Europeans considering universal basic income and job guarantees

[Jayjay]

Why would it be hard to undo?

You'll end up with a bunch of people with no job skills.

Thanks to automation, we'll soon be in that situation anyway.

 

[barbos]

Why would it be hard to undo?

You'll end up with a bunch of people with no job skills.

Thanks to automation, we'll soon be in that situation anyway.

We already are. UBI is the only way to actually reverse this trend.

 

[Swammerdami]

I propose my own variant of UBI. I think it has much merit and avoids many of the drawbacks of cash UBI, but as far as I know it has little support. Please click if you think my approach has merit!

Instead of a hefty cash payment, why not provide a much smaller cash amount, supplemented with free goods and services?

I think there will be little disagreement if this is applied to health-care: Simply give everyone free health-care instead of the money to buy insurance. But the same idea could be applied elsewhere.

Childcare would be free in my approach, or at least heavily subsidized. Higher education would be subsidized, at least for qualifying students. Food and housing would be available, though perhaps of a quality that would induce those who could afford it to seek alternatives.

Advantages are many:

• Costs of the free food and housing would vary geograhically, but these costs would follow market costs automatically. Contrast this with the unfairnesses of cash UBI, whether it tries to adjust for costs varying geographically or not.
• Subsidies for school, doctors and childcare would automatically adjust to an "as needed" basis. Contrast this with cash UBI where childless adults get, in effect, extra cash to spend on recreational drugs, etc.
• Since the affluent would not avail themselves of the soup kitchens, low-cost housing, and community child-care, the total costs of the program would be reduced.
• Et cetera.

There would still be a cash component to the UBI but, where possible, unrestricted cash would be replaced with specific needs like healthcare, childcare, food, ...

An objection will be that my approach would in effect inflict community values on individuals' spending. For example, childcare is implicitly treated as "better" spending than recreational drugs, while in cash-based UBI adults would be free to neglect their children and buy meth or whiskey. I'll admit that I'm not as big a fan of American Freedom™ as many people are.

 

[Worldtraveller]

Right, and that's exactly the problem. I don't know the answer, and until we know the answer a change is risky. I'm a software developer with no background in economics, I don't have a clue about basic income, but neither does anybody else in this thread. But what I do know is that what often starts out as a great idea, can become a very bad one. And that's why caution is needed.

It's not enough just to yell 'give money to everyone' and everything will be fine - that's empty rhetoric - and has no more substance than any other opinion. Which is why I'm suggesting an experiment exactly as you mention, and is what governments are actually doing.

I suspect our being software developers makes us more sensitive to the need for things to be bulletproof. I've met too many programmers who aren't careful enough about making things bulletproof--and their code tends to break down in production.

This statement is such bullshit. Don't break your arm trying to pat yourself on the back.

You are ONLY "skeptical" of things you don't have an existing bias to agree with. For evidence, look at every one your idiotic comments on police.

UBI in the US would only require a couple of things:
1) remove the cap on SS/medicare tax.
2) Increase the top marginal tax rates to something like we had in 50s, although the last time I ran the numbers, the top rates didn't quite have to be that high to work.
3) Figure out from that net federal income how much each adult can get. Each child should get some fraction of that (~30%) until they are 18 as payment to the parents.
4) It is counted as income, but income below that threshold is tax-free.

Sure, there are people who will try to abuse it, by claiming extra dependents or something, but like welfare and other programs, it's not worth scrapping the whole program because of a few unscrupulous people. I mean, we should apply that thinking to the big tax loopholes for corporations first.

 

[TomC]

"What if"... We can play that game all day. Provide the numbers and mechanism to support your wild hypothesis.

Because most people WANT to work. A whole town of unemployed people will most certainly not remain so; people self organize, have their own creative and industrial goals.

You fall into the first major problem of the armchair economist and fail to empathize with the people you speak of, merely going back to the "undesirables" rhetoric that led to means testing in the first place and we all know how that turned out: expensive, and broken.

People will create jobs for themselves, open bakeries, start businesses, learn skills, attain educational goals, buy tools, and before you know it, there's a new factory, creamery, invention, fruit farm, tech business, or some other human enterprise. And suddenly that town that couldn't get jobs and couldn't create their own CAN because now there is money and momentum and dynamism in what was once a dying town.

If you want to invoke "unintended and unforseen consequences", first you have to justify it through an experiment, via evidence, and then also justify why you think those consequences MUST be negative.

We can play what if all day, but you have not even started to answer aforementioned good question.

You have it backwards--the side proposing the change is the one that needs to show that there will not be negative outcomes.

Why?

How about we just show that the current status quo has hugely bad outcomes? Improving it is a moral necessity. The question is how to do so.

If you've got a different idea for improving the current situation, you need to demonstrate that it is better than the one proposed.
Tom

 

[Loren Pechtel]

"What if"... We can play that game all day. Provide the numbers and mechanism to support your wild hypothesis.

