"Basic Income" is a terrible idea

[zebreck]

Basic income isn't just for poor people. Think of it like a universal social security payment, just a lot bigger. Everybody gets a check, it's like Oprah. It'd have effectively no administrative overhead beyond making sure people don't flagrantly cheat. No requirement, no obligations, no exceptions. Register birth, send check, repeat.

Paying for it is also stupidly easy and you get to start by doing something that'll have house republicans touching themselves: eliminating social security, nearly all welfare, and most student related grants. Then the democrats get to significantly raise capital gains/top marginal taxes and hopefully invent a tax on corporate stock buyback, particularly when done on credit. Make single payer a thing while you're at it and you can save even more money.

It's easy, it's simple, and it's absolutely doable. The only real question is how much the payment ends of being. That's a sticky one, and i'm very glad i'm not in charge of figuring out a baseline income for everybody in every situation everywhere in the country. I think it's doable though within a reasonably defined window of possible.

[Gamdwelf]

hmmm, that is a fair point.

Split California in half! North California, and South California.

That wouldn't help at all if anything but it would need to be split coast/inner Cali.

[Tyrianth]

It would need to be even more nuanced than that. Take California for example -- the difference between San Francisco and the more rural parts of California would be huge.

Eh, one of the advantages of Basic Income is that it eliminates the vast majority of overhead caused by having smaller departments cover many different things. Allowing more tax money to go towards actual redistribution instead of getting tied of in paperwork.

The best case would be if the federal government controls it all but takes into account a persons home address to determine how much money they are to receive. It minizes the overhead and paperwork involved but still takes into account cost of living for your area.

[Gamdwelf]

Basic income isn't just for poor people. Think of it like a universal social security payment, just a lot bigger. Everybody gets a check, it's like Oprah. It'd have effectively no administrative overhead beyond making sure people don't flagrantly cheat. No requirement, no obligations, no exceptions. Register birth, send check, repeat.

Paying for it is also stupidly easy and you get to start by doing something that'll have house republicans touching themselves: eliminating social security, nearly all welfare, and most student related grants. Then the democrats get to significantly raise capital gains/top marginal taxes and hopefully invent a tax on corporate stock buyback, particularly when done on credit. Make single payer a thing while you're at it and you can save even more money.

It's easy, it's simple, and it's absolutely doable. The only real question is how much the payment ends of being. That's a sticky one, and i'm very glad i'm not in charge of figuring out a baseline income for everybody in every situation everywhere in the country. I think it's doable though within a reasonably defined window of possible.

Then you have issues with women getting prego just so they can receive more checks.

[Jaylock]

What you don't realize is that it already exists, just under different name. You just have to get registered as "unemployed" aaaaaand buala - you get paid monthly support

For a limited time you get paid monthly support.

And I think that support shouldn't last for more than 6-12 months. When people get used to free handouts, they stop trying to look for work / become a weight on society rather than a support. A large majority of people who are welfare recipients are those who know how to cheese a flawed system. If they see support being cut off, they will up their job search / effort in finding a job, get a job for a few months, then quit and go right back on welfare.

The system needs to be change / gutted and a new welfare system should be put in place that encourages self-reliance and hard work.

Imo, in order to qualify for monthly assistance, there should be infrastructure programs in place where in order to get welfare, you have to work on road projects, highway cleanup and other public services.

[Deleted]

Imo, those scumbags that feed off the unemployment, or wellfare system if you prefer, should not get more money than what they would need to barely scrape by with food, and a roof over their head. all luxiries, be it a car, TV, internet.

You would have to work for it.

[alturic]

To claim unemployment, you still have to be actively seeking a job

Basic income is a different thing

Now of course it's a terrible idea like all socialist ideas, mainly because the cultural and demographic impact it will have long-term will be extremely damaging, but really at this point there isn't really any good alternative so it will simply need to be done

Most people - the majority of people - will be unemployed and permanently unemployable in just a couple of decades

This is something that simply hasn't happened before in human civilisation and we're not ready for it yet

HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA, I don't know how other states monitor if people are actively seeking a job, but I know in PA it's very, very, very (as in any of the people I ever knew on it were never asked) lax, if even existant. Sure, it sounds all threatening to tell people in order to qualify for unemployment you need to be actively seeking a job, but if you don't enforce it... no-one follows through with the rules/law. Kinda like illegal immigration.

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Imo, those scumbags that feed off the unemployment, or wellfare system if you prefer, should not get more money than what they would need to barely scrape by with food, and a roof over their head. all luxiries, be it a car, TV, internet.

You would have to work for it.

See, this is where all forms of welfare went wrong, if I'm not mistaken welfare programs were meant as a temporary help, not a way of life. As someone who sides with conservatives more often than not, I do personally think welfare is something that should be there for TEMPORARY help. In all of it's current forms are what I don't agree with.

Same with healthcare, seen a guy on Facebook talking about how Obama was the best president in the longest time. He has cheap car insurance (lol what?), he only pays $82/m for health insurance (uh... welfare since he's CLEARLY getting the subsidy) gas is the cheapest it's been "in like forever" (actually cheapest it's been in 7 years if I remember correctly), etc.

[derpkitteh]

Imo, those scumbags that feed off the unemployment, or wellfare system if you prefer, should not get more money than what they would need to barely scrape by with food, and a roof over their head. all luxiries, be it a car, TV, internet.

You would have to work for it.

with basic income, you get it even if you work, even if you're rich as hell.

[Tyrianth]

SS and healthcare are a majority of the budget. $2.2 trillion / 320 million people = $6,875 per year

The numbers don't seem very impressive.

Try again.

Two things:

1. I didn't say those would be the only sources of income.
2. 320 million wouldn't be receiving cheques from the government.

