What if the government guaranteed you an income?

[jamil]

And if you don't think it's stealing, let's try this. Let's set up a living stipend fund that goes to everyone. You donate, eh, 10% of your income to the fund. Everyone who thinks this is a grand idea should donate to the fund. If there is enough in the fund to give everyone a descent living, you win. We're all benevolent enough to make socialism work. But I know what would happen. So after all the money is collected and distributed, how do you plan to spend your $0.17?

Sounds like a bargain for anyone who currently pays social security. That alone is about 17% once you calculate in the employer's contribution. Add in 2-4% for unemployment insurance. Looks like it'd cut my tax burden by over half while still doing what those programs were designed to do AND eliminating a lot of overhead and welfare programs. I'd say you make a compelling argument for the guaranteed income.

I quoted the relevant part of what I said in its entirety since you left some stuff off, because I think you misunderstood.

It's a private fund I'm talking about for a voluntary experiment to determine if people would willingly donate to a fund that would be distributed to everyone--you can even add illegals in on that if you want. I suggested 10% of your income but you can give whatever you want. 0% or even 100% if your heart rocks you that hard. I'm gonna take a wild guess and predict the average donation amount will be pretty close to "**** you people, I worked for my damn money".

So again, what'll you do with your $.17 after you get your share?

/theft

 

[Twangbanger]

BBIs,

There's no use regurgitating your essays asserting that the world has irreversibly changed. I agree that it has. But what do we do about it? Many low-skill workers are stuck inside a burning building, with an infinite fuel source feeding the flames (low cost competition from less-developed countries). My point is that we need to be encouraging those people to find the stairwell, open a window, navigate their way to the fire escape, etc.

Your approach, of giving everyone a guaranteed income, simply hands the fire-dwellers a $25 grand-a-year asbestos suit, so they can stay inside the burning building more comfortably, and study art and stuff. Straining the metaphor a bit further, it's a crotch-less asbestos suit which allows the wearer to procreate and create more babies, who are born into little asbestos suits themselves, so the practice of continuing to live inside the burning building carries on generationally.

They have to get out of that damn building! I don't know what the specific answer will be for a person or group of persons. But I sure as heck know they'll never find that answer, if we pay them to stay where they are and not look for it.

Take that basic income, and make it only available to the people who have been downsized, and only make it redeemable for educational purposes. You may get my vote for that, if the specifics are right.

But make it available to Everyone, automatically upon reaching their XXth birthday? You gotta be kidding me. That will absolutely destroy people.

 

[BehindBlueI's]

Your approach, of giving everyone a guaranteed income, simply hands the fire-dwellers a $25 grand-a-year asbestos suit

First, its not my approach. In post #42 I said I'm inclined to agree its a bad idea as the world stands right now. I also said it would certainly have both good and bad results. Something will have to change if we want to continue to have a middle class, though, and eventually something will have to change to provide for a population that no longer has labor. I don't think that's today, but we're not just talking about today are we? I think its very plausible that we'll have to answer these questions before the end of the century. Some folks seem to deny it, but the wage gap is growing and the middle class is shrinking. That trend is also accelerating. This will continue to be true as technology increases productivity so much that there is very little labor to do. The question isn't can we stay the same or change, the question is what sort of change are we going to have.

But what do we do about it?

People a lot smarter than me and a lot more educated in macroeconomics are going to be the ones who put forth the answers. Because of that, I don't have an approach. I don't have the requisite data or expertise to presume to know how to fix an incredibly complex problem that continues to build. I'm just trying to have a discussion on the possible benefits of this one suggested approach, along with the potential pitfalls.

