I’d like to see a lot of research on that part of the topic. Maybe take a zip code and give everyone UBI in that zip and see how things like housing prices change within that zip.
So the actual negative effect of a UBI, in theory, would be declines in real goods and services as resources are directed from economically productive to economically unproductive people. Devilishly difficult to measure.
There is extremely little consensus regarding inflation right now and because we are in uncharted territory monetarily and in terms of debt levels both public and private, and the consequences(and data) of that can take years to show up(frequently slowly and then all at once) almost everything is speculation, not data driven.
So no, there is not broad consensus that we can just pull some levers and send inflation wherever we want, not even close.
UBI would just jack up rents by the amount of payment in San Jose or Boulder because the people that want to live there mostly have jobs so their extra UBI would just go to making their commute better.
UBI might help people move from West Virginia to Indianapolis but it won't help people in Bakersfield move to San Jose.
Government funded things go up in price. Prime example: eductation and child care.
Government funded problems that lead to government funded solutions.
I never said they had control of what's spent... just that government help leads to higher prices. And it's easily provable that where government puts money, prices go up. Supply and demand - more money available? prices go up.
The point of it is to provide all with means to buy staple goods/services, and as with all government funded goods/services the price will go up.
My university in Europe literally costs me a hundred bucks a year, and child care is a similar story (although my country has some problems with providing enough capacity).
https://www.heritage.org/education/commentary/free-college-w...
https://www.aei.org/articles/what-european-countries-sacrifi...
"capacity" amazing how forced markets can't create capacity? its also why healthcare is rationed in places like Europe and Canada. Free? Sure if you don't mind waiting months or years...
The first link is really egregious in that it just cites a bunch of non-sequitur cherry-picked facts and doesn't even compare outcomes, or even anything with the US.
The second link tries harder, but it's still obvious that it came to a conclusion and tried to find ways to explain that conclusion, instead of showing the curiosity to find which system is actually better. There are way more variables in a school system than "degree attainment" and "money spent". E.g. European schools generally don't spend any money on sports stadiums etc - is that extra funding in the US actually creating any useful results? Many European school systems also have more focus on getting people prepared for work straight out of High School with trade and other focused programs directly in high school, does that lead to fewer cases of "I dunno I just needed a degree to pass HR checks so I got something random" and actually better job outcomes? Who knows, maybe not, would love to see a proper treatment.
Those idea's aren't opposing and aren't the brunt of my point.
"Free Education" causes an increase in cost? Self evident. No market feedback and an increase in demand? Massive cost increased. And removing the "free education" (not really free) results in increased funding (more money from individuals than from a single government program) doesn't negate the first point. So your "they aren't consistent" example doesn't in any way shape or form contain two opposing points - they are actually complementary points. Government control of markets make them more expensive and opening markets leads to more money in the market? complementary ideas that feed each other.
And, as I said, those are tangential points to my main idea: "Free education" isn't free and the thought that it doesn't come with it's own shortfalls, issues and complications is short sighted.
> less sports and focus on jobs
Again, tangential ideas but that's largely because those schools don't have freedom as extensions of Big Government.
I'm okay with less time in sports and more focus on functional educations - but those do come at the cost of freedom on the part of schools AND students and lower capacity, etc.
These ARE complicated topics and your points aren't 100% wrong or pointless... but again - my main point is that free isn't free and for the few bonus's that are lauded ("free"), it's amazing that the shortcomings and limitations somehow get left out of the conversation.
Make enough high rise towers like Chicago or NY and the price will go down. But people’s (voters) tax sheltered investments (homes) would also go down in value.
It would be interesting, but I suspect most of what you would learn is how fast people are to change their official addresses to something in the zip code, despite not actually residing at said address.
Beyond SNAP, some social security changes or simply nationalizing healthcare could provide enough savings alone.
Impossible to know but many studies say between 200-450 billion per /year in total healthcare costs from universal. Albeit that's a kind of complicated 'swap' from employer & personal costs to a tax.
I would love to see something like a passive sovereign fund / 1% corporate share tax use one of those coming trillions in Corona stimi. Taxpayers should directly benefit from federal policy and stimi that goes mostly goes to the corporate bottom line and valuations. Like a pension, the government has no voting/control. Add protections against runaway de-regulation incentives type governing policy.
Hell cut military spending 10% gets $93 billion and if we're fixing healthcare cap the profit or pharma too.
>> There are about 242,000,000 adults living the United States. $18,000/year UBI X 242,000,000 people = $4,356,000,000,000 that’s $4.356 TRILLION Dollars per year. The total amount collected by the federal government from the income tax is about $1.5 Trillion Dollars per year. Since we would still have to run the rest of the government in addition to paying the UBI, the cost of the UBI plus the other government expenses we currently have would be about Six TRILLION Dollars.
Personally I see something close to universal UBI way down the line assuming we can eliminate a large % of human jobs and reduce the amount of work significantly so even if you wanted to work there isn't any work to do. Take the profit dividends and redistribute it.
Its not easy to discuss this when the proposal being discussed seems to shift. Arguing that existing programs should be replaced with a single payment for the current beneficiaries is not UBI and the two should not be conflated.
Or maybe not automating everything? We can't all be AI/robot/software maintainers. Not everyone is capable of that.
I think the shrinking of the necessary labour pool is a much harder, more dangerous problem and can't be solved just with giving everyone money.
Why don't poor people deserve the same choices?
The reason people have a problem with UBI is that we have a tendency to equate our moral- or self-worth with our economic productivity. If you don't draw a salary for services rendered it seems like you're not worth anything.
There are tons of occupations people can have that generate no significant monetary value. Volunteering and taking care of children are two such occupations. These both have tons of value to society. So it's clear to me that economic output is not the only source of value. Maybe it's time for society to recognize the value of those non-economic occupations by paying people for them?
/some/ people are. I grew up with a good number of people whose families were trapped in this kind of an ennui and it honestly seemed like death in slow motion. Why do you think daytime TV is so popular? There's plenty of people who are already out there on benefits who are unemployed and haven't become artists or volunteers.
> a significant portion of the people on UBI will invent a niche for themselves.
I'm not worried about the creative types that can do this. I worry about those who can't. Meaninglessness is pretty wearing on the soul.
> The reason people have a problem with UBI is that we have a tendency to equate our moral- or self-worth with our economic productivity.
That's a very American thing. I'm from the UK and, outside of maybe London, the protestant work ethic is not as significant.
> Maybe it's time for society to recognize the value of those non-economic occupations by paying people for them?
I'm all for that, but how do we categorically make "society" value these things? You can hope that the norm shifts to doing things like this post-UBI, but I'm not quite so optimistic. I've seen what long term unemployment with no prospects can do to people.
Is it better those people are forced to work in unskilled labour, like now?
Even with UBI, they could still voluntarily subject themselves to unskilled labour if they felt it quenched feelings of meaninglessness.
I think that's exactly why it's possible UBI might actually work. We can redistribute away the problem of not having enough money to eat or live, but we can't (and shouldn't) redistribute away the problem of creating a satisfying life for oneself. There must still be an incentive and challenge to improve the world we live in.