Why a mixed basic income and negative income tax might be a better choice (unemployment, minimum wage)

[greywar]

We've had some pretty fascinating discussions about a basic income here. That being said theres a couple different ideas about how this would be implemented. Keeping in mind, I don't believe now is the time to do this. Automation must move forward and be shown to be as disruptive as I think it will be.

Theres 2 ideas I have seen, one being a basic income where everyone gets X dollars. The second is from Milton Friedman who suggested a negative income tax. Both ideas have issue. A basic income would disincentive employment, whereas a negative income tax would still leave a vast majority of people stuck in welfare etc. And....incredibly insecure in their lives. Looking at them, I think that taken together both could work.

Basic income numbers thrown around are often int he 1K to 1.5K per month for folks. If we combined it with a negative income tax I would suggest a lower number.

And a negative income tax would provide a large incentive to work-even a little bit. This is where the government pays you money on your income at low levels, and pulls money out on income above a set level.

My thought it, lower the basic income amount, and put in place a small negative income tax. If there are STILL insufficient jobs, then create a Government jobs bank where people are guaranteed to be able to work 16 hours a week at minimum wage that receives the negative income tax benefit at a 50% rate (but for twice as much effectively). And that the negative income tax rate in all other work is met in 8 hours. The purpose of this is to make private employment FAR more desirable then government guaranteed work.

If your behavior at the government work fails to meet expectations, you can be let go for a week....without pay of course.

Disabled folks can be excused from government work and be paid IF theres nothing they can possibly do. This will generally only apply to bedridden, or mental folks.

PS before people freak out, I want to make something clear-now is not the time to do this. Now is the time to discuss it. When the cost of doing this represents a 5 or 10% of GDP cost-and unemployment due to automation is a serious issue, THATS the time. Today this would be 20-30% of GDP in costs. Some may disagree as the money would get recycled back into the economy rapidly, but thats an experiment I don't feel is appropriate at this point.

Why do I feel that we need to incentive work? Probably because I feel work-even a small amount of it, has positive social effects on people and communities. As automation increases I believe we have some serious employment issues coming up. And the growing pains will require a solution until we reach the next level of automation.

And finally I know this all seems rather socialist, and I agree. I think a capitalist/Socialist mix of government will work for a brief period of time. Give it 8-9 years and we will be past the massive displacement issues, and I believe we will see a FAR more libertarian society which I prefer.

Rapid changes in technology change everything.

[pnwmdk]

Originally Posted by greywar

Basic income numbers thrown around are often int he 1K to 1.5K per month for folks. If we combined it with a negative income tax I would suggest a lower number.

Explain to me the mechanism you will use to prevent the growth of "benefits" until everyone is bankrupt.

Also, explain to me how you impose those massive new taxes to pay for it without massive economic destruction.

[pnwmdk]

Originally Posted by greywar

Why do I feel that we need to incentive work?

You have it wrong.

The incentive to work should be "Work or starve".

That's the kind of incentive that makes people take things seriously.

[shooting4life]

Originally Posted by pnwmdk

You have it wrong.

The incentive to work should be "Work or starve".

That's the kind of incentive that makes people take things seriously.

Agree.

The problem today is stupid no longer hurts.

[greywar]

Originally Posted by pnwmdk

Explain to me the mechanism you will use to prevent the growth of "benefits" until everyone is bankrupt.

Also, explain to me how you impose those massive new taxes to pay for it without massive economic destruction.

1. the basic income is pegged to a very specific standard of living. That is insufficient to make it in most desirable places. People could manage it by living with multiple other people in a small home. So basically you define a group of what it takes to survive items, and peg it to that.

2. Please note that I DON'T think now is the time for the very reason you specify, its a massive new tax! This is the time to talk about it, and the time to implement it is when the benefits of doing it are very clearly better then the pain being felt from technological unemployment.

[theunbrainwashed]

Originally Posted by pnwmdk

You have it wrong.

The incentive to work should be "Work or starve".

That's the kind of incentive that makes people take things seriously.

Originally Posted by pnwmdk

Explain to me the mechanism you will use to prevent the growth of "benefits" until everyone is bankrupt.

Also, explain to me how you impose those massive new taxes to pay for it without massive economic destruction.

Thank you for your very enlightening contribution, pnwmdk. Do you have anything else to contribute besides, "Who's going to pay for it?" and "Work or starve"? That's pretty much the standard canned RWNJ response to EVERYTHING.

[greywar]

Originally Posted by pnwmdk

You have it wrong.

The incentive to work should be "Work or starve".

That's the kind of incentive that makes people take things seriously.

That incentive has not existed in this country for over 50 years. We're working fine. The incentive for work should be (and currently is) "life is better working". Not "work or die"

"Work or starve" is a great motto.....if you run a slave based economy. Or you have an economy that cannot afford any slack at all. We're a long long way from that today.

[AnUnidentifiedMale]

Originally Posted by theunbrainwashed

Thank you for your very enlightening contribution, pnwmdk. Do you have anything else to contribute besides, "Who's going to pay for it?" and "Work or starve"? That's pretty much the standard canned RWNJ response to EVERYTHING.

One more. You forgot, "If it were a Republican who did this, the media blah blah blah..."

[Mr. Mon]

We basically have three choices as a society:
1) Keep increasing spending on disparate welfare programs. But that doesn't address program effectiveness or cost of living.
2) Increase the minimum wage to a livable level but that only works for people who actually have jobs or can get he childcare that allows them to get to work.
3) Go full on feudal and wait for the pitchforks and torches from the starving masses. Which worked so well before.

