Universal Basic Income thread

[JimC]

That reminds me of the old Arab saying:

"A women for duty, a boy for pleasure, and a goat for ecstasy..."

[Beatsong]

I'm a fully paid up lefty but I think UBI is a terrible idea.

It presupposes giving a fuck-ton of public money to people already in work - for most of whom the amount they get won't make a huge difference above what they're already earning anyway - just in order to give it to those who actually need it. So you're taxing the fuck out of people just to give the money back to them. Why not just give it to those who actually need it?

People have talked about it in the UK, and in order to pay an amount similar to current jobseekers allowance (£72 per week), it would require an eye-watering total far in excess of the current welfare bill. But for all that expense, who the fuck can actually live of £72 per week? So you'd still have to have housing benefit, pensions (which are about twice that amount) and so on, and the virtue of simplicity that is one of it's main selling ponts wouldn't actually exist.

I'm all for doing away with the work ethic and accepting the coming of the robots. But I'd be much happier for the government just to give unemployed people a stipend they can ACTUALLY live on, and save the ridiculous farce of giving £72 a week to Richard Branson and the Duke of Westminster.

It also seems to me unwise to give the base level of social security as money. Huge potential for unforeseen effects of inflation etc. And what happens when someone spends it all on drugs and is then homeless? You have the Daily Mail using that to convince people it can't work, and the liberal left having to work harder to justify helping the poor to afford housing. Why not instead use some of the money to just build social housing, and give everyone who needs it a house to live in?

I get that the universality of it is a nice idea, in theory. But it's an indulgence.

[PsychoSerenity]

I'm a fully paid up lefty but I think UBI is a terrible idea.

From what you've written I'd say this is because you don't understand it or the system we've got now.

It presupposes giving a fuck-ton of public money to people already in work - for most of whom the amount they get won't make a huge difference above what they're already earning anyway - just in order to give it to those who actually need it. So you're taxing the fuck out of people just to give the money back to them. Why not just give it to those who actually need it?

People have talked about it in the UK, and in order to pay an amount similar to current jobseekers allowance (£72 per week), it would require an eye-watering total far in excess of the current welfare bill. But for all that expense, who the fuck can actually live of £72 per week? So you'd still have to have housing benefit, pensions (which are about twice that amount) and so on, and the virtue of simplicity that is one of it's main selling ponts wouldn't actually exist.

We already give a fuck-ton of money to people already in work in the form of tax breaks. For example the income tax Personal Allowance is currently worth £4600 per year to higher earners (£88 per week). Standard rate earners get half that, and those earning less than £11500 a year get a still smaller fraction. The reduction from 12% to 2% in the rate of Employee's National Insurance contributions over the Upper Earnings Limit of £45000 per year is worth £5500 per year (£105 per week) to someone being paid £100K. Do I need to go on to the comparatively huge tax breaks given to those getting income through capital gains or corporate dividends or those lucky enough to have wealth to save? And that's all before we get on to tax avoidance. What a UBI does is make sure there's a lower limit on income, protecting people from destitution, by making the tax system more progressive, getting rid of the bureaucracy of punishing the poor, and making it easier to transition into work or between jobs by getting rid of the sudden benefit cut-offs and so keeping marginal tax rates low for low earners.

It also seems to me unwise to give the base level of social security as money. Huge potential for unforeseen effects of inflation etc. And what happens when someone spends it all on drugs and is then homeless? You have the Daily Mail using that to convince people it can't work, and the liberal left having to work harder to justify helping the poor to afford housing. Why not instead use some of the money to just build social housing, and give everyone who needs it a house to live in?

I get that the universality of it is a nice idea, in theory. But it's an indulgence.

There are no risks to inflation as long as you are prepared to appropriately tax excessive wealth. And an authoritarian approach where you try and micromanage those in poverty, judging them for their spending habits, is not only be massively inefficient but it's also hideously degrading. Certainly there are a minority of people that need more active assistance beyond the financial, but for most people simply having a social security system they could actually rely on would be hugely empowering. As for listening to the Daily Mail, - they already begrudge any more money going to people with disabilities, people in poverty, people with caring responsibilities, even when we've got the most tight fisted, mean spirited, uncaring benefit system that judges people unworthy by absurd criteria and then leaves them to die. If you're holding out for right-wing tabloid popularity you might as well give up your dreams of being a lefty.