One point I will take issue with is that people will stop being motivated if they get enough money to live. Is that your experience? Once you earned enough money to have basic food and housing you stopped and decided to be satisfied? Isn't one of the fundamentals of economic theory that we have unlimited wants and limited resources? You want to be able to buy that new gun, to eat at a nice restaurant, to go see the Grand Canyon, etc...so you try to earn more. How many people do you know that if they get a dime an hour raise, they spend an extra 11 cents an hour? American's aren't lacking in the desire to earn more so they can spend more. Some people are going to be lazy and ride the system. Do you know of a company of any size that doesn't have lazy people who ride that system? What does that prove? What if you weeded those people out, would the organizations be healthier? Amazon just offered their employees $5k to quit. If you're making $24k a year running a forklift, a single lick of $5k is pretty tempting. So why do it? Because they want the people who work there to want to work there. How does that factor in to the discussion?

 

[cop car]

totally 100% for this, i dont care if it de values currency etc etc. everyone would be on a fair playing field. personally i think it would end up making 90% of the people on welfare getting real jobs. if you pay taxes just think of it as a "tax refund"

now before you get all defensive, think about it, several of the arab countries, and even Alaska have guaranteed incomes like this (granted not a whole lot in the case of alaska) but it doesnt mean that their economies ceased over night. in Alaskas case basically no income or property taxes up there and as well as having money left over. in the case of arab countries, there are some people happy living in tents and doing nothing all day, then there are even more people that do have jobs and contribute to society, best yet, there is no whining. welfare is out of control in this country and this would be a decent solution IMO

also there should be a 20-30% sales tax on EVERYTHING, save bread, milk, some bare essentials that escape the food taxes now..

 

[IndyDave1776]

totally 100% for this, i dont care if it de values currency etc etc. everyone would be on a fair playing field. personally i think it would end up making 90% of the people on welfare getting real jobs. if you pay taxes just think of it as a "tax refund"

now before you get all defensive, think about it, several of the arab countries, and even Alaska have guaranteed incomes like this (granted not a whole lot in the case of alaska) but it doesnt mean that their economies ceased over night. in Alaskas case basically no income or property taxes up there and as well as having money left over. in the case of arab countries, there are some people happy living in tents and doing nothing all day, then there are even more people that do have jobs and contribute to society, best yet, there is no whining. welfare is out of control in this country and this would be a decent solution IMO

also there should be a 20-30% sales tax on EVERYTHING, save bread, milk, some bare essentials that escape the food taxes now..

You have some strange ideas and some untenable arguments. First, what is fair about this. It is forcible redistribution. If it weren't there would be no need for any such scheme. Second, your examples of such schemes have one thing in common with each other which is vastly different from the scheme you use them to justify which is that the examples you mentioned are distributing money received from teh outside for oil sales, not money taxed from the people to whom it is being given. Those Arab countries, with Kuwait being the most thoughtful and generous of the bunch, are handing out money they got from us, not from their own people. Third, why in the universe should there be a confiscatory sales tax? Damn, we have already been taxed on that money more than once.

 

[Tombs]

If we look at the world as it is today, I'm inclined to agree. I still have the same prejudices of an older generation. If you're 20 years old and living at home, assuming you aren't caring for a sick parent, you're still a child. Logically, that ignores today's economy, the fact entry level wages aren't letting you buy a house, buying a house is probably stupid for a youngster who needs mobility to land a better job, today's 'good' jobs tend to require more specialization, which means more education, which means longer 'in the nest', etc. etc. Emotionally I clash with that logic, though.

Now let's fast forward a century or so. Will there really be enough work for all the willing workers? Technology has increased exponentially, and will continue to do so. Let's be honest and say that only a small percentage of people are smart or talented enough to really grasp the cutting edge of technology and be the agents of change. Those people will continue to do very well, and they should. The question becomes what happens to what we now refer to as 'labor', especially those semi-skilled professions that will be done without much human input? This is *not* the same as the buggy whip maker going out of business as the car industry grows. The car industry represented a net gain in employment, and one that anyone could jump into with minimal preperation. Modern technology is creating more goods with fewer workers, a net loss, and one that requires highly specialized, and often lengthy, training to enter. The bar to entry is simply higher.

