Universal Basic Income – Poll Results from IGM Economic Experts Panel
igmchicago.org
igmchicago.org
I love how simply Markus arrived at the fundamental political issue with Basic Income in the USA: American culture and society is a "work culture".
If you're not working you're not part of society.
That's a very plain and powerful statement that is central to many of the gut-reaction trump-esque disparaging arguments vs. UBI.
(1) http://www.igmchicago.org/igm-economic-experts-panel/partici...
The reason I say this is because a lot of people base who they are on what they do for a living and how well they do it. The feeling of being needed by other people is what gives a lot of people their sense of self-worth. IMO the biggest risk with a UBI program is that it will cause huge gaps in this equation as a lot of people realize they no longer have to work to feed and clothe themselves. So, when we finally come around to rolling out UBI nationally (I see it as simply inevitable), it needs to be accompanied by lots and lots of social programming that aims to decouple people's sense of self-worth from their perceived worth to society.
I envision a future where traditional introductions go from:
"My name is Bob, I'm from Cleveland, and I'm an electrician."
to:
"My name is Bob, I'm from Cleveland, and I spend my time tending to my garden and teaching the kids in the neighborhood how to grow plants."
One of the main problems with the existing social net is that it comes with "economic cliffs" where making a little more is not to your economic advantage. And then people who make the rational decision are seen as "lazy".
For a real example, my niece had to turn down a job because it paid her $0.20 too much to stay on food stamps. And she couldn't be paid less because it would have broken union rules. So she did the rational thing and turned down the better job. Which meant that her skills and education went underutilized.
One of the big arguments for UBI is that this kind of thing doesn't happen.
It shouldn't take far-seeing, risk taking, and great inconvenience to get out of poverty. If our society wants to bring people out of poverty, it should make the choices leading to that obvious, low risk, and convenient.
If the context was game development, this wouldn't even be an issue. People do what they're incentivized to do.
Also your conclusion about "rational decision" is clearly wrong. Taking risks is not necessarily rational. Doubly not when you are a single mother with 3 kids and a deadbeat ex.
Taking the job guaranteed losing her money. If she kept the job for a couple of years, she would have started to break even, but it would be quite a few years until she was ahead of where she was. Instead she continued to look for a job that either paid just little enough to keep food stamps, or offered a prospect of paying enough to offset losing food stamps.
Your reasoning is based on the theory that your best way up is to take the best job you can and then work your way up. That was how things worked when I was a kid. But today people tend to improve their job by switching jobs, not by being promoted in their current one. Therefore staying underpaid is often a better route up than switching to a job you don't want in the hope of maybe being promoted some day.
That being said I do agree that if there's a huge difference in future earning power, it would still generally worth it to go for the job that involves giving up food stamps.
If you can manage to hold your life together well enough to continue to do the job, with fewer resources available.
My personal experience with periods of time where I was under-employed, is that "Work = being part of society." People feel better when they know they are actively contributing. That's just a simple truth.
I am resolutely apolitical, but very much ADMIRE Trump's ability to state & capture - in a tweet - the underlying fears / motivations of voters.
And, to get completely off topic, there's a lovely article quantifying Trump's approach - based on the gunning-fog index - vs clinton / sanders.
(1) http://www.ibtimes.com/donald-trump-tweets-lower-reading-lev...
I find this interesting, because it's a great example of some of the values implicit in American society.
Note that the way you expressed it, essentially the only way to contribute to society is by working a job. I don't think it's a stretch to claim that that's a very narrow-minded way of looking at it.
In my opinion American society is really, really good at all things economic, but really, really bad at actually enjoying/finding value in the things that go on outside the office.
Note the way I expressed it, the emphasis is on contributing. Your particular spin strikes me as an eagerness to oppose a particular POV, then you go on to project that POV onto me. I don't thrive as well when contributing as a volunteer, which I did when under employed, as when I have a full time job. Keep in mind the efficient market hypothesis. Most of the jobs constituting valuable contributions are going to be paid. There are going to be exceptions, of course, but not all of those roles are going to be suitable for everybody.
Your analysis is fatally flawed from this point. Teachers are valuable, and I feel they should be full-on professionals paid like we pay coders. Farm Workers and Wait Staff could be valuable, depending on what level of skill, diligence, and expertise they bring. Those two categories cover a very broad range of levels of expertise.
Parents and caregivers didn't start out as a part of the economic system. They also don't necessarily have to be paid. It has been noted that paying people to do what they'd do for free often has well known pathologies associated with it.
This type of motivation is what leads impoverished South Americans to destroy the largest rainforest on Earth, or African children to work in gold mines exposed to toxic mercury, dragline fisherman to deplete great oceans full of life, the list is endless.
This only shows that our world has incentives that are sometimes way out of whack. It doesn't then follow that the answer is basic income. Other societies have tried "from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs" with following drops in productivity.
I think you might be able to get people on board to support the first justification. The second one is going to be a lot harder to sell.
Both justifications exists, along with an multitude more justifications.