Universality is not just a nice idea in theory, - although it mustn't be understated that as soon as you bring the idea of means-testing you get judgements of who is or isn't deserving, promoting fundamentally divisive right wing views, - universality is also just a more effective system than what we've currently got.

[pErvinalia]

I'm a fully paid up lefty but I think UBI is a terrible idea.

It presupposes giving a fuck-ton of public money to people already in work - for most of whom the amount they get won't make a huge difference above what they're already earning anyway - just in order to give it to those who actually need it. So you're taxing the fuck out of people just to give the money back to them. Why not just give it to those who actually need it?

Well, I think you are wrong that it won't make a huge difference to what 'most people' already earn. The medium income in the UK is somewhere around the 15K mark (I hope I've interpreted the figures right). Even using your ridiculously low figure of 72 pounds per week, that equates to a 25% increase in earnings. When you throw children into the mix and their costs the net employment income effectively gets lower and the UBI proportion of that climbs higher.

Regarding targeting the assistance, there's two obvious reasons. One, it removes the need for the huge bureaucracy that is involved in determining who is and isn't eligible for the assistance, how much each person should get, and then enforcing the rules concerning receipt of assistance. And two, it negates the conservatives' argument about fairness.

People have talked about it in the UK, and in order to pay an amount similar to current jobseekers allowance (£72 per week), it would require an eye-watering total far in excess of the current welfare bill.

Does that take into account the savings realised from no longer needing the associated bureaucracy?

But for all that expense, who the fuck can actually live of £72 per week? So you'd still have to have housing benefit, pensions (which are about twice that amount) and so on, and the virtue of simplicity that is one of it's main selling ponts wouldn't actually exist.

How do you figure that? Paying everyone the exact same amount regardless of circumstances is the very epitome of simplicity.

I'm all for doing away with the work ethic and accepting the coming of the robots. But I'd be much happier for the government just to give unemployed people a stipend they can ACTUALLY live on, and save the ridiculous farce of giving £72 a week to Richard Branson and the Duke of Westminster.

This makes no sense whatsoever. Not least because it goes against everything you just argued. I don't usually buy into the idea that some on the left (and the poor) are driven in this sphere by envy of the rich, but in your case it kind of looks exactly like that.

It also seems to me unwise to give the base level of social security as money. Huge potential for unforeseen effects of inflation etc.

Show your working. There's always the potential for inflation when the government starts throwing money around, but it's not a simple case of 'increased spending = increased inflation'. If that was the case we would have seen huge increases in inflation after all the stimulus money governments spent during the GFC. We didn't. And also consider that a good chunk of the money would come from savings, so it's not new money and therefore has essentially zero effect on inflation.

And what happens when someone spends it all on drugs and is then homeless? You have the Daily Mail using that to convince people it can't work, and the liberal left having to work harder to justify helping the poor to afford housing. Why not instead use some of the money to just build social housing, and give everyone who needs it a house to live in?

How many people do you really imagine will spend it all on drugs and then wind up homeless? That's an inherently conservative view of human nature. Are you sure you are the fully paid up lefty you think you are?

Additionally, you have made no recognition of the positives aside from direct monetary income that would derive from such a system. Reduced stress and depression and homelessness, therefore reduce healthcare burden on the state (not to mention a less brutal society). Reduced crime. Increased happiness, therefore increased worker productivity. Reduced sick leave due to a healthier workforce, therefore higher productivity again. Etc etc...

