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Comment by roenxi | Hacker News Reader

> They did not seem to research at all how to actually fund it

And this is really the most profound part. There isn't an argument to be made against "if people have more money to buy stuff they will be better off". Nobody can argue against that, it is true.

The _entire_ case against that sort of social spending is "but we need normal people to create more than they consume or the resources won't be available" and "this isn't fair on the people who have to support them" argued at varying levels of complexity and indirection.

If you ignore the negative outcomes then any plan is a good plan and only has positive outcomes. Duh.

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The aim of UBI is not to make people better off, but to ensure that everyone has enough money to live on. It's intended to replace means-tested social security.

With UBI, nobody falls through the safety net and ends up with nothing to live on; you don't need an army of people assessing claimants' financial circumstances; and when someone finds a low-paid or part-time job they still keep their UBI, so there's no disincentive to work.

If you argue it's unfair that people pay for UBI, how is that different from arguing that it's unfair that people pay for means-tested social security (or poor people's medical bills)?

> If you argue it's unfair that people pay for UBI, how is that different from arguing that it's unfair that people pay for means-tested social security (or poor people's medical bills)?

There's a big difference between a welfare state designed as a form of social insurance to protect people from adverse circumstances and old age, and one designed on the assumption that those who want to work owe those who don't a living, and that the only circumstance that should affect how much people receive is whether they have the right citizenship.

Aside from the fundamental ethical rationale changing from contribution based social insurance to citizenship based entitlement, UBI would also represent a much larger bill, and a lower payout to the neediest.

Lots of loaded words in there, and not really fairly.

Nobody 'owes' anybody a living. The situation is, we can give most folks a living, without everyone working. And those that continue to work, of course are better off because they earn money for that. No unfairness at all.

I think its the old Protestant work ethic, this attitude of "folks not working are immoral". We have to get past this, to make UBI a thing.

> Nobody 'owes' anybody a living

The literal purpose of UBI is to ensure that taxpayers do owe each citizen a fixed amount set at an average living. Making that a social obligation based on birthright rather than a potential future entitlement based on need is how it's different from social insurance schemes. The assumption if you're able to work and not interested in looking for it you probably don't need the money as much as other people certainly isn't what's wrong with current welfare states.

You don't have to believe that "folks not working are immoral" to believe that helping those fortunate enough to be able to choose not to work at the expense of those that aren't [whether by reduced benefits or higher taxes] isn't what welfare states were for.

Yeah no. Its a new system of course, not the same as the one we are in. To work indefinitely, and not just through a tax or currency scheme, the results of automation would have to be reconsidered. Now if somebody builds a factory, the factory belongs to them but also the output of the factory forever belongs to them. This creates a huge imbalance, with some folks 'earning' hundreds of millions a year forever, for no real effort beyond the initial investment.

If something like VAT were used, it would change things. Without dis-incentivizing real work. This system is already in use around the world, just not in America at the moment.

I live in a post-industrial, omnipresent-VAT European world, and it doesn't make UBI any more affordable in the foreseeable future.

I think we can consider the results of just-around-the-corner-for-200-years automation-induced mass unemployment if and when it actually happens, although I'm still unconvinced that delinking benefit income from desire to actually find work or any other kind of demonstrable need would be the best solution.

Under UBI, how many people would willingly give up their jobs just to live on a subsistence level income, and for no other reason (e.g. study or childcare)?

Under means-tested benefits, how many people without work are discouraged from taking low-paid or part-time work because their social security payments are clawed back, resulting in no financial gain for them?

> Under UBI, how many people would willingly give up their jobs just to live on a subsistence level income, and for no other reason (e.g. study or childcare)?

Well the proportion will probably be smaller than the vast majority, skewed towards the asset rich when state pension ages kick in, but I don't think it'll be zero. Though even if it was zero, you've got the problem that under normal circumstances a full third of the population already doesn't work or seek benefits, and suddenly you've got to find the funds for them.

