Universal Basic Income

Ganymede

It would also be in addition to SS, not instead of SS, it also tends to assume that rent and healthcare is covered separately.

The models I've looked at eliminate SS and other paid-to-consumer welfare systems in favor of a Basic Income Guarantee ("BIG").

My understanding is that it is intended to be supplemental, such that folks who are making some income will receive less than those who are making none. It is also my understanding that the BIG models do not factor in dependents, or that, if it does, it does not guarantee their income in full. Further, the BIG has to be implemented along with a public, single-payer healthcare system that covers catastrophic loss, similar to what Medicare/Medicaid does.

Many opponents to a BIG, like a raise in the minimum wage, do not consider the increase in aggregate demand that would be created as a result. This would encourage domestic suppliers to increase production, and while many things can be outsourced, some cannot, such as financial, legal, and food services.

Consider what federal subsidies could be cut in response: SNAP (food stamps), agricultural subsidies, Section 8, etc. Consider the reduction in federal risk programs: Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, etc. Consider alternative funding sources: a federal sales tax; a federal luxury tax; a federal tax on financial-market trades; a federal tax on land-transfers; etc. You could also consider removing federal tax credit programs.

The biggest problem will be selling the entire program to the electorate, who are already worked so hard that they cannot do basic economic research.

Arkandel

I think a good side-question to 'can this UBI thing work?' is 'is some form of it not inevitable?'.

Automization :Technology has put people out of work before but it's always meant one type of mass manual labor (say, corp farmers replaced by farming machines) switching to a different kind (factory workers). However these days even mainstay unskilled worker positions - waiters, cooks, janitors, etc - are progressively turned redundant by technology so what will all those people do when McDonalds starts hiring only a fraction of the people it used to? No corporation will be able to resist the lure even if they want to, else their competitors who do so will eat their lunch (sorry).

Globalization is also huge. Any job that can be subsidized and shoved off-shore is. Once again companies who resist are swallowed by the ones who do and turn higher profits.

What happens if western-world countries don't choose to do this in the following years? Assuming nothing else unforeseen changes unemployment will cause an enormous strain on society.

At some point the notion of "why do we work?" has to be examined as well. Is it that much better a human being pours gas into your car than a machine? Is it fulfilling for that person, did he/she grow up hoping to do that? So if we give the same salary and let the machine do its thing failing the bootstrap dream?

Ganymede

@Arkandel said in Universal Basic Income:

However these days even mainstay unskilled worker positions - waiters, cooks, janitors, etc - are progressively turned redundant by technology so what will all those people do when McDonalds starts hiring only a fraction of the people it used to?

Actually, waiters, cooks, and janitors are employees that are one of the least likely to be off-shored or made redundant by technology.

Arkandel

@Ganymede http://www.businessinsider.com/carls-jr-wants-open-automated-location-2016-3

Ganymede

@Arkandel said in Universal Basic Income:

http://www.businessinsider.com/carls-jr-wants-open-automated-location-2016-3

Investing in automation is substantially different than successfully implementing it. And, whereas you could do this with fast-food, fast-food is not the only branch of the service industry.

Here's a link to industry trends, but I can't speak as to its accuracy or reliability: https://www.franchisehelp.com/industry-reports/fast-food-industry-report/

Traditional fast food is getting wrecked by fast casual. Fast casual does not rely on automation, but upon customer input, and allowing the customer to visually see the construction of their meal. Those restaurants are seeing substantially more growth.

So, no, I disagree completely with the conclusion that waiters, cooks, and janitors are vulnerable -- or more vulnerable than manufacturing, technology-based, or pharmaceutical production jobs.

Arkandel

@Ganymede There are two types of jobs I'd say are largely immune to either automation or globalization.

Specialized manual labor; no robot will replace plumbers any time soon, every project is too different and requires flexibility and improvisation.
Positions requiring specific legal certifications; civil engineers or lawyers come to mind, you can't just grab a guy from overseas to do it.

However that's not always a good thing. For instance when the economy in Greece began to implode people like myself could seek employment abroad; as it turns out code parses the same way in Toronto as it does in Athens. I have however friends whose professions don't allow them to do that for exactly the reason described in (2) above.

Ganymede

@Arkandel said in Universal Basic Income:

Positions requiring specific legal certifications; civil engineers or lawyers come to mind, you can't just grab a guy from overseas to do it.

Not necessarily true, actually. So long as a design is approved by a civil engineer or a pleading by a lawyer, it's good. You could feasibly farm out the preparation and development of such, to be later reviewed and approved of by someone with the proper certification. And this is happening right now, and is an issue in the legal community.

That said, and back to the topic, a BIG or raise in minimum wage may actually help certain service industries. Where people have more money, they will demand better services, and the trend right now is "personalized consumption." Hence, the rise in fast casual; the rise in customized products sold on the internet; etc.

Duntada

@Arkandel

It's actually worry about point 1. japan found a way to automate butchery which over there is considered a highly skilled job... or was before they designed a machine that can do it terrifyingly fast.

Three-Eyed Crow

@Arkandel said in Universal Basic Income:

At some point the notion of "why do we work?" has to be examined as well. Is it that much better a human being pours gas into your car than a machine? Is it fulfilling for that person, did he/she grow up hoping to do that? So if we give the same salary and let the machine do its thing failing the bootstrap dream?

Ideally, what I hope comes with something like basic income is a fundamental change in how we approach the labor market. There are plenty of tasks in American society that are woefully under-staffed (child and elder care, and some middle-class jobs like nursing) and massive infrastructure repair and maintenance projects we're ignoring because we just don't have that kind of public works commitment. Those are jobs that need doing and there's no reason you couldn't shift a large portion of the labor force into them if there wasn't as pressing a need to go into the widget factory 40 hours a week for so many people. But like BIG itself, I don't have particularly high hopes of this happening anytime soon.

Duntada

Well I can say for some of those jobs, literally the only reason I am not currently in nursing now is because my entire college budget was less than $4,000. That had to go to tuition, food and rent. Working part time got me through some of it, but there simply was not enough money for me to finish and so I had to drop out to seek more employment hours per week just so I would not also be homeless.

If I had some assurance that i could go to school AND eat I would certainly go back.

HorrorHound

I have serious doubts the US will ever adopt such a program, as we seem to really enjoy, deep down in side somewhere, social-darwinism and material-wealth competitions. Even if everything was automated, we would find a way. We are Orks like that.