Europeans considering universal basic income and job guarantees

[barbos]

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

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.

In other words it's due to lack of UBI.

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.

You are not discussing the subject at hand. You claimed that UBI will worsen the situation.

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.

Again, you need to prove that UBI will make it worse.

 

[J842P]

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.

And you should take that as seriously as the employers who bemoan the fact that they can't find people to program a basic web app, even though those people definitely exist in the United States. Those employers would just rather pay them the standard wage an Indian would make in Chennai rather than what the skill commands in Los Angeles. Or a Pole, or a Ukranian.

A lot of the people who bemoan this offer a 2.15 tipped minimum wage to work as a server. No shit they can't find workers.


In any case, even if I grant you this is true for the sake of argument, you haven't established why UBI would make this a bigger problem. Which was your central claim.

 

[Jarhyn]

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.

And you should take that as seriously as the employers who bemoan the fact that they can't find people to program a basic web app, even though those people definitely exist in the United States. Those employers would just rather pay them the standard wage an Indian would make in Chennai rather than what the skill commands in Los Angeles. Or a Pole, or a Ukranian.

A lot of the people who bemoan this offer a 2.15 tipped minimum wage to work as a server. No shit they can't find workers.


In any case, even if I grant you this is true for the sake of argument, you haven't established why UBI would make this a bigger problem. Which was your central claim.

Last time I pointed this out LP twisted the burden of proof. 'you have to prove a negative re: there can be no unforseen negative consequences."

 

[SimpleDon]

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.

You are both correct. Yes, Milton Friedman proposed it as the negative income tax in the early 1960s to replace welfare as a necessary measure to open the border to allow free movement of labor across the border, a neoliberal goal. We had only seasonal labor crossing the border at that time and the negative income tax had a residency requirement.

Nixon picked it up and tried to pass it. But he didn't succeed.

What was passed, I think, was the much watered-down earned income tax credit, which currently pays a maximum of less than a thousand dollars a year with numerous qualifications and requirements.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

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.

Which does absolutely nothing about the problem of such people not being worth hiring.

If they offered more they could attract better workers, but that would still leave the poor workers without a job. In fact, it would leave more of them without a job because when you pay more you raise your minimum standards.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

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.

It can be hard to tell how old a car is these days. I'm thinking of two cars back, to look at it my car was fine. It went to the junker, though, because it was leaking oil and the repair would cost more than it was worth. I live in a climate that's gentle on cars.

 

[DBT]

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.

Which does absolutely nothing about the problem of such people not being worth hiring.

If they offered more they could attract better workers, but that would still leave the poor workers without a job. In fact, it would leave more of them without a job because when you pay more you raise your minimum standards.

Who exactly is 'not worth hiring?' If it's someone who is not qualified for the position, they should not be applying for the job.

 

[Harry Bosch]

Which does absolutely nothing about the problem of such people not being worth hiring.

If they offered more they could attract better workers, but that would still leave the poor workers without a job. In fact, it would leave more of them without a job because when you pay more you raise your minimum standards.

Who exactly is 'not worth hiring?' If it's someone who is not qualified for the position, they should not be applying for the job.

People not worth hiring could be those with a poor work history at other companies. Maybe they have a history of being a bad team player, insubordination, dishonest, attendance issues, theft, criminal history, and etc.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

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.

And you should take that as seriously as the employers who bemoan the fact that they can't find people to program a basic web app, even though those people definitely exist in the United States. Those employers would just rather pay them the standard wage an Indian would make in Chennai rather than what the skill commands in Los Angeles. Or a Pole, or a Ukranian.

A lot of the people who bemoan this offer a 2.15 tipped minimum wage to work as a server. No shit they can't find workers.


In any case, even if I grant you this is true for the sake of argument, you haven't established why UBI would make this a bigger problem. Which was your central claim.

UBI would mean more people that didn't know how to actually keep a job. Fine so long as UBI continued, a big problem if something happened that meant it couldn't be continued.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Which does absolutely nothing about the problem of such people not being worth hiring.

If they offered more they could attract better workers, but that would still leave the poor workers without a job. In fact, it would leave more of them without a job because when you pay more you raise your minimum standards.

Who exactly is 'not worth hiring?' If it's someone who is not qualified for the position, they should not be applying for the job.

I've already explained--people who won't actually behave on the job.

 

[DBT]

Which does absolutely nothing about the problem of such people not being worth hiring.

If they offered more they could attract better workers, but that would still leave the poor workers without a job. In fact, it would leave more of them without a job because when you pay more you raise your minimum standards.

Who exactly is 'not worth hiring?' If it's someone who is not qualified for the position, they should not be applying for the job.

People not worth hiring could be those with a poor work history at other companies. Maybe they have a history of being a bad team player, insubordination, dishonest, attendance issues, theft, criminal history, and etc.

Which is a personal failure, some being flawed, others perhaps being overcome by life problems. A case by case issue.

