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The Case Against a Universal Basic Income (vox.com)
An anonymous Slashdot reader writes:
A prominent think tank founder argues that a Universal Basic Income is more likely to increase poverty than decrease it. Robert Greenstein, president of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, estimates just in the U.S. the cost would reach $3 trillion a year, "close to 100 percent of all tax revenue the federal government collects... A UBI that's financed primarily by tax increases would require the American people to accept a level of taxation that vastly exceeds anything in U.S. history..."
In a long interview with Vox, he warns that "If you have big, very expensive, and therefore highly politically unrealistic proposals, then I worry that people will look at them and say, 'Okay, we can do one or two pieces,' and too often the pieces that get selected out are pieces where a lot of the money goes to the middle or upper middle class... even UBI's staunchest supporters say we can get there in 15 to 20 years. I am totally not comfortable with any policy prescription that says we wait 15 to 20 years to deal with very deep poverty." He suggests instead focussing on the neediest people first, possibly by subsidizing jobs programs and making housing more affordable.
In a long interview with Vox, he warns that "If you have big, very expensive, and therefore highly politically unrealistic proposals, then I worry that people will look at them and say, 'Okay, we can do one or two pieces,' and too often the pieces that get selected out are pieces where a lot of the money goes to the middle or upper middle class... even UBI's staunchest supporters say we can get there in 15 to 20 years. I am totally not comfortable with any policy prescription that says we wait 15 to 20 years to deal with very deep poverty." He suggests instead focussing on the neediest people first, possibly by subsidizing jobs programs and making housing more affordable.
Follow the money. Soros is a big contributor with CBPP. Should raise some eyebrows already.
How many jobs are already makework?
It's been 30 years since Lotus 1-2-3 became cheap, available, accessible, and accurate. What the hell are all of these accountants still doing? I personally think a lot of it is work for idle hands, but makework if you prefer.
As proponent of Basic Income, I disagree with much of the analysis offered in the linked article. However, I wanted to sink into this one point in particular: "If you take the dollars targeted on people in the bottom fifth or two-fifths of the population and convert them to universal payments to people all the way up the income scale, you’re redistributing income upward. That would increase poverty and inequality rather than reduce them." This is a seductive line of reasoning, and appealing to liberals. But it misses the point about HOW taxation must be structured to take this into account. While basic income must NOT be means tested, taxation almost certainly must be. Poor ppl shouldn't be burdened by having to prove or disprove wealth and income. Having grown up poor I can assure you that that IS a huge burden. Let those most benefiting from the system be the ones who fight for the most fair tax rate possible, because they have all the tools and expertise at their disposal to do that. Poor ppl do not. So to the extent that basic income hurts ppl on the bottom, the taxcode must to that extent raise revenue from the higher economic classes to compensate for it. Easier said than done, of course, but the practicality of moving forward is an entirely different issue than the theoretical underpinnings of the idea in the first place. http://www.cbpp.org/poverty-an...
Actual accountant here.
The industry has a fuckload less AR/AP. There's a lot less clerks. There's no typists. There are no filing clerks. There is a lot less of anyone other than a handful who run much larger books and much larger payrolls. A billion dollar business has one Director, a handful of managers and a handful of divisonal staff under them, rather than the hundreds that used to be
So there are in fact a HELL of a lot less employed in the accounts department than there used to be. You haven't noticed as Old Mabel who retired was never replaced. The remaining have a lot to do with shit like payroll, applying the lastest rulesets, budgeting doing the work that 10 - 20 people would have needed to do 40 years ago.
Lotus 1-2-3 was a fucking godsend and presented complex accounts simply. It took a whole tho for the mass of jobs the Accounts dept supported to disappear tho but disappear they did. What's left is actually quite minimal and VERY different to when I started.
That's bullshit. My family came into this country as refugees with almost nothing. We depended on social services while my parents were learning English. I earned my way into school, got a scholarship to go to college. I worked my ass off in college to have a high GPA, worked 20+ hours a week in a lab in addition. I earned my way into an MD PhD program and didn't have to pay for medical school... worked my way into residency and fellowship. In the meantime my parents are earning 5 figures.
United States is the most amazing country in the world, where opportunity is still pretty open. I am so thankful to be here.
For duck's sake, please don't turn it into the country I ran away from.
We rule the seas, nearly from pole to pole, and we enforce free passage of commerce almost everywhere.
When Rome collapsed, global trade went into the shitter within a generation or two. Ruins in England show top quality pottery, nearly as good as anything you could buy today, buried under stuff much closer in quality to the ashtray your kid brings home from kindergarten art class.
Trump thinks we should get some payment from the rest of the world for providing that service, or at least some appreciation. Hillary thinks she should get some payment for it. But in the end, there simply isn't anyone else we can trust with it. Do you see a line of countries keen to behave responsibly with their own neighborhood, much less global trade?
See that "Preview" button?
Greenstein "suggests instead focusing on the neediest people first, possibly by subsidizing jobs programs and making housing more affordable."
The whole reason for a UBI is that automation has changed the work paradigm. There are no longer enough jobs for everyone, no matter how much people may want to work. Jobs programs are useless if there are no jobs. Affordable housing is a great idea, but how is that different from a UBI? Whatever housing subsidy you apply is just part of the UBI. And of course you start with the neediest people first. There is nothing in the definition of a UBI that prevents that.
What is the point of claiming a $3 trillion per year cost? If it costs that much, then scale it back to a level that can be supported. This is someone who started out with an agenda and is manufacturing reasons NOT to have a UBI.
"He took a duck in the face at 250 knots." -- William Gibson, Pattern Recognition
People can determine their own needs already.
If they CAN'T meet them, assistance to those makes sense.
If they WON'T, I'm lost as to why we should for them.