Because most people WANT to work. A whole town of unemployed people will most certainly not remain so; people self organize, have their own creative and industrial goals.

You fall into the first major problem of the armchair economist and fail to empathize with the people you speak of, merely going back to the "undesirables" rhetoric that led to means testing in the first place and we all know how that turned out: expensive, and broken.

People will create jobs for themselves, open bakeries, start businesses, learn skills, attain educational goals, buy tools, and before you know it, there's a new factory, creamery, invention, fruit farm, tech business, or some other human enterprise. And suddenly that town that couldn't get jobs and couldn't create their own CAN because now there is money and momentum and dynamism in what was once a dying town.

If you want to invoke "unintended and unforseen consequences", first you have to justify it through an experiment, via evidence, and then also justify why you think those consequences MUST be negative.

We can play what if all day, but you have not even started to answer aforementioned good question.

You have it backwards--the side proposing the change is the one that needs to show that there will not be negative outcomes.

You're asking for an impossible burden of proof. You can't prove a negative.

At any rate, we have seen the externalities already. UBI succeeds in ways other social programs do not. If YOU want companies to not have to directly pay people a minimum wage, UBI is the best way to demand as a society that people are treated with dignity, respect, and the freedom to engage in self directed activities.

It's not been all that successful when tried. And the problem I'm talking about won't show up in a trial, anyway.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

You're asking for an impossible burden of proof. You can't prove a negative.

At any rate, we have seen the externalities already. UBI succeeds in ways other social programs do not. If YOU want companies to not have to directly pay people a minimum wage, UBI is the best way to demand as a society that people are treated with dignity, respect, and the freedom to engage in self directed activities.

It's not been all that successful when tried.

If memory serves, the UBI experiment was successful in making people happier and improving the standard of living. It didn't create economic growth.

With AI growing, and likely to unemploy tens to hundreds of millions of people across the globe, we really need to start asking ourselves, how in the heck are we going to even have access to opportunities to work... forget about making a living from it.

 

[barbos]

You're asking for an impossible burden of proof. You can't prove a negative.

At any rate, we have seen the externalities already. UBI succeeds in ways other social programs do not. If YOU want companies to not have to directly pay people a minimum wage, UBI is the best way to demand as a society that people are treated with dignity, respect, and the freedom to engage in self directed activities.

It's not been all that successful when tried. And the problem I'm talking about won't show up in a trial, anyway.

It have never been tried. They tried to give money to a limited number of people and see what happens. Nothing remarkable happened and they declared it a failure without giving any reason why. In any case, the experiment was obviously flawed because it was limited in time - after it finished everything went back to normal. That's not how you do such experiment. They should have randomly selected people and gave them UBI to the rest of their lives . And even that, is not entirely correct, because they still would have to live within current system which promotes bullshit jobs.

 

[J842P]

Why would it be hard to undo?

You'll end up with a bunch of people with no job skills.

And why would you want to undo something that works great?

You're 100% certain it will work properly forever? What if there is some calamity?

But lets assume it does not work great and you decided to undo it. Great, just decrease amount slowly and people will start getting jobs.

People with no skills, no knowledge of how to work?

Why are you assuming people will have no skills and no knowledge of how to work?

 

[J842P]

When topics like this come up they're automatically tied to a political ideology - if I'm liberal I automatically support it - if I'm Conservative I don't.

Which is kind of ironic, since it was a Republican plan from the get-go. It has Milton Friedman's fingerprints all over it. (Richard Nixon even tried to introduce it, but he inevitably mangled it up with one politically motivated fiddle after another until none of the conceptual simplicity remained.)

Yup. UBI is very right-wing. Actual socialists/Marxists (the type who love to throw around the term "material conditions") hate UBI.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

We already have that, automation and shit.

Until the virus upset the apple cart unemployment was quite low.

And why would you want to undo something that works great?

You're 100% certain it will work properly forever? What if there is some calamity?

You need to define "work" here. We have a calamity now, and the current system DOES NOT work.

The current system does work other than poor handling of economic downturns.

But lets assume it does not work great and you decided to undo it. Great, just decrease amount slowly and people will start getting jobs.

People with no skills, no knowledge of how to work?

You were watching too much SciFi crap.
Today, most of the essential (low end) jobs require no skills.
In these which do (high end), people with skills tend to maintain them regardless of their employment status.

Sorry, but "skills" covers more than you think it does. It includes things like showing up on time and proper behavior at the office.

Anyway, I look at the UBI in the context of getting rid of bullshit jobs. Ideally we should end up with a situation where people with no skills (which is most of the people anyway) end up working 1-2 days a week and spend the rest of the time actually GETTING some or all kind of skills, or not if they are medically lazy.

The people who have no specialized training generally do not want to do what it takes to get it.

 

[barbos]

Until the virus upset the apple cart unemployment was quite low.

And why would you want to undo something that works great?

You're 100% certain it will work properly forever? What if there is some calamity?

You need to define "work" here. We have a calamity now, and the current system DOES NOT work.

The current system does work other than poor handling of economic downturns.

