Slashdot Mirror
Support For a Universal Basic Income Is Inching Up In Europe (qz.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Finland and the Netherlands are running modest pilots, and others are being considered by governments in France, Switzerland, and the UK, and by a host of nonprofits. To gauge public enthusiasm for the idea, Dalia Research, a Berlin-based market research firm, has been surveying Europeans' attitudes toward basic income since 2016. They've found a warm welcome. In a March survey, 68% of Europeans said they would vote yes in a basic-income referendum, up from 64% last year. The survey was put to 11,000 citizens in 28 European Union states and has a 1.1% margin of error. But not everyone is ready to see it implemented right away -- 48% said they wanted to test the policy first, while 31% advocated for adopting it as soon as possible. The 24% of respondents who opposed a UBI in both years were most concerned about the economic impact, including the expense, the risk of reducing the motivation to work, and the possibility foreigners would take exploit it. Those in favor of a UBI were most convinced by the promise of increased security and freedom, namely a reduced financial anxiety over meeting basic needs, more equality in opportunities, and the prospect of greater financial independence and self-reliance.
Most European countries already have systems in place to make sure that people without income doesn't end up starving or homeless.
The cost is already there. The point of UBI is to reduce the administrative overhead.
Instead of figuring out who needs the extra support you give it to everyone wether they need it or not.
For those who didn't need it it will seem redundant that they are first taxed and then have the money given back to them, but in the end nothing much happened.
UBI isn't as radical as some people make it out to be.
I mean, if it's not universal, than it's not a Universal Basic Income.
I could see doing it on a regional basis -- but you'd have to be kind of a hard-ass about it and be fairly committed to it.
Restrict it to only residents of the region at the time it started. Actually dismantle that region's regular welfare system, so you know exactly what cost savings you are gaining. I don't see either of those as being easy or palatable.
Which seems to be the major problem with a UBI -- you can model the shit out of it and say it makes sense, but until you do it -- and make it Universal -- you don't know.
And it still leaves a lot of uncomfortable questions -- what about immigrants? How long are they there until they're eligible? Diverse welfare payments are easier in that situation, because you can say "well, immigrants should get housing and job training, but not actual unemployment payments" or however you slice it.
FWIW, I think a negative income tax type of UBI makes sense, especially if it allows for marginal, low-wage employment without completely eliminating UBI payments (they should get zeroed out by taxes, but only once income rises above some level greater than UBI itself). I think providing people an incentive to work, even at low wage jobs (ie, more total income) makes sense, and would have a lot of positive impacts on working conditions. Low wage employers wouldn't be able to treat workers like slaves because homelessness and starvation wouldn't be the alternatives.
Would you like to pay higher taxes so that some of it will be given to others even if they do not work?
Hell no!
Finland, the Netherlands, France, Switzerland, and the UK already has systems in place to make sure that people doesn't starve or end up homeless.
The cost is already there. Switching to UBI doesn't necessarily require higher taxes. Especially since you no longer need government workers investigating who is entitled to extra support.
Rich people tend to want to live in nice places, and generally have the extra money to pay for that privilege. Living in a place with good schools, good health care, and a good safety net creates the type of society where the wealthy and upper middle class want to live. The lower crime alone which comes from these services is arguably worth it.
You don't see too many rich people leaving for third world countries just because the taxes are lower. You may see some middle class people moving to Thailand to make their retirement money stretch, but those with real wealth paying most of the taxes tend to desire well countries with the powerful governments necessary to run a modern society. And they have the money to pay for it.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
It doesn't make much sense to contribute to a plan that can't actually be implemented unless everyone has to contribute by law.The US will never have single payer healthcare for the same specious argument. So enjoy that bucket of crabs you're in.
"Old man yells at systemd"
The poverty threshold, poverty limit or poverty line is the minimum level of income deemed adequate to cover total cost of all the essential resources that an average human adult consumes in one year. In the US, this is presented as an income level based on household size (number of dependents). For a single person household, the poverty line is $12,060 (2017).
Perhaps worth noting is that a single person household working a full-time minimum-wage job exceeds the poverty line (50 weeks time 40 hours times $7.25 is $14,500), so by definition a full-time minimum wage worker is not living in poverty. But if that same person has a child, then both are living in poverty, as the poverty line for a two-person household is $16,240. In a very real albeit statistical sense, children cause poverty.
An assumption of a UBI is that it provides sufficient income to survive on, so let's use the poverty line as the basis for the UBI. That is, a single person household would receive a UBI of $12,060; A two-person household would receive a UBI of $16,240; and so on. Note that even this basic assumption leads to perverse outcomes (e.g. two adults living separately would get $12,060 each, but if they live together they "lose" $7,880 in UBI), so at least some will avoid getting married, or even living together (or lie about living together, thereby defrauding the system) just to maximize their free money.
Using census data, there are 124.5 million households. The average household size is 2.54 people. Let's interpolate the poverty table to get an average expected UBI of about $18,497. Multiplying that out we can get the tab for providing UBI based on these assumptions, a total of about $2.303 trillion.
Coincidentally, that is almost exactly the amount of money we currently spend on all social welfare benefits programs, including Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, foodstamps, etc. A reasonable idea--indeed, this was put forward in a WSJ essay by Charles Murray--would be to eliminate all those programs in favor of the UBI. Of course, this ignores the howls that would arise from a populace deprived of their SS checks and foodstamps.
