Harris County to unveil $500 guaranteed income program for struggling families

[ChristieP]

Originally Posted by houston-nomad

Do you not have the Googles? It's okay. I'll walk you through it. Go to google.com. Type in "does UBI work". Look through the results for links that come from a reliable source.

Examples:
https://college.unc.edu/2021/03/universal-basic-income/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/magaz...-basic-income/
https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2...income-ubi-map

I do not consider Vox a "reliable source." It only points to a program in Kenya, not one in the USA.
Can't read the WaPo article without paying for it.
UNC article also points to the same program in Kenya.

Find me a program in the USA where this was tried and worked. I have never seen one.
And the bigger question: who pays for this? You? Me?

[Jack Lance]

Originally Posted by ChristieP

I do not consider Vox a "reliable source." It only points to a program in Kenya, not one in the USA.
Can't read the WaPo article without paying for it.
UNC article also points to the same program in Kenya.

Find me a program in the USA where this was tried and worked. I have never seen one.
And the bigger question: who pays for this? You? Me?

in alphabetical order

Examples around the world

Brazil
Minimum income has been increasingly accepted by the Brazilian government. In 2004, President Lula da Silva signed into law a bill to establish a universal basic income.[22] This law is primarily implemented through the Bolsa Família program. Under this program, poorer families receive a direct cash payment via a government issued debit card. Bolsa Família is a conditional cash transfer program, meaning that beneficiaries receive their aid if they accomplish certain actions. Families who receive the aid must put their children in school and participate in vaccination programs. If they do not meet these requirements, they are cut off from aid.[23] The program has been criticised as vote-buying, trading productive individuals' earning for the votes of welfare recipients[24] As of 2011, approximately 50 million people, or a quarter of Brazil's population, were participating in Bolsa Família.[25]

Canada
Main article: Mincome
Canada has experimented with minimum income trials. During the Mincome experiment in Manitoba in the 1970s, Mincome provided lower-income families with cash transfers to keep them out of poverty.[26] The trial was eventually ended but this was due to budget shortfalls and a change in government.

The province of Ontario began a minimum income experiment in 2017. Approximately 4000 citizens began to receive a stipend based on their family situation and income.[27] Recipients of this program could receive upwards of $10,000 per year. Government researchers used this pilot as a way of testing to see if a minimum income can help people meet their basic needs.[28] On 31 August 2018, following a change in government, incoming Premier Doug Ford announced that the pilot would be cancelled at the end of the current fiscal year.

China
China's Minimum Livelihood Guarantee also called dibao, is a means-tested social assistance scheme introduced in 1993 and expanded to all Chinese cities in 1999.[29][30][31]

Cyprus
In July 2013, the Cypriot government unveiled a plan to reform the welfare system in Cyprus and create a 'Guaranteed Minimum Income' for all citizens.[32]

Denmark
Main article: da:Kontanthjælp
Kontanthjælp (formerly known as bistandshjælp) is a public benefit in Denmark granted to citizens who would otherwise not be able to support themselves or their families. In principle, cash benefits are a universal right for all citizens who meet certain statutory criteria.

Estonia
Main article: et:Toimetulekutoetus
A subsistence allowance is financial help for a person or family in need, which provides minimal resources for everyday life (food, medicine, housing costs, etc.).

Finland
Main article: fi:Toimeentulotuki
Basic subsistence allowance paid by Kela may be granted to a person or family whose income and assets are insufficient to cover the necessary daily expenses.

France
In 1988, France was one of the first countries to implement a minimum income, called the Revenu minimum d'insertion. In 2009, it was turned into Revenu de solidarité active (RSA), a new system that aimed to solve the poverty trap by providing low-wage workers a complementary income to encourage activity.

Iceland
Financial assistance (fjárhagsaðstoð) is for individuals and families who cannot support themselves and their livelihoods without assistance, with the aim of supporting people to help themselves and to be able to support themselves.[33]

India
Modern independent India developed many means and livelihood tested cash transfer programs through Direct Benefit Transfer at both the federal and the state level. At the federal level, these include minimum income social pension programs such as National Social Assistance Scheme, guaranteed employment program like National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005 or a disability aid like Deendayal Disabled Rehabilitation Scheme. At the state level, there can be additional minimum income programs, one such being "Laksmir Bhandar" run by the state of West Bengal that transfers a minimum aid to families without work in the state.[34]

Ireland
In Ireland, €20 of earnings per day of permitted work (beneficiaries are allowed up to three days per week) is disregarded from employment income when calculating Jobseekers’ Allowance entitlement and deductions are calculated as 60 percent of earnings less this income disregard. In addition, the Part-time Job Incentive Scheme and Back to Work Family Dividend are fixed-duration payments offered to the long-term unemployed incentive moving into work. In return for relinquishing claims to primary assistance benefits, both schemes provide benefits for a fixed duration that are slightly lower than household GMI entitlements, but which are not tapered with employment income, subject to certain eligibility requirements. Ireland’s relatively generous tapering system serves to smooth disincentives to increase income and work and contributes to their lower measured participation tax rates (PTRs) and marginal effective tax rates (METRs).[35]

