Universal Basic Income

[4bars]

Or like Canada they can just do neither of those and instead bring in loads of immigrants who are desperate enough to be taken advantage of with miserable jobs and living situations.

Im one of this immigrants and im surrounded of plenty of immigrants o many nationalities and wwe are having it better tgan in other countries that i immigrated before and a decent and possible path to residency and citizenship.

You should see european countries (been there being european citizen) and australia

Sure there are bad stories and not just a few, but in comparison, canada is not on the worse end of the western countries

 

[jeff_goldblum]

Loads of essential jobs are undesirable for most which is why things like fruit picking and aged care are often done my migrants in many countries.

I'm aware, I think it's a bad thing that they're undesirable and that people should be paid a lot more to do them.

 

[Toblerone92]

This thread has become about “is £1600 too much money to just give out to people?” and not about UBI as a viable alternative to the benefits system and an effective way to lift people out of poverty.

People forget what the current welfare provision costs to administer on a national scale and that by removing means testing you also save an absolute fortune. Believe it or not the best way to empower people to make better choices and not be exploited is to literally give them money with no strings attached, eliminating the need to take low paying jobs in captive labour markets just to afford the bare minimum required to exist, save for the future and become a more productive member of society.

The current system is utterly broken - like many thinks in modern Britain - and anyone that considers themselves a socialist or “on the left” that is attacking experimental progressive ideas such as this needs to reassess their priorities. As another poster said there are winners and losers with every policy decision, and this is about shifting the balance toward being slightly more favourable for the poorest in society. Of course it will need tweaking, but it’s a start.

 

[dumbo]

Except you are talking about a specific, narrow and blinkered conception of UBI that isn't generally acknowledged, let alone universally agreed upon.

It has yet to be proved whether a UBI is viable or effective in lifting people out of poverty, or if it could replace the welfare system effectively. The evidence doesn't yet exist.

It's odd to suggest that uncritical support for some ambiguous form of UBI is needed to assert one's left wing credentials. UBI has been strongly supported by sections of the centre right, right wingers and libertarians. And experimental ideas should be vigorously scrutinised.

Admin and bureaucracy, regardless of how poorly they currently perform, are needed to assess whether people who need provision are receiving it. Removing it all in order to offer a blanket payment to all raises tough questions around adequate provision and evaluating individuals needs. For example some disabled people require much much more than any number so far thrown up.

It's not necessarily a start of anything and certainly not a start of anything guaranteed to be good.

Support it all you want, outline how you would want it to work but expect disagreement and alternative views that can't just be dismissed as a lack of priorities.

 

[tenpoless]

It's supposed to be unconditional right? that's why there's Universal in the name. However in my humble opinion, there needs to be a strict criteria on who should receive it. The money should go to all the people struggling to fulfill basic needs, not the upper middle to high class people. I said upper middle class because that'd make some of them to just go ahead and retire no matter the age, which will cause a shortage of productive humans, slowing down the economy. If it's just one country, maybe the impact wouldn't be big but if it's implemented to others, especially to countries where their birthrate are declining, the numbers of unproductive people might spike up significantly. Nowadays, to newer generations, marriage and having children are not priorities anymore. If they have enough money to get by every month, plus a decent amount of savings, they'd just retire and be unproductive. I know I would.

But... that is if we go by the state that we're in right now. But if one day, robots take most jobs to the point where humans are threatened, then UBI should be implemented 100%, world wide even, including for upper middle class people. Because at that point productivity shouldn't be an issue anymore. It's how to make sure humans keep on living and benefit from technology. Robots should make our lives better and not worse. If they generate money, move the economy and it's humans that get the money then it doesn't look so bad. This is my dream scenario and I believe one day it will happen. It's the only way.

 

[4bars]

... just go ahead and retire no matter the age, which will cause a shortage of productive humans, slowing down the economy. If it's just one country, maybe the impact wouldn't be big but if it's implemented to others, especially to countries where their birthrate are declining, the numbers of unproductive people might spike up significantly...

But that is just a bit the whole point of UBI. There will be no jobs for everyone what we do with these people? (that can be me, not meaning "these people" dismissively). And UBI or not there will be not enough jobs no matter what in 10-20 years.

