Give Workers 10,000 Pound To Survive Automation, British Top Think Tank Suggests (huffingtonpost.co.uk)

Britons should be able to bid for 10,000 pound (roughly $14,000) to help them prosper amid huge changes to their working lives, a leading think tank suggests today. From a report: The Royal Society for the Arts (RSA) has released research proposing a radical new sovereign wealth fund, which would be invested to make a profit like similar public funds in Norway. The returns from the fund would be used to build a pot of money, to which working-age adults under-55 would apply to receive a grant in the coming decade.

People would have to set out how they intend to put the five-figure payouts to good use, for example, by using the cash to undergo re-training, to start a new business, or to combine work with the care of elderly or sick relatives. It would be funded like the student grant system and wealthier individuals could be required to pay back more in tax as their earnings increase. Ultimately, the RSA paper suggests, the wealth fund would finance a Universal Basic Income (UBI) as the world of modern work is turned upside down by increased automation, new technology and an ageing population.

Comments

let student loans be dishcahnged in bankruptcy!

[Joe_Dragon]

let student loans be dishcahnged in bankruptcy!

Re:let student loans be dishcahnged in bankruptcy!

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a better idea.

Let's just stop letting kids take out fifty thousand dollar loans to get a degree in women's studies as expressed through dance.

Put them through a trade school instead.

Re:let student loans be dishcahnged in bankruptcy!

[alvinrod]

You're assuming that you can just take any particular person and turn them into a doctor, engineer, or other highly skilled profession. There are some people who lack the intelligence, aptitude, or desire to participate in any of those fields. Devoting resources towards getting blood out of a stone is wasting them when they could be better spent on those who are capable and willing.

I also think you're assuming that all degrees are capable of producing value which I don't believe is this case either and I don't believe that a degree is philosophy necessarily imbues skills in self study, self motivation, time management, or project management any more than any other degree. Subsidizing degrees in philosophy, art history, religious studies, etc. is not going to provide the taxpayer with a good return on their investment. Wanting those degrees to be useful doesn't make them so, and allowing the large number of individuals to who choose to major in them and end up in a cycle of perpetual debt due to lack of job prospects is pure folly on the part of society.

If you removed government subsidization of student loans, banks would figure this out in a hurry and would largely stop loaning money to people who try to major in those fields. much like they're not going to provide a home loan to a crack addict with a history of arson. This naturally drives people towards the fields of study where there is a possibility of doing something economically viable and prevents people who are always going to end up working as a cashier, builder, or some other job that requires no college education from running up six figure loan debts that they have no real hope of paying off. Instead they can entire the workforce sooner, begin earning sooner, start acquiring job skills sooner, and likely be able to afford a house and build up capital that they would not otherwise be able to do if they're taking out expensive student loans.

Is this once or every year

[OrangeTide]

Because if it's just a one time payout, it seems inadequate. It's not going to support someone long enough to get a 2 or 4 year degree for example.

Re:Hysterically inadaquate

[alvinrod]

There's two problems with this. First, we don't necessarily know what jobs to train them for, either because they don't exist yet or we're not anticipating demand for them. There's also a side issue that any job you train someone for may also become unavailable before long as well. The second is that it assumes that all people are equally competent and capable of any job, which isn't true either. Eventually you reach a point with any person where they're incapable of doing anything economically productive due any number of factors including age, mental capability, health, etc.

It's probably cheaper to just give them some money to live off of contingent on them not running around committing crimes. People seem to think that a basic income like this would be completely detrimental, but I think it's preferable to alternatives. First, if people are being replaced by machines, it means overall labor capacity has either increased or remained the same at a lower cost so it isn't going to economically ruin the economy. Second, I believe that people left to their own devices will do a better job of finding supplemental or new employment better than any government planning board that thinks it can predict or direct the economy. The only other policy you'd need would be similar to China's one child policy so you don't have unproductive individuals spawning large numbers of children they're probably not well equip to care for either and I don't see a problem with just subsidizing the existence of people who aren't capable of finding new jobs. Yes, some people will choose not to work ever again, but if they want to go read books in the park all day, it's better than them turning to crime in order to try to get by.

Re:Hysterically inadaquate

[ShanghaiBill]

First, we don't necessarily know what jobs to train them for

A common policy is to offer tax incentives or other subsidies to employers to hire less skilled workers and train them for real jobs. The obvious employer response is to take the subsidies and apply them to people that they would have hired anyway, or to even fire existing workers to replace them with effectively cheaper "trainees".

There is little evidence that government programs to encourage training are actually effective ... but there is also little evidence that automation is actually causing job losses, so training subsidies are a bad solution to a problem that may not even exist.

Re:UBI

[Anonymous Coward]

To suppress an armed revolution by the underclass, you need a loyal cadre of guards. But you can't recruit them from the underclass, because they'll sympathise with their own. You need a poor population willing to do violence on your behalf, without a shared sense of identity with your existing peons ...

Oh, look! Refugees!

Re: let student loans be dishcahnged in bankruptcy

[mspohr]

College should be free