So, what do you do with those who's labor has no value? What do you do while they retrain for years for a new job that does have value? Do you let people starve, not because they are lazy or unwilling, but because our economy has progressed beyond the need for them? Right now we have the luxury of looking at that hypothetically, but the world where those tough questions are going to have to be answered isn't too many generations away.

Talk to any person on the street older than 50 and they'll tell you about every job they got when they were my age, they walked in off the street and were offered a position. A position at a company they usually remained with for very many years, sometimes until retirement. Was it easy work? No, but that kind of work has been offshored today, or regulated out of existence because starving to death is more tolerable than a worker being exposed to a "possibly" dangerous chemical or condition to these people.

The answer to the next question, of technological advancement beyond profitable employment is actually a simple one. When there's no way to generate income, how do you sell a product? Therefor you don't, you don't hand them money, you provide your products to them.

If people want something a step above, they would have to make something or make themselves valuable enough to barter for it.

The transitional period will probably be unbelievably awful. No jobs, everything still costing ridiculous amounts, impossible to start a family or have a life unless you lucked into the chance to work for it. If you take a look at things today, it's pretty obvious we're stepping on the threshold of this. And to anyone who says "get an education," I simply ask, how do you take on a debt greater than your parent's entire networth without any assured means of ever being able to pay it off? That's a lot of money to someone who can't find a job with enough income to fathom payments on that kind of loan.

Money isn't the solution to the problem, it is the problem.

 

[cop car]

i should have clarified. it would be a sales tax only situation. no income, no property etc etc taxes, income only. this way people who arent citizens and who have been using our services with little to no payment into the system become over night tax payers.

for the sake of argument lets say you make 50k a year now.. after you pay all your income/social security/medicare taxes you are left with what.. 40k if you are lucky? then you pay sales tax, property tax, usage tax on your car, gas tax so on so on. immagine you got 15k guaranteed from the gov each year, and so did everyone else, the price of things may rise, but if we used sales tax only, you still have to buy stuff. unless you like living like a hobo (not knocking it, some people do). rich people would pay more into the system than poor people because they would want more, and more expensive items. so those ceos that have 15 million dollar homes would have to pay 3.75 million upon their purchase (assuming its 25% sales tax). that would go a longggg way. i do not know the exact figures of what would have to be to be sustainable and feasible, but imo the theory is there. rich people pay lots of taxes, poor people dont pay as much, leaving for more to live off of, and if you dont want to pay taxes, easy, dont buy anything. of course there are issues with this system, but guaranteed income is basically a giant tax refund for those who work, still provides basic needs for those who cant provide for themselves, and gives those who can work, ZERO incentive to not do something to make more money, and the more money they make the more they spend on items and pay taxes on them.

also i think mandatory 2 year (paid of course through your guaranteed income) should be in place for any person who wants to become a citizen (yes, much like starship troopers), then after that your guaranteed income continues for life, as well as giving you voting rights. this service does not nessecarly need to be military, could be teach for america, park rangers, police, you name it: "society benefiting" jobs. makes citizens have invested interest in the government, which is what we are severely lacking here compared to other countries such as South Korea, Germany, other European and specifically Nordic countries, it works there. they have fewer people taking so much from their government and giving so little back. Everyone gives proportionately and takes proportionately also

 

[Trav43]

This all sounds like another way for the gov to put another big payout system up for bid for the highest political contribution. Such as that of Chase and the food stamp program.

BBIs, the technology that you refer to is predominately replacing jobs in the US, labor is alive and well in other countries. The time period that set this country apart, we had a closed economy, you having a job relied on your neighbor having a job. Not so much anymore.

 

[BehindBlueI's]

labor is alive and well in other countries.

No, but that kind of work has been offshored today, or regulated out of existence because starving to death is more tolerable than a worker being exposed to a "possibly" dangerous chemical or condition to these people.

