The only way this isn't equivalent to the government printing money is the money comes out some rich people/company's savings accounts where it wasn't being spent anyway.
In this situation they'd end up well rewarded for their work, and those workers with more spending power has traditionally been great for the economy.
Lot's of things have completely changed how society works, why shouldn't society change?
... but are still getting those things through means-tested programs, for the most part. The UBI doesn't mean more people get fed; it means fewer strings attached to where they choose to live and what food they choose to eat and whether they can get a side job to supplement (google "welfare cliff".)
Less Yachts, more food factories.
Increased demand CAUSES increased supply.
Do a simple thought experiment. Imagine there are 1 million poor. They, and everyone else, receive $12K per year. The poor (and those just above them on the economic ladder) will spend all of that on basic needs: food, housing, clothing, transportation. That's $12 Billion more now competing for a fixed amount of goods. What would any company/retailer/landlord do if they immediately sold out of everything they had? They'd raise prices until supply and demand were in equilibrium again. And thus the very things the poor need are the things the prices will increase the most, by virtue of them competing to purchase those items.
I'm not saying it's fair or right. But it is reality.
> They, and everyone else, receive $12k per year.
You didn't read the article. The only people who receive net $12k per year are those who have zero income. Everyone else receives net <$12k per year, because some of their income is taxed in order to finance basic income.
> The poor (and those just above them on the economic ladder) will spend all of that on basic needs: food, housing, clothing, transportation.
Incorrect. Who are you to dictate to people how to spend that money? "All" is not the amount they will spend, and "basic needs" is not the only thing they will spend it on. They will save some of it. And they will spend some (maybe close to all) of that money on paying off debt. There is $747 billion in credit card debt, $1.14 trillion in auto loans, and $1.28 trillion in student loads. And some of it will go to everything else: alcohol, video games, travel, etc.
And by the way, how many Big Macs do you think people want to buy? How many houses do you think they want to buy? How many trips do you think they want to take?
> That's $12 Billion more now competing for a fixed amount of goods.
Definitely not $12 Billion, as I have demonstrated above. And there is no such thing as a "fixed amount of goods" in economics.
Of course prices will change. But they will change in healthy ways. The idea that there's some sort of feedback loop present here that causes basic income to cancel out its own effects is completely unfounded.
And what is a 'healthy way' for prices to change for basic needs? They aren't going to drop. Any other change hurts the poor.
You said we are going to give $12 billion to the poor
There is $747 billion of credit card debt in the United States. Much of that comes from lending in the past to the poor to finance their basic needs.
$747 billion > $12 billion
It is possible that all of 1 year's basic income entirely goes toward paying off credit card debt. In this scenario:
1) The poor receive a much needed benefit from basic income: they get to pay off their credit card bills.
2) There is no change in demand on basic goods whatsoever.
3) This significant paying down of debt leads to consumer interest rates going down, which further helps the poor.
So here is one scenario that is a counterexample to your claim that this can "any other change hurts the poor". This is an example which helps the poor.
You are forgetting that people have the freedom to do what they want with their money. When prices go up for one thing, they spend their money in other ways.
Healthy ways for prices to change:
1) The price change is stable, rather than runaway. It happens once, and that's it, but we continue to pay basic income year after year. This is expected, if we keep the money supply fixed.
2) The price change eventually leads to an increase in wages for the poor, which have been stagnant for decades.
So your scenario of paying off debt for one year just pushes the inevitable out one year.
And that one time price change will cancel out the benefit of the UBI. It has to, otherwise companies are not getting the most profit they can (they won't do that), or we magically have unending goods and services. Supply and demand can't be overcome in a market economy of scare resources.
Raising the minimum wage eventually has a similar effect. Ask yourself why a loaf of bread isn't $0.05 any more (it surely was sometime in the past 200 years). The obvious answer is inflation. But why? Why did prices increase over time? What economic pressure caused that?
> So your scenario of paying off debt for one year just pushes the inevitable out one year.
There is enough debt out there that the poor can spend many years paying it off.
> Raising the minimum wage eventually has a similar effect. Ask yourself why a loaf of bread isn't $0.05 any more (it surely was sometime in the past 200 years). The obvious answer is inflation. But why? Why did prices increase over time? What economic pressure caused that?
Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz wrote A Monetary History of the United States, 1867-1960, where they made the claim "inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon" [1] Thus, the reason why a loaf of bread isn't $0.05 anymore is because of the expansion of money supply, not because of raising minimum wage. The article suggests financing basic income through tax revenues -- and even doing so without raising the deficit. It is not suggesting expanding money supply. Milton Friedman himself even supported the kind of basic income described in the article, which he called a "negative income tax" [2]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monetarism
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_Friedman#Social_securit...
I think it's about 1 / googol.
