No conversation about UBI is complete without also discussing the source of the funds and how other government programs might be effected.
I think UBI sounds great on the surface but I worry that it could alter our basic survival incentives which may have unintended consequences for the group of people who aren’t needing UBI.
Should UBI replace existing food and housing programs? Should UBI replace other things that are designed to mold the economy such as subsidized public transportation or small business loan guarantees? What about income tax incentives designed to encourage saving and growing money carefully versus consumption (capital gains versus income tax, tax-deferred retirement savings accounts).
I suspect there’s a fairly significant carry-on effect from shifting resources away from these types of programs to a UBI program. But what I’m not clear on is how that might impact other behaviors from well resourced people who may start to play the game, so to speak, by a new set of rules.
For example, do we see inflation around inelastic needs such as rent prices and grocery bills? If we did, UBI is not much more than a grocery store/landlord stimulus program. It’s hard to imagine that we wouldn’t see this unless controls are placed on those businesses which in turn, removes incentives to own and grow businesses.
It seems like a UBI program would promote an economy based on consumption and not on savings and investment. Why save your money if you’ll get topped up again next month, and every month for the rest of your life? By investment I’m not talking about Wall Street, I’m talking about finishing college degrees, investing in new ideas, chasing startup ideas, those people who stay up late at night working on inventions that they think could bring them rewards.
Perhaps the most fundamental question to be answered is this:
To what degree do we, as the human race, find benefit in helping the less capable of our species survive. Potentially at a cost - not to the strongest and most capable - but instead placed mostly on the shoulders of the slightly-more-capable.
Someone else may be able to come up with a more concise and better worded argument for it, but the way we’ve implemented private ownership/use of natural resources seems pretty shitty. Especially considering how many people have been screwed over and how much damage is often done in the process.
Owning something that existed long before people, and would have continued to exist if we’ve never evolved, seems suspect in general. While there’s value in the labor involved in extracting or preparing these resources for use, the material itself wasn’t created by anyone and should belong to everyone in some way.
A portion of the income derived from the exploitation of all natural resources should be redistributed as UBI.
I’ve recently starting thinking about current artists, specifically musicians. A current crop of them come from money. I’ll use the example of Gracie Abrams, daughter of JJ Abrams. IMHO, she is definitely talented but she got her leg up from her dad being in the entertainment industry and, more importantly, never had to worry about money. How many other artists and musicians are we not hearing about because they didn’t come from money. She is one example of many.
I am a firm believer in UBI. Basic sustenance income should be available to everyone. That wouldn’t solve this problem, but it certainly would give a chance for someone with artistic talent to work on their art and while still being able to survive.
Right now, I’m listening to three very talented young people writing original songs in my garage, who will, even if successful, put in significantly more work for significantly less recognition simply because I’m not JJ Abrams.
I whole-heartedly agree.
I think it’s a great idea.
We are the wealthiest culture ever, we can afford it.
It would zero out most crime.
Fighting to survive is beneath us.
It would make many people more happy and less stressed, so why shouldn’t we do it?
Yes, I think it should happen. But I have no idea how to make it work at a large scale. And I don’t think economist know enough to accurately say what will or won’t work.
It will never happen.
It’s necessary for the next step in human society in a post scarcity world
I wouldn’t say it’s a strong opinion, but I’ve never seen a convincing argument that “inflation” (read “greedy bastards”) wouldn’t immediately wipe out the extra income - which would be very bad if the UBI were to replace other forms of welfare.
Inflation happens when demand increases faster than supply can keep up. The pandemic supply chain disruptions are a large recent example: none of the supply bottlenecks would have been difficult to solve, but the solutions would take two to five years to spin up. Absent some kind of regulatory rationing or allotment system, increasing prices let customers self-select on who really wanted the stuff that year and who did without.
As long as UBI was rolled out incrementally over years, supply would have the time it needed to expand, thereby preventing inflation. As a real example, the Alaska Permanent Fund has been going for decades, and I’ve never seen an argument it has increased inflation.
tax the rich, feed the poor, subsidize birth control.
The study results look really promising. I think it would be an amazing thing for society as a whole. I just also think it won’t happen because (some) humans get really bent out of shape when they think others are suffering less than they think they should be suffering.
I like negative income tax better. Basically you declare an amount that is the basic amount someone can live on, I.e. £20k and if you earn less than that your income is topped up by other tax payers. This has the advantage of high tax payers not being given a payment every month that they don’t need.
The downside of it is that means testing still requires some amount of beaurocracy. That means you’d be unable to completely axe the department of work and pensions (DWP) for example here in the UK. My understanding is that you could do universal basic income and pay everyone in the UK £1000 per month and those costs would be totally offset by no longer having to finance the DWP so it’s a budget neutral policy in terms of government spending.
I guess I do. I’m mostly in favor but not like super firm about it. Except in the context of as automation reduces the amount of work needed I believe it’s one of only a few options without which society is at serious risk. The other main option is to drastically reduce working hours without changing pay to increase number of jobs. I actually prefer the latter.
Yes, but it needs to be paired with an aggressive ban on any form of rent-seeking.
I think it is a bad idea and will incentivize landlords to literally raise the rent with the UBI money amount.
We need rent control and anti monopoly practices.
If you have five people who want houses in place X, and there are four houses in place X, something has to give. The government could choose which of the five gets kicked out of place X (rent control does this, basically), the government could force the four houses be demolished and replaced with more, smaller houses (the character of place X would change, which probably no one wants), rents could rise until one person decides going to live somewhere else is their best option or two people decide being roommates is their best option. In none of these situations do the five people who want one of the four existing houses all get what they want.
If a popular, growing community has a plan for housing densification, but it’s going to take five years to build out, rent control is a reasonable bridge policy to keep the community together while the construction happens. But this idea that rent control can somehow by itself solve the underlying problem of not enough housing units in the places people want to live is a pipe dream.
Yes to antimonopoly practices. But rent control is well known to be an extremely problematic policy. It encourages developers to not develop more housing, and encourages landlords to not fix known problems. A far better solition is a Georgist land value tax, which completely removes the ability of landlords to profit off of the value of the land itself.