 

[DBT]

Which does absolutely nothing about the problem of such people not being worth hiring.

If they offered more they could attract better workers, but that would still leave the poor workers without a job. In fact, it would leave more of them without a job because when you pay more you raise your minimum standards.

Who exactly is 'not worth hiring?' If it's someone who is not qualified for the position, they should not be applying for the job.

I've already explained--people who won't actually behave on the job.

There will always be people with problems. This is true for business owners, managers and workers.

 

[Jarhyn]

I've already explained--people who won't actually behave on the job.

There will always be people with problems. This is true for business owners, managers and workers.

And when it happens, when criminal acts are committed against an employer by an employee, or when the employee doesn't do the work, then you FIRE them and call the cops if necessary, and you do it WITH CAUSE and EVIDENCE. Then, they can go to vocational rehab assuming they claim to want to work, or to school assuming they claim they want to learn, public housing or their parents' basement or wherever if all the rest fall through. There are few of the latter and not working with any of the former purely to spite the last category is a fool's errand; this is, I think, the best way to shape a jobs guarantee - with education and assistance, with infrastructural systems to facilitate it all.

 

[Jayjay]

I've already explained--people who won't actually behave on the job.

There will always be people with problems. This is true for business owners, managers and workers.

And when it happens, when criminal acts are committed against an employer by an employee, or when the employee doesn't do the work, then you FIRE them and call the cops if necessary, and you do it WITH CAUSE and EVIDENCE. Then, they can go to vocational rehab assuming they claim to want to work, or to school assuming they claim they want to learn, public housing or their parents' basement or wherever if all the rest fall through. There are few of the latter and not working with any of the former purely to spite the last category is a fool's errand; this is, I think, the best way to shape a jobs guarantee - with education and assistance, with infrastructural systems to facilitate it all.

I would guess that for most employers, especially small and medium businesses, the risk of ending up with an employee that you have to fire or, worse yet, call the cops on, is something that they want to avoid. So rather than wait for "cause and evidence", they wouldn't hire them in the first place.

 

[ZiprHead]

I've already explained--people who won't actually behave on the job.

There will always be people with problems. This is true for business owners, managers and workers.

And when it happens, when criminal acts are committed against an employer by an employee, or when the employee doesn't do the work, then you FIRE them and call the cops if necessary, and you do it WITH CAUSE and EVIDENCE. Then, they can go to vocational rehab assuming they claim to want to work, or to school assuming they claim they want to learn, public housing or their parents' basement or wherever if all the rest fall through. There are few of the latter and not working with any of the former purely to spite the last category is a fool's errand; this is, I think, the best way to shape a jobs guarantee - with education and assistance, with infrastructural systems to facilitate it all.

I think Loren's argument boils down to desperate people make better workers.

 

[DBT]

Afraid of losing their jobs and willing to work for less, it appears. To be of greater service to the rich and to be thankful for the privilege to serve....

 

[Jarhyn]

Afraid of losing their jobs and willing to work for less, it appears. To be of greater service to the rich and to be thankful for the privilege to serve....

I have one thing for those who would have me be thankful for the privilege to serve my 'betters'.

 

[bilby]

Some people aren't really cut out for work. That's not a problem, unless your society fails to support those people.

And every single last one of us is one of 'those people', for at least a part of our lives.

Frankly I would much rather my taxes paid to give the unemployable the things they need to live, than that the unemployable stole them from me (particularly at the heavy markdown and high ancillary costs that stolen goods imply).

 

[DBT]

Afraid of losing their jobs and willing to work for less, it appears. To be of greater service to the rich and to be thankful for the privilege to serve....

I have one thing for those who would have me be thankful for the privilege to serve my 'betters'.

You got me curious about what it may be.

 

[Worldtraveller]

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.

And you should take that as seriously as the employers who bemoan the fact that they can't find people to program a basic web app, even though those people definitely exist in the United States. Those employers would just rather pay them the standard wage an Indian would make in Chennai rather than what the skill commands in Los Angeles. Or a Pole, or a Ukranian.

A lot of the people who bemoan this offer a 2.15 tipped minimum wage to work as a server. No shit they can't find workers.


In any case, even if I grant you this is true for the sake of argument, you haven't established why UBI would make this a bigger problem. Which was your central claim.

UBI would mean more people that didn't know how to actually keep a job. Fine so long as UBI continued, a big problem if something happened that meant it couldn't be continued.

You keep asserting this, but do you have any evidence? I can see it working both ways. Lots of people would take advantage of UBI to go back to school, get some trade certification, etc. Honestly, I'm willing to finance the freeloaders (because I think they would be a pretty small chunk of the actual adult population) for all the rest to have that opportunity.

You (and other conservotarians here) insist that it's such a terrible thing to allow people to just basically survive. Not many people want to live like that. Most will want more, and they will improve themselves or find work to do so. I'd be willing to fund that experiment with my taxes.