Upon re-reading, I still read your words that way.
Given that there is such a huge amount of personal debt out there, the poor have the freedom to allocate their basic income between spending and paying off debt for many years. And when prices go up for certain things, they might reallocate their income to other things.
Let's assume that basic income will cause net income to go up for the poor (otherwise, what's the point?) But let's also assume that prices on certain goods will go up (a totally reasonable assumption).
Then let's measure wealth in terms of "Big Macs". As in, how many Big Macs can you buy in one year? If basic income causes this number to go up for you... then you've benefitted from basic income, regardless of how much the price of a Big Mac increased.
If your income goes from zero to non-zero... you definitely benefit. Because with zero income, you can buy zero Big Macs. But with non-zero income, you can buy non-zero Big Macs... no matter how much the price of a Big Mac goes up. And the number of Big Macs you can buy will be greater than one... Big Macs won't cost $12,000 in this scenario. That would be ridiculous.
So we can use this as a framework to analyze how basic income impacts society. Then it is obvious that basic income benefits the poorest in society. But you are right, it may harm some people. However, it requires a much more rigorous analysis than you are providing.
In your example, $12bn goes to people who are 'poor'. You imagine all of this will be spent on scarce consumer resources and housing, creating increasing cost for those items.
You make a number of assumptions that have to be teased out before we can know how likely that scenario is:
1. Poor people will just spend any additional income.
2. Poor people will not have housing mobility and therefore be subject to rising prices for housing.
3. Consumer goods are scarce and supply will not increase based on increased demand.
1. has shown to be (surprisingly?) untrue in basic income trials so far. Read about India's Basic Income experiments at resources like this: http://www.salon.com/2015/01/25/sponsored_by_my_husband_why_... It turns out poor people use income security to accrue useful economic assets that have sustained financial benefits. Food security also improves. In addition, research into economic security shows that money worries vastly lower IQ (google for Sendhil Mullainathan and Eldar Shafir to learn more). So the data we have so far is pretty uniformly the opposite of your narrative here.
2. This to me seems pretty obviously false, or at least likely to at most be a small impact net of the money. Poorer families must choose between job proximity, communities, schools, all kinds of things, often with less than one month of safety money. Mobility is extraordinarily low in these circumstances. Guaranteed payments will vastly increase mobility for this community, allowing them to purchase property in economically appealing areas while expanding the number of jobs they take. This will at most redistribute people. Perhaps slumlords will raise rents immediately, but they will find two things: tenants who stay can pay, lowering their own costs, and tenants who don't like prices will move much more quickly. Liquidity in markets is good for efficiency. I don't think you can tell a compelling story about harm to poor renters with UBI here, it's just not sound reasoning.
3. This seems like a very silly assertion to make. Automated factories and low-labor-cost factories around the world would cheerfully sell 5x the consumer goods they manufacture now, and prices will decrease as demand increases. Perhaps the increased demand for factory workers would drive some additional jobs. But, a) I'm not sure what scarce resource you imagine will drive inflationary costs, and b) the India research shows spending goes into a pretty diverse basket of things, education, food security, investment and housing among others.
All this money going into food, means that businesses would enter the market.
That is called supply and demand.
Increased demand CAUSES increased supply. Read an econ 101 textbook.
Each individual piece of UBI sounds good. But when the whole system gets put together, it doesn't balance out. It can't.
They've simply pegged their supply chain to the amount of demand they currently see while minimizing costs and trying to optimize profit.
Almost all industries get significant savings the larger they scale. There's very real reason to think many industries would get cheaper if they were suddenly trying to produce a multiple of the same product.
And as almost all will agree, that's not only logically wrong, it's also morally wrong.
I don't need basic income. If I received free money that I don't need, I might decide to double my cheese consumption. If many people like me do this, then the price of cheese will go up, hurting poor people.
Money "you don't need" is an economic absurdity.
The only people who double their cheese consumption are people who really like cheese. And if basic income helps you and others truly express their passion for cheese, more power to you. Poor people will eat something else.
There's something absurd in this argument. No one's going to double their cheese consumption, just because they got money "they don't need", and no one is going to starve because the price of cheese went up.
But also, whatever problem we think we are debating here, it exists with or without basic income.
The argument that "basic needs" prices will rise (which was what my OP gave) because of UBI must be false, since being "basic needs", they already must be provided to anyone anyway.
In any case, even if a big part of the population didn't had access to "basic needs" the argument would be that: "we can't allow them to have those basic needs or else their price will increase to the rest of us". Than that, is morally wrong.
I hope now it is totally clear what I meant above.
But my wishes don't overcome basic supply and demand. Unless there's a lot more goods suddenly being produced, prices will rise if more people want them and can pay for them, which will tend to cancel the benefits of UBI.