Italy
The citizens' income is a social welfare system created in Italy in January 2019.[36][37] Although its name recalls one of a universal basic income, this provision is actually a form of conditional and non-individual guaranteed minimum income.[38][39]

Netherlands
Main article: nl:Participatiewet
Norway
Main article: no:Sosialhjelp
Income support can be granted if the applicant has insufficient income and resources to live on and is not entitled to other social security benefits. Income support is paid by the Norwegian Labour and Welfare Administration.

Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia has a Citizen’s Account Program which provides a basic income to registered citizens.[citation needed] In December 2017, immediately before the program began, more than 3.7 million households had registered, representing 13 million people, or more than half the population.[40]as of 2013, between one fifth and one third of Saudi residents are estimated to be non-citizens.[41][42][43][needs update]

Spain
Main article: es:Ingreso mínimo vital
In Spain, the ingreso mínimo vital is an economic benefit guaranteed by the Social security in Spain in its modality no contributory. The IMV is defined as a "subjective right" and is intended to prevent poverty and social exclusion of people who live alone or integrated into a coexistence unit when they are in a situation of vulnerability due to lack of sufficient financial resources to cover their basic needs.[44] The benefit, which is not fixed and varies depending on various factors, ranges between 462 and 1015 euros per month, is expected to cover 850,000 households (approximately 2.5 million people) and will cost the government 3 billion euros per year.[44][45]

Sweden
Main article: sv:Försörjningsstöd
Social assistance consists partly of a "national standard" (riksnorm) and partly of "reasonable costs outside the national standard". The national standard includes costs such as food, clothing and footwear. Reasonable non-standard costs include rent and household electricity.

United States
No business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country.

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1933[46]

The United States has multiple social programs that provide guaranteed minimum incomes for individuals meeting certain criteria such as assets or disability. For instance, Supplemental Security Income (SSI) is a United States government program that provides stipends to low-income people who are either aged (65 or older), blind, or disabled. SSI was created in 1974 to replace federal-state adult assistance programs that served the same purpose. Today the program provides benefits to approximately eight million Americans. Another such program is Social Security Disability Insurance (SSD or SSDI), a payroll tax-funded, federal insurance program. It is managed by the Social Security Administration and is designed to provide income supplements to people who are restricted in their ability to work because of a disability, usually a physical disability. SSD can be supplied on either a temporary or permanent basis, usually directly correlated to whether the person's disability is temporary or permanent.

An early guaranteed minimum income program in the U.S. was the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), established by the Social Security Act. Where previously the responsibility to assist needy children lay in the hands of the states, AFDC transferred that authority to the federal government.[47] Over time, the AFDC was often criticized for creating disincentives to work, leading to many arguing for its replacement. In the 1970s, President Richard M. Nixon proposed the Family Assistance Program (FAP), which would replace the AFDC. FAP was intended to fix many of the problems of the AFDC, particularly the anti-work structure. Presidential nominee George McGovern also proposed a minimum income—in the form of a Universal Tax Credit. Ultimately, neither of these programs was implemented. Throughout the decade, many other experimental minimum income programs were carried out in cities throughout the country, such as the Seattle-Denver Income Maintenance Experiments.[48] In 1996, under President Bill Clinton, the AFDC was replaced with the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program. This would block grant funds to the states to allow them to decide how aid would be distributed.[47]

Another guaranteed minimum income program in the U.S. is the Earned Income Tax Credit. This is a refundable tax credit that gives poorer families cash assistance every year. The EITC avoids the welfare trap by subsidizing income, rather than replacing it.[49]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guaran...0means%20tests.

[ChristieP]

The foreign programs are irrelevant in the USA.

EITC, AFDC/TANF, and other welfare programs are not a Guaranteed Basic Income.

[Jack Lance]

Originally Posted by ChristieP

The foreign programs are irrelevant in the USA.

EITC, AFDC/TANF, and other welfare programs are not a Guaranteed Basic Income.

Who died and made you the arbiter of relevancy? Governments are constantly looking at programs from other countries to bolster or argue against implementing similar programs in their own Countries. The program being implemented in Houston has qualifications as well, it's not a guaranteed basic income per se anyway.

If the scope of the thread has expanded to include guaranteed basic income your argument that it hasn't been tried seems ridiculous. If it hasn't been tried, then how do you know it will not work?

[Dopo]

You can't compare with programs in other countries

In other countries people get free houses, free healthcare, free college education, subsidized home appliances, etc, etc, etc.
And I'm not making that up, my own relatives have told me that.

It has to be a program that worked in the US