In some other countries, yes. In some other countries, not so much. When I lived in Qatar, I saw lots of manual laborers and few machines. Why buy a crane when you can hire a few Indians for $150/mo to haul brick up the wall with a rope and pulley? Search Google for the allegations of slavery that went along with the import of labor. The working conditions were appalling, the pay was small, but it was better than they could do in India, Pakistan, etc, so they came. They came into what some here would consider a worker's paradise. They were free to make their own contract with their employer, no OSHA, very minimal labor laws and no enforcement of those that did exist (1.25% overtime rate, 1.5% overtime rate on Fridays and holy days pretty much summed it up). Oddly, I don't see many of them striving to go work in such places where things are so much better by their theories, but that's another topic. Then you have countries like Germany, that still have low unemployment and a solid average wage and middle class, and have a complex system of labor laws and worker protection acts, and who's OSHA/EPA is stricter than ours in many regards AND who have a tax rate almost double our own. I'm thinking the simple lack of regulation or presence of regulation for a safe work place and basic worker protection isn't what's causing the collapse of our middle class.

Anyway, the fact they have a job today isn't the point. I've never argued that there aren't jobs today, but look at the trends for the future. It hits us first because we're the wealthiest nation of workers, but it will eventually be everyone's problem.

 

[MisterChester]

As we get deeper and deeper into a post-industrial economy, what do we do with the majority of people that don't have the skills necessary for relevant and in-demand work? These days, if you want a good job a post-high school degree of some sort is almost mandatory. If you stop at a high school diploma and do nothing else, you will have a tough time finding something that pays decently and an even tougher time moving up the ladder. We can't force anybody to go to college, let alone finish high school. I don't see a majority of workers with a 4 year degree anytime soon. I think back when Bush was president he said a high school diploma should be "a ticket to success", and while it should be it clearly is not for most people. The economy's demand for highly educated and specialized workers shall remain unfulfilled if there's not enough people to fill them. People who have no skills that are in demand might get a job at Mcdonalds making minimum wage or something, then they get stuck in welfare. Our education standards are terrible.

 

[jamil]

In some other countries, yes. In some other countries, not so much. When I lived in Qatar, I saw lots of manual laborers and few machines. Why buy a crane when you can hire a few Indians for $150/mo to haul brick up the wall with a rope and pulley? Search Google for the allegations of slavery that went along with the import of labor. The working conditions were appalling, the pay was small, but it was better than they could do in India, Pakistan, etc, so they came. They came into what some here would consider a worker's paradise. They were free to make their own contract with their employer, no OSHA, very minimal labor laws and no enforcement of those that did exist (1.25% overtime rate, 1.5% overtime rate on Fridays and holy days pretty much summed it up). Oddly, I don't see many of them striving to go work in such places where things are so much better by their theories, but that's another topic. Then you have countries like Germany, that still have low unemployment and a solid average wage and middle class, and have a complex system of labor laws and worker protection acts, and who's OSHA/EPA is stricter than ours in many regards AND who have a tax rate almost double our own. I'm thinking the simple lack of regulation or presence of regulation for a safe work place and basic worker protection isn't what's causing the collapse of our middle class.

Anyway, the fact they have a job today isn't the point. I've never argued that there aren't jobs today, but look at the trends for the future. It hits us first because we're the wealthiest nation of workers, but it will eventually be everyone's problem.

Just about everyone's incomes increased in the 90s because of that next new thing, the internet. The rich got richer at a rate higher than most everyone, but most everyone still made more. So the gap widened because the rich are more efficient at getting richer. But now, because of ****ty economies, the widening gap isn't just because the rich are increasing their wealth at a faster pace, it's because the poor are getting poorer. The last next new thing has burnt out.

Most next new things have traditionally been initiated in the US because it's been traditionally a friendly place to make money on new ideas. I think that's changing and I don't think the next new thing will come from the US. We're going to be just another progressive European like socialist country. Like France. Nothing against French people, but what world changing innovations have come from France in the past 200 years? Probably the next new thing that drives an expanding economy will come from Asia. We're too busy teaching our kids political correctness and that capitalism is bad.

