Universal Basic Income/Andrew Yang Discussion

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

Do we know that? Or does university economically and socially select for liberal people?

By economic, do you mean that a liberal person is more likely to spend for the education?

Because I doubt there is a correlation between how liberal someone is and how wealthy they are.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by GGG

https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.cbc.ca/amp/1.5606188

There are negative consequences with enabling users to purchase narcotics.

This actually blows me away, and further reinforces my belief that any program based around hanging actual money out is going to miserably fail.

Nobody in the government cared about this specific problem when they starting sending cheques out, and nobody will care in the future.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by Red Slinger

I think it's important to remember that UBI is a proposed solution to a potential problem. Most rational people aren't proposing UBI under the current economic conditions but rather as a response to massive unemployment due to automation. It's impossible to say with certainty that this scenario would come to pass, but there are some indications that it's possible or even likely. If so, the socio-economic system will need to undergo a massive shift. Maybe UBI is a solution, maybe not.

Is there actual data to indicate that automation is going to lead to massive unemployment, or are people just fear mongering because of that?

Throughout history, automation has lead to substantial increase in job creation and our overall standard of living. Why do we think that will change?

Jobs have been shifted to other industries, and therefore we need to train and retrain for those industries.

[Harry Lime]

Originally Posted by Azure

This actually blows me away, and further reinforces my belief that any program based around hanging actual money out is going to miserably fail.

Nobody in the government cared about this specific problem when they starting sending cheques out, and nobody will care in the future.

Drug addicts spending their money on drugs? Couldn't see that coming. The thing that this article skirts over is that the CERB did not cause these people to become addicts. That and they were feeding their habits somehow without the funds from the gov't before the pandemic