A government provided caretaker would be a bad job for a jobs guarantee job. The expectation of most proposals will be that the number of people using the jobs guarantee will grow during a recession and decrease dramatically during an economic uptick. This makes them a bad idea for necessary stuff like caretakers that the government can't easily reduce during growth times. If anything, I would expect the demand for government provided caretakers to increase during growth times.
Yes it is indeed imperfect and like everything else that isn’t perfect it’s not worth doing.
Age isn’t means testing. Means testing is testing means.
It doesn't achieve its stated goal while doubling the size of the government. That's not simply imperfect, its bad policy. If we implemented every policy that did anything positive regardless of cost or trade off, we'd be Somalia in time for the next Olympics.
A negative income tax rate for incomes/households below a certain threshold could account for family size using child credits. While it would also discourage labor, it would also direct its payments to those who most need it.
And you are assuming that a child will have the means of support through parents. Thus "unemancipated" minor. Unless its just because fuck kids
A government provided caretaker would be a bad job for a jobs guarantee job. The expectation of most proposals will be that the number of people using the jobs guarantee will grow during a recession and decrease dramatically during an economic uptick. This makes them a bad idea for necessary stuff like caretakers that the government can't easily reduce during growth times. If anything, I would expect the demand for government provided caretakers to increase during growth times.
The types of jobs wouldn't have to grow and shrink uniformly. In times of growth you could more readily cut infrastructure jobs for instance. And a jobs guarantee doesn't have to be by its nature temp work.
It is a valid concern that I'd want to see addressed in any proposal though
A government provided caretaker would be a bad job for a jobs guarantee job. The expectation of most proposals will be that the number of people using the jobs guarantee will grow during a recession and decrease dramatically during an economic uptick. This makes them a bad idea for necessary stuff like caretakers that the government can't easily reduce during growth times. If anything, I would expect the demand for government provided caretakers to increase during growth times.
The types of jobs wouldn't have to grow and shrink uniformly. In times of growth you could more readily cut infrastructure jobs for instance. And a jobs guarantee doesn't have to be by its nature temp work.
It is a valid concern that I'd want to see addressed in any proposal though
Infrastructure jobs and caretaker jobs aren't really fungible though. You can't just easily move people in the infrastructure jobs to the caretaker jobs when times start getting good. If the caretaker jobs are permanent then why make it part of the jobs guarantee instead of just making them regular government jobs?
Couscous on
+1
Options
AstaerethIn the belly of the beastRegistered Userregular
Yes it is indeed imperfect and like everything else that isn’t perfect it’s not worth doing.
Age isn’t means testing. Means testing is testing means.
It doesn't achieve its stated goal while doubling the size of the government. That's not simply imperfect, its bad policy. If we implemented every policy that did anything positive regardless of cost or trade off, we'd be Somalia in time for the next Olympics.
A negative income tax rate for incomes/households below a certain threshold could account for family size using child credits. While it would also discourage labor, it would also direct its payments to those who most need it.
And you are assuming that a child will have the means of support through parents. Thus "unemancipated" minor. Unless its just because fuck kids
Is there a reason not to assume that children will have means of support through their parents? A two person household is getting two UBIs, a one person household is getting one UBI, that’s money that can help support that kid.
First you say it’s inefficient because we would have to prevent fraud (we would not) and then that we wouldn’t. Then you say it’s inefficient because it’s a tax* and because that tax would be 50% of GDP.
It would not be 50% of GDP it would be about 13.3%. (At 10k) or 26.6% (at 20k) and no one has suggested that it would be anything close to higher than those numbers. Well except for people who want to discredit the idea and would rather not have an actual discussion.
*no offense to the Romers but there are serious unresolvable spurious correlation issues with estimating the effect of taxation on GDP. And their methodology doesn't actually suggest what you say it does as they ignore any data that is the result of attempting to pay for more spending.... which this would be. So what it says, mainly, is that taxing more than you spend is bad, and that you can stimulate by borrowing money.... well duh. Doesn’t say much about the value of taxation relative to transfers.
As for the next recession.... well we could borrow... like we do every recession. It’s like... how things work when taxes are lower than spending. (As a result of tax cuts or spending increases)
Edit: 20k would actually be tough to do. That would put total US govt spending over 50% and while it’s possible that that is sustainable I highly doubt it.
Current rhetoric is $15 /hour jobs is a living wage. That's 31K a year. At 20 hours a week, that's 15K or so and that's 29% GDP when you do the math.
But take 1K a month. For most people that does not achieve the stated goal of making work optional but its a minimum. 12K / person x 320 million = 3.9 trillion. That's 21+% of GDP on top of current spending. Current spending is 35-40% of GDP. If we took the Romer NBER analysis exactly, that would suggest that the GDP would be cut in half. I think that's unlikely but if we assume they're off by an order of magnitude it would be a bigger recession than the Great Recession (a 5% contraction).
Most estimates say we can eradicate poverty with the low single digits of GDP in government spending. And we can tax the fuck out of the rich without direct payments to the majority of the population that simply doesn't need it. With that money we can build mental health facilities, better infrastructure from simple roads to renewable energy to better schools, and address pressing societal problems like access to healthcare and the costs of higher education.
Now if you're saying we should pay for the UBI by slashing all other social welfare programs then you're making the argument that makes libertarians like this plan.
Can we please, please stop making up numbers for the UBI then attacking the other person for your made up numbers? It's just a strawman. If you thing someone's numbers are bad, say "Your numbers are bad and here's why".
The person you're quoting has been consistently using a 10k number as a baseline for the UBI. When you inflate that number and then, instead of looking at adults capable of working look at the total population, then of course the percentage of GDP consumed will be much higher.
And many people including myself have stated that part of how you pay for a UBI is rolling up other social programs that currently provide a similar function such as unemployment, food stamps, and social security.
+7
Options
zepherinRussian warship, go fuck yourselfRegistered Userregular
First you say it’s inefficient because we would have to prevent fraud (we would not) and then that we wouldn’t. Then you say it’s inefficient because it’s a tax* and because that tax would be 50% of GDP.
It would not be 50% of GDP it would be about 13.3%. (At 10k) or 26.6% (at 20k) and no one has suggested that it would be anything close to higher than those numbers. Well except for people who want to discredit the idea and would rather not have an actual discussion.
*no offense to the Romers but there are serious unresolvable spurious correlation issues with estimating the effect of taxation on GDP. And their methodology doesn't actually suggest what you say it does as they ignore any data that is the result of attempting to pay for more spending.... which this would be. So what it says, mainly, is that taxing more than you spend is bad, and that you can stimulate by borrowing money.... well duh. Doesn’t say much about the value of taxation relative to transfers.
As for the next recession.... well we could borrow... like we do every recession. It’s like... how things work when taxes are lower than spending. (As a result of tax cuts or spending increases)
Edit: 20k would actually be tough to do. That would put total US govt spending over 50% and while it’s possible that that is sustainable I highly doubt it.
Current rhetoric is $15 /hour jobs is a living wage. That's 31K a year. At 20 hours a week, that's 15K or so and that's 29% GDP when you do the math.
But take 1K a month. For most people that does not achieve the stated goal of making work optional but its a minimum. 12K / person x 320 million = 3.9 trillion. That's 21+% of GDP on top of current spending. Current spending is 35-40% of GDP. If we took the Romer NBER analysis exactly, that would suggest that the GDP would be cut in half. I think that's unlikely but if we assume they're off by an order of magnitude it would be a bigger recession than the Great Recession (a 5% contraction).
Most estimates say we can eradicate poverty with the low single digits of GDP in government spending. And we can tax the fuck out of the rich without direct payments to the majority of the population that simply doesn't need it. With that money we can build mental health facilities, better infrastructure from simple roads to renewable energy to better schools, and address pressing societal problems like access to healthcare and the costs of higher education.
Now if you're saying we should pay for the UBI by slashing all other social welfare programs then you're making the argument that makes libertarians like this plan.
Can we please, please stop making up numbers for the UBI then attacking the other person for your made up numbers? It's just a strawman. If you thing someone's numbers are bad, say "Your numbers are bad and here's why".
The person you're quoting has been consistently using a 10k number as a baseline for the UBI. When you inflate that number and then, instead of looking at adults capable of working look at the total population, then of course the percentage of GDP consumed will be much higher.
And many people including myself have stated that part of how you pay for a UBI is rolling up other social programs that currently provide a similar function such as unemployment, food stamps, and social security.
Although reducing social security is not currently possible politically.
~75% of Americans support increasing taxes on the rich and corporations according to a Reuters poll. This means there is bipartisan support for increasing taxes on wealthy Americans.
This keeps getting made out to be some economic and political pipe dream. It’s not. The only reason it might seem to be is because we keep assuming it is. Tax the wealthy at a rate that makes UBI feasable. Throw a heavy capital gains tax in for good measure. Implement UBI. How many people do you really think are going to go, “No, do not give me money”?
If there’s some ideological resistance to taxing the wealthy more, please explain why, because I do not think that argument is gonna go the way you want it to.
Republicans will scream about the Democrats raising taxes and (some) people will care precisely up until the point they start receiving checks.
First you say it’s inefficient because we would have to prevent fraud (we would not) and then that we wouldn’t. Then you say it’s inefficient because it’s a tax* and because that tax would be 50% of GDP.
It would not be 50% of GDP it would be about 13.3%. (At 10k) or 26.6% (at 20k) and no one has suggested that it would be anything close to higher than those numbers. Well except for people who want to discredit the idea and would rather not have an actual discussion.
*no offense to the Romers but there are serious unresolvable spurious correlation issues with estimating the effect of taxation on GDP. And their methodology doesn't actually suggest what you say it does as they ignore any data that is the result of attempting to pay for more spending.... which this would be. So what it says, mainly, is that taxing more than you spend is bad, and that you can stimulate by borrowing money.... well duh. Doesn’t say much about the value of taxation relative to transfers.