 

[AtTheMurph]

Its inevitable, eventually. The wage gap continues to widen, automation continues to take jobs, and as technology improves those trends will not only continue, they will accelerate. It may not happen in my lifetime, but either this type of payment, useless make work for set wages, or some other way to provide for the displaced will eventually occur.

Automation doesn't take jobs. It simply changes the work that is required. Much like farriers became car mechanics or car workers became software engineers. The nature of the work changes but automation doesn't destroy it adds efficiency and wealth.

I would contend that there is a direct correlation between government regulation and unemployment and income disparity. As government increases control age disparity rises - Regulator Without Peer - WSJ.com

As the Fed prints money, wage disparity rises.

Those are correlations much higher than even CO2 - Global Warming! The science is settled then. Fewer regulations and dump the Fed and we will be better off. Much better off.

 

[ATOMonkey]

Yeah!!! Another grand idea to fix broken government with more government by making something from nothing!

Brilliant!!! I can't see a downside!

I envision a world where Atlas Shrugged collides with Idiocracy. It should be a blast.

 

[Phil502]

Almost wide open borders and a guarenteed income, geez what could go wrong.

 

[jbombelli]

Yeah!!! Another grand idea to fix broken government with more government by making something from nothing!

Brilliant!!! I can't see a downside!

I envision a world where Atlas Shrugged collides with Idiocracy. It should be a blast.

I like money. I can't believe you like money too...

 

[Twangbanger]

...One point I will take issue with is that people will stop being motivated if they get enough money to live. Is that your experience? Once you earned enough money to have basic food and housing you stopped and decided to be satisfied?

This isn't about me. Or you. It's about the knuckle-dragging Obama Phone Lady, and millions of others like her, who think the world owes them a living. And anyway, you're not just talking about limiting this assistance to "that" lady; or even just to people who are displaced involuntarily; you're talking about giving it to _everyone_.

Math Lesson: $20,000 a year, times 300 Million people? That's 6 Trillion dollars. Have you seriously not thought this through? The current Federal budget is, what? 4 Trillion? After you spend for everything we spend on, you're going to add another 1.5 times that much? (Remember, you never said this was going to replace all other spending). But, allowing for cutting out all social spending other than this Federal Guaranteed Income, you're still going to approximately double the Federal Budget. If you're not quite so charitable, and you cut my estimate of $20k a year in half, AND eliminate all social spending other than Guaranteed Income (yeah, right!), that's still a 25% increase in Government spending. Where is our economy going to generate that kind of money, in the future? What, you say? (Mwah mwah, Charlie Brown Teacher voice)...uh huh...oh I see...there's going to be 6 Trillion worth of new economic activity generated from iPhone apps, created by newly-liberated utopians who are now writing software code, when they previously weren't smart enough to figure out how to support themselves when their shovel-ready Union ditch-digging job disappeared?

Almost wide open borders and a guarenteed income, geez what could go wrong.

What, indeed!

 

[RobbyMaQ]

Imho, easy fixes are just that. 'easy'. They don't really solve problems... just make them easier to swallow.

 

[IndyDave1776]

Imho, easy fixes are just that. 'easy'. They don't really solve problems... just make them easier to swallow.

Well said, although I would point out that easy and simple are two different qualities which are often confused. For example, a positively balanced budget and short to intermediate term elimination of the nation debt is simple--read the Constitution, do what it says, and don't do what it doesn't say. The elimination of spending on things for which the federal government lacks constitutional authority to engage in would eliminate the national debt in less than 10 years. Acting on this would be far from easy given the number of people who gain from such extraconstitutional spending and would scream up a lung over attempting to correct the problem.

 

[Henry]

Slaves' income is guaranteed.

Feel free to prove it is not so.

 

[Trooper]

Why not make everyone equal? Same pay, everyone wears the same uniform, lives in the same concrete apartments. No one is different. Mao tried that.

BTW, the French Revolution pushed the idea of equality rather than freedom. You can be free or you can be equal. But not both.