The idea UBI, as far as I understand, will allow people with little access to the job market to be able to sustain themselves while not having access to the job market. But as well, people that has other priorities, like parenthood, time to heal physically and mentally, retirement earlier because they have a solid base and UBI is enough retirment, etc... to get out of the job market for long periods without fear of economic bankruptcy and make space for other people that needs the jobs more than them. So instead of working 30-40 years 5 days a week, work 20-30 years 3-5 days a week of average

Than there is many concerns what effect will have in society and the macroeconomy, because every person will react differently and every society is different and definitely the quantity given will change the behavior. We don't know enough and we never will. Because a control group being 30 people, being 10,000, will only affect the individuals but not the macroeconomy. In the end, if UBI happens will be based in skewed information and a huge leap of faith

 

[Heardy]

It's supposed to be unconditional right? that's why there's Universal in the name. However in my humble opinion, there needs to be a strict criteria on who should receive it. The money should go to all the people struggling to fulfill basic needs, not the upper middle to high class people. I said upper middle class because that'd make some of them to just go ahead and retire no matter the age, which will cause a shortage of productive humans, slowing down the economy. If it's just one country, maybe the impact wouldn't be big but if it's implemented to others, especially to countries where their birthrate are declining, the numbers of unproductive people might spike up significantly. Nowadays, to newer generations, marriage and having children are not priorities anymore. If they have enough money to get by every month, plus a decent amount of savings, they'd just retire and be unproductive. I know I would.

But... that is if we go by the state that we're in right now. But if one day, robots take most jobs to the point where humans are threatened, then UBI should be implemented 100%, world wide even, including for upper middle class people. Because at that point productivity shouldn't be an issue anymore. It's how to make sure humans keep on living and benefit from technology. Robots should make our lives better and not worse. If they generate money, move the economy and it's humans that get the money then it doesn't look so bad. This is my dream scenario and I believe one day it will happen. It's the only way.

Where do you draw the line / set parameters though.

A single income household where one person earns £90,000 is substantially worse off than a dual income household where two people earn £45,000.

Does the person on nil income in the first household get it given partner earns a good wage, how about both in the second?

Based on current system, the latter is far more likely. The first household gets feck all access to benefits, child support etc., whilst the second has access despite benefitting from two lots of personal allowances, and a higher net income.

 

[4bars]

Where do you draw the line / set parameters though.

A single income household where one person earns £90,000 is substantially worse off than a dual income household where two people earn £45,000.

Does the person in the first household get it, how about both in the second?

The first household gets feck all access to benefits, child support etc., whilst the second has access despite benefitting from two lots of personal allowances, and a higher net income.

2 people spend also more than 1 person. More food, more clothes, more energy, more commute, more vacation spends, more likeliness to have a baby, etc. And that is how rent redistribution works. Equal vs Equitable

 

[Heardy]

2 people spend also more than 1 person. More food, more clothes, more energy, more commute, more vacation spends, more likeliness to have a baby, etc. And that is how rent redistribution works. Equal vs Equitable

Sorry I think you misinterpreted what I meant - I probably worded poorly and have tried to clarify in my post. By single income I mean one worker one housekeeper. Say two parents and two kids in each household.

Same outgoings but one earner as opposed to two.

 

[4bars]

Sorry I think you misinterpreted what I meant - I probably worded poorly and have tried to clarify in my post. By single income I mean one worker one housekeeper. Say two parents and two kids in each household.

Same outgoings but one earner as opposed to two.

When you create a law it is usually a general law. It is impossible to individualize. Therefore, it will benefit more some than others. Universal health care is an example. someone that has chronic diseases will make use of the health care system and maybe will pay little taxes. Meanwhile a person that had been healthy all her/his life and dies at 56 in a car accident, might never make barely use of it and maybe has paid excellent taxes.

At the same time, the first person maybe lives beside his/her work place and everything is at walking distances and maybe the second uses highways, bridges tunnels created and maintained with public expenditure, every day for 30 years. Or the second has not use superior public education and the first yes

In the end, in a society will have winners and losers some that will pay less or more taxes and some that will use public services less or more. Then it depends on what kind of society you want to live in, a more individualistic (not saying that as a negative, though In my believe is negative) where you want to take care of yourself and the ones around you with your income results paying yourself for what you need with little government intervention or you are thinking more as a society and try to uplift the ones that are on the lower end (that might include you) making the ones on top share what most likely they accomplished by inheritance/explotation/ilegality

UBI will affect fairly some unfairly others as maybe in your example. The same with other general laws. What we have to look is laws that improves us as a society and UBI can be one of them

 

[Cascarino]

The 1600 number is just because this one thinkthank chose that number for their 30 person trial. All a UBI is is a transfer payment that isn't means tested, it can be whatever size, it can be financed in whatever way, and it can be an addition to or instead of other government programs. Do you want to feck over the poor? Design a relatively low UBI, financed by cutting services and a small income tax increase. Do you want to increase spending on lower income people while leaving the middle intact? Either a higher UBI or keep existing benefits, higher tax for the middle that on average evens out with the UBI, and increased taxes on upper income people that brings in more than the transfer payment.

