Hacker News Reader

Comment by khill | Hacker News Reader

Wouldn't the basic income value need to vary across regions? For example, the notion that:

"Every single adult member receives a weekly payment from the state, which is enough to live comfortably on"

would mean a different value in San Francisco than in Grover, NC.

If the government adjusted the basic income to account for regional cost-of-living, I imagine it would be popular to maintain a fake residency in an expensive area while actually living somewhere cheaper.

If the basic income wasn't adjusted for different areas, you would probably see some areas become rich elite enclaves while other areas become basic income ghettos.

View on HN

> If the basic income wasn't adjusted for different areas, you would probably see some areas become rich elite enclaves while other areas become basic income ghettos.

Some places have been rich elite enclaves and other places ghettoes for pretty much the whole history of human civilization; its pretty clearly already the case now (and not just between widely geographically separated areas like San Francisco and Grover, NC; its true within cities like San Francisco -- or any other city of substantial size anywhere in the world.)

A flat national BI doesn't create that problem, it just fails to completely eradicate it (it likely does reduce it by reducing overall income inequality, so, as far as the issue is even relevant, its one in favor of adopting BI, not against it.)

I don't think so. If you're only on the basic income, then to put it roughly, you don't "deserve" to live in San Francisco or Manhattan.

People move to cheaper parts of the country all the time, to fit their budget. I don't know why this would be any different.

This would never work. You're telling me a grandmother who lives in Manhattan will be forced to leave her family and move to a small apartment in Kansas? That's political suicide to suggest anything like that.

How does she afford to live there now?

If you want to live some place forever, buy the property. Buying and renting each have risks. Buying risks that you will lose your initial capital, but you get to live there. Renting risks that you might have to leave the property, but the landlord absorbs the risks of the property value declining.

We can't really have effective policy if someone experiencing some kind of risk vetoes it.

It's political suicide to suggest that a grandmother who is currently receiving $0 in basic income should instead receive more? You haven't thought this through.

Living in an expensive area is a consumption choice.

If I live in a mansion in that Grover, NC, would you say that my expenses were high so I deserve more basic income?

High prices are the market telling you to consider looking someplace else to live.

This is how the good ideas of progressive intellectuals get destroyed: other progressives want to weigh them down with all sorts of other social engineering baggage. (Conservative intellectuals have good ideas that get destroyed by other conservatives, too.)

I agree that choosing an expensive lifestyle is a consumption choice. I was just trying to make the point that it's difficult for a government to determine what basic income is "enough to live comfortably on".

Those kinds of decisions alienate voters and, as a result, are desperately avoided by congress critters.

Doubly true if you are talking about a globally applicable basic income.

>> If the government adjusted the basic income to account for regional cost-of-living, I imagine it would be popular to maintain a fake residency in an expensive area while actually living somewhere cheaper.

Good hack.

>> some areas become rich elite enclaves while other areas become basic income ghettos.

This is basically the direction we're already headed in already.

>>> some areas become rich elite enclaves while other areas become basic income ghettos.

> This is basically the direction we're already headed in already.

A flat basic income would make this better not worse, as there would be more money available serving the needs of people in these poorer areas.

I am inclined to agree with you but I'm not certain. There are some arguments that those living off of BI would form a unique subset of the population and might effectively be ghettoized at least in terms of colocation as opposed to the more economic/social aspect due to their similar needs/means.

the whole point of BI is that everyone gets it, even the rich

That doesn't mean those living exclusively on BI mightn't wind up ghettoized. I don't see why this would be any more true than in any other situation, though. (and as I've said elsewhere, I don't think BI should presently be enough to live comfortably on without draining savings).

> There are some arguments that those living off of BI would form a unique subset of the population and might effectively be ghettoized at least in terms of colocation as opposed to the more economic/social aspect due to their similar needs/means.

The people living primarily off BI (that is "the poor") would likely continue to be segregated, to a certain degree, both physically and socially from those more well-off. But that's not an effect of BI, that's true of the poor now and basically for all of human history.

How is that different from what happens now? How many poor people can afford to live in Manhattan penthouses right now? By leveling out people's relative wealth just a little bit, this should reduce the ghettoization, not increase.

Without having to depend on the job market, people are free to move to areas with no work and a very low cost of living, and not be bunched up in the areas with the best handouts.

The net result will probably be higher costs of living everywhere, but in the US there is so much space that the effect is diluted.

Add to that the increased demand for basic services in those areas, and you'll wind up with something that looks an awful lot like economic growth in those areas.

Add to that the ability to grow food for oneself, and I bet we see lots of people move somewhere they can rent a home with a large garden, and turn their basic income into a small scale farm with extra earned income at local farmers markets. As that money moves around in a community, even if %40 of every pay cycle is extracted by walmart, the local economy has people who have time to build small bussinesses. Now a mom and pop store doesn't have to support the family, it just has to pay the rent on the store and bring in enough extra money and or good will/personal satisfaction that mom and pop keep it running.

I'm fairly sure the government knows where we all truly live.

Given how often I've had the government send things to the wrong address for me, I am fairly sure that they don't know where I truly live (most of the time), even when I gave them the address.

Unlikely. I know of a lot of people who live in New Jersey but register their auto in another state under a relative's address for cheaper insurance. I also know people who use an old address or the address of an acquaintance/relative so their child can attend a different school district.

That just implies that communication in government is poor, particularly if it is a local or state government that wants to know something from the federal government. I am sure the IRS would have no problem finding those people if they were so inclined.

I became a South Dakota resident in January (while I was in CA.). Despite only having spent a week in the state last summer. I haven't been back since then.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com