[Scot Dutchy]

Beatsong

Do you have any idea about what the employment situation will be in the future. Again you are making the same mistake so many make. You presume there will be work for the vast majority which is simply not true. Automation is going to replace so many that whole sectors will disappear. This not only affects the employees directly but all the supporting workers. Just think about an office block. It has to cleaned and maintained but all those jobs will also disappear. They are the lowest level workers. Fast food chains will be automated. So the lowly paid work will disappear. So it goes on and on.
Society will look completely different. There was an Horizon documentary about driverless cars. All very grand but there will be no need for drivers. Just think on that and it is not going to be in a hundred years either.
So society has to change well the civilised ones will. If it does not it will become a world of the haves and the have nots. It could easily turn into chaos and with leaders like Trump it will be encouraged. How long do you think you can keep a lid on that situation? It could turn into a nightmare scenario.
To make sure everyone is still a have is paying everyone the Universal Basic Wage. Enough to live on but not in luxury. People can then work a few hours because that will be all some will be able to get to work to supplement it. The higher the skill the more work will be available. This will be covered by in ever increasing progressive tax system making sure that society does not split.

It asks for a totally new way of organising society. I personally envisage employment agencies being set up for different sectors to which an individual can join and it will take care of the division of work.

If you have another idea of solving this very difficult situation without stigmatising and section of society please explain it. If we go on the way we are our present society might not last 50 years which is fine for me as I doubt I will see it.

[Beatsong]

We already give a fuck-ton of money to people already in work in the form of tax breaks. For example the income tax Personal Allowance is currently worth £4600 per year to higher earners (£88 per week). Standard rate earners get half that, and those earning less than £11500 a year get a still smaller fraction. The reduction from 12% to 2% in the rate of Employee's National Insurance contributions over the Upper Earnings Limit of £45000 per year is worth £5500 per year (£105 per week) to someone being paid £100K. Do I need to go on to the comparatively huge tax breaks given to those getting income through capital gains or corporate dividends or those lucky enough to have wealth to save? And that's all before we get on to tax avoidance. What a UBI does is make sure there's a lower limit on income, protecting people from destitution, by making the tax system more progressive, getting rid of the bureaucracy of punishing the poor, and making it easier to transition into work or between jobs by getting rid of the sudden benefit cut-offs and so keeping marginal tax rates low for low earners.

So you want to tax all those people more, by (for example) taking away the tax-free allowance (which is how the Greens conceived of doing it in the UK), so you can give the money back to them as UBI. What is that going to achieve? All it will do is piss people off because they believe they're being taxed too much.

It also seems to me unwise to give the base level of social security as money. Huge potential for unforeseen effects of inflation etc. And what happens when someone spends it all on drugs and is then homeless? You have the Daily Mail using that to convince people it can't work, and the liberal left having to work harder to justify helping the poor to afford housing. Why not instead use some of the money to just build social housing, and give everyone who needs it a house to live in?

I get that the universality of it is a nice idea, in theory. But it's an indulgence.

There are no risks to inflation as long as you are prepared to appropriately tax excessive wealth. And an authoritarian approach where you try and micromanage those in poverty, judging them for their spending habits, is not only be massively inefficient but it's also hideously degrading.

I didn't say anything about "micro-managing". There was nothing massively inefficient or degrading about the program of social housing construction that started in Britain after the war and last up to the 1970s. It achieved it's purpose of making sure everyone including the poor had somewhere to live.

Universality is not just a nice idea in theory, - although it mustn't be understated that as soon as you bring the idea of means-testing you get judgements of who is or isn't deserving, promoting fundamentally divisive right wing views, - universality is also just a more effective system than what we've currently got.

That has yet to be proven, and seems to rely on overlooking the sheer astronomical cost of universality.

[Beatsong]

I'm a fully paid up lefty but I think UBI is a terrible idea.

It presupposes giving a fuck-ton of public money to people already in work - for most of whom the amount they get won't make a huge difference above what they're already earning anyway - just in order to give it to those who actually need it. So you're taxing the fuck out of people just to give the money back to them. Why not just give it to those who actually need it?

Well, I think you are wrong that it won't make a huge difference to what 'most people' already earn. The medium income in the UK is somewhere around the 15K mark (I hope I've interpreted the figures right). Even using your ridiculously low figure of 72 pounds per week, that equates to a 25% increase in earnings. When you throw children into the mix and their costs the net employment income effectively gets lower and the UBI proportion of that climbs higher.