This doesn't have much to do with Trump or gut-reactions. This has to do with some folks feeling entitled to the benefits created by hundreds of millions of people's effort because they were born in a certain place and time. Those benefits should be reserved for people who contribute to society.
The good thing is none of this will ever happen, as most people are good-hearted folks that want to contribute to society. A better discussion would be figuring out society can help facilitate that, instead of placating those who currently don't have a good way of contributing.
And at least 2 of those are only as high because of greed and deliberately exclusionary policies.
At least looking around at other adults, I've noticed many spend really, really appalling amounts of money on things that don't really improve their lives in any way - and furthermore, that they seem to do so solely because it's what their parents did, or what they think is appropriate in society. Moreover, most consider it essentially an ironclad mandate that they work a 40 hour week until they're too old to work any longer.
I think it's pretty clear that xenophobic resistance to Remain was whipped up by various politicians. Are the people that voted based on this bigots? Many of them, yes, but some are just exhibiting fear of "them" (taking jobs, etc).
For instance, children are definitely a part of the society, and a very important part, but they differ from grown-ups in many regards. For one thing, they are dependent on their parents / guardians.
Other people, even totally grown up, may be considered so dependent on e.g. the government that they are not even allowed to vote due to the conflict of interest. E.g. US troops were not allowed to vote for most of the US history.
Were UBI enacted, I'm sure people who choose to live entirely off it, and people who choose to work (and thus provide the means for the UBI, among other things), will inevitably be seen differently, and you can't help it. Consider it when thinking about equality, integration of the society, etc.
We already make similar prejudices now, for a number of reasons.
But I don't think it's true for people that didn't earn their money through work like those that inherited it or won the lottery. Society can be pretty dismissive of people in these categories.
I even think that we differentiate between people who are rich from work. Some people are seen has "having really earned it" while others "just got lucky." Shades of grey for sure, and people might disagree here but I think this is a real phenomenon that those who are seen as having done more valuable work are held in higher esteem.
Lots of people don't have productive passions. They were focused on being valuable to their family and community instead. What now for them?
Adaptation, classification, a change in how people define themselves?
You point out what I think would end up being a rough patch, but one worth going through.
More importantly, UBI doesn't prevent people who want jobs from getting jobs, so that seems a completely irrelevant thing to bring up anyway.
I get that UBI doesn't prevent people from getting jobs. I support it. It's just not a solution for people who's jobs have been automated away because lots of people were never looking for the freedom to accept a job that pays less the way UBI allows. It's like shortening Everest to improve mountain climbers' quality of life.
UBI ought to replace things like food stamps and welfare. Not healthcare or retirement benefits!
I am a huge fan of UBI, and I would have voted "disagree" the way that question was framed.
A better formulation would be to frame UBI as an "automation dividend". Where we dip into increased efficiencies produced by automating labor to fund a basic income.
235,715,590 people 21+ in the US. At $13k/year that's just over $3 trillion dollars per year. Social Security spending was $888b in 2015, Medicare spending was $546b in 2015, and other welfare spending was $1.031b. If you cut all SS, Medicare, and other welfare spending and redirected it into a $13k/yr UBI, you'd still be about 20% short of your necessary funding. Total federal revenues for 2015 were about $3.25t.
If you leave Medicare and SS in place? You could only fund 46% of the UBI requirement with existing welfare spending. Good luck passing the massive tax increases needed to fund that. And that's ignoring the fact that the SSA indicates that the long-term ability to meet SS obligations is already in danger.
https://www.ssa.gov/pubs/EN-05-10070.pdf
The disability system is different (but also obviously conditional).
Well, if you take an insurance model to Social Security, the only real 'risk' is the question of how long you'll live. And depending on how much you make, it's very possible to pay in more to Social Security before the age of 65 than you can expect to receive in benefits even for a reasonably long lifespan, making it a redistribution rather than a mandatory savings account.
Put another way, even if you assume that Social Security will be around in 40 years[0], if you get a high-paying job straight out of college and keep getting paid at that rate (adjusted for inflation), Social Security is basically guaranteed to pay you less money than you would have if you just kept the withholdings yourself and stuck it in a regular savings account.
Whether or not you think that's a good thing, it's very clearly a redistribution and not an insurance.
[0] and also ignore the fact that the benefits being paid in 40 years will be based on the taxpayers 40 years from now, not the taxpayers today
At 25k, you pay a lot more in taxes, but get a UBI for a net gain.
At 0k you just get UBI, not food stamps ect.
There would probably be a net cost increase, but as SS counts as regular income it's not going to be huge for most retires. At some UBI levels it's actually less than our current system.
Programs to be removed, food stamps, HUD, welfare, unemployment insurance, Medical disability part of SS, and all the overhead associated with them.
PS: The economic gain from social mobility would likely be huge as long as you don't adjust UBI for locations. Why be poor in NY when you can live well in a cheap part of Florida.
Lots of people propose a negative income tax as a way to implement a UBI.