As for the next recession.... well we could borrow... like we do every recession. It’s like... how things work when taxes are lower than spending. (As a result of tax cuts or spending increases)
Edit: 20k would actually be tough to do. That would put total US govt spending over 50% and while it’s possible that that is sustainable I highly doubt it.
Current rhetoric is $15 /hour jobs is a living wage. That's 31K a year. At 20 hours a week, that's 15K or so and that's 29% GDP when you do the math.
But take 1K a month. For most people that does not achieve the stated goal of making work optional but its a minimum. 12K / person x 320 million = 3.9 trillion. That's 21+% of GDP on top of current spending. Current spending is 35-40% of GDP. If we took the Romer NBER analysis exactly, that would suggest that the GDP would be cut in half. I think that's unlikely but if we assume they're off by an order of magnitude it would be a bigger recession than the Great Recession (a 5% contraction).
Most estimates say we can eradicate poverty with the low single digits of GDP in government spending. And we can tax the fuck out of the rich without direct payments to the majority of the population that simply doesn't need it. With that money we can build mental health facilities, better infrastructure from simple roads to renewable energy to better schools, and address pressing societal problems like access to healthcare and the costs of higher education.
Now if you're saying we should pay for the UBI by slashing all other social welfare programs then you're making the argument that makes libertarians like this plan.
Can we please, please stop making up numbers for the UBI then attacking the other person for your made up numbers? It's just a strawman. If you thing someone's numbers are bad, say "Your numbers are bad and here's why".
The person you're quoting has been consistently using a 10k number as a baseline for the UBI. When you inflate that number and then, instead of looking at adults capable of working look at the total population, then of course the percentage of GDP consumed will be much higher.
And many people including myself have stated that part of how you pay for a UBI is rolling up other social programs that currently provide a similar function such as unemployment, food stamps, and social security.
Although reducing social security is not currently possible politically.
Instituting a UBI is not currently possible politically. That doesn't mean we can't be ready for it in the future.
Yes it is indeed imperfect and like everything else that isn’t perfect it’s not worth doing.
Age isn’t means testing. Means testing is testing means.
It doesn't achieve its stated goal while doubling the size of the government. That's not simply imperfect, its bad policy. If we implemented every policy that did anything positive regardless of cost or trade off, we'd be Somalia in time for the next Olympics.
A negative income tax rate for incomes/households below a certain threshold could account for family size using child credits. While it would also discourage labor, it would also direct its payments to those who most need it.
And you are assuming that a child will have the means of support through parents. Thus "unemancipated" minor. Unless its just because fuck kids
The federal government is 3.9T. The total govt is ~6.5T. A UBI would be about 2.5T and would allow other aid programs to be phased back.
I fail to see which numbers you’re using to say it would double the size of govt.
We could also (god forbid) cut back on military spending to give social programs a larger overall piece of the pie
We wouldn’t even have to give up our hegemony to do so
You know, the whole Trump "our allies don't pay enough for defense" might have made sense if there was some chance that Republicans would have then cut back on our ridiculous defense budget instead of it being used as a scheme to line the pockets of Northrup and Lockheed.
I mean you'd still have to contend with the fact that everyone in the west being reliant on our military is ultimately a good thing for our foreign policy and there are all sorts of other benefits from our being an undisputed #1 but at least it would make slightly more sense.
You don’t either don’t seem to understand what I am saying or what those links are saying. They support my position and not yours.
There is no post scarcity economy. It cannot exist. Because everything will always have a price. Even if we had robots do everything things would still have prices. Even if we could covert energy to matter with zero loss things would still have a price.
And likewise, UBI is a poor way to fight poverty or alleviate inequality now because at a fundamental level it does so inefficiently.
why!?
Transfers are Pareto neutral. It should be, by almost any definition, the most efficient system besides omniscience
I've said it many times already. A vast majority of the distributed money will go to people who don't need it. And you still need a large scale bureaucracy because we don't have a system for tracking everyone, and the most vulnerable and needy are the ones most likely to not be easily reachable. And any time there's free money you need to pay for fraud prevention.
And simply in order to provide a living wage to everyone in the country, you have to spend a similar percent of GDP to what Norway pays for its total government spending. The taxation needed to generate such revenue would be massive (and this of course is all in the imaginary world where any of this was politically feasible). The Romers (two famous liberal economists)have found
Figure 4 summarizes the estimates by showing the implied effect of a tax increase of one percent of GDP on the path of real GDP (in logarithms), together with the one-standard-error bands. The effect is steadily down, first slowly and then more rapidly, finally leveling off after ten quarters. The estimated maximum impact is a fall in output of 3.0 percent. This estimate is overwhelmingly significant (t = ñ3.5). The two-standard-error confidence interval is (ñ4.7%,ñ1.3%). In short, tax increases appear to have a very large, sustained, and highly significant negative impact on output.
You can claim it would just distribute the money and it would all cancel out but that's not how it works.
Indeed, there would probably be positive growth for payments to the poorest that exceed what is paid to them. And there would not be for the large majority of recipients either because they would end up contributing more than they receive or would use it to pay down debts or save. The general consensus (2010 CBO) is the poorer the recipient, the more stimulating it is.
Tax cuts and government transfers to individuals increase households’ disposable income. The cost effectiveness of such policies depends on the fraction of the additional income that is spent on purchasing goods and servicesMeasures targeting households facing financial problems, such as those who have low income or unemployed members, tend to have larger impacts on spending and thus are more cost-effective. By contrast, measures that are less well targeted, such as across-theboard reductions in income tax rates or broad tax rebates, would provide large parts of their relief to people who are not financially constrained. Such people are likely to save much of a tax reduction, especially if it is temporary. In that case, the policy would be much less cost-effective
Universal Basic Income is by definition not targeted and is therefore inefficient in stimulating effects. That ignores the potential reduction is labor which would likewise shrink the GDP.
I think its likely that at the degree of tax increases needed to fund this program there would be distortion from the 1:3 ratio in what the Romers describe (could be higher could be lower). But if it was much lower and simply 1:1/3 instead of 1:3, You'd be talking about something like 60-70% of current GDP government spending out of ~90% of current GDP on this program (for instance, which is generous given the actual analysis). That's command economy levels.
And if you achieved stability in this system, what do you do with the next Recession? You can't readily stimulate the economy because you've already squeezed the private sector to the limit.
So you can either try to shore up and expand the actual social safety net, produce a pittance that doesn't actually do anything while still being inefficient or try to enact a system that you can't back up. To me, means tested programs to help the poor, the disabled, the mentally ill, etc is clearly the superior program
This Romers study is quite possibly the worst piece of economic theory I've ever seen presented. Its literally saying that the laffer curve is described completely by a statement of...
"Every 1% increase in tax rate reduces real GDP by 2-3% starting at 0% taxation"
This is not true. It is nonsensical even in the most generous interpretation. Lets consider why.
1) It suggests that ALL taxation is equivalent
2) It suggests that government either cannot stimulate economic activity with its tax revenue or that all government spending is equivalent
3) It suggests that they have a COMPLETE and definable understanding of the laffer curve (which is, in itself considered to be a failed concept, let alone one which is simply not understandable) and that peak revenue lies between 33 and 48% taxation levels
4) It suggests a level of GDP contraction which means that ALL social programs are bad for the economy (2x return is considered exceptional and is what you get with food stamps)
Recall that any study of tax revenue raised vs gdp growth must include...
1) Republicans raise sales tax on food to pay for invasion of Iraq
AND
2) Democrats raise taxes on top 1% to pay for food stamps
AND
3) Deficit hawks raise taxes to pay down the deficit
AND
4) Republicans cut taxes to create an excuse to cut spending on benefits for the poor
These taxes could raise and spend/cut the exact same amount of revenue but they would absolutely not have the same effect on GDP. Any model which attempts to describe them using the same terms is fundamentally flawed. The paper does attempt to address this, but the results they find are highly abnormal, and not in line with literal oceans of literature suggesting that government spending can spur economic activity. This paper suggests that not only is the laffer curve VASTLY easier to define than any previous study has ever described, but that there is literally no difference between any tax rate, government action, or economic condition and another one.
You could argue, and its unclear, that they are presenting data on taxation increases in a vacuum (which leaves only the 'what the tax is' variable to obliterate their findings) but then this is an utterly irrelevant finding. They are then presenting the GDP effect of the government raising taxes, gathering revenue, and burning it in a pile. This is not how the government do.
In addition UBI is HIGHLY targetted to the poorest 50% of Americans (or 75% for a smaller program) and will thus be incredibly efficient at stimulating the economy. We find across all US programs that the more like a UBI it is (easy to access, easy to spend, hard to lose) the more effective it is.
UBI is a flat refund paid for by a highly progressive tax regime. Effectively a transfer of 20% of the income of the upper 25% of Americans (~10% of US GDP) to the lowest 75%, which would increase their income by ~20% (Likely ~100% for the 1st percentile american, 20% for the 50th percentile).
It is targetted. It is efficient. It is easy. It is expensive, but, even if it was applied at the ~10k per person level today all it would do is restore the balance of incomes to where they SHOULD be if you recoupled productivity growth to the rise in median wages and applied it retroactively to 1980.
First you say it’s inefficient because we would have to prevent fraud (we would not) and then that we wouldn’t. Then you say it’s inefficient because it’s a tax* and because that tax would be 50% of GDP.
It would not be 50% of GDP it would be about 13.3%. (At 10k) or 26.6% (at 20k) and no one has suggested that it would be anything close to higher than those numbers. Well except for people who want to discredit the idea and would rather not have an actual discussion.
*no offense to the Romers but there are serious unresolvable spurious correlation issues with estimating the effect of taxation on GDP. And their methodology doesn't actually suggest what you say it does as they ignore any data that is the result of attempting to pay for more spending.... which this would be. So what it says, mainly, is that taxing more than you spend is bad, and that you can stimulate by borrowing money.... well duh. Doesn’t say much about the value of taxation relative to transfers.