Nope. UK median income is about 27K.

Regarding targeting the assistance, there's two obvious reasons. One, it removes the need for the huge bureaucracy that is involved in determining who is and isn't eligible for the assistance, how much each person should get, and then enforcing the rules concerning receipt of assistance. And two, it negates the conservatives' argument about fairness.

The point is - if we take the £72 pw idea or even a bit more - it wouldn't remove the need for bureaucracy because that alone wouldn't be anywhere near enough to live on. So we'd still need housing benefit at the very least (how much do you think you'd have left out of £72 pw after renting a home in Britain?). And pensioners currently get about twice that - so you either have to double it, plunge the entire population of old people into penury, or accept some level of "bereaucracy" to keep them on the level of benefits they're on now.

But for all that expense, who the fuck can actually live of £72 per week? So you'd still have to have housing benefit, pensions (which are about twice that amount) and so on, and the virtue of simplicity that is one of it's main selling ponts wouldn't actually exist.

How do you figure that? Paying everyone the exact same amount regardless of circumstances is the very epitome of simplicity.

Yes it would be, if you were to pay everyone enough to properly live on. Doing that in the UK would cost a ridiculous fortune. So proponents of UBI talk in terms of amounts that are nowhere near enough to live on (but which still cost a - slightly less ridiculous - fortune). You're then left with making up the difference between the UBI and the actual cost of living.

I'm all for doing away with the work ethic and accepting the coming of the robots. But I'd be much happier for the government just to give unemployed people a stipend they can ACTUALLY live on, and save the ridiculous farce of giving £72 a week to Richard Branson and the Duke of Westminster.

This makes no sense whatsoever. Not least because it goes against everything you just argued. I don't usually buy into the idea that some on the left (and the poor) are driven in this sphere by envy of the rich, but in your case it kind of looks exactly like that.

I don't understand what you mean here, or how it goes against anything I've said.

It also seems to me unwise to give the base level of social security as money. Huge potential for unforeseen effects of inflation etc.

Show your working. There's always the potential for inflation when the government starts throwing money around, but it's not a simple case of 'increased spending = increased inflation'. If that was the case we would have seen huge increases in inflation after all the stimulus money governments spent during the GFC. We didn't. And also consider that a good chunk of the money would come from savings, so it's not new money and therefore has essentially zero effect on inflation.

And what happens when someone spends it all on drugs and is then homeless? You have the Daily Mail using that to convince people it can't work, and the liberal left having to work harder to justify helping the poor to afford housing. Why not instead use some of the money to just build social housing, and give everyone who needs it a house to live in?

How many people do you really imagine will spend it all on drugs and then wind up homeless? That's an inherently conservative view of human nature. Are you sure you are the fully paid up lefty you think you are?

The point is not what I think about how people would spend it. The point is that that is part of the public discourse about it and many people have a (somewhat justifiable) desire to see that the tax money they pay is being used effectively and wisely. I just don't see the point of fucking around with the money supply and trying to predict all its potential problems, when you could just spend the money to build houses for people.

[pErvinalia]

We already give a fuck-ton of money to people already in work in the form of tax breaks. For example the income tax Personal Allowance is currently worth £4600 per year to higher earners (£88 per week). Standard rate earners get half that, and those earning less than £11500 a year get a still smaller fraction. The reduction from 12% to 2% in the rate of Employee's National Insurance contributions over the Upper Earnings Limit of £45000 per year is worth £5500 per year (£105 per week) to someone being paid £100K. Do I need to go on to the comparatively huge tax breaks given to those getting income through capital gains or corporate dividends or those lucky enough to have wealth to save? And that's all before we get on to tax avoidance. What a UBI does is make sure there's a lower limit on income, protecting people from destitution, by making the tax system more progressive, getting rid of the bureaucracy of punishing the poor, and making it easier to transition into work or between jobs by getting rid of the sudden benefit cut-offs and so keeping marginal tax rates low for low earners.