People would not be standing in lines to get free food if system worked.

But lets assume it does not work great and you decided to undo it. Great, just decrease amount slowly and people will start getting jobs.

People with no skills, no knowledge of how to work?

You were watching too much SciFi crap.
Today, most of the essential (low end) jobs require no skills.
In these which do (high end), people with skills tend to maintain them regardless of their employment status.

Sorry, but "skills" covers more than you think it does. It includes things like showing up on time and proper behavior at the office.

Are you implying that with UBI people would become irrecoverably rude and not punctual?
And yes, I generally don't consider punctuality and proper behavior a skill.

Anyway, I look at the UBI in the context of getting rid of bullshit jobs. Ideally we should end up with a situation where people with no skills (which is most of the people anyway) end up working 1-2 days a week and spend the rest of the time actually GETTING some or all kind of skills, or not if they are medically lazy.

The people who have no specialized training generally do not want to do what it takes to get it.

Why is that my problem? They don't have it regardless of the system.
You need to show that people who have (high end) skills in the current system would not have them under UBI.

The current system is good at providing "jobs" to people with no skills, and they have no skills because they are too busy at their "jobs" to learn some skills.

 

[Elixir]

People would not be standing in line to get free food if system worked.

A lot of them aren't. They're sitting in their cars.
Which blows my mind.

I mentioned elsewhere that edible cars might be the Answer...

 

[lpetrich]

People would not be standing in line to get free food if system worked.

A lot of them aren't. They're sitting in their cars.
Which blows my mind.

How would selling their cars accomplish anything? All that would happen is a few hundred dollars for them from the used-car market being hopelessly glutted.

Also, how would they get anywhere without their cars?

 

[Elixir]

People would not be standing in line to get free food if system worked.

A lot of them aren't. They're sitting in their cars.
Which blows my mind.

How would selling their cars accomplish anything? All that would happen is a few hundred dollars for them from the used-car market being hopelessly glutted.

Also, how would they get anywhere without their cars?

Edible cars! Why go anywhere when you have 3000 lbs of food?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Until the virus upset the apple cart unemployment was quite low.

You're 100% certain it will work properly forever? What if there is some calamity?

You need to define "work" here. We have a calamity now, and the current system DOES NOT work.

The current system does work other than poor handling of economic downturns.

People would not be standing in lines to get free food if system worked.

That's mostly due to a weak safety net, not due to a lack of jobs.

But lets assume it does not work great and you decided to undo it. Great, just decrease amount slowly and people will start getting jobs.

People with no skills, no knowledge of how to work?

You were watching too much SciFi crap.
Today, most of the essential (low end) jobs require no skills.
In these which do (high end), people with skills tend to maintain them regardless of their employment status.

Sorry, but "skills" covers more than you think it does. It includes things like showing up on time and proper behavior at the office.

Are you implying that with UBI people would become irrecoverably rude and not punctual?
And yes, I generally don't consider punctuality and proper behavior a skill.

At the low end employers bemoan the inability to find people who actually will show up reliably, sober and do what they're told--the stuff you don't consider job skills.

Anyway, I look at the UBI in the context of getting rid of bullshit jobs. Ideally we should end up with a situation where people with no skills (which is most of the people anyway) end up working 1-2 days a week and spend the rest of the time actually GETTING some or all kind of skills, or not if they are medically lazy.

The people who have no specialized training generally do not want to do what it takes to get it.

Why is that my problem? They don't have it regardless of the system.
You need to show that people who have (high end) skills in the current system would not have them under UBI.

The current system is good at providing "jobs" to people with no skills, and they have no skills because they are too busy at their "jobs" to learn some skills.

The people in question generally already passed up the opportunity.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

People would not be standing in line to get free food if system worked.

A lot of them aren't. They're sitting in their cars.
Which blows my mind.

I mentioned elsewhere that edible cars might be the Answer...

You generally need a car. Disposing of essentials isn't an answer.

 

[laughing dog]

At the low end employers bemoan the inability to find people who actually will show up reliably, sober and do what they're told--the stuff you don't consider job skills.

For some reason, those bemoaning employers have yet to figure out you get what you pay for. But instead, they piss and moan, and almost all of those employers blame people for not wanting to work for shitty wages.

 

[DBT]

The people who have no specialized training generally do not want to do what it takes to get it.

It's not that simple. Not everyone has the time, money, means or capacity to undertake specialized training. And if they did, there would be a glut of specialized workers and not enough jobs. Then you'd have highly trained specialists flipping burgers for minimum wage....if they are lucky.

 

[barbos]

People would not be standing in line to get free food if system worked.

A lot of them aren't. They're sitting in their cars.
Which blows my mind.

How would selling their cars accomplish anything? All that would happen is a few hundred dollars for them from the used-car market being hopelessly glutted.

Also, how would they get anywhere without their cars?

Most of the cars I saw in the news were practically brand new and some quite expensive.
I think people should have emergency savings which equal in value to their cars.