Or they are UNABLE, we must be compassionate. Of course.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Of course you can give them money forever. You know money is spent, right? That the crops to feed them are a renewable resource? That, as automation takes over more and more jobs, we're rapidly approaching the point where 1% of the population working can support the other 99%?
I mean, why can't we keep unproductive people around? What's the limiting factor? We already give the computers, and internet access, and food and medicine.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
My main fear is the same as that of many others -- that too many people would simply choose not to work.
UBI should cover your needs. The incentive to get *further* ahead by working will have people wanting to work. The flip side is that automation needs to be removing jobs, drastically increasing productivity, and reducing consumer costs to that the UBI is sufficient.
The $3 trillion 'cost' will be taken from welfare, disability services, veteran services, social security, superannuation type agencies (all obsoleted under UBI), transportation (less traffic maintenance / expenditure on highways and roads as people are not commuting), DoD (more automation), IRS (lower requirements); the list could extend to every agency.
I'm not American, so not sure how many agencies/what names you have.
You are certainly correct this is a straw man argument, but not really in the way you describe. The US government (federal, state, local) spends just over $400 billion on welfare per year, and $1.2 trillion on pensions and social security (94% of that on SS). That only comes to half the $3 trillion figure, and certainly not all of this would go away. I'd say its reasonable 2/3 of it would go away, leaving $2 trillion of the author's figures left over. Take away another $500 billion by removing children from the calculations, and you still have $1.5 trillion of increased government payments.
Then comes the real problem with the author's argument. No one claims everyone's net income would increase by $10k per year, just that they would all get a $10k check. We already have a progressive federal income tax, so it would be easy to adjust the brackets to ensure only the needy would receive an increased net income from UBI.
To simplify math, lets say 1/3 get $10k extra income, 1/3 pay the same in extra taxes that they get in UBI payments, and 1/3 pay for the lower third. Considering the top 40% of earners already pay 97% of federal income taxes, this wouldn't be much of a change in the status quo.
So now we are down to $500 billion in extra costs, which is a much more realistic figure. The federal government collects $2.4 trillion in income taxes, so the 50% of households and companies which pay any incomes taxes today would need to pay 20% more. I pay a little over $30k per year in federal income taxes, so this would mean almost $6500 in extra taxes for me personally.
But I would get something for this money. Reduced crime is hard to quantitatively measure, but removing the minimum wage would significantly impact the costs of basic services. If my food, daycare, house/lawn care, haircuts, etc. dropped by just 10% that would save me $6000 per year so this would be a wash for me.
These figures are all obviously very rough, but they at least show UBI is not as drastically unrealistic as this article suggests. It may still not work, but it is a very reasonable alternative to a future where technological disruptions make the status quo impossible to maintain.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
want to talk about actuall current welfare?
fine.
first educate yourself about it instead of posting BS.
-Welfare is known as TANF, and it doesn't move anyone out of poverty because it was created in 1996 by the welfare "reform" law created by Clinton and the republican congress. TANF eliminated welfare, even though conservatives still act like it still exists. TANF, aka workfare, is not an entitlement , runs out after 2 years, and requires you find a job. TANF is a 16.5 billion dollar block grant divided amongst the states, and it is the state's reponsibilties to administer it. now heres the reason why it doesn't help poverty: because most states don't spend it on poverty . instead the states get to spend it however they want, as long as they can claim (without any proof needed) that the intent is to reduce poverty. so most use it to plug their own budget holes, particularly in education. nationally only about 12% of those who need/qualify for TANF actually receive it. that's why it hasn't done squat for poverty: because welfare reform was ultimately a lie . the old actual welfare system was an entitlement like SS: if you were below poverty line, you qualified and got money. period. the new one has instead had the opposite effect, of increasing poverty instead of decreasing it. meanwhile the rest of the western world still has a basic entitlement form welfare, and the result is their poverty rates went down. but then the point behind their systems isn't the same as our "welfare reform" really was: welfare reform was simply racism, a means of denying minorities a way up as they were perceived to be undeserving.
-the abuse is largely a myth as always has been. the famous "welfare queen" Reagan talked about? a single middle class white woman who was caught and sent to jail. though the image in most conservatives minds is an unmarried black women with a dozen kids (re: racism). in reality, for the reasons state above, she actually isn't like to be receiving any TANF.
-SNAP moved to cards because its cheaper/easier to administer, and because it makes it even easier to detect fraud. not that fraud was rampant before: it wasn't. but the elimination of paperwork, paper stamps, and addition of computers reduced overhead and administration costs, and computers can sort quickly though the data much quicker, and the result is fraud, already low, was reduced to less than 4%. which, compared with the economic stimulus effect (every dollar spent on SNAP generates over 2$ in economic activity) means its practically negligible while the program actually helps boost the economy.
-the list of eligible food items never changed. enforcement was always essentially the job of the cashier to ring up the items properly. cards/computers make that task easier. your "extremely large" comment is nothing but "extremely large" pile of BS. no, the money was not going to alcohol or cigarettes. cashiers who allowed such transactions lose their jobs, because companies that allow such transactions risk losing the privilege of participate in the program.
-the idea behind the basic check is that there are no restrictions. you spend it on whatever. so again your comment is ignorant.
-and then you devolve into some typical ignorant strawman comment on communism, china, etc, building another mountain of BS, once again ignoring what REAL welfare states look like, and how they are not only higher than the US on the freedom index, but the economic and poverty ones too.
oh btw, as China's economy has improved, so has the status of their citizens, including the poor. their poverty rate is comparable to the US's. and if the trend continues, within 20 years it be less than ours. their social support programs are stronger than ours, and their minimum wage is far higher, being pegged to 40% of the average urban salary.
so as I said: learn what youre talking about.
and maybe stop picking china as your strawman while youre at it.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.