So you want to tax all those people more, by (for example) taking away the tax-free allowance (which is how the Greens conceived of doing it in the UK), so you can give the money back to them as UBI. What is that going to achieve?

A civil, rational and just society in a way that is lacking at the moment.

Universality is not just a nice idea in theory, - although it mustn't be understated that as soon as you bring the idea of means-testing you get judgements of who is or isn't deserving, promoting fundamentally divisive right wing views, - universality is also just a more effective system than what we've currently got.

That has yet to be proven, and seems to rely on overlooking the sheer astronomical cost of universality.

What sort of level of costs are you talking about?

[pErvinalia]

I'm a fully paid up lefty but I think UBI is a terrible idea.

It presupposes giving a fuck-ton of public money to people already in work - for most of whom the amount they get won't make a huge difference above what they're already earning anyway - just in order to give it to those who actually need it. So you're taxing the fuck out of people just to give the money back to them. Why not just give it to those who actually need it?

Well, I think you are wrong that it won't make a huge difference to what 'most people' already earn. The medium income in the UK is somewhere around the 15K mark (I hope I've interpreted the figures right). Even using your ridiculously low figure of 72 pounds per week, that equates to a 25% increase in earnings. When you throw children into the mix and their costs the net employment income effectively gets lower and the UBI proportion of that climbs higher.

Nope. UK median income is about 27K.

I think you are confusing per person with per household. Do you have a link to that? I was using the middle percentile of this data:

income-figures-treasury-009.jpg (31.82 KiB) Viewed 3432 times

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2014/ ... ry-compare

Regarding targeting the assistance, there's two obvious reasons. One, it removes the need for the huge bureaucracy that is involved in determining who is and isn't eligible for the assistance, how much each person should get, and then enforcing the rules concerning receipt of assistance. And two, it negates the conservatives' argument about fairness.

The point is - if we take the £72 pw idea or even a bit more - it wouldn't remove the need for bureaucracy because that alone wouldn't be anywhere near enough to live on. So we'd still need housing benefit at the very least (how much do you think you'd have left out of £72 pw after renting a home in Britain?). And pensioners currently get about twice that - so you either have to double it, plunge the entire population of old people into penury, or accept some level of "bereaucracy" to keep them on the level of benefits they're on now.

UBI is usually about providing a minimal liveable wage. That is, it replaces essentially ALL welfare payments. So you would indeed get rid of most of the bureaucracy involved in welfare provision.

But for all that expense, who the fuck can actually live of £72 per week? So you'd still have to have housing benefit, pensions (which are about twice that amount) and so on, and the virtue of simplicity that is one of it's main selling ponts wouldn't actually exist.

How do you figure that? Paying everyone the exact same amount regardless of circumstances is the very epitome of simplicity.

Yes it would be, if you were to pay everyone enough to properly live on. Doing that in the UK would cost a ridiculous fortune.

You're going to have to back that up.

I'm all for doing away with the work ethic and accepting the coming of the robots. But I'd be much happier for the government just to give unemployed people a stipend they can ACTUALLY live on, and save the ridiculous farce of giving £72 a week to Richard Branson and the Duke of Westminster.

This makes no sense whatsoever. Not least because it goes against everything you just argued. I don't usually buy into the idea that some on the left (and the poor) are driven in this sphere by envy of the rich, but in your case it kind of looks exactly like that.

I don't understand what you mean here, or how it goes against anything I've said.

"Huge potential for unforeseen effects of inflation etc.", and that simplicity is a factor that is important.

And it's not clear why giving rich people a relatively small sum is a "farce".

It also seems to me unwise to give the base level of social security as money. Huge potential for unforeseen effects of inflation etc.

Show your working. There's always the potential for inflation when the government starts throwing money around, but it's not a simple case of 'increased spending = increased inflation'. If that was the case we would have seen huge increases in inflation after all the stimulus money governments spent during the GFC. We didn't. And also consider that a good chunk of the money would come from savings, so it's not new money and therefore has essentially zero effect on inflation.