As with basically any policy there will be winners and losers and unaffected people, and you can choose who. There's nothing special or magic about a UBI.

Your posts are aways fantastic

 

[tenpoless]

Where do you draw the line / set parameters though.

A single income household where one person earns £90,000 is substantially worse off than a dual income household where two people earn £45,000.

Does the person on nil income in the first household get it given partner earns a good wage, how about both in the second?

Based on current system, the latter is far more likely. The first household gets feck all access to benefits, child support etc., whilst the second has access despite benefitting from two lots of personal allowances, and a higher net income.

Well I don't have the answer nor the numbers for that. But the basic idea for me is to start by defining who shouldn't get UBI instead of who should get it. Therefore if the calculation is wrong, there will still be more people that benefit from it than not. If a family generates money more than enough to sustain themselves (the parents income combined divided by how much they need to live a good quality of life) and have a good amount of savings, then that family and those above them don't get it. The rest should get it. Can the system then be exploited by them simply giving up on current income to benefit from UBI? yes they can do that. But by doing so they're essentially also lowering their income. Therefore if it's so tight that they can do that, they should probably receive it in the first place.

But that is just a bit the whole point of UBI. There will be no jobs for everyone what we do with these people? (that can be me, not meaning "these people" dismissively). And UBI or not there will be not enough jobs no matter what in 10-20 years.

The idea UBI, as far as I understand, will allow people with little access to the job market to be able to sustain themselves while not having access to the job market. But as well, people that has other priorities, like parenthood, time to heal physically and mentally, retirement earlier because they have a solid base and UBI is enough retirment, etc... to get out of the job market for long periods without fear of economic bankruptcy and make space for other people that needs the jobs more than them. So instead of working 30-40 years 5 days a week, work 20-30 years 3-5 days a week of average

That's a good point. If it's about the reduction of work for everyone, then I believe at some point it will happen. But while job market has been disrupted for quite some time now, robots taking over us hasn't really happened yet. They do affect certain type of jobs but the rest are still in demands. The UK for example has around 3.8% unemployment rate. Now don't get me wrong, 3.8% is too big if you want fairness. But until the time comes where that number spike up significantly due to automated jobs, if UBI is to be implemented now, it should be focusing on that 3.8% (and more because it's shouldn't be about unemployment money but to ease the burden of people).

We can only achieve fairness if everyone gets impacted by automated jobs when UBI should be just universal with no criteria. Large percentage of those robots money should go to human. As what do we do at that point... we'll figure it out. But there is a difference between not being productive due to the advancement of technology that we are hopeless to fight against and not being productive because we make have enough passive money. And as much as I'd like to believe otherwise, the economy really depends on people being productive as we have seen during COVID. So for me UBI should be adapted to the current situation we're living in. It shouldn't be so rigid as in universal now and universal forever and everyone gets money. Because the goal has always been about making people's lives better.

 

[Wibble]

So for me UBI should be adapted to the current situation we're living in. It shouldn't be so rigid as in universal now and universal forever and everyone gets money. Because the goal has always been about making people's lives better.

So not a UBI then. One of the main points is that everyone gets a very basic subsistence income no matter what. Employed, partially employed, unemployed, retired or those on a disability pension. It is never going to be high enough to remove the incentive to work and in many cases it will increase the incentive to work as the current systems very often make working when receiving benefit difficult or even impossible.

And don't forget that 3.8% unemployment is a figure that excludes lots of people who would like some or lots of work but are excluded because they don't qualify for benefits or are students etc etc.

https://www.theguardian.com/busines...-may-be-missing-3m-people-hidden-unemployment

 

[Wibble]

Can we also forget this 1600 pound figure. UBU is more likely to be about the same as the state pension (which is approx150 or 200 quid I believe) or similar to unemployment benefit/rent assistance). Whatever it is it will be very hard to survive on. alone

 

[tenpoless]

So not a UBI then. One of the main points is that everyone gets a very basic subsistence income no matter what. Employed, partially employed, unemployed, retired or those on a disability pension. It is never going to be high enough to remove the incentive to work and in many cases it will increase the incentive to work as the current systems very often make working when receiving benefit difficult or even impossible.

And don't forget that 3.8% unemployment is a figure that excludes lots of people who would like some or lots of work but are excluded because they don't qualify for benefits or are students etc etc.

https://www.theguardian.com/busines...-may-be-missing-3m-people-hidden-unemployment

But herein lies another problem, if its not enough to remove the incentive of work but at some point those work will vanish due to the advancements of AI and bots, what would happen then? can the people still rely on UBI to live? I think at some point we need an actual Universal income to sustain us, but is now the correct time to implement it? probably not.