Frankly a guaranteed basic income would allow for us to drop most other other other welfare and subsidy programs, would put more money into our consumer economy. The impact on the housing market could go either way so I'm interested in learning more about that. Regardless, the cost of living isn't getting less and the number of jobs available to lower skilled workers isn't increasing, so we need to do something.

And it wouldn't distinctive working one bit. If anything the current income caps for housing assistance does more to disincentive people from working than guaranteed income ever wold

[Mircea]

Originally Posted by greywar

We've had some pretty fascinating discussions about a basic income here.

And half of it went over your head, and the other half went way, way over.

Originally Posted by greywar

Theres 2 ideas I have seen, one being a basic income where everyone gets X dollars. The second is from Milton Friedman who suggested a negative income tax.

Friedman recanted.

It's sort of like the Einstein thing.

Einstein commenting with Charles Hapgood claimed that a Polar Crustal Shift had taken place, where the Antarctic Continent -- formerly in the North Polar Region -- shifted to its present position due to the massive weight of ice that had formed on Antarctic Continent.

The Pole Shift Pukes seize on that, but --- just like you -- they suppress evidence: Einstein made his comments before Tectonic Plate Theory...once Einstein was exposed to tectonic theory, he realized he was wrong about the crustal pole shift nonsense and recanted in light of new evidence.

Friedman did the same after Basic/Negative Income was tested and failed.

Originally Posted by greywar

PS before people freak out, I want to make something clear-now is not the time to do this.

Never is the best time.

Originally Posted by greywar

Now is the time to discuss it.

Then you need to learn Economics and stop suppressing evidence.

Provide links to the failed studies in the US.

Your cohort in special-silliness Hidingknowledgeiskey refused to provide links to the studies and instead tried to convince people that because Basic Income works in Kenya, it'll work in the US.

Originally Posted by greywar

Rapid changes in technology change everything.

Except the immutable Laws of Economics.

Originally Posted by greywar

1. the basic income is pegged to a very specific standard of living.

Too bad you disingenuously refuse to define Standard of Living objectively in no uncertain terms, just like you refuse to define Food Insecurity and Wealth Inequality and Income Inequality and a host of other pie-in-the-sky-fairy-tale-fantasies.

Oh, yeah....Living Wage...that's another Orwellian buzz-term that you refused to define objectively in no uncertain terms, so that every single person can know it when they see it, and more importantly, know when it no longer exists.

You wanna discuss things? Then you need to define the terms objectively.

Originally Posted by greywar

That is insufficient to make it in most desirable places. People could manage it by living with multiple other people in a small home. So basically you define a group of what it takes to survive items, and peg it to that.

Massive Economics and Reality Fail.

You refuse to accept the fact there are 1,539 separate economies in the US....even though your own government says so.

A woman in Cincinnati earns $54,000 annually. Another woman in White Plains (NJ) earns $100,000 annually.

Which one makes more money?

The woman in Cincinnati, who makes sightly more money than the woman in White Plains.

You don't understand that because you're only looking at numbers: 54 & 100.

You don't understand what the numbers actually mean. You refuse to accept that there are 1,539 separate economies in the US, and you don't understand Inflation and you don't understand the reason $54,000 Cincinnati US Dollars is greater than $100,000 White Plains US Dollars is due to Demand-pull Inflation and Cost-push Inflation --- and the Federal Reserve has nothing to do with either.

The woman in White Plains would drink your Kool-Aid® and turn down a job in Cincinnati for $55,000 because she wrongfully believes she taking a massive pay cut.

She's actually getting a slight pay-raise.

She can take a $45,000 pay cut and still have the exact same Standard of Living and Life-Style all the way down to do the number of condoms she buys each month. The only difference here is that she would be pleasantly surprised to find another extra $110 every month in her pocket-book.

Conversely, if you live in Cincinnati earning $42,000 and you're moving to White Plains, your new job had best pay $88,000 annually or you'll be in a world of butt-hurt.

It's just like the Liberals and the idiot pseudo-conservative Fascist wannabes that scream "Slave Wages!" They're too dumb to understand that $14,000 in some foreign States is a 6-figure Life-Style in the US.

And the whole point?

You're giving away $400/month in Food Stamps to people who live in areas of the US where it only buys $150 worth of food. Simultaneously, you're giving away $400/month in Food Stamps to people who live in other areas and it buys $600 worth of food.

That is stupid....not only are you wasting precious tax-payer money, you're not even solving the problem.

Same with Social Security COLA. Does it make sense to give COLA increases to people who have seen their Cost-of-Living decline for 8 consecutive years?

How economically efficient is it to give COLA increases to people who don't need it, while giving COLA increase to people who are getting buried?

Cost-of-Living increases 8% and you get a 1.5% COLA; and the year before that, you got a 1.7% COLA which is unfortunate since the Cost-of-Living in creased 7% and the year before that, you got a 3.5% COLA increase but Cost-of-Living for you actually increase 11%.

So people are permanently behind the curve, because nothing federal works, and you're blinded by ideology and unable to understand Economics.

You'll be giving $1,500 to some people and it will only be worth $700 while you'll be giving $1,500 to others and it will buy $6,000 worth of goods and services.

How freaking stupid is that?

You're wasting valuable tax-payer dollars and not even solving the problem.

Originally Posted by greywar

That incentive has not existed in this country for over 50 years.

Generational Welfare.

I guess you're going to deny it exists, in spite of the fact your government admits it.

See if you can actually present fact-based arguments instead of fantastical hallucinations...

Mircea