As for the next recession.... well we could borrow... like we do every recession. It’s like... how things work when taxes are lower than spending. (As a result of tax cuts or spending increases)
Edit: 20k would actually be tough to do. That would put total US govt spending over 50% and while it’s possible that that is sustainable I highly doubt it.
Current rhetoric is $15 /hour jobs is a living wage. That's 31K a year. At 20 hours a week, that's 15K or so and that's 29% GDP when you do the math.
But take 1K a month. For most people that does not achieve the stated goal of making work optional but its a minimum. 12K / person x 320 million = 3.9 trillion. That's 21+% of GDP on top of current spending. Current spending is 35-40% of GDP. If we took the Romer NBER analysis exactly, that would suggest that the GDP would be cut in half. I think that's unlikely but if we assume they're off by an order of magnitude it would be a bigger recession than the Great Recession (a 5% contraction).
Most estimates say we can eradicate poverty with the low single digits of GDP in government spending. And we can tax the fuck out of the rich without direct payments to the majority of the population that simply doesn't need it. With that money we can build mental health facilities, better infrastructure from simple roads to renewable energy to better schools, and address pressing societal problems like access to healthcare and the costs of higher education.
Now if you're saying we should pay for the UBI by slashing all other social welfare programs then you're making the argument that makes libertarians like this plan.
Can we please, please stop making up numbers for the UBI then attacking the other person for your made up numbers? It's just a strawman. If you thing someone's numbers are bad, say "Your numbers are bad and here's why".
The person you're quoting has been consistently using a 10k number as a baseline for the UBI. When you inflate that number and then, instead of looking at adults capable of working look at the total population, then of course the percentage of GDP consumed will be much higher.
And many people including myself have stated that part of how you pay for a UBI is rolling up other social programs that currently provide a similar function such as unemployment, food stamps, and social security.
Absolutely not.
If you are proposing a major social program, the numbers are important. That you think putting forth numbers to figure out the cost is some kind of dirty pool demonstrates a shallowness that should be embarrassing. And again, if you cut "other social programs" you should be willing to say which ones, and then see how much they cost and how much you will need to make up. And then you can address how cutting social programs that are directed at the poor and redirecting that revenue to the general population would not be a net transfer away from the poor, defeating the central reason for such a program.
Its not even like I'm asking for specific tax schemes to come up with the money. Or that the amount of money needed is that mysterious. But if you think the payment should be some other figure to provide enough for a person or household to live on, propose it and we can do the math. The numbers aren't going to change. In order to distribute enough money for anyone to live on to every American, you are talking trillions of dollars a year. The policy can't be debated without addressing that. Saying "We should give everyone some money and then they won't need to work" is simply not a policy.
First you say it’s inefficient because we would have to prevent fraud (we would not) and then that we wouldn’t. Then you say it’s inefficient because it’s a tax* and because that tax would be 50% of GDP.
It would not be 50% of GDP it would be about 13.3%. (At 10k) or 26.6% (at 20k) and no one has suggested that it would be anything close to higher than those numbers. Well except for people who want to discredit the idea and would rather not have an actual discussion.
*no offense to the Romers but there are serious unresolvable spurious correlation issues with estimating the effect of taxation on GDP. And their methodology doesn't actually suggest what you say it does as they ignore any data that is the result of attempting to pay for more spending.... which this would be. So what it says, mainly, is that taxing more than you spend is bad, and that you can stimulate by borrowing money.... well duh. Doesn’t say much about the value of taxation relative to transfers.
As for the next recession.... well we could borrow... like we do every recession. It’s like... how things work when taxes are lower than spending. (As a result of tax cuts or spending increases)
Edit: 20k would actually be tough to do. That would put total US govt spending over 50% and while it’s possible that that is sustainable I highly doubt it.
Current rhetoric is $15 /hour jobs is a living wage. That's 31K a year. At 20 hours a week, that's 15K or so and that's 29% GDP when you do the math.
But take 1K a month. For most people that does not achieve the stated goal of making work optional but its a minimum. 12K / person x 320 million = 3.9 trillion. That's 21+% of GDP on top of current spending. Current spending is 35-40% of GDP. If we took the Romer NBER analysis exactly, that would suggest that the GDP would be cut in half. I think that's unlikely but if we assume they're off by an order of magnitude it would be a bigger recession than the Great Recession (a 5% contraction).
Most estimates say we can eradicate poverty with the low single digits of GDP in government spending. And we can tax the fuck out of the rich without direct payments to the majority of the population that simply doesn't need it. With that money we can build mental health facilities, better infrastructure from simple roads to renewable energy to better schools, and address pressing societal problems like access to healthcare and the costs of higher education.
Now if you're saying we should pay for the UBI by slashing all other social welfare programs then you're making the argument that makes libertarians like this plan.
Can we please, please stop making up numbers for the UBI then attacking the other person for your made up numbers? It's just a strawman. If you thing someone's numbers are bad, say "Your numbers are bad and here's why".
The person you're quoting has been consistently using a 10k number as a baseline for the UBI. When you inflate that number and then, instead of looking at adults capable of working look at the total population, then of course the percentage of GDP consumed will be much higher.
And many people including myself have stated that part of how you pay for a UBI is rolling up other social programs that currently provide a similar function such as unemployment, food stamps, and social security.
One, why would you look only at adults capable of working, instead of the total population for UBI? is it universal or not?
On the bolded, there are basically 3 issues with this.
First, it becomes a transfer of resources away from the poorest. $1 cut from foodstamps sent into the UBI pool will not be returned to the current pool of food stamp recipients as $1, since the UBI pool will be bigger than the foodstamp pool.
Second, some of those programs - or some follow on version of them - will still be required to cover the people who are not capable of managing their own finances well enough - addicts, the mentally unwell, etc.
Third, and most importantly. If you believe a 10k figure for UBI would allow for someone to live off of, while scaling back various assistance programs we now have. Certainly 15k should be enough to live on with the programs? Except 15k, is what working minimum wage full time earns now. So if you hold the, I don't think very controversial position, that working minimum wage full time with the current social safety net is not enough to live on. Arguing that 10k, with cuts to the current safety net will be seems a bit unsound.
First you say it’s inefficient because we would have to prevent fraud (we would not) and then that we wouldn’t. Then you say it’s inefficient because it’s a tax* and because that tax would be 50% of GDP.
It would not be 50% of GDP it would be about 13.3%. (At 10k) or 26.6% (at 20k) and no one has suggested that it would be anything close to higher than those numbers. Well except for people who want to discredit the idea and would rather not have an actual discussion.
*no offense to the Romers but there are serious unresolvable spurious correlation issues with estimating the effect of taxation on GDP. And their methodology doesn't actually suggest what you say it does as they ignore any data that is the result of attempting to pay for more spending.... which this would be. So what it says, mainly, is that taxing more than you spend is bad, and that you can stimulate by borrowing money.... well duh. Doesn’t say much about the value of taxation relative to transfers.
As for the next recession.... well we could borrow... like we do every recession. It’s like... how things work when taxes are lower than spending. (As a result of tax cuts or spending increases)
Edit: 20k would actually be tough to do. That would put total US govt spending over 50% and while it’s possible that that is sustainable I highly doubt it.
Current rhetoric is $15 /hour jobs is a living wage. That's 31K a year. At 20 hours a week, that's 15K or so and that's 29% GDP when you do the math.
But take 1K a month. For most people that does not achieve the stated goal of making work optional but its a minimum. 12K / person x 320 million = 3.9 trillion. That's 21+% of GDP on top of current spending. Current spending is 35-40% of GDP. If we took the Romer NBER analysis exactly, that would suggest that the GDP would be cut in half. I think that's unlikely but if we assume they're off by an order of magnitude it would be a bigger recession than the Great Recession (a 5% contraction).
Most estimates say we can eradicate poverty with the low single digits of GDP in government spending. And we can tax the fuck out of the rich without direct payments to the majority of the population that simply doesn't need it. With that money we can build mental health facilities, better infrastructure from simple roads to renewable energy to better schools, and address pressing societal problems like access to healthcare and the costs of higher education.
Now if you're saying we should pay for the UBI by slashing all other social welfare programs then you're making the argument that makes libertarians like this plan.
Can we please, please stop making up numbers for the UBI then attacking the other person for your made up numbers? It's just a strawman. If you thing someone's numbers are bad, say "Your numbers are bad and here's why".
The person you're quoting has been consistently using a 10k number as a baseline for the UBI. When you inflate that number and then, instead of looking at adults capable of working look at the total population, then of course the percentage of GDP consumed will be much higher.
And many people including myself have stated that part of how you pay for a UBI is rolling up other social programs that currently provide a similar function such as unemployment, food stamps, and social security.
Absolutely not.
If you are proposing a major social program, the numbers are important. That you think putting forth numbers to figure out the cost is some kind of dirty pool demonstrates a shallowness that should be embarrassing. And again, if you cut "other social programs" you should be willing to say which ones, and then see how much they cost and how much you will need to make up. And then you can address how cutting social programs that are directed at the poor and redirecting that revenue to the general population would not be a net transfer away from the poor, defeating the central reason for such a program.
Its not even like I'm asking for specific tax schemes to come up with the money. Or that the amount of money needed is that mysterious. But if you think the payment should be some other figure to provide enough for a person or household to live on, propose it and we can do the math. The numbers aren't going to change. In order to distribute enough money for anyone to live on to every American, you are talking trillions of dollars a year. The policy can't be debated without addressing that. Saying "We should give everyone some money and then they won't need to work" is simply not a policy.
I propose that we give every American over the age of 18 an amount of money which can be raised by taxing the real income of the upper 50th percentile of Americans on their real income (IE, we will also be taxing corporate profits and stock transfers and so on) at a rate which would restore the balance of income which existed in 1979. This rate should be set that to...
