Except of course none of these are UBI experiments. The U has been completely forgotten.
They’re trying to water down the idea of UBI to renaming “benefits”. There’s only one class of people who would find this advantageous, and it ain’t us.
The reality is that we won’t know for sure how it works across an entire population until a small country changes its tax structure to make this possible across everyone. Would people quit shit jobs more often? Would minimum wage be abolished? How much work is considered saturation when all the crap is stripped away?
Real actual UBI would be an enormous societal change (I believe for the better), and I’m not sure that giving a handful of poor people some money and watching them spend it on things they need to survive is particularly worthwhile. We know that. It’s everyone else that might throw a spanner in the works.
Ahhh the, “the experiment is impossible” argument. Except no one ever argues that the math is wrong once the self sustaining tax system is explained. Because it’s really quite simple. So we don’t need an experiment for that do we?
We look at people’s employment status and their financial literacy. And this is study number 1542 proving that it would not cause massive drop out from employment and people are capable of budgeting the extra money responsibly.
I think any definition of UBI that does not contain enough to live off is not really UBI.
And yes, to live off it, you’ll be shopping in Aldi, eating very basic food, and living in an area that isn’t very nice. I’m not suggesting you should be able to live on it in a nice area of SF or somewhere else with ludicrous property prices on UBI. It would probably involve some basic housing being thrown up by the government.
We already live in a society with enough money to ensure everyone can live. It would just be nice to get rid of the cruelty in the lower rungs.
Should the people who work in SF be able to live there?
One way to tackle the problem of wealth distribution is a UBI. Because it effectively just acts as an extra tax on the wealthy and a stimulus for the working class. It effectively rebalances the economy over time. It also helps people get better jobs, job training, and supports creative workers. Of course not everyone can get the “good jobs” but this makes the labor market more competitive so even the “bad jobs” will need to treat workers better to keep them.
I mean yeah, they’ll have to. But they’ll have to be paid enough to live there. If you’re paying a janitor $80k because that’s what he needs to vac to floors and empty the bins, companies might start asking “what the fuck are we putting our businesses in SF for?”
Remote work is another good equaliser there, but comes with the downside of remote workers also being available overseas and a lot cheaper.
Except of course none of these are UBI experiments. The U has been completely forgotten.
They’re trying to water down the idea of UBI to renaming “benefits”. There’s only one class of people who would find this advantageous, and it ain’t us.
The reality is that we won’t know for sure how it works across an entire population until a small country changes its tax structure to make this possible across everyone. Would people quit shit jobs more often? Would minimum wage be abolished? How much work is considered saturation when all the crap is stripped away?
Real actual UBI would be an enormous societal change (I believe for the better), and I’m not sure that giving a handful of poor people some money and watching them spend it on things they need to survive is particularly worthwhile. We know that. It’s everyone else that might throw a spanner in the works.
Ahhh the, “the experiment is impossible” argument. Except no one ever argues that the math is wrong once the self sustaining tax system is explained. Because it’s really quite simple. So we don’t need an experiment for that do we?
We look at people’s employment status and their financial literacy. And this is study number 1542 proving that it would not cause massive drop out from employment and people are capable of budgeting the extra money responsibly.
And where, pray tell, has it proved that?
The only way that it would not cause a drop in employment is if UBI is not enough to live off, which defeats the whole purpose.
UBI as an entire living stipend is an end state scenario; when automation is extremely advanced. Nobody serious is suggesting that for right now.
I think any definition of UBI that does not contain enough to live off is not really UBI.
And yes, to live off it, you’ll be shopping in Aldi, eating very basic food, and living in an area that isn’t very nice. I’m not suggesting you should be able to live on it in a nice area of SF or somewhere else with ludicrous property prices on UBI. It would probably involve some basic housing being thrown up by the government.
We already live in a society with enough money to ensure everyone can live. It would just be nice to get rid of the cruelty in the lower rungs.
Very well said. Unfortunately, for some, the cruelty is the point.
Should the people who work in SF be able to live there?
One way to tackle the problem of wealth distribution is a UBI. Because it effectively just acts as an extra tax on the wealthy and a stimulus for the working class. It effectively rebalances the economy over time. It also helps people get better jobs, job training, and supports creative workers. Of course not everyone can get the “good jobs” but this makes the labor market more competitive so even the “bad jobs” will need to treat workers better to keep them.
I mean yeah, they’ll have to. But they’ll have to be paid enough to live there. If you’re paying a janitor $80k because that’s what he needs to vac to floors and empty the bins, companies might start asking “what the fuck are we putting our businesses in SF for?”
Remote work is another good equaliser there, but comes with the downside of remote workers also being available overseas and a lot cheaper.