[Endus]

It bears mentioning that, for all the doom-and-gloom that the naysayers spout in this topic, we have tested basic income systems. And they work.

Canada's testing of a program called Mincome, in Manitoba, is probably the best example. It was shut down largely because of a shift in government, for political reasons; it wasn't having any financial difficulties. The only reduction in employment numbers was among teens and new mothers, both of whom were no longer forced by financial necessity to work when they had bigger concerns to focus on. There were a host of other incidental benefits. It paid for itself, and most folks were quite happy with it.

Pretty much all the complaints are about things that aren't going to happen.

[Vyxn]

Living wage or welfare state, pick one.

if your only option is to live off of minimum wage the problem is with you not the wage
It means you didn't get a decent enough of an education or learn a marketable skill so you have other option so not to work in a no skill low wage job

[PC2]

Try again.

Two things:

1. I didn't say those would be the only sources of income.
2. 320 million wouldn't be receiving cheques from the government.

I'm not against the idea, but I want you to show me how you allocate our $4 trillion budget under UBI and how much each person gets.

[Tyrianth]

with basic income, you get it even if you work, even if you're rich as hell.

You're confusing basic income with universal income. Two different things. Basic income you have to qualify for.

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I'm not against the idea, but I want you to show me how you allocate our $4 trillion budget under UBI and how much each person gets.

You're moving the goal posts. Universal Basic Income is not Basic Income. Not everyone gets cheques under Basic Income, you must qualify for it. Your 320 million number (because apparantly new borns need government cheques in the orders of 1000's of dollars for some reason) would easily become less than 100 million.

[alturic]

It bears mentioning that, for all the doom-and-gloom that the naysayers spout in this topic, we have tested basic income systems. And they work.

Canada's testing of a program called Mincome, in Manitoba, is probably the best example. It was shut down largely because of a shift in government, for political reasons; it wasn't having any financial difficulties. The only reduction in employment numbers was among teens and new mothers, both of whom were no longer forced by financial necessity to work when they had bigger concerns to focus on. There were a host of other incidental benefits. It paid for itself, and most folks were quite happy with it.

Pretty much all the complaints are about things that aren't going to happen.

Things that aren't going to happen? I guess Canada (literally, don't know) has a hefty surplus of cash. I'm curious though, can you ellaborate on how exactly it works? What taxes/fees went up to cover this "basic income" that everyone(?, who?) gets?

In the US, that seems like a very sound strategy, borrow even more, to pay even more money to silly things?

[Vyxn]

It bears mentioning that, for all the doom-and-gloom that the naysayers spout in this topic, we have tested basic income systems. And they work.

Canada's testing of a program called Mincome, in Manitoba, is probably the best example. It was shut down largely because of a shift in government, for political reasons; it wasn't having any financial difficulties. The only reduction in employment numbers was among teens and new mothers, both of whom were no longer forced by financial necessity to work when they had bigger concerns to focus on. There were a host of other incidental benefits. It paid for itself, and most folks were quite happy with it.

Pretty much all the complaints are about things that aren't going to happen.

However, some have argued these drops may be artificially low because participants knew the guaranteed income was temporary.[6] This represents an important limitation to the knowledge of the impact of a guaranteed annual income; little is known about the long term effects on willingness to work.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mincome

best you read your own source before you make the claim it was a success

[Belloc]

Basic income is something that we should all be striving for... in the distant future. There will come a time when robots handle pretty much all of the work. What are we all going to do without jobs?

[Endus]

if your only option is to live off of minimum wage the problem is with you not the wage
It means you didn't get a decent enough of an education or learn a marketable skill so you have other option so not to work in a no skill low wage job

I'm not sure you understand how economies work.

It simply isn't possible for every single potential worker to go out and get a STEM degree and make a middle-wage income. That's a fantasy that cannot happen.

First, there aren't enough STEM jobs; that would just devalue STEM education and crater the wages for that kind of work. They'd BECOME the new minimum-wage jobs.

Second, the currently-minimum-wage jobs would still need to be done. Why do we have baristas with MAs in liberal arts? Because there aren't enough jobs for liberal arts grads. If everyone has a STEM degree, you'd see MEng grads working as baristas, instead.

Third, if you choke off the workers wages at that low end, you're restricting the consumer class' buying power, which stifles consumer economies. Even Adam Smith knew this. Capitalism doesn't work if the consumer class is hosed. When it comes to a conflict between the interests of the consumers and the interests of the producers, capitalist theory says to tell the producers to go to hell, and support the consumers. That's not socialism, that's capitalism.

[PC2]

You're confusing basic income with universal income. Two different things. Basic income you have to qualify for.

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You're moving the goal posts. Universal Basic Income is not Basic Income. Not everyone gets cheques under Basic Income, you must qualify for it. Your 320 million number (because apparantly new borns need government cheques in the orders of 1000's of dollars for some reason) would easily become less than 100 million.

I see, would middle and upper middle class income people get basic income? Why should they support it?

[Endus]

Things that aren't going to happen? I guess Canada (literally, don't know) has a hefty surplus of cash. I'm curious though, can you ellaborate on how exactly it works? What taxes/fees went up to cover this "basic income" that everyone(?, who?) gets?

You realize there was a link in that post, right? To a Wiki page, with sources and everything? It's all there.

There was no "surplus of cash" required. Mincome payed for itself.

[alturic]

Basic income is something that we should all be striving for... in the distant future. There will come a time when robots handle pretty much all of the work. What are we all going to do without jobs?

Do you actually like the thought of being paid to sit on your ass? Err, scratch that, do you actually like the thought of everyone getting money to LITERALLY sit on their ass? It makes ZERO sense.