> Under means-tested benefits, how many people without work are discouraged from taking low-paid or part-time work because their social security payments are clawed back, resulting in no financial gain for them?

Relatively few even without competently-designed tapers and EITC schemes, bearing in mind the number of people receiving benefits contingent on unemployment is normally a relatively tiny fraction of the working age population.

>Relatively few

It is a little while since my 'experiment' with benefits, but in the UK benefits are a real poverty trap. If you take a single days work you can lose a month of certain benefits. Housing benefit was the worst. The next cap was a 16 hour a week rule, that after 16 hours work you lost some of your 'working tax credit', which made you worse off unless you could jump straight to near 40 hours.

Seeing the poverty trap for myself, I am a huge fan of UBI

The literal purpose of UBI is to ensure that taxpayers do owe each citizen a fixed amount set at an average living.

Not average. It's Basic. It's just enough to get by. That's the incentive to work: most people want to do more than just get by. Anyone who doesn't want that would be a drag on any system, so that's a separate problem to deal with. But there are a lot of people who can't get ahead with the current system who would do better in a UBI system, and we'd all be better off if we could get those people productive and happy.

my bad, that was supposed to be average living wage, with living wage being the concept of a just-above-subsistence income. The 'average' part of that phrase is important because a basic living in one region can be quite a comfortable living in another, or for someone not needing to factor rent into their cost of living, but it helps if I don't miss the other key word out :)

I would imagine that if a national UBI program were implemented, the amount would have to depend on the local cost of living, probably with caps. How they'd work that out, I don't know.

If that's not done, then UBI would encourage migration from higher cost-of-living areas to lower cost-of-living areas. That might not be a terrible outcome; it would probably lead to balancing the cost-of-living across regions as the populations change.

"most people want to do more than just get by" maybe so, maybe not?

There's a massive gap between wanting something and doing what it takes to get it. If you were to ask people vs. watch what they do, you'll see the truth; it's never about what people say but instead what they do.

And I'd welcome any supporting research demonstrating that, based off their actions, "most people want to do more than just get by" as stated. My anecdotal observation is that most of (working age) society actually does just enough to get by for today, this week, or maybe the month...

> The aim of UBI is not to make people better off, but to ensure that everyone has enough money to live on.

I think there is an entirely reasonable argument that having enough money to live on (guaranteed) would make people better off.

If a policy isn't being done to make people better off, why do it? The easiest way to maintain the status quo is to do nothing - rather than finding innovative ways to maintain stasis but with new laws.

> If you argue it's unfair that people pay for UBI, how is that different from arguing that it's unfair that people pay for means-tested social security (or poor people's medical bills)?

Yep. The argument against most social spending boils down to the same two things. Sometimes other arguments do crop up (eg, some truly foolish policies incentivise destructive behaviour).

The level of productivity per capita in the economy today is vastly more than enough to supply our entire population with only a fraction working.

There's also plenty of information indicating that if given the choice, most people actually want to work...they just don't want to be working shit jobs for shit pay for shit bosses.

Amen, how many times to we need to tell people, look production and consumption first, and then think about finance?

I'm not saying finance is all bad, I'm saying when the financial situation is harder to understand than the so-called "real economy"...don't!

I disagree, it’s not the fairness, or the overproduction, but the best overall benefit to society given the money spent. Social programs that already exist are a progressive tax that penalizes healthy, working people more than those who are receiving the benefit. Examples: unemployment, Medicaid, WIC, Saver’s Credit.

For many, many things its not really a questions of 'normal people creating" resources. Because most goods are not made by people on assembly lines any more. That's pretty much a tiny fraction.

Automation means, only the Engineers and Maintenance people need report to work to keep the goods flowing. Its been happening for 20 years, and accelerating.

The UBI may not be quite ready to deploy, but its coming. If we try it too soon, then some goods will indeed become scarcer and thus more expensive. But many things may continue just as they are. We want to make sure that's enough to keep everyone healthy and fed.

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