1) Achieve breakeven between payment and taxation at about the 75th percentile of GDP
2) Restore the ratio of earnings between the 25th, 50th, 99th and 99.9th groups as existed in 1979.
This would likely pay a middle class household (50th percentile household) ~$8k per adult. Everyone poorer than that household would receive approximately the same payment per adult.
A 75th percentile household would receive $8k per adult and pay $8k per adult -> Zero cost
If you take a look at this data, you'll see that all the money we need to rebalance the economy has been earned since 1979. It's just that companies decided to give every 50c out of every dollar to those earning more than the 99th percentile and then 45c to the people in the 99.9th.
This Romers study is quite possibly the worst piece of economic theory I've ever seen presented. Its literally saying that the laffer curve is described completely by a statement of...
"Every 1% increase in tax rate reduces real GDP by 2-3% starting at 0% taxation"
This is not true. It is nonsensical even in the most generous interpretation. Lets consider why.
1) It suggests that ALL taxation is equivalent
2) It suggests that government either cannot stimulate economic activity with its tax revenue or that all government spending is equivalent
3) It suggests that they have a COMPLETE and definable understanding of the laffer curve (which is, in itself considered to be a failed concept, let alone one which is simply not understandable) and that peak revenue lies between 33 and 48% taxation levels
4) It suggests a level of GDP contraction which means that ALL social programs are bad for the economy (2x return is considered exceptional and is what you get with food stamps)
In which you demonstrate that you didn't read the damn paper before deciding it was wrong because ideology:
1 They didn't at all suggest all taxation is equivalent and indeed explicitly made that distinction. You could tell if you even read the Abstract
This narrative analysis allows us to separate revenue changes resulting from legislation from changes occurring for other reasons. It also allows us to further separate legislated changes into those taken for reasons related to prospective economic conditions, such as countercyclical actions and tax changes tied to changes in government spending, and those taken for more exogenous reasons, such as to reduce an inherited budget deficit or to promote long-run growth. We then examine the behavior of output following these more exogenous legislated changes.
Or the table of contents to find the 8 pages from the body that lay out their criteria for classification of different types of tax changes
For this reason, we reestimate our regression controlling for the state of the economy, monetary policy shocks, and the behavior of government spending. We find that the estimated effect of exogenous tax changes on output is extremely robust.
...
Suppose that policymakers increase spending, perhaps because the country is involved in a war or because a new social insurance program is added, and they decide to raise taxes to pay for it. We feel that it is reasonable to assume that policymakers understand that the spending change will tend to push growth above normal if they do not make the counteracting tax change.
3 It suggests that they have a COMPLETE and definable understanding of the laffer curve (which is, in itself considered to be a failed concept, let alone one which is simply not understandable) and that peak revenue lies between 33 and 48% taxation levels
You're projecting your dislike of their argument and conflating it as portraying them as conservative economists. Christina Romer was Obama's Chief economic advisor. David Romer is a chair at NBER. They're professors at Berkeley. They're Neo-Keynesians.
Indeed, they wrote a paper that said the peak is between 73 and 84 percent.
Thus, an elasticity of 0.19 implies that the revenue-maximizing tax rate is 1/(1+0.19), or 84 percent. Even an elasticity of 0.38, which is the highest we find in our robustness checks, implies
that the revenue-maximizing rate is 73 percent.
4 It suggests a level of GDP contraction which means that ALL social programs are bad for the economy (2x return is considered exceptional and is what you get with food stamps)
Nope, and indeed you're getting that coefficient directly or indirectly from Christina Romer
If you're going to call two of the most prominent economists in the world terrible at their job because you think they're right wing, perhaps see if they are first? Or like read the link?
I find it interesting that when people talk about all the waste that will happen giving people cash instead of benefits the responses are a combination of "people can do whatever they want with the money, it's their money" and "waste just doesn't really happen that much, most people use the money effectively."
But now all of the sudden we need to be worried that these people who should be able to use their money however they want, and who will likely use it well (for the most part), actually can't be trusted with all of the money once a year. Now we are worried that they would budget poorly, and waste the money. Even though they can't waste it since they can spend it however they want, which is a perk of this system.
"The world is a mess, and I just need to rule it" - Dr Horrible
0
Options
Lord_AsmodeusgoeticSobriquet:Here is your magical cryptic riddle-tumour: I AM A TIME MACHINERegistered Userregular
I find it interesting that when people talk about all the waste that will happen giving people cash instead of benefits the responses are a combination of "people can do whatever they want with the money, it's their money" and "waste just doesn't really happen that much, most people use the money effectively."
But now all of the sudden we need to be worried that these people who should be able to use their money however they want, and who will likely use it well (for the most part), actually can't be trusted with all of the money once a year. Now we are worried that they would budget poorly, and waste the money. Even though they can't waste it since they can spend it however they want, which is a perk of this system.
"People know what their own needs are and what they should be spending money on better than a vast and impersonal bureaucracy." And "People are not often very good at planning out long term budgeting needs and can have problems wisely apportioning money from a single lump sum to account for all potential future needs." Are not contradictory statements.
Lord_Asmodeus on
Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if Labor had not first existed. Labor is superior to capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. - Lincoln
I find it interesting that when people talk about all the waste that will happen giving people cash instead of benefits the responses are a combination of "people can do whatever they want with the money, it's their money" and "waste just doesn't really happen that much, most people use the money effectively."
But now all of the sudden we need to be worried that these people who should be able to use their money however they want, and who will likely use it well (for the most part), actually can't be trusted with all of the money once a year. Now we are worried that they would budget poorly, and waste the money. Even though they can't waste it since they can spend it however they want, which is a perk of this system.
"People know what their own needs are and what they should be spending money on better than a vast and impersonal bureaucracy." And "People are not often very good at planning out long term budgeting needs and can have problems wisely apportioning money from a single lump sum to account for all potential future needs." Are not contradictory statements.
A lot of the time this comes down to people just not having enough money and they need a break from sitting in the dark in their apartment watching reruns of Roseanne on TV.
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
First you say it’s inefficient because we would have to prevent fraud (we would not) and then that we wouldn’t. Then you say it’s inefficient because it’s a tax* and because that tax would be 50% of GDP.
It would not be 50% of GDP it would be about 13.3%. (At 10k) or 26.6% (at 20k) and no one has suggested that it would be anything close to higher than those numbers. Well except for people who want to discredit the idea and would rather not have an actual discussion.
*no offense to the Romers but there are serious unresolvable spurious correlation issues with estimating the effect of taxation on GDP. And their methodology doesn't actually suggest what you say it does as they ignore any data that is the result of attempting to pay for more spending.... which this would be. So what it says, mainly, is that taxing more than you spend is bad, and that you can stimulate by borrowing money.... well duh. Doesn’t say much about the value of taxation relative to transfers.
As for the next recession.... well we could borrow... like we do every recession. It’s like... how things work when taxes are lower than spending. (As a result of tax cuts or spending increases)
Edit: 20k would actually be tough to do. That would put total US govt spending over 50% and while it’s possible that that is sustainable I highly doubt it.
Current rhetoric is $15 /hour jobs is a living wage. That's 31K a year. At 20 hours a week, that's 15K or so and that's 29% GDP when you do the math.
But take 1K a month. For most people that does not achieve the stated goal of making work optional but its a minimum. 12K / person x 320 million = 3.9 trillion. That's 21+% of GDP on top of current spending. Current spending is 35-40% of GDP. If we took the Romer NBER analysis exactly, that would suggest that the GDP would be cut in half. I think that's unlikely but if we assume they're off by an order of magnitude it would be a bigger recession than the Great Recession (a 5% contraction).
Most estimates say we can eradicate poverty with the low single digits of GDP in government spending. And we can tax the fuck out of the rich without direct payments to the majority of the population that simply doesn't need it. With that money we can build mental health facilities, better infrastructure from simple roads to renewable energy to better schools, and address pressing societal problems like access to healthcare and the costs of higher education.
Now if you're saying we should pay for the UBI by slashing all other social welfare programs then you're making the argument that makes libertarians like this plan.
Can we please, please stop making up numbers for the UBI then attacking the other person for your made up numbers? It's just a strawman. If you thing someone's numbers are bad, say "Your numbers are bad and here's why".
The person you're quoting has been consistently using a 10k number as a baseline for the UBI. When you inflate that number and then, instead of looking at adults capable of working look at the total population, then of course the percentage of GDP consumed will be much higher.
And many people including myself have stated that part of how you pay for a UBI is rolling up other social programs that currently provide a similar function such as unemployment, food stamps, and social security.
Absolutely not.
If you are proposing a major social program, the numbers are important. That you think putting forth numbers to figure out the cost is some kind of dirty pool demonstrates a shallowness that should be embarrassing. And again, if you cut "other social programs" you should be willing to say which ones, and then see how much they cost and how much you will need to make up. And then you can address how cutting social programs that are directed at the poor and redirecting that revenue to the general population would not be a net transfer away from the poor, defeating the central reason for such a program.
Its not even like I'm asking for specific tax schemes to come up with the money. Or that the amount of money needed is that mysterious. But if you think the payment should be some other figure to provide enough for a person or household to live on, propose it and we can do the math. The numbers aren't going to change. In order to distribute enough money for anyone to live on to every American, you are talking trillions of dollars a year. The policy can't be debated without addressing that. Saying "We should give everyone some money and then they won't need to work" is simply not a policy.
So you're asking me to provide a very detailed budget breakdown to support the UBI while you make up inflated numbers to make your anti-UBI argument more appealing? Or you're not, because you don't want to get into the details of taxation? Which is it?
We've talked repeatedly about the numbers here, with the frequently proposed value of $10,000 USD.
