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Comment by notzorbo3 | Hacker News Reader

I still haven't found an solution anywhere for the following problem: Living (not just housing, but everything) expenses are a lot less for dual, or even triple, income households than for single people. So there's going to be a lot less pressure on dual income households to work beyond their basic income. Logically, this would put double (or even triple) the additional pressure on single income households. Under UBI, they'd have to provide enough in taxes to provide the UBI for themselves AND dual income households.

How do UBI proponents solve that problem?

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That's no different than it is now. Single family homes are incentivized to work more and thus contribute a disproportionate share of taxes. It doesn't matter what you spend those taxes on.

Then again, multifamily housing has less access to the mortgage interest deduction, which cuts the other way.

Basically, this is the deal we've already decided on in our society, and AFAICS it hasn't caused problems.

UBI encourages marriage whereas traditional social programs discourage it. What's the problem?

Traditional social programs are a safety net for single people like those going through divorce and such. Under UBI, it just puts a lot more pressure on those people, while at the same time alleviating the pressure on multi-income households. It's might force people to stay together in unhappy marriages, etc. I see that as a problem.

>It's might force people to stay together in unhappy marriages, etc. I see that as a problem.

How many people are held captive in marriages because their spouse is the breadwinner? How many people stay for health insurance, or because they've spent so long raising children that their profession, if they had one to begin with, has passed them by? I shudder to think of how many abusive spouses have yelled, "Where would you even go?"

I think we agree that it's distasteful for financial concerns to put people in danger in unhealthy relationships, but I have a hard time seeing how "Making sure everyone has enough money to live" would make people MORE trapped.

Encourages co-habitation anyway.

“People can reduce essential shelter and some other expenses and increase their free cash flow by choosing to love together” isn't a problem; it's just a basic fact that is as true without UBI as with it, which encourages expense sharing and group living arrangements, especially among the less wealthy.

I think this question is only answerable with specific numbers. If UBI = $1 / person, then the difference in pressure is small. Also, you presume that people only work for money. I think with UBI, you'd see a revitalization of community oriented, but low profit pursuits.

> If UBI = $1 / person, then the difference in pressure is small.

The pressure might be small, but it's still there. The €1 still has to come from somewhere.

> Also, you presume that people only work for money. I think with UBI, you'd see a revitalization of community oriented, but low profit pursuits.

How are low-profit pursuits going to pay for everybody's UBI? You can't heavily tax low-profit pursuits.

The premise of UBI is that not everybody needs to work. It's not that everybody will move towards low-profit pursuits it's that otherwise unemployed people will. The taxes will come from the same places they are expected to: automation increasingly taking over the creation of most of the wealth in society.

We'll see if it works in practice, but that's the theory.

It seems everybody has different goals for UBI. Getting unemployed people to work is not one I've encountered before I think. I fail to see how giving everybody free money is going to get unemployed people to work. For them, nothing changes.

> The taxes will come from the same places they are expected to: automation increasingly taking over the creation of most of the wealth in society.

I think this is the "lets tax automation!" argument? That's another one I haven't seen convincing arguments for. Why do you think companies would stand for such a thing and not oursource their automation to a country that doesn't do UBI?

> that's the theory.

I think there's a lot lacking in the theory, and I'm not hearing any convincing solutions for the problems UBI presents from anyone. It all seems to be built on hopes and dreams and best wishes, with little accounting for actual real-world considerations.

Getting unemployed to work is not a goal, it's a possible desirable but unintended consequence. If nobody (or few people) has to work to live, then people can do things with their time that they find personal value in.

> Why do you think companies would stand for such a thing and not oursource their automation to a country that doesn't do UBI?

The "U" is why. Where would a company outsource their automation if every country in the world taxed their automation?

I'm not a politician or economist, so I can't give you a breakdown of every last detail of how UBI might work. That said, the fact that you haven't seen anyone trying to account for the real-world considerations seems to be more of an echo chamber effect than a sign that those conversations aren't happening.

> It seems everybody has different goals for UBI. Getting unemployed people to work is not one I've encountered before I think.

It's one of the most common I've seen cited by both left- and right-leaning UBI proponents.

> I fail to see how giving everybody free money is going to get unemployed people to work. For them, nothing changes.

For the unemployed, two critical things change compared to existing policy in a typical UBI scheme funded primarily by additional taxes on capital income and very high non-citizenship income, with little change in the taxation of income at most lower levels:

(1) Additional income from work is not offset by benefit reductions as in current unemployment/welfare programs.

(2) Minimum wage is eliminated or reduced due to the reliance on UBI to provide all or part of a livable income, increasing potential (re-)entry opportunities to the labor market.

Possibly also more demand for their labor, as more people are able to more freely express their needs.

> How are low-profit pursuits going to pay for everybody's UBI?

They aren't. Any functional Basic Income is going to be funded by taxes that effectively fall on capital, whether directly or via taxes on business income, and be self-limited based on productivity.

why is it a problem?

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