love to think a lot of these people will become writers or artists or actors or other creative pursuits that they would love to follow but that don’t make them enough money for them to quit their McJob now. But realistically many of them will probably enjoy just not having to get up and go to work, and spend their time browsing websites and drinking beer. But unless we want large portions of the population to starve, we’re going to have to suck it up and provide a basic income once there’s no longer basic jobs.
All basics should be given. But I probably say that out of self preservation more than anything else. I have a younger bro who is only not homeless because my elderly dad lets him live with him. I am afraid that he will show up at my door one day demanding a room in my house and access to my fridge.
Sure they exist, but if someone gets less money for working, they’re less likely to work. There is only one European country (Switzerland) with more millionaires per capita than the States.
[quote=“Lightnin, post:39, topic:714704”]
My understanding is that it pays for itself by reducing reliance upon the various welfare programs.
[ul]
[li]So? This is really only a problem if you think that the entire purpose of life is to work. Let’s say those healthy childless adults decide to just stop working- what’s the downside to this? It frees up employment opportunities for those who *do *want to make more than the minimum amount.[/li][li]Not really sure how this would happen. Everyone gets the same amount of money- nobody gets more because they really need it.[/li][li]Again, the argument is that basic income reduces reliance upon welfare, which means that it pays for itself. There’s something similar here in Salt Lake City- the homeless are given apartments. The program apparently works really well, as the cost is offset by the money saved in taking care of the homeless. Basically, it’s just a smarter way to treat the problem of homelessness- do you treat the symptoms (higher healthcare costs, homeless shelters, etc.), or do you treat the cause?[/ul][/li][/QUOTE]
How so? People will take any money the government offers them. If the income increase phases people out of eligibility for welfare, then the effect is a cut to the existing welfare system. Is that really what most liberals are arguing for?
There’s a bigger debate here, but if fewer people are working, then society will be poorer. Employment is not a zero sum game, and if able-bodied workers choose of their own agency not to work and to become leaches on the system then the system isn’t going to be lasting much longer. The effect is twofold; first, that other members of society are deprived of the positive externalities of productive workers, and two, fewer people are supporting the basic income, resulting in higher taxes for those who do choose to work. There is no reason why an able-bodied person should be able to live off the teat of society without contributing in turn.
The point is that not everyone needs the same amount of money. A single mother with a young child needs more money than do two healthy adults – there are diapers, childcare, formula, and a litany of other expenses. Some people – namely disabled folks and their caretakers, parents, and the upper middle class and up – will be worse off with a universal income.
In some circumstances, being generous can save money, as you note. But not so with a universal income. Under any reasonable assumptions, such a program would cost more than the current US budget, and would represent a drastic increase in the cost of welfare. A universal income would be fantastically expensive.
And so what if some rich people quit working so hard. That may very well help society to lower some of the bad side effects of capitalism. Being less focuses on accumulation and competition would be a good thing, I think.
What happens to him if you say No? Is he unwilling, or unable, to fend for himself, and do you know why?
Anyway, whether it applies to your brother in particular or not, I’ve speculated that there should be places where people who are basically functional adults, but who have trouble with some aspect of autonomous living and who don’t have families who are willing or able to help them out, could live. There exist group homes for people with disabilities; there’s the military; there’s prison; and there at least used to be some jobs (like farm or ranch hands) where workers would live on the premises and have meals and beds and such provided for them; but I’ve thought that, for people who don’t really belong in any of these places, but who need some sort of external structure to their lives, there ought to be someplace they could go and live.
Good idea but the problem is if they are not responsible enough, for whatever reason, to have a job, car, income, etc, on their own, how will providing them a facility to do it in help? You know, I guess it would help but the trick is finding work that people with low skills and low self discipline can actually carry out. I like your idea of a farm but most farming is done with very costly machinery nowadays.
Please extrapolate on this. What happens if the people who are content to merely “exist” come knocking on the doors of everyone with incomes, say, over $50,000, demanding a room in their metaphorical house and access to their fridge? What if the answer is no, and they have to bother those with $40,000? $30,000? What happens when all the fridges are empty . . . or have been relocated elsewhere?
Bro is lazy, arrogant and dumb. He’s 40, unmarried, barely graduated from high school and has few job skills. I have no problem with paying taxes so that he can get a bed, food, clothes on his back and medical care in return for being required to work a certain number of hours each week.
It’s hard to explain but he’s basically someone with no judgement at all. The only girlfriends he’s had have all swindled him in way. He likes to rail against Jews being married to non-Jews but he seems to have no idea how dumb this looks when he isn’t even married. He won’t take any of the advice I’ve tried to give him about saving money and investing. At one point, he was unemployed for over a year. I spent a few hours writing up a detailed email with a long list of job leads. He wrote me back a nastygram whining they didn’t pay at least twenty bucks an hour. He’s managed to alienate nearly all of his friends and all of his family members other than my dad who he admits is verbally and even physically abusive to him. But he won’t move out even though I offered to go in with him on the down payment for a two bedroom.
I just want him to be someone else’s problem not mine.
Sorry if I am intruding but does he have mental health issues? I do. I don’t really have any desire to speak of them in this particular thread but I would be willing to send you a PM with some opinions or resources that might help. Of course if he doesnt want help it’s all kind of pointless. If that is not what is going on in this situation I apologize to intrude.
When he was two months old, he was severely dehydrated. He was in the hospital for ten days and that may have led to cognitive problems. He was left back in third grade and had (still has) a bad speech impediment. He was in special ed for many years. My bro has a regular high school diploma but his average was just barely a pass and his SAT scores did not break a 700 combined. I don’t know if he has any mental health issues. He basically has no judgment but seems utterly unaware of this fact and imagines he’s smart. Right now, he has a menial job that pays very little. He’s failed many job exams including one to enter the TSA. He’s basically just a twelve year old forty year old.
As I said, I simply want to make sure he isn’t homeless or hungry. I just don’t want to live with him as I consider him an inappropriate role model for my girls. My husband does not want him in our house for many reasons including his vehement belief that Jews should not marry non-Jews.
At some point, I think we need to accept that some people simply aren’t very capable. We need to provide for those people just to have a civil society. I don’t know about a guaranteed income (bro CANNOT be trusted with money – he’s been stolen from many times!) but food, shelter, clothing and other basics seem like a good idea to me.
As far as deleterious effects on marriage go, I’m under the impression this is thought to be because many women in unhappy marriages suddenly felt they had enough financial independence/security to strike out on their own. That seems to me a clearly good thing.
Do you have a cite for this? All the liberals I’ve seen talking about basic income include the elimination of existing welfare programs as a savings that would help pay for it. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone suggest that it should be in addition to existing programs. Part of the idea is to eliminate the administrative costs of the current welfare bureaucracy.