I think "Like £10,000 a year." You then respond, "Individual poverty threshold in the UK is around £15,000 a year."
That's not really an argument against UBI.
You essentially said that if someone wants to live above poverty, they would need to make £5,000 a year.
That's $7000, roughly. 2000 working hours in a year. So call it $3.50 an hour. Not really sure exactly when and how taxes come in, but you get the rough idea.
Seems entirely do-able to me. Everything above $3.50 an hour is increasing their luxury out of the poverty threshold.
Do I need to follow the rest of your flow-chart, or have I gone far enough?
Im thinking this might be an elaborate troll. I was surprised it didnt just have a rick roll instead of the phrase "your version of ubi is dumb". However its likely our fault for taking a document seriously that has the word "dumb" in the title.
I'm okay with people saying something is "dumb," I just request they have a well-reasoned argument for that position, and that they defend their position vigorously if it's important to them.
Ya well there is no attempt at a defense yet.
What im curious about is if this really just boils down to opposition to any and all forms of redistribution regardless of feasibility computations.
Thanks for forwarding that. In case you're curious how I'd respond to them...
Let's see roughly how much I made, for every year of my life:
45 to 30 years ago: $0 (well, maybe some allowance)
25 years ago: $5,000 in a year
20 years ago: $25,000 a year
15 years ago: $50,000 a year
10 years ago: $100,000 a year
5 years ago: $150,000 a year
last year: $250,000 a year
Okay, now, if you ask me when I'd like to have paid less taxes - or received some UBI... And when I'd be willing to pay taxes, and when I'd be willing to pay it forward, the answer is very clear to me:
UBI + Free Education + Free Healthcare + Progressive Taxes
I think trying to turn someone who ends up making $40,000 a year into someone who ends up making $70,000 a year is worth investing in them, early on in their career.
I'm also willing to give up several things:
Minimum Wage, Union Protections, government mandates on "if you work X hours a week, and the business has Y employees, the business needs to offer you Z benefit"
I believe in education like Sam Seaborn [1]. I believe that automation is really on the verge of granting us essentially infinite Supply of very many goods and services. I believe that UBI + Progressive Taxes are the right way to distribute the benefits of automation as fairly as possible, while still benefiting from the advantages of a capitalistic market.
Ya thats pretty much my stand. And its pretty much the stand of Canada. (though things might be changing)
I make just south of 150k (CAN) but could certainly afford to pay 10k more in taxes. I think automation and various forms of AI (not really hard AI) will make huge swaths of the public as obsolete as horses. Of course investments in education could then possibly make some of these people productive again.
First, you seem overly concerned about semantics. "Universal basic income that is not universal is not Universal" is a tautology. There's no reason you assume you couldn't have UBI plus other government programs of some kind. The "universal" is that everyone gets it, universally, not that it's all you ever get for any reason.
Second, you bring up arguments against UBI that equally apply against current systems. "People are starving" and "10k isn't enough" might be true, that doesn't mean UBI isn't an improvement over the current situation.
Third - you bring up disabled people and children as if this couldn't possibly be addressed within UBI. Two ideas off the top of my head: include children in UBI (maybe at reduced rate?), and support disabled people with socialized medicine and other care (home care aids, whatever). You again seem to be assuming that UBI would be the only thing government would give to citizens.
Fourth - taxes/money. One thing is the cost savings may be greater than they seem, if UBI ends up reducing poverty and associated crime. We'll table that for now though. Corporate and VAT are hardly the only taxes you can tweak. Income tax is key, and yes, the "average" taxpayer will have to pay more, similar to the amount of UBI he receives. Maybe his tax rate will be 44%, or 40%, or 50% (I'm not going to check all your math, also you'd probably bump up corporate and VAT at the same time). Whether that is demotivating or not is a valid question, it's worth testing to see what the impact would be. As for "a hard working person will have barely more than a freeloader" - as long as you use marginal tax rates (and maybe you'd improve this with a continuous rather than discrete function), higher gross income always means higher net income. Will someone making 25k be really angry that someone lying at home makes 10k? Maybe. But in tests that have been done so far, there don't seem to be that many freeloaders. The people that worked less than they did before were new parents, people in school, and disabled people.
A lot of your arguments seem to be "UBI wouldn't be perfect" and I don't think that's a great argument against something. If you're against UBI, argue why UBI is worse than what we have currently.
Following your graph to the point where we give all people money but its not a replacement or above poverty i get the "your ubi is dumb". (basically UBI is icing on the cake for poor people)
UBI is a wealth/income transfer. Is that really what your objecting to ?
"How much will everybody get?" (choose) -> "Not enough to cover basic needs"
Leads to
"People are starving." -> "Your version of UBI is dumb."
Excuse me? People currently get $0, which is also less than people need to cover basic needs. If that kind of UBI is dumb, your status quo is dumb.
Your chart only looks at immediate benefits and costs, and then declares UBI dumb if it either requires any increase in spending at all, or it isn't a utopian system. It also seems to assume UBI encourages everyone stop being employed.
Comments
Can you give me feedback to my argument about UBI?
https://www.lucidchart.com/documents/view/87d3102c-5b89-4001...
I think "Like £10,000 a year." You then respond, "Individual poverty threshold in the UK is around £15,000 a year."
