Basic Income (aka Guaranteed Annual Income)

[NuclearPizzaMan]

Originally Posted by Rathji

Is that better or worse than someone who wastes money on iPads, Steam sales, and Candy Crush in-game purchases?

Worse, I'd say.

[Itse]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

I kinda disagree with this, you'd still need exception based social programs.

That's why I said "supposedly". I don't necessarily trust those calculations.

I would probably end up in the same earning bracket as I am now

That would be intentional. For most working people, their taxes would go up the same as they get from the government, making it a wash. This is a main reason why the program isn't as expensive as it sounds at first.

The idea is not to give everybody more money. The idea is to take a new approach to the way social benefits system works, essentially.

I would need to see how it would be implemented and how the so called savings in terms of different social programs and things like law enforcement would be executed and budgeted.

There are places that have already tried it and generally it seems the systems have been doing okay at worst. However, the experiments have been small in scale and often in countries that compare poorly to a country like Canada or Finland, like Namibia, India or Iran.

Check out mincome from wikipedia, that experiment was done in Canada in the seventies.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by AcGold

Well if they were taxed equally everywhere they'd have nowhere to run to.

Yeah, but unfortunately theres just no way to moderate or legislate that. In the case of France much of their financial elite just moved to Belgium who will happily take them in and cut them breaks because something is better than nothing.

[GGG]

I like the concept of a basic benefit that diminishes as you earn more money that eliminates a lot of the beuracracy of other progams. The biggest benefit of this is that instead of programs trying to target areas of need you have individuals spending money where they need it.

I think that people need to get over the idea that this program will only give people more money to waste on booze and alchohol. This generally is false. Poor people aren't poor because they are drug addicts or alchoholics. Most poor people are hard working people that you don't see. We need to accept that no matter what type of program we implement it will be abused by the alchoholics and drug addicts. That is okay as it costs more to prevent this abuse than it saves. So we should just write off the abuse money as part of cost of delivery and ignore it. Focus only on the cost to benefit ratio of the people you are trying to help: Children growing up in poor families.

[Fire]

It would make more sense to raise the personal exemption amount so citizens don't have to pay taxes on the first $18000 of earnings. It would encourage people to take the crappy jobs instead of staying home and watching TV all day.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Fire

It would make more sense to raise the personal exemption amount so citizens don't have to pay taxes on the first $18000 of earnings. It would encourage people to take the crappy jobs instead of staying home and watching TV all day.

I would guess then that the smart thing would be to bump tax rates on anything over 18k if I'm reading you right

[flamesfan6]

Originally Posted by Rathji

Is that better or worse than someone who wastes money on iPads, Steam sales, and Candy Crush in-game purchases?

i'd say worse because ipads, steam sales, candy crush don't lead to liver disease and other health problems as alcohol and drugs do.

[AcGold]

Originally Posted by flamesfan6

i'd say worse because ipads, steam sales, candy crush don't lead to liver disease and other health problems as alcohol and drugs do.

well they do cause health problems if abused so it's not completely erroneous.

[jonesy]

oops, i meant to quote Rathji, not thank him. Well i wanted to thank him for the candy crush part. my wife and all her sisters are addicted to candy crush

[crazy_eoj]

Originally Posted by Fire

It would make more sense to raise the personal exemption amount so citizens don't have to pay taxes on the first $18000 of earnings. It would encourage people to take the crappy jobs instead of staying home and watching TV all day.

That was my first thought as well.... should be the simplest solution wouldn't it?

Even with a 'duplicate' program of assured income for unemployed/unable to work it would be way less administration than paying out EVERYONE?

[Flames0910]

Originally Posted by Azure

I still think it should be dependent on results. If you want an apartment, you can have it, as long as you start becoming a 'stable' member of society. Simply passing on a house, or money, or anything else to people isn't going to work.

There are a variety of different ways to do this. I'm open to anything.

Find 500 people who live in poverty and try something new.

That was the original study. They just gave 3,000 pounds to thirteen of the homeless in London. The finding was that people had a better sense of how to spend the money than any kind of top-down program. A year after the program had completed, 11 of the 13 had a roof over their heads. They found it to be seven times more effective than traditional social programs. Here's the link: https://decorrespondent.nl/541/why-w...98745-cb9fbb39

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by crazy_eoj

That was my first thought as well.... should be the simplest solution wouldn't it?

Even with a 'duplicate' program of assured income for unemployed/unable to work it would be way less administration than paying out EVERYONE?