Cutting social programs to pay for the UBI is coupled with additional taxes on the rich so that the poorest see a net significant gain in spending power. I listed three big programs previously. If it takes 25% of our GDP to provide a minimum standard of living to our population then I think we have a moral obligation to see this occurs. We shouldn't let people die in ditches or kids grow up scrawny due to lack of food when we're in the richest nation in the world.
And upon further reflection, you're right, we should look at total population. We could also look at differential payments depending on age, because a 5 year old probably doesn't require as much money to survive as a baby or an 18-year old.
First you say it’s inefficient because we would have to prevent fraud (we would not) and then that we wouldn’t. Then you say it’s inefficient because it’s a tax* and because that tax would be 50% of GDP.
It would not be 50% of GDP it would be about 13.3%. (At 10k) or 26.6% (at 20k) and no one has suggested that it would be anything close to higher than those numbers. Well except for people who want to discredit the idea and would rather not have an actual discussion.
*no offense to the Romers but there are serious unresolvable spurious correlation issues with estimating the effect of taxation on GDP. And their methodology doesn't actually suggest what you say it does as they ignore any data that is the result of attempting to pay for more spending.... which this would be. So what it says, mainly, is that taxing more than you spend is bad, and that you can stimulate by borrowing money.... well duh. Doesn’t say much about the value of taxation relative to transfers.
As for the next recession.... well we could borrow... like we do every recession. It’s like... how things work when taxes are lower than spending. (As a result of tax cuts or spending increases)
Edit: 20k would actually be tough to do. That would put total US govt spending over 50% and while it’s possible that that is sustainable I highly doubt it.
Current rhetoric is $15 /hour jobs is a living wage. That's 31K a year. At 20 hours a week, that's 15K or so and that's 29% GDP when you do the math.
But take 1K a month. For most people that does not achieve the stated goal of making work optional but its a minimum. 12K / person x 320 million = 3.9 trillion. That's 21+% of GDP on top of current spending. Current spending is 35-40% of GDP. If we took the Romer NBER analysis exactly, that would suggest that the GDP would be cut in half. I think that's unlikely but if we assume they're off by an order of magnitude it would be a bigger recession than the Great Recession (a 5% contraction).
Most estimates say we can eradicate poverty with the low single digits of GDP in government spending. And we can tax the fuck out of the rich without direct payments to the majority of the population that simply doesn't need it. With that money we can build mental health facilities, better infrastructure from simple roads to renewable energy to better schools, and address pressing societal problems like access to healthcare and the costs of higher education.
Now if you're saying we should pay for the UBI by slashing all other social welfare programs then you're making the argument that makes libertarians like this plan.
Can we please, please stop making up numbers for the UBI then attacking the other person for your made up numbers? It's just a strawman. If you thing someone's numbers are bad, say "Your numbers are bad and here's why".
The person you're quoting has been consistently using a 10k number as a baseline for the UBI. When you inflate that number and then, instead of looking at adults capable of working look at the total population, then of course the percentage of GDP consumed will be much higher.
And many people including myself have stated that part of how you pay for a UBI is rolling up other social programs that currently provide a similar function such as unemployment, food stamps, and social security.
One, why would you look only at adults capable of working, instead of the total population for UBI? is it universal or not?
On the bolded, there are basically 3 issues with this.
First, it becomes a transfer of resources away from the poorest. $1 cut from foodstamps sent into the UBI pool will not be returned to the current pool of food stamp recipients as $1, since the UBI pool will be bigger than the foodstamp pool.
Second, some of those programs - or some follow on version of them - will still be required to cover the people who are not capable of managing their own finances well enough - addicts, the mentally unwell, etc.
Third, and most importantly. If you believe a 10k figure for UBI would allow for someone to live off of, while scaling back various assistance programs we now have. Certainly 15k should be enough to live on with the programs? Except 15k, is what working minimum wage full time earns now. So if you hold the, I don't think very controversial position, that working minimum wage full time with the current social safety net is not enough to live on. Arguing that 10k, with cuts to the current safety net will be seems a bit unsound.
1) It's a transfer of buying power away from the poor only if you look at the subsection of the UBI budget paid for by food stamps. If you include the taxation of those that can better afford it, then it's a net gain for the poor.
2A) Addicts typically show the best improvement when a stable life is provided for them. Shelter, food, clothes, those things that you require money to buy but don't have when you're an addict. Yes, some people will need additional help such as medicare/medicade. I'm not proposing we eliminate all programs, only those that have significant overlap with UBI.
2B) I agree regarding mental patients. And we can come up with schemes to use their UBI to offset the cost of care for these patients.
3) The UBI is meant to provide sufficient money to allow you to survive on, not enough to provide a comfortable life. A big part of the problem with using full time minimum wage in your discussion is that there aren't a lot of full time minimum wage jobs available, because this then requires employers to provide additional benefits. So you end up with a lot of people working multiple 20 or 30 hour minimum wage jobs. These people could still work minimum wage jobs with a UBI, but would now be bringing in $25K a year instead of $15K. This should offset the loss of other social programs.
First you say it’s inefficient because we would have to prevent fraud (we would not) and then that we wouldn’t. Then you say it’s inefficient because it’s a tax* and because that tax would be 50% of GDP.
It would not be 50% of GDP it would be about 13.3%. (At 10k) or 26.6% (at 20k) and no one has suggested that it would be anything close to higher than those numbers. Well except for people who want to discredit the idea and would rather not have an actual discussion.
*no offense to the Romers but there are serious unresolvable spurious correlation issues with estimating the effect of taxation on GDP. And their methodology doesn't actually suggest what you say it does as they ignore any data that is the result of attempting to pay for more spending.... which this would be. So what it says, mainly, is that taxing more than you spend is bad, and that you can stimulate by borrowing money.... well duh. Doesn’t say much about the value of taxation relative to transfers.
As for the next recession.... well we could borrow... like we do every recession. It’s like... how things work when taxes are lower than spending. (As a result of tax cuts or spending increases)
Edit: 20k would actually be tough to do. That would put total US govt spending over 50% and while it’s possible that that is sustainable I highly doubt it.
Current rhetoric is $15 /hour jobs is a living wage. That's 31K a year. At 20 hours a week, that's 15K or so and that's 29% GDP when you do the math.
But take 1K a month. For most people that does not achieve the stated goal of making work optional but its a minimum. 12K / person x 320 million = 3.9 trillion. That's 21+% of GDP on top of current spending. Current spending is 35-40% of GDP. If we took the Romer NBER analysis exactly, that would suggest that the GDP would be cut in half. I think that's unlikely but if we assume they're off by an order of magnitude it would be a bigger recession than the Great Recession (a 5% contraction).
Most estimates say we can eradicate poverty with the low single digits of GDP in government spending. And we can tax the fuck out of the rich without direct payments to the majority of the population that simply doesn't need it. With that money we can build mental health facilities, better infrastructure from simple roads to renewable energy to better schools, and address pressing societal problems like access to healthcare and the costs of higher education.
Now if you're saying we should pay for the UBI by slashing all other social welfare programs then you're making the argument that makes libertarians like this plan.
Can we please, please stop making up numbers for the UBI then attacking the other person for your made up numbers? It's just a strawman. If you thing someone's numbers are bad, say "Your numbers are bad and here's why".
The person you're quoting has been consistently using a 10k number as a baseline for the UBI. When you inflate that number and then, instead of looking at adults capable of working look at the total population, then of course the percentage of GDP consumed will be much higher.
And many people including myself have stated that part of how you pay for a UBI is rolling up other social programs that currently provide a similar function such as unemployment, food stamps, and social security.
Absolutely not.
If you are proposing a major social program, the numbers are important. That you think putting forth numbers to figure out the cost is some kind of dirty pool demonstrates a shallowness that should be embarrassing. And again, if you cut "other social programs" you should be willing to say which ones, and then see how much they cost and how much you will need to make up. And then you can address how cutting social programs that are directed at the poor and redirecting that revenue to the general population would not be a net transfer away from the poor, defeating the central reason for such a program.
Its not even like I'm asking for specific tax schemes to come up with the money. Or that the amount of money needed is that mysterious. But if you think the payment should be some other figure to provide enough for a person or household to live on, propose it and we can do the math. The numbers aren't going to change. In order to distribute enough money for anyone to live on to every American, you are talking trillions of dollars a year. The policy can't be debated without addressing that. Saying "We should give everyone some money and then they won't need to work" is simply not a policy.
I propose that we give every American over the age of 18 an amount of money which can be raised by taxing the real income of the upper 50th percentile of Americans on their real income (IE, we will also be taxing corporate profits and stock transfers and so on) at a rate which would restore the balance of income which existed in 1979. This rate should be set that to...
1) Achieve breakeven between payment and taxation at about the 75th percentile of GDP
2) Restore the ratio of earnings between the 25th, 50th, 99th and 99.9th groups as existed in 1979.
This would likely pay a middle class household (50th percentile household) ~$8k per adult. Everyone poorer than that household would receive approximately the same payment per adult.
A 75th percentile household would receive $8k per adult and pay $8k per adult -> Zero cost
If you take a look at this data, you'll see that all the money we need to rebalance the economy has been earned since 1979. It's just that companies decided to give every 50c out of every dollar to those earning more than the 99th percentile and then 45c to the people in the 99.9th.
Talking about household percentiles without actual values removes important context.
The median married household(85k) is above that 75% mark(78k) and married households make up 80% of that quartile. I'm from WI. Here are examples of jobs that if both held by a couple will see increases in their taxes under this idea: RNs(128k), Teachers(106k), Librarians(101k), Social workers(95k), Truck driver(86k).
The 75th percentile line is two people working full time earning 18.75 an hour. Teachers, social workers, tradesmen, city workers. Fat Cats the lot of them.
I find it interesting that when people talk about all the waste that will happen giving people cash instead of benefits the responses are a combination of "people can do whatever they want with the money, it's their money" and "waste just doesn't really happen that much, most people use the money effectively."