That's not really an argument against UBI.
You essentially said that if someone wants to live above poverty, they would need to make £5,000 a year.
That's $7000, roughly. 2000 working hours in a year. So call it $3.50 an hour. Not really sure exactly when and how taxes come in, but you get the rough idea.
Seems entirely do-able to me. Everything above $3.50 an hour is increasing their luxury out of the poverty threshold.
Do I need to follow the rest of your flow-chart, or have I gone far enough?
Im thinking this might be an elaborate troll. I was surprised it didnt just have a rick roll instead of the phrase "your version of ubi is dumb". However its likely our fault for taking a document seriously that has the word "dumb" in the title.
I'm okay with people saying something is "dumb," I just request they have a well-reasoned argument for that position, and that they defend their position vigorously if it's important to them.
Ya well there is no attempt at a defense yet. What im curious about is if this really just boils down to opposition to any and all forms of redistribution regardless of feasibility computations.
I think I found the answer on another thread. ----------------------- dandare 8 days ago [-]
Becuase you first have to take the money from those who earned it.
Thanks for forwarding that. In case you're curious how I'd respond to them...
Let's see roughly how much I made, for every year of my life:
45 to 30 years ago: $0 (well, maybe some allowance) 25 years ago: $5,000 in a year 20 years ago: $25,000 a year 15 years ago: $50,000 a year 10 years ago: $100,000 a year 5 years ago: $150,000 a year last year: $250,000 a year
Okay, now, if you ask me when I'd like to have paid less taxes - or received some UBI... And when I'd be willing to pay taxes, and when I'd be willing to pay it forward, the answer is very clear to me:
UBI + Free Education + Free Healthcare + Progressive Taxes
I think trying to turn someone who ends up making $40,000 a year into someone who ends up making $70,000 a year is worth investing in them, early on in their career.
I'm also willing to give up several things:
Minimum Wage, Union Protections, government mandates on "if you work X hours a week, and the business has Y employees, the business needs to offer you Z benefit"
I believe in education like Sam Seaborn [1]. I believe that automation is really on the verge of granting us essentially infinite Supply of very many goods and services. I believe that UBI + Progressive Taxes are the right way to distribute the benefits of automation as fairly as possible, while still benefiting from the advantages of a capitalistic market.
That's my stand.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlyBfInS7ec
Ya thats pretty much my stand. And its pretty much the stand of Canada. (though things might be changing)
I make just south of 150k (CAN) but could certainly afford to pay 10k more in taxes. I think automation and various forms of AI (not really hard AI) will make huge swaths of the public as obsolete as horses. Of course investments in education could then possibly make some of these people productive again.
Lots of things here.
First, you seem overly concerned about semantics. "Universal basic income that is not universal is not Universal" is a tautology. There's no reason you assume you couldn't have UBI plus other government programs of some kind. The "universal" is that everyone gets it, universally, not that it's all you ever get for any reason.
Second, you bring up arguments against UBI that equally apply against current systems. "People are starving" and "10k isn't enough" might be true, that doesn't mean UBI isn't an improvement over the current situation.
Third - you bring up disabled people and children as if this couldn't possibly be addressed within UBI. Two ideas off the top of my head: include children in UBI (maybe at reduced rate?), and support disabled people with socialized medicine and other care (home care aids, whatever). You again seem to be assuming that UBI would be the only thing government would give to citizens.
Fourth - taxes/money. One thing is the cost savings may be greater than they seem, if UBI ends up reducing poverty and associated crime. We'll table that for now though. Corporate and VAT are hardly the only taxes you can tweak. Income tax is key, and yes, the "average" taxpayer will have to pay more, similar to the amount of UBI he receives. Maybe his tax rate will be 44%, or 40%, or 50% (I'm not going to check all your math, also you'd probably bump up corporate and VAT at the same time). Whether that is demotivating or not is a valid question, it's worth testing to see what the impact would be. As for "a hard working person will have barely more than a freeloader" - as long as you use marginal tax rates (and maybe you'd improve this with a continuous rather than discrete function), higher gross income always means higher net income. Will someone making 25k be really angry that someone lying at home makes 10k? Maybe. But in tests that have been done so far, there don't seem to be that many freeloaders. The people that worked less than they did before were new parents, people in school, and disabled people.
A lot of your arguments seem to be "UBI wouldn't be perfect" and I don't think that's a great argument against something. If you're against UBI, argue why UBI is worse than what we have currently.
Following your graph to the point where we give all people money but its not a replacement or above poverty i get the "your ubi is dumb". (basically UBI is icing on the cake for poor people)
UBI is a wealth/income transfer. Is that really what your objecting to ?
"How much will everybody get?" (choose) -> "Not enough to cover basic needs"
Leads to
"People are starving." -> "Your version of UBI is dumb."
Excuse me? People currently get $0, which is also less than people need to cover basic needs. If that kind of UBI is dumb, your status quo is dumb.
Your chart only looks at immediate benefits and costs, and then declares UBI dumb if it either requires any increase in spending at all, or it isn't a utopian system. It also seems to assume UBI encourages everyone stop being employed.
Your options aren't anywhere near exhaustive.
Your flowchart is the very height of false dichotomy.