Slashdot Mirror
Silicon Valley Continues To Explore Universal Basic Incomes (siliconvalley.com)
A Silicon Valley Congressman "is pushing for a plan that has been described as a first step toward universal basic income...a long-shot $1 trillion expansion to the earned income tax credit that is already available to low-income families." An anonymous reader quotes the Mecury News:
Stanford University also has created a Basic Income Lab to study the idea, and the San Francisco city treasurer's office has said it's designing pilot tests -- though the department told this news organization it has no updates on the status of that project... The problem is that giving all Americans a $10,000 annual income would cost upwards of $3 trillion a year -- more than three-fourths of the federal budget, said Bob Greenstein, president of Washington, D.C.-based Center for Budget and Policy Priorities. Some proponents advocate funding the move by cutting programs like food stamps and Medicaid. But that approach would take money set aside for low-income families and redistribute it upward, exacerbating poverty and inequality, Greenstein said... Jennifer Lin, deputy director of the East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy, is skeptical that basic income can do much lasting good in Oakland. What the city needs is more high-paying jobs and affordable housing, she said... The idea, [Sam Altman, president of Y Combinator] said at the Commonwealth Club, tackles the question not enough people are asking: "What do we as the tech industry do to solve the problem that we're helping to create?"
This summer Y Combinator is expected to announce a larger Universal Basic Income program, though the article also describes "small pilot studies" in the 1960s and 1970s in Canada and in several U.S. states including New Jersey, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Iowa and Indiana, where "Some studies showed improvements in participants' physical and mental health, and found children performed better in school or stayed in school longer. But some also showed that people receiving a basic income were inclined to spend fewer hours working."
This summer Y Combinator is expected to announce a larger Universal Basic Income program, though the article also describes "small pilot studies" in the 1960s and 1970s in Canada and in several U.S. states including New Jersey, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Iowa and Indiana, where "Some studies showed improvements in participants' physical and mental health, and found children performed better in school or stayed in school longer. But some also showed that people receiving a basic income were inclined to spend fewer hours working."
Any 10K per year would entirely replace food stamps and all other welfare measures. Why would you have UBI and still have a foodstamp system? It should also replace the tax threshholds. UBI + flat taxes + no other welfare. That's how you make it work, because it simplifies (abolishes) a whole pile of existing programs that are designed to be redistributive and massively simplifies the tax system.
While I agree that just handing everyone a check every month would be a recipe for disaster for a significant percentage of the population, I also shudder to think of the government bureaucracy that would be required to administer everyone's "free" housing, food, transportation, etc. Furthermore, those who already own a home, own a car, etc., would find such handouts useless.
If you're going to institute a UBI, you have to give everyone the choice to use the money as they see fit. On the other hand, you have to prevent some of them from taking the money and blowing it on drugs, alcohol, or gambling in the first 24 hours, and then begging in the streets for the rest of the month. Western society has never tolerated such extreme social Darwinism, and I don't think we're going to start now.
One possible solution would be two-fold: (1) make the UBI a daily , rather than monthly income, and give approved parties the ability to put a lien on your UBI, so that essentials get paid for first. In this scenario, you'd be given your government credit card, and every day a certain amount of money would be added to it, less the daily cost of rent, meals, etc., according to whatever contracts you have signed for your day-to-day living costs. Even if you go and drink or smoke away the rest, the maximum damage you can do is limited to 24 hours of income. You won't starve or sleep in the streets.
Of course, this still ignores the myriad ways that people will still come up with to abuse the system, just as current government handouts are already abused. But it might mitigate some of the very worst abuses.