Exploring the notion of replacing the most basic welfare programs, e.g. foodstamps, section 8 housing, while not disrupting the SS and Medicare that the elderly view as an earned right. After all, the UBI based on poverty level should by definition cover those sorts of expenses. There will still be screams from people concerned about drug addicts not buying food for their kids and that sort of thing. So it seems unlikely that the overhead of those programs, let alone the programs, would be completely done away with.
So it seems almost a certainty that a UBI would be adjacent to at least SS/Medicare. Those totaled about $1.473T of the welfare expenditures, so add the $2.303 to the SS/Medicare $1.473T for a total cost of $3.776T. Perhaps the UBI reduces SS income dollar-for-dollar in an either-or situation reduces this a bit.
A worst-case cost would be adding UBI on top of all the existing programs, for a total cost of about $5T. Or perhaps the UBI in lieu of all other programs can actually be rammed through so that the cost remains a minimum of $2.303T.
Total federal revenues collected from all sources (taxes, royalties, etc.) in 2014 (last year available) was $3.27 trillion. So UBI would consume somewhere north of 70% of all federal revenues. And the math here assumes that no one receive UBI drops out of the workforce or reduces their taxable income at all--i.e., that revenues stay constant.
Some of it is supposed to be paid for by eliminating the enormous welfare bureaucracy associated with the alphabet soup of individual welfare programs, the means testing, the monitoring, etc.
Just because $1 in tax money goes into a welfare program does not mean that $1 in benefits was received by a recipient. Much of that $1 went into the budgets, salaries and operations involved in running that program.
With UBI you eliminate all of that. You get a check and the progressive tax code decides whether it's net positive for you when your total income (UBI + wages) goes above the income level of benefits eligibility.
In fact, I think it makes sense if a person gets $25,000 UBI, makes $5,000 working that they should somehow net out something more than $25,000 and less than $30,000. We want people to have an incentive to keep working, and not losing all benefits because of *any* work goes a long way to providing that incentive. A big problem with many current welfare programs is the complexity of means testing and the games people play to get benefits though they don't qualify or to kill work incentives so they continue to get benefits.
I was born and raised in a country with "single payer healthcare" — USSR.
Well, that explains a lot. You even put it in quotes, suggesting even you can tell the difference between communism and what we're talking about.
"Old man yells at systemd"
Smoking pot in your parents' basement and collecting a check from the government to pay for your weed and doritos is not a valid occupation.
Why not?
And I'm somewhat serious. Yes, it offends your puritanical mindset, but what jobs are you creating for the folks who would lean this way? Used to be, half the population or more was involved in agriculture. Now we're under 2%, and we produce more food than ever before. We make so much food that we can't get eat it fast enough. We export food around the world. With a little better distribution and a bit of planning, we could feed everyone in the US handily, based on the food waste we throw out. We have technologically ended hunger, and are only waiting on the social and governmental structures needed to truly end it.
One major problem down. There is really no reason for that couch potato to starve, because we could feed them on our food waste at no real extra cost. Millions of them.
The rise of wind and solar and the massive uptick in natural gas is driving energy costs lower and lower. We used to employ millions and millions in energy-related businesses, but those are increasingly automated. And another major problem being mitigated. When it's trivial and inexpensive to keep the lights and heat on for that basement dweller, why would we not do that?
"Work or die" has been a reality for most all of human history. But there's no compelling reason for it to remain a reality. Give me UBI, and I'm not going to stay home. I want more. I might, however, take 6 months off to finish the novel I've been working on for years. I might see if I can push some of my hobbies and business ideas into real businesses. UBI would give me the safety net to take those risks. Will some people use it to sit in their parents' basement and smoke weed? Sure. And if they do, why should you or I or anyone else care? It's not like we don't have the resources to keep them alive.
Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
It assumes most people will find meaninful work, when the reality is, most people won't, especial when taxes start to creep over 50% (feudal tax rate).
If you have a UBI of (say) $1000 a month, then earning $5000 a month will be worth it even if you are taxed at 50%. You'll still get an extra $2500 to spend on non-essentials like mobile phones, new trainers, eating out or whatever.
UBI is going to pay for basic accommodation, food and other necessities. It isn't going to fund some sort of playboy lifestyle or pay for your kids' holidays or a new car.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Please tell me, what happens when half (or more) of the population is on UBI and the other half is taxed to the point of quitting and going on UBI.
Let's try this again.
At $50,000 of gross income, a 1-adult household takes home $40,106 today, and $46,671 under the Universal Social Security. A 2-adult, married household takes home $42,128 today, and $55,100 under the Universal Social Security.
At $200,000 of gross income, a 1-adult household takes home $144,620 today, and $145,626 under the Universal Social Security. A 2-adult, married household takes home $147,865 today, and $155,223 under the Universal Social Security.
At $25,000,000 of gross income, a 1-adult household takes home $15,138,261 today, and $15,134,880 (-$3,381; this is static after about $500k) under the Universal Social Security. A 2-adult, married household takes home $15,143,343 today, and $15,143,865 (+$522) under the Universal Social Security.
Are you suggesting single filers making over $200k will quit and live on the UBI because of a 0.67% peak increase in total income taxes (something I could buff out easily enough, but I got tired of tweaking the brackets); that single filers making $1M will quit because of a 0.34% increase in total taxes paid; that single filers making $25 million in total compensation will quit because of a 0.014% increase in total income taxes; or that married households making over $500k will quit because they only get about $500 of additional spending money per year?
Please specify.
Support my political activism on Patreon.