But now all of the sudden we need to be worried that these people who should be able to use their money however they want, and who will likely use it well (for the most part), actually can't be trusted with all of the money once a year. Now we are worried that they would budget poorly, and waste the money. Even though they can't waste it since they can spend it however they want, which is a perk of this system.
"People know what their own needs are and what they should be spending money on better than a vast and impersonal bureaucracy." And "People are not often very good at planning out long term budgeting needs and can have problems wisely apportioning money from a single lump sum to account for all potential future needs." Are not contradictory statements.
Also people are very used to monthly budgeting. Society is used to doing a great many things by month rather than year. People switch jobs, homes and take on additional expenses on a much faster schedule than years.
almost all of our sources of income are paid out monthly, and almost all of our expenses are paid monthly. going for an UBI paid out once a year is nonsensical.
I feel like if welfare benefits were universal it might dampen the level of worrying lower middle class Americans do over poor Americans spending habits
First, it becomes a transfer of resources away from the poorest. $1 cut from foodstamps sent into the UBI pool will not be returned to the current pool of food stamp recipients as $1, since the UBI pool will be bigger than the foodstamp pool.
Huh? A dollar is a dollar. I don't think I understand your point here.
Second, some of those programs - or some follow on version of them - will still be required to cover the people who are not capable of managing their own finances well enough - addicts, the mentally unwell, etc.
That's fine. It's a reduction, not a complete annihilation.
Third, and most importantly. If you believe a 10k figure for UBI would allow for someone to live off of, while scaling back various assistance programs we now have. Certainly 15k should be enough to live on with the programs? Except 15k, is what working minimum wage full time earns now. So if you hold the, I don't think very controversial position, that working minimum wage full time with the current social safety net is not enough to live on. Arguing that 10k, with cuts to the current safety net will be seems a bit unsound.
uh I'm pretty sure the UBI is supposed to be greater than the total of social welfare you can receive. I think I'm missing your point here too.
First you say it’s inefficient because we would have to prevent fraud (we would not) and then that we wouldn’t. Then you say it’s inefficient because it’s a tax* and because that tax would be 50% of GDP.
It would not be 50% of GDP it would be about 13.3%. (At 10k) or 26.6% (at 20k) and no one has suggested that it would be anything close to higher than those numbers. Well except for people who want to discredit the idea and would rather not have an actual discussion.
*no offense to the Romers but there are serious unresolvable spurious correlation issues with estimating the effect of taxation on GDP. And their methodology doesn't actually suggest what you say it does as they ignore any data that is the result of attempting to pay for more spending.... which this would be. So what it says, mainly, is that taxing more than you spend is bad, and that you can stimulate by borrowing money.... well duh. Doesn’t say much about the value of taxation relative to transfers.
As for the next recession.... well we could borrow... like we do every recession. It’s like... how things work when taxes are lower than spending. (As a result of tax cuts or spending increases)
Edit: 20k would actually be tough to do. That would put total US govt spending over 50% and while it’s possible that that is sustainable I highly doubt it.
Current rhetoric is $15 /hour jobs is a living wage. That's 31K a year. At 20 hours a week, that's 15K or so and that's 29% GDP when you do the math.
But take 1K a month. For most people that does not achieve the stated goal of making work optional but its a minimum. 12K / person x 320 million = 3.9 trillion. That's 21+% of GDP on top of current spending. Current spending is 35-40% of GDP. If we took the Romer NBER analysis exactly, that would suggest that the GDP would be cut in half. I think that's unlikely but if we assume they're off by an order of magnitude it would be a bigger recession than the Great Recession (a 5% contraction).
Most estimates say we can eradicate poverty with the low single digits of GDP in government spending. And we can tax the fuck out of the rich without direct payments to the majority of the population that simply doesn't need it. With that money we can build mental health facilities, better infrastructure from simple roads to renewable energy to better schools, and address pressing societal problems like access to healthcare and the costs of higher education.
Now if you're saying we should pay for the UBI by slashing all other social welfare programs then you're making the argument that makes libertarians like this plan.
Can we please, please stop making up numbers for the UBI then attacking the other person for your made up numbers? It's just a strawman. If you thing someone's numbers are bad, say "Your numbers are bad and here's why".
The person you're quoting has been consistently using a 10k number as a baseline for the UBI. When you inflate that number and then, instead of looking at adults capable of working look at the total population, then of course the percentage of GDP consumed will be much higher.
And many people including myself have stated that part of how you pay for a UBI is rolling up other social programs that currently provide a similar function such as unemployment, food stamps, and social security.
One, why would you look only at adults capable of working, instead of the total population for UBI? is it universal or not?
On the bolded, there are basically 3 issues with this.
First, it becomes a transfer of resources away from the poorest. $1 cut from foodstamps sent into the UBI pool will not be returned to the current pool of food stamp recipients as $1, since the UBI pool will be bigger than the foodstamp pool.
Second, some of those programs - or some follow on version of them - will still be required to cover the people who are not capable of managing their own finances well enough - addicts, the mentally unwell, etc.
Third, and most importantly. If you believe a 10k figure for UBI would allow for someone to live off of, while scaling back various assistance programs we now have. Certainly 15k should be enough to live on with the programs? Except 15k, is what working minimum wage full time earns now. So if you hold the, I don't think very controversial position, that working minimum wage full time with the current social safety net is not enough to live on. Arguing that 10k, with cuts to the current safety net will be seems a bit unsound.
1) It's a transfer of buying power away from the poor only if you look at the subsection of the UBI budget paid for by food stamps. If you include the taxation of those that can better afford it, then it's a net gain for the poor.
2A) Addicts typically show the best improvement when a stable life is provided for them. Shelter, food, clothes, those things that you require money to buy but don't have when you're an addict. Yes, some people will need additional help such as medicare/medicade. I'm not proposing we eliminate all programs, only those that have significant overlap with UBI.
2B) I agree regarding mental patients. And we can come up with schemes to use their UBI to offset the cost of care for these patients.
3) The UBI is meant to provide sufficient money to allow you to survive on, not enough to provide a comfortable life. A big part of the problem with using full time minimum wage in your discussion is that there aren't a lot of full time minimum wage jobs available, because this then requires employers to provide additional benefits. So you end up with a lot of people working multiple 20 or 30 hour minimum wage jobs. These people could still work minimum wage jobs with a UBI, but would now be bringing in $25K a year instead of $15K. This should offset the loss of other social programs.
1) When you say it allows you to roll up other programs, that is explicitly the part of the budget you are looking at.
Say:
We are spending 100b on foodstamps, going to the poorest 10% equally.(say 0,0,0,0,100%, in deciles)
Then we implement UBI at 2.5t. Spent as some distribution curve over the poorest 50%.(say 5,10, 25, 30 ,35 in deciles)
Now, say you eliminate food stamps.
You essentially taking 10b in spending that was going to the poorest, ~32m people, and instead are sharing it among the poorest ~160m people.
The point of contention isn't about UBI per se. Its that you can roll up the assistance that goes to the bottom decile or so of the population in a budget saving move. You can't, because if the UBI curve is broader than the benefit you are rolling up into UBI, its essentially a transfer from, using the above numbers, the bottom 10% to percents 11 thru 50.
It's a little fuzzy with a shock implementation and a huge UBI number. But basically say we implement 700 UBI and eliminate foodstamps. Which would put the net cost at 0ish. That is worse for the person on food stamps than not having UBI.
If under the current paradigm, 10k a year is what the poorest person needs, aka 2.5t UBI. When you start removing pieces of that paradigm(EBT, WIC, etc), you have to replace that distribution inside of UBI. Maybe the poorest person only needs 8k, and a 10k UBI will cover the elimination of all the programs. But then why not keep the programs targeted at the very poorest, and give everyone else 8k instead?
Its something of a definition issue. Basically is 10k the number while removing all social programs? Can't be realistically. So rather than everyone having a nebulous view of what programs survive and which don't, set the UBI number as what we need under the current assistance we have. Rather than my 10k be with food stamps, section 8, and medicare, and yours being medicare only.
3) People working multiple 20-30 hour a week part time jobs, trying to make ends meet with the programs we have now, is kind of my point. They have to do that now to survive now, with our programs. How if 26hrs a week at minimum wage isn't enough with our programs, will giving people the equivalent be enough if we eliminate them?
I'd argue for something like 10k a year to be a realistic number, welfare spending would need to go up overall rather than down. Because things like medicare, section 8, child care vouchers, etc would need to be expanded.
0
Options
zepherinRussian warship, go fuck yourselfRegistered Userregular
First, it becomes a transfer of resources away from the poorest. $1 cut from foodstamps sent into the UBI pool will not be returned to the current pool of food stamp recipients as $1, since the UBI pool will be bigger than the foodstamp pool.
Huh? A dollar is a dollar. I don't think I understand your point here.
Second, some of those programs - or some follow on version of them - will still be required to cover the people who are not capable of managing their own finances well enough - addicts, the mentally unwell, etc.
That's fine. It's a reduction, not a complete annihilation.
Third, and most importantly. If you believe a 10k figure for UBI would allow for someone to live off of, while scaling back various assistance programs we now have. Certainly 15k should be enough to live on with the programs? Except 15k, is what working minimum wage full time earns now. So if you hold the, I don't think very controversial position, that working minimum wage full time with the current social safety net is not enough to live on. Arguing that 10k, with cuts to the current safety net will be seems a bit unsound.
uh I'm pretty sure the UBI is supposed to be greater than the total of social welfare you can receive. I think I'm missing your point here too.
Yes. At 10k a year most families wouldn’t receive TANF and SNAP anyways, at 20k a year No families would receive those benefits. And most other benefits are based on those numbers.
~75% of Americans support increasing taxes on the rich and corporations according to a Reuters poll. This means there is bipartisan support for increasing taxes on wealthy Americans.