At least in the US, oil states for example have a somewhat independent income stream.
> How do you reconcile the massive increase in spending this would cause?
If you're giving each person $13k/yr, does that not imply that you must then collect $13k/yr/person in taxes? Unless you're thinking it is all going to come from corporate taxes, then at least some of it must come from a citizen's taxes, no? (and if you do think this should come from corporations, do you not think that would have an effect on what gets passed to an employee? Why not pay a person $13k/yr less? — or more, since some people won't/can't work and we must cover them too?)
I have no idea if UBI is a good idea or not … but if people want to do it, I expect to know how it will be paid for.
It probably isn't a good idea, but it's possible.
There is no difference between taxing everyone 20% of their holdings, and printing yourself 25% of everyone else's holdings. Either way you end up with a fifth of the wealth, and everyone's purchasing power goes down so yours can go up.
What will happen to all the non-profits and government departments that are built around providing "services" to the poor, homeless, etc.? It's a huge industry, and it's not going down without a fight. In the meantime, you have added a few trillion dollars in annual spending to the budget.
It's not just that it's 'not going down without a fight' - these services are essential for people in need.
These services provide them with more than just financial assistance. Given them money (and doing away with the services) only solves the problem if you assume that lack of money is the only problem. Which it's not - it's one aspect of the problem, but not the only issue for people in need.
UBI really could work, but right now I don't think the costs of completely sustaining societies are low enough to keep the tax increases from chafing people enough to support a repeal
Why would you receive extra retirement payments on top of UBI? That would defeat the entire purpose of UBI.
I'm 32 have little doubt that my private retirement accounts will be seized through taxes by the time I retire, but that's a different issue.
The tricky question is whether we can do that. For instance, does new medical technology do much to lower lifetime spending?
Not in general. New technologies/medicines/etc. tend to increase healthcare costs.
Also, Social Security is effectively a UBI for old people. Why would you keep it around?
Counting that as a dismissal of all UBI proposals seems incorrect.
It seems to ignore Economics, Game Theory, and Human Nature. I just dont understand how it could rationally be viewed as a workable solution.
From a simple supply and demand standpoint, how does the extra income introduced not simply cause the cost of basic* goods to rise accordingly such that you end up with your UBI increasingly falling behind what is needed to support a minimum standard of living?
* Added "basic" for clarity, I don't imagine this would affect the cost of luxury, or recreational goods to a large extent, but an extra $1000+/month per person would, I expect, have a drastic effect on housing rental rates amidst the lower to middle class residential areas
Now imagine the tribe is really big and named the USA.
Human nature is both social and competitive. UBI is a social gesture, it doesn't take away or prevent competitiveness.
> -- Richard Thaler
Yes, you're not alone in that thought.
That's a sad state of affairs.
> Lots of conflicting incentives that can discourage work in the existing rules.
Its sad to see this sentiment echoed. Especially considering how some jobs are just useless/white collar welfare (some middle management at large organizations I've been a part of in the past come to mind) or how some jobs will continue to be automated in the future. Work shouldn't be the most important thing that defines ones worth as an adult in our society!
I'm going to present a different definition of society:
> A society is a group of people involved in persistent social interaction, or a large social grouping sharing the same geographical or social territory, typically subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations (Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society)
> the aggregate of people living together in a more or less ordered community. (Google [https://www.google.com/search?q=definition+of+society&oq=def...)
> an organized group of persons associated together for religious, benevolent, cultural, scientific, political, patriotic, or other purposes. (Dictionary.com http://www.dictionary.com/browse/society?s=t)
It seems the definition that you're providing for "Society" doesn't line up with the common definition of the word. It doesn't mean "work". It can, as the parent comment states, mean "Volunteer" or "Interacting with people socially".
You don't get to exclude people from society by using convenient definitions.
Would you class volunteering your time as work? How about developing open source software, or writing interesting short stories for fun? Painting? Being a parent? If you help a friend move house do you say you're "going to work"?
If you include everything that provides some value as "work" then sure. But I feel that there are a huge range of things that provide value to society that may not be paid for or done as a typical job.
So what if most people are out of a job in 50 years due to automation? What if "targeted to those who need help most" is 90% of all adults. Yeah raising taxes is costly, but considering owners of capital will most likely see most of the benefits from productivity gains in the future I'm sure they can afford it.
More from Mr Hart "Bill Gates would get 13K, which is crazy."
Um yeah, Bill Gates also will get social security and medicare (and he should). That's the whole point of a benefit. I wonder if Mr Hart is an advocate for means testings of these programs? How lovely is it that "experts" like this have the ears of our policy makers.
The key is tax reform. UBI is just an interesting and controversial new name for a more boring (and conventional) idea: wealth redistribution through tax reform.
Nobody wants to talk about tax reform because it's boring, opaque, and gridlocked at a political level, whereas anyone can have an opinion on the new hot topic of UBI. Hopefully UBI will bring about a fruitful discussion of more fundamental issues, such as tax reform, in the near future.