Comment by ineedasername | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ineedasername | Hacker News Reader

I think UBI as a single monolithic program for providing minimum resources to provide the basics of food/shelter etc can be much improved on by other means:

[0]Instead, I think a constellation of smaller, targeted programs (think best-of-breed) might be more effective and provide a more robust effect: If a society provides universal healthcare, comprehensive unemployment benefits that don't have absurdly low caps, housing & food subsidies for those close to the poverty level, comprehensive disability benefits, and probably a few other things I'm missing, then the need for a "universal" UBI is diminished: That too can be targeted towards people not otherwise covered by the above. The advantage is that each program can be highly tailored to the specific needs & nuances of those seeking that specific benefit, rather than just throwing a larger block of money at people.

[0]Note: I'm not particularly attached to this idea. I think is has merit, but my goal is to start a conversation about the idea, sort of pressure-test it, not proclaim it as the way to do things.

A patchwork of "targeted" programs is unsatisfactory for many reasons. It lets people fall through the cracks, and it results in unintended effects as the programs are not designed or managed in a consistent way. The need for some sort of minimal income floor is universal, and it should be addressed in a universally-applicable way.

Exactly.. my personal genealogy for discovering UBI was:

The government should provide for a base level of food, medicine, housing, and education.

But let private industry compete for it, so just provide vouchers for each of those things.

But, how to efficiently allocate the amounts for each individual? How much health care voucher vs. food voucher vs. housing voucher vs. education voucher?

Ah, just have a universal “health or food or housing or education” voucher!

Oh, but what about transportation!

Okay, a universal “housing, food, medicine, transportation, and education” voucher.

Oh wait, we have one of those already! The dollar.

Yes. And the "universal" part makes it UNCONDITIONAL on receive, which is the important part. It removes the necessity for a government institution to decide per individual how much they are eligible for. Much money is saved. Since the government already has an institution for checking taxes, the conditionality is merely moved to the end - they check not whether you get UBI, but just how much taxes you owe.

But then people need to go out and shop for those things using UBI, for example compete for housing in markets that may offer no affordable housing, but housing subsidies would help resolve that.

If targeted programs can be poorly designed or mismanaged inconsistently, then so could UBI. The whole idea is to thoughtfully design a program. If that is possible, there's no reason we can't thoughtfully design targeted programs, and UBI would still be there in a lesser capacity precisely for those people that would fall through the cracks of those targeted programs.

UBI just feels like a kind of sledgehammer, when a dozen scalpels might perform better. I'll grant that UBI would be superior to the very loose "safety net" of social programs in the US though.

Even with a "strong" UBI program, I still think we'd need other programs as well-- UBI will be far too low for people that suddenly lose a job that pays 5x UBI and need to get by until they find new comparable employment, as an example.

Far too low for what, exactly? Buying real estate, cars, expensive clothing, huge TVs and investments?

If you suddenly lose a well-paying job, food and housing still cost the same for everyone, which you can afford on UBI, by design.

You'll have to give up the expensive lifestyle afforded by the lost job, of course. Maybe move to cheaper housing. So what?

A tailored program would not allow you to keep your 100 k in savings.

Think of the oddly familiar security vs usability problem.

The tailored programs always fail to reach some people who badly need them.[1] At the same time they always have some fraud to deal with. You will reach more of the target audience by accepting more fraud. You can also fight fraud more effectively at the expense of those in need. OR you can throw more money at it and try but fail to eliminate both.

Then you'd want to avoid turning it into a blunt instrument. To do this an incredibly large army of skilled and trained people has to be hired (and removed from the private sector) who are tasked with many impossible tasks. (They tried to measure how fucked my back was one time. We concluded that no one had any idea what would happen if I got a job)

Then there is the ego problem of living on hand outs- because A, B and C. Others might not say it but you feel pathetic not being able to take care of yourself.

Also interesting is to wonder who all those industries and markets should be working for. They currently work for whoever has money. This includes you and me but only to a very very limited extend.

[1] - Everything that could go wrong has gone wrong. Examples are not doing this chaos any justice. Try picture a combination of someone close to you dying horribly, physical injury, mental problems and losing your administration. We give you some forms to fill out and you simply can't do it. You just want 3 months of alone time. We give you 20 experts who want you to talk about how fucked up your situation is the year round. No way to move on.

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