This keeps getting made out to be some economic and political pipe dream. It’s not. The only reason it might seem to be is because we keep assuming it is. Tax the wealthy at a rate that makes UBI feasable. Throw a heavy capital gains tax in for good measure. Implement UBI. How many people do you really think are going to go, “No, do not give me money”?
If there’s some ideological resistance to taxing the wealthy more, please explain why, because I do not think that argument is gonna go the way you want it to.
Republicans will scream about the Democrats raising taxes and (some) people will care precisely up until the point they start receiving checks.
Bipartisan support among many people who answered a poll, polls only get so far when the pressure doesn't exist at the same level with congress itself. Not to mention congress will gladly ignore publicly supported measures when their jobs are on the line, otherwise congress would have passed a massive gun regulation act with teeth by now. Polls don't necessarily equal votes, and the ultimate vote is by the politicians in congress. When they're not on board with voting everything else becomes irrelevant.
Because the wealthy will do everything in their power and influence to not make that happen. They're very good at doing this. They're not going to sit UBI out, especially when you come for their fortunes - they take that personally.
Yes, and they'll win. It's a popular tactic the right uses and it has a history of getting results.
Oh hmm I hadn’t considered the rich would fight back
Guess we can’t do anything
Oohhhh welllll
I didn't say we can't do anything, merely underestimating their reach is always a bad idea. This isn't a black and white situation where if we don't get everything we want we should give up entirely. They're not to be trifled with, and the right wing media would have a field day against UBI. Victory is far from certain.
edit: It comes off like you don't perceive the wealthy as a big threat to UBI.
Harry Dresden on
0
Options
JuliusCaptain of Serenityon my shipRegistered Userregular
1) When you say it allows you to roll up other programs, that is explicitly the part of the budget you are looking at.
Say:
We are spending 100b on foodstamps, going to the poorest 10% equally.(say 0,0,0,0,100%, in deciles)
Then we implement UBI at 2.5t. Spent as some distribution curve over the poorest 50%.(say 5,10, 25, 30 ,35 in deciles)
Now, say you eliminate food stamps.
You essentially taking 10b in spending that was going to the poorest, ~32m people, and instead are sharing it among the poorest ~160m people.
Ok this is just nonsensical. You are increasing the total amount of welfare here. You are not essentially taking anything, you are just lowering the share of total welfare that the 10% poorest receive. Which is just a natural result of also giving money to those less poor.
This is only unfair if we hold the belief that welfare should only ever benefit those worst of. Which might be a good point, but it is clearly not what UBI is about.
Posts
It doesn't achieve its stated goal while doubling the size of the government. That's not simply imperfect, its bad policy. If we implemented every policy that did anything positive regardless of cost or trade off, we'd be Somalia in time for the next Olympics.
A negative income tax rate for incomes/households below a certain threshold could account for family size using child credits. While it would also discourage labor, it would also direct its payments to those who most need it.
And you are assuming that a child will have the means of support through parents. Thus "unemancipated" minor. Unless its just because fuck kids
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
The types of jobs wouldn't have to grow and shrink uniformly. In times of growth you could more readily cut infrastructure jobs for instance. And a jobs guarantee doesn't have to be by its nature temp work.
It is a valid concern that I'd want to see addressed in any proposal though
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
Infrastructure jobs and caretaker jobs aren't really fungible though. You can't just easily move people in the infrastructure jobs to the caretaker jobs when times start getting good. If the caretaker jobs are permanent then why make it part of the jobs guarantee instead of just making them regular government jobs?
Is there a reason not to assume that children will have means of support through their parents? A two person household is getting two UBIs, a one person household is getting one UBI, that’s money that can help support that kid.
Can we please, please stop making up numbers for the UBI then attacking the other person for your made up numbers? It's just a strawman. If you thing someone's numbers are bad, say "Your numbers are bad and here's why".
The person you're quoting has been consistently using a 10k number as a baseline for the UBI. When you inflate that number and then, instead of looking at adults capable of working look at the total population, then of course the percentage of GDP consumed will be much higher.
And many people including myself have stated that part of how you pay for a UBI is rolling up other social programs that currently provide a similar function such as unemployment, food stamps, and social security.
This keeps getting made out to be some economic and political pipe dream. It’s not. The only reason it might seem to be is because we keep assuming it is. Tax the wealthy at a rate that makes UBI feasable. Throw a heavy capital gains tax in for good measure. Implement UBI. How many people do you really think are going to go, “No, do not give me money”?
If there’s some ideological resistance to taxing the wealthy more, please explain why, because I do not think that argument is gonna go the way you want it to.
Republicans will scream about the Democrats raising taxes and (some) people will care precisely up until the point they start receiving checks.
Instituting a UBI is not currently possible politically. That doesn't mean we can't be ready for it in the future.
The federal government is 3.9T. The total govt is ~6.5T. A UBI would be about 2.5T and would allow other aid programs to be phased back.
I fail to see which numbers you’re using to say it would double the size of govt.
We wouldn’t even have to give up our hegemony to do so
You know, the whole Trump "our allies don't pay enough for defense" might have made sense if there was some chance that Republicans would have then cut back on our ridiculous defense budget instead of it being used as a scheme to line the pockets of Northrup and Lockheed.
I mean you'd still have to contend with the fact that everyone in the west being reliant on our military is ultimately a good thing for our foreign policy and there are all sorts of other benefits from our being an undisputed #1 but at least it would make slightly more sense.
This Romers study is quite possibly the worst piece of economic theory I've ever seen presented. Its literally saying that the laffer curve is described completely by a statement of...
"Every 1% increase in tax rate reduces real GDP by 2-3% starting at 0% taxation"
This is not true. It is nonsensical even in the most generous interpretation. Lets consider why.
1) It suggests that ALL taxation is equivalent
2) It suggests that government either cannot stimulate economic activity with its tax revenue or that all government spending is equivalent
3) It suggests that they have a COMPLETE and definable understanding of the laffer curve (which is, in itself considered to be a failed concept, let alone one which is simply not understandable) and that peak revenue lies between 33 and 48% taxation levels
4) It suggests a level of GDP contraction which means that ALL social programs are bad for the economy (2x return is considered exceptional and is what you get with food stamps)
Recall that any study of tax revenue raised vs gdp growth must include...
1) Republicans raise sales tax on food to pay for invasion of Iraq
AND
2) Democrats raise taxes on top 1% to pay for food stamps
AND
3) Deficit hawks raise taxes to pay down the deficit
AND
4) Republicans cut taxes to create an excuse to cut spending on benefits for the poor
These taxes could raise and spend/cut the exact same amount of revenue but they would absolutely not have the same effect on GDP. Any model which attempts to describe them using the same terms is fundamentally flawed. The paper does attempt to address this, but the results they find are highly abnormal, and not in line with literal oceans of literature suggesting that government spending can spur economic activity. This paper suggests that not only is the laffer curve VASTLY easier to define than any previous study has ever described, but that there is literally no difference between any tax rate, government action, or economic condition and another one.
You could argue, and its unclear, that they are presenting data on taxation increases in a vacuum (which leaves only the 'what the tax is' variable to obliterate their findings) but then this is an utterly irrelevant finding. They are then presenting the GDP effect of the government raising taxes, gathering revenue, and burning it in a pile. This is not how the government do.
In addition UBI is HIGHLY targetted to the poorest 50% of Americans (or 75% for a smaller program) and will thus be incredibly efficient at stimulating the economy. We find across all US programs that the more like a UBI it is (easy to access, easy to spend, hard to lose) the more effective it is.
UBI is a flat refund paid for by a highly progressive tax regime. Effectively a transfer of 20% of the income of the upper 25% of Americans (~10% of US GDP) to the lowest 75%, which would increase their income by ~20% (Likely ~100% for the 1st percentile american, 20% for the 50th percentile).
It is targetted. It is efficient. It is easy. It is expensive, but, even if it was applied at the ~10k per person level today all it would do is restore the balance of incomes to where they SHOULD be if you recoupled productivity growth to the rise in median wages and applied it retroactively to 1980.
If you are proposing a major social program, the numbers are important. That you think putting forth numbers to figure out the cost is some kind of dirty pool demonstrates a shallowness that should be embarrassing. And again, if you cut "other social programs" you should be willing to say which ones, and then see how much they cost and how much you will need to make up. And then you can address how cutting social programs that are directed at the poor and redirecting that revenue to the general population would not be a net transfer away from the poor, defeating the central reason for such a program.
Its not even like I'm asking for specific tax schemes to come up with the money. Or that the amount of money needed is that mysterious. But if you think the payment should be some other figure to provide enough for a person or household to live on, propose it and we can do the math. The numbers aren't going to change. In order to distribute enough money for anyone to live on to every American, you are talking trillions of dollars a year. The policy can't be debated without addressing that. Saying "We should give everyone some money and then they won't need to work" is simply not a policy.
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
One, why would you look only at adults capable of working, instead of the total population for UBI? is it universal or not?
On the bolded, there are basically 3 issues with this.
First, it becomes a transfer of resources away from the poorest. $1 cut from foodstamps sent into the UBI pool will not be returned to the current pool of food stamp recipients as $1, since the UBI pool will be bigger than the foodstamp pool.
Second, some of those programs - or some follow on version of them - will still be required to cover the people who are not capable of managing their own finances well enough - addicts, the mentally unwell, etc.
Third, and most importantly. If you believe a 10k figure for UBI would allow for someone to live off of, while scaling back various assistance programs we now have. Certainly 15k should be enough to live on with the programs? Except 15k, is what working minimum wage full time earns now. So if you hold the, I don't think very controversial position, that working minimum wage full time with the current social safety net is not enough to live on. Arguing that 10k, with cuts to the current safety net will be seems a bit unsound.
I propose that we give every American over the age of 18 an amount of money which can be raised by taxing the real income of the upper 50th percentile of Americans on their real income (IE, we will also be taxing corporate profits and stock transfers and so on) at a rate which would restore the balance of income which existed in 1979. This rate should be set that to...