But isn't that already in place with unemployment and welfare, which are also to both be temporary programs?

[Hemi-Cuda]

Originally Posted by Azure

I still think it should be dependent on results. If you want an apartment, you can have it, as long as you start becoming a 'stable' member of society. Simply passing on a house, or money, or anything else to people isn't going to work.

There are a variety of different ways to do this. I'm open to anything.

Find 500 people who live in poverty and try something new.

There was someone on reddit who spoke about being homeless and how hard it is to work you way out of it. It's incredibly difficult to become that stable member of society when you can't get an apartment without income, you can't get a job without a bank account, and you can't get a bank account without a fixed address

http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview...oor_to/cfb0dxu

How many people do you think are out there that could have become a valuable member of society, but ended up making some poor choices and ultimately gave up after they were unable to fix those mistakes?

[Hack&Lube]

Originally Posted by Hemi-Cuda

There was someone on reddit who spoke about being homeless and how hard it is to work you way out of it. It's incredibly difficult to become that stable member of society when you can't get an apartment without income, you can't get a job without a bank account, and you can't get a bank account without a fixed address

http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview...oor_to/cfb0dxu

How many people do you think are out there that could have become a valuable member of society, but ended up making some poor choices and ultimately gave up after they were unable to fix those mistakes?

IIRC, one of the homeless on Reddit received help from a social program and is now doing a graduate degree in science.

[Hemi-Cuda]

Originally Posted by Hack&Lube

IIRC, one of the homeless on Reddit received help from a social program and is now doing a graduate degree in science.

Exactly, which is why I think something like a guaranteed income would be better than a huge jumble of social assistance programs with different rules, regulation, and hoops to jump through. That person posted in the same thread I linked and is one of the lucky ones. How many more are there who weren't as lucky, who might have been saved with a basic income program?

I was approved for Social Security Disability. Within six months, I was living indoors, and enrolled in community college with a 4.0 taking 19 credit hours. I'm currently finishing my graduate degree (science).
Could never have escaped the streets without SSD. There's just way too much bull#### that thwarted my best efforts. Despite years of hard work and continuously trying, there were too many setbacks, #######s, and fiery hoops to jump though.
I would have died under a bridge if I hadn't gotten SSD.

[CaptainCrunch]

But what she got isn't really any different then a standard social program. These things are basically available now.

Are they perfect? No, but i don't think we need to spend the money on a whole new program when we should have ones that service specific sectors of the population (welfare, UI, Disability, Pension.

[Azure]

So what exactly is Social Security Disability?

I'm still not sure what social programs would be dissolved and folded into this lump sum check or month stipend that people will get.

I mean I'm fine with finding a more efficient way to deliver welfare programs to the needy, but I'm not seeing what exactly would be different here. Isn't disability pay just that? A cheque from the government based on meeting certain 'requirements?' How would that change if we combine stuff together?

[Flash Walken]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

But what she got isn't really any different then a standard social program. These things are basically available now.

Are they perfect? No, but i don't think we need to spend the money on a whole new program when we should have ones that service specific sectors of the population (welfare, UI, Disability, Pension.

Maybe the new program is more better than the imperfect model that currently is inefficient?

Not to sound too callous here, but it's next to impossible to access many of these programs while dealing with the issues that make one eligible to access them in the first place. I think it's easy to say these programs are in place and should work, but, when was the last time you were homeless and tried to access them?

I've seen it first and second hand. Without an advocate or an organization advocating on your behalf, many of these are closed programs completely inaccessible to the people who need them the most.

The other aspect is that these programs are also woefully underfunded in the first place, especially for urban centres like Calgary, Toronto and Vancouver where the cost of living is exceptionally high.

Yes, it's anecdotal that that person has gone on to graduate studies and will likely become a highly paid (and thus highly taxed), contributing member of society, but I think you'd find that many of the people who cannot access these programs have similar abilities. With what we are finding out now about developmental disorders such as Autism, we as a society are cutting off our noses to spite our face by not taking a critical view of what the actual cost/benefit result is of the whole orientation of social programs.

[Rathji]

Originally Posted by NuclearPizzaMan

Worse, I'd say.

So you would be okay with people blowing $100 on tapped out donuts, but not on pot?

[Rathji]

Originally Posted by flamesfan6

i'd say worse because ipads, steam sales, candy crush don't lead to liver disease and other health problems as alcohol and drugs do.

You could say that video game addiction would cause many health and social issues.