A very basic subsistence sounds not more than unemployment money to me.. which is not enough. But I dont live in the UK so I could be wrong on that one.

 

[Wibble]

But herein lies another problem, if its not enough to remove the incentive of work but at some point those work will vanish due to the advancements of AI and bots, what would happen then? can the people still rely on UBI to live? I think at some point we need an actual Universal income to sustain us, but is now the correct time to implement it? probably not

UBI would almost certainly evolve as employment is impacted further by technology but if it ever starts it will be at a very low subsistence level.

 

[Chief123]

This trial best be bloody successful because I’m all for some free cash and less work!

 

[tenpoless]

UBI would almost certainly evolve as employment is impacted further by technology but if it ever starts it will be at a very low subsistence level.

That makes sense. It has to start low otherwise people will just be lazy and stop working when there's no significant reason to. It'll be like COVID lockdown all over again.

 

[Wibble]

That makes sense. It has to start low otherwise people will just be lazy and stop working when there's no significant reason to. It'll be like COVID lockdown all over again.

Given that 43% of adults aren't employed but the official unemployment rate is under 4% I don't think this will change things much. A few might work less in utter poverty but more will be able to work more as UBI isn't means tested

 

[Dr. StrangeHate]

Given that 43% of adults aren't employed but the official unemployment rate is under 4% I don't think this will change things much. A few might work less in utter poverty but more will be able to work more as UBI isn't means tested

What it the composition of the 43% adults that are not employed? Why is that not counted in the official unemployment rate?

 

[4bars]

That's a good point. If it's about the reduction of work for everyone, then I believe at some point it will happen. But while job market has been disrupted for quite some time now, robots taking over us hasn't really happened yet. They do affect certain type of jobs but the rest are still in demands. The UK for example has around 3.8% unemployment rate. Now don't get me wrong, 3.8% is too big if you want fairness. But until the time comes where that number spike up significantly due to automated jobs, if UBI is to be implemented now, it should be focusing on that 3.8% (and more because it's shouldn't be about unemployment money but to ease the burden of people).

We can only achieve fairness if everyone gets impacted by automated jobs when UBI should be just universal with no criteria. Large percentage of those robots money should go to human. As what do we do at that point... we'll figure it out. But there is a difference between not being productive due to the advancement of technology that we are hopeless to fight against and not being productive because we make have enough passive money. And as much as I'd like to believe otherwise, the economy really depends on people being productive as we have seen during COVID. So for me UBI should be adapted to the current situation we're living in. It shouldn't be so rigid as in universal now and universal forever and everyone gets money. Because the goal has always been about making people's lives better.

Up to 5% is not considered unemployment. Is stationary/transitional unemployment and represents people that are between jobs and stopped working temporary for a variety of reasons. Obviously UBI would not need to be implemented now but when it will be a massive shortage of jobs due to automatization

 

[4bars]

What it the composition of the 43% adults that are not employed? Why is that not counted in the official unemployment rate?

In spain, unemployed are the ones that they rehistrered as such because they actively search for a job. You have students that dont look for a job for example or people that dont want to work as early as 16-18. The. You habe people that gave up and cant survive maybe with family members, maybe doing small jobs here and there. Also, you habe retirees, they would reveive UBI too and not pension

 

[NotThatSoph]

Your posts are aways fantastic

You should've seen that time I tried to get banned by continously telling a mod to feck off. They just kept deleting my posts, I've never felt so powerless.

 

[Cascarino]

You should've seen that time I tried to get banned by continously telling a mod to feck off. They just kept deleting my posts, I've never felt so powerless.

Literally 1984

 

[Wibble]

But that's not going to happen - Wibble is wrong.

The model used in other countries is that it's a tax free amount that's generated from an increase in corporation tax to fund it.

Whether countries adjust their tax bandings remains to be seen, but that's not mentioned in any of the proposed models I've seen.

It should be pointed out that no country has a UBI using any model, either full or partial.

The closest many of us got was during covid but that was a short term way to stop economic collapse (ad really just widespread social payments) with no redesign of the overall model.

If a UBI is introduced it is obvious that above this income that income tax will have to be paid and it is also obvious that any increased corporate tax won't pay for everything and therefore that increased marginal rates above the level of the UBI will be needed in one way or another. And it is frequently discussed, often called a negative income tax, although not always strictly a UBI but usually virtually indistinguishable from what I described.