1) Achieve breakeven between payment and taxation at about the 75th percentile of GDP
2) Restore the ratio of earnings between the 25th, 50th, 99th and 99.9th groups as existed in 1979.
This would likely pay a middle class household (50th percentile household) ~$8k per adult. Everyone poorer than that household would receive approximately the same payment per adult.
A 75th percentile household would receive $8k per adult and pay $8k per adult -> Zero cost
https://www.epi.org/publication/charting-wage-stagnation/
If you take a look at this data, you'll see that all the money we need to rebalance the economy has been earned since 1979. It's just that companies decided to give every 50c out of every dollar to those earning more than the 99th percentile and then 45c to the people in the 99.9th.
In which you demonstrate that you didn't read the damn paper before deciding it was wrong because ideology:
1 They didn't at all suggest all taxation is equivalent and indeed explicitly made that distinction. You could tell if you even read the Abstract Or the table of contents to find the 8 pages from the body that lay out their criteria for classification of different types of tax changes
2 They didn't at all suggest the government couldn't stimulate or that spending is equally stimulating. Indeed, Christina Romer's analysis that says the opposite and specifically that social spending towards the poor is highly influential. Explicitly in this paper they do in fact say spending is stimulating (see above Abstract) or:
3 It suggests that they have a COMPLETE and definable understanding of the laffer curve (which is, in itself considered to be a failed concept, let alone one which is simply not understandable) and that peak revenue lies between 33 and 48% taxation levels
You're projecting your dislike of their argument and conflating it as portraying them as conservative economists. Christina Romer was Obama's Chief economic advisor. David Romer is a chair at NBER. They're professors at Berkeley. They're Neo-Keynesians.
Indeed, they wrote a paper that said the peak is between 73 and 84 percent.
4 It suggests a level of GDP contraction which means that ALL social programs are bad for the economy (2x return is considered exceptional and is what you get with food stamps)
Nope, and indeed you're getting that coefficient directly or indirectly from Christina Romer
If you're going to call two of the most prominent economists in the world terrible at their job because you think they're right wing, perhaps see if they are first? Or like read the link?
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
I find it interesting that when people talk about all the waste that will happen giving people cash instead of benefits the responses are a combination of "people can do whatever they want with the money, it's their money" and "waste just doesn't really happen that much, most people use the money effectively."
But now all of the sudden we need to be worried that these people who should be able to use their money however they want, and who will likely use it well (for the most part), actually can't be trusted with all of the money once a year. Now we are worried that they would budget poorly, and waste the money. Even though they can't waste it since they can spend it however they want, which is a perk of this system.
"People know what their own needs are and what they should be spending money on better than a vast and impersonal bureaucracy." And "People are not often very good at planning out long term budgeting needs and can have problems wisely apportioning money from a single lump sum to account for all potential future needs." Are not contradictory statements.
A lot of the time this comes down to people just not having enough money and they need a break from sitting in the dark in their apartment watching reruns of Roseanne on TV.
So you're asking me to provide a very detailed budget breakdown to support the UBI while you make up inflated numbers to make your anti-UBI argument more appealing? Or you're not, because you don't want to get into the details of taxation? Which is it?
We've talked repeatedly about the numbers here, with the frequently proposed value of $10,000 USD.
Cutting social programs to pay for the UBI is coupled with additional taxes on the rich so that the poorest see a net significant gain in spending power. I listed three big programs previously. If it takes 25% of our GDP to provide a minimum standard of living to our population then I think we have a moral obligation to see this occurs. We shouldn't let people die in ditches or kids grow up scrawny due to lack of food when we're in the richest nation in the world.
And upon further reflection, you're right, we should look at total population. We could also look at differential payments depending on age, because a 5 year old probably doesn't require as much money to survive as a baby or an 18-year old.
"Should we raise taxes on someone else?"
"... yes?"
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
More accurately: "Should we raise taxes on those who have money ?"
1) It's a transfer of buying power away from the poor only if you look at the subsection of the UBI budget paid for by food stamps. If you include the taxation of those that can better afford it, then it's a net gain for the poor.
2A) Addicts typically show the best improvement when a stable life is provided for them. Shelter, food, clothes, those things that you require money to buy but don't have when you're an addict. Yes, some people will need additional help such as medicare/medicade. I'm not proposing we eliminate all programs, only those that have significant overlap with UBI.
2B) I agree regarding mental patients. And we can come up with schemes to use their UBI to offset the cost of care for these patients.
3) The UBI is meant to provide sufficient money to allow you to survive on, not enough to provide a comfortable life. A big part of the problem with using full time minimum wage in your discussion is that there aren't a lot of full time minimum wage jobs available, because this then requires employers to provide additional benefits. So you end up with a lot of people working multiple 20 or 30 hour minimum wage jobs. These people could still work minimum wage jobs with a UBI, but would now be bringing in $25K a year instead of $15K. This should offset the loss of other social programs.
Talking about household percentiles without actual values removes important context.
The median married household(85k) is above that 75% mark(78k) and married households make up 80% of that quartile. I'm from WI. Here are examples of jobs that if both held by a couple will see increases in their taxes under this idea: RNs(128k), Teachers(106k), Librarians(101k), Social workers(95k), Truck driver(86k).
The 75th percentile line is two people working full time earning 18.75 an hour. Teachers, social workers, tradesmen, city workers. Fat Cats the lot of them.
It feels like as a party the Democrats are pretty quick to throw the future of the poor and lower class under the bus of economic pragmatism
If nobody is defending the ideas, how can they ever become popular or acceptable?
Our elected officials should at least be having the discussion! Instead it more or less feels like we're resigned to perpetually be fucked
Also people are very used to monthly budgeting. Society is used to doing a great many things by month rather than year. People switch jobs, homes and take on additional expenses on a much faster schedule than years.
almost all of our sources of income are paid out monthly, and almost all of our expenses are paid monthly. going for an UBI paid out once a year is nonsensical.
or even every two weeks
uh I'm pretty sure the UBI is supposed to be greater than the total of social welfare you can receive. I think I'm missing your point here too.
1) When you say it allows you to roll up other programs, that is explicitly the part of the budget you are looking at.
Say:
We are spending 100b on foodstamps, going to the poorest 10% equally.(say 0,0,0,0,100%, in deciles)
Then we implement UBI at 2.5t. Spent as some distribution curve over the poorest 50%.(say 5,10, 25, 30 ,35 in deciles)
Now, say you eliminate food stamps.
You essentially taking 10b in spending that was going to the poorest, ~32m people, and instead are sharing it among the poorest ~160m people.
The point of contention isn't about UBI per se. Its that you can roll up the assistance that goes to the bottom decile or so of the population in a budget saving move. You can't, because if the UBI curve is broader than the benefit you are rolling up into UBI, its essentially a transfer from, using the above numbers, the bottom 10% to percents 11 thru 50.
It's a little fuzzy with a shock implementation and a huge UBI number. But basically say we implement 700 UBI and eliminate foodstamps. Which would put the net cost at 0ish. That is worse for the person on food stamps than not having UBI.
If under the current paradigm, 10k a year is what the poorest person needs, aka 2.5t UBI. When you start removing pieces of that paradigm(EBT, WIC, etc), you have to replace that distribution inside of UBI. Maybe the poorest person only needs 8k, and a 10k UBI will cover the elimination of all the programs. But then why not keep the programs targeted at the very poorest, and give everyone else 8k instead?
Its something of a definition issue. Basically is 10k the number while removing all social programs? Can't be realistically. So rather than everyone having a nebulous view of what programs survive and which don't, set the UBI number as what we need under the current assistance we have. Rather than my 10k be with food stamps, section 8, and medicare, and yours being medicare only.
3) People working multiple 20-30 hour a week part time jobs, trying to make ends meet with the programs we have now, is kind of my point. They have to do that now to survive now, with our programs. How if 26hrs a week at minimum wage isn't enough with our programs, will giving people the equivalent be enough if we eliminate them?
I'd argue for something like 10k a year to be a realistic number, welfare spending would need to go up overall rather than down. Because things like medicare, section 8, child care vouchers, etc would need to be expanded.
Bipartisan support among many people who answered a poll, polls only get so far when the pressure doesn't exist at the same level with congress itself. Not to mention congress will gladly ignore publicly supported measures when their jobs are on the line, otherwise congress would have passed a massive gun regulation act with teeth by now. Polls don't necessarily equal votes, and the ultimate vote is by the politicians in congress. When they're not on board with voting everything else becomes irrelevant.
Because the wealthy will do everything in their power and influence to not make that happen. They're very good at doing this. They're not going to sit UBI out, especially when you come for their fortunes - they take that personally.
Yes, and they'll win. It's a popular tactic the right uses and it has a history of getting results.
Selling that to the public, and congress itself, isn't as easy as you're suggesting.
Guess we can’t do anything
Oohhhh welllll
I didn't say we can't do anything, merely underestimating their reach is always a bad idea. This isn't a black and white situation where if we don't get everything we want we should give up entirely. They're not to be trifled with, and the right wing media would have a field day against UBI. Victory is far from certain.
edit: It comes off like you don't perceive the wealthy as a big threat to UBI.
Ok this is just nonsensical. You are increasing the total amount of welfare here. You are not essentially taking anything, you are just lowering the share of total welfare that the 10% poorest receive. Which is just a natural result of also giving money to those less poor.
This is only unfair if we hold the belief that welfare should only ever benefit those worst of. Which might be a good point, but it is clearly not what UBI is about.
I’m under no illusions that this is an easy sell, but guess what makes it an even harder sell
Making the rich out to be impossible to beat so we might as well never try to control the narrative
I’m sick and tired of my side ceding the messaging battle to the other side because it’s too hard/they’re not to be trifled with/etc.
Most things worth doing aren’t easy
We should do them anyway and start this conversation now