And what happens when someone spends it all on drugs and is then homeless? You have the Daily Mail using that to convince people it can't work, and the liberal left having to work harder to justify helping the poor to afford housing. Why not instead use some of the money to just build social housing, and give everyone who needs it a house to live in?

How many people do you really imagine will spend it all on drugs and then wind up homeless? That's an inherently conservative view of human nature. Are you sure you are the fully paid up lefty you think you are?

The point is not what I think about how people would spend it. The point is that that is part of the public discourse about it and many people have a (somewhat justifiable) desire to see that the tax money they pay is being used effectively and wisely. I just don't see the point of fucking around with the money supply and trying to predict all its potential problems, when you could just spend the money to build houses for people.

Ok, fair enough. But I note you haven't addressed the inflation issue in either of your replies to me or PS. Making unsubstantiated scare claims just adds to the media dynamic that you (rightly) lament.

[Beatsong]

So you want to tax all those people more, by (for example) taking away the tax-free allowance (which is how the Greens conceived of doing it in the UK), so you can give the money back to them as UBI. What is that going to achieve?

A civil, rational and just society in a way that is lacking at the moment.

Wow. Pretty big claim for £72 a week

Universality is not just a nice idea in theory, - although it mustn't be understated that as soon as you bring the idea of means-testing you get judgements of who is or isn't deserving, promoting fundamentally divisive right wing views, - universality is also just a more effective system than what we've currently got.

That has yet to be proven, and seems to rely on overlooking the sheer astronomical cost of universality.

What sort of level of costs are you talking about?

Interestingly I just found the Green Party's consultation paper for a citizen's income from 2015:

https://policy.greenparty.org.uk/assets ... 0Paper.pdf

In brief, their figures for a UBI of £80 pw (I don't know why it got changed to £72 in news reports at the time) are:

Cost of UBI: £321 billion

Savings from abolishing other benefits: £164 billion

Tax increases, by removing personal allowance etc, to pay for the remainder: £157 billion

The document details what other benefits would have to exist (eg housing benefit, and a supplement for single mothers) which, to be fair, do look considerably simplified compared to the current system. But the fact remains you can't really live on £80 pw, even with housing benefit paying some of your rent.

Here's an article from the left-leaning Guardian at the time, about research concluding that the scheme would massively disadvantage te poorest:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... -hits-poor

In return for all this, they had to include an astronomical increase to the total tax burden to raise the £157 billion needed. Why anyone was supposed to be happy about losing their entire personal allowance and paying higher NI contributions just to get some of it back in UBI, I don't know. But the Greens ended up ditching it and not including it in their manifesto, when it became clear they couldn't make it work.

There would be other ways of doing it, of course. But I just can't see the point of trying so hard to find a way to give money to people that don't need it.

[pErvinalia]

Thanks for those links, Beatsong. I'll have a look at them when I get a chance.

[laklak]

Anyone remember the movie THX 1138? They went to work in factories and made these plastic cubes. Then they took the cubes home and destroyed them in a disposal unit. You had to work, and you had to destroy a certain number of cubes, that was the entire basis of their economy. Pretty much everything else was done by machines. That's what we're headed for. You can't just create money, at least not in any sort of economic system we've created so far, people have to work, and people have to consume. Neither the work nor the consumption needs to actually accomplish anything, and in fact I'd argue that a hell of a lot of "work" that happens out in the Real World accomplishes approximately jack shit in real terms. But you have to have "money" circulating around. It's not going to be much fun, and it will require a totalitarian state of mind-boggling proportions to pull it off, but it will happen. I'll be dead by then and won't give a shit, a fact I'm truly grateful for.

Not to mix dystopias, but if you want a vision of the future imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever.

[pErvinalia]

I'll reply to this when I'm on the pc

[Hermit]

Not to mix dystopias, but if you want a vision of the future imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever.

I imagined it just now, and it looks really good.

I imagined the face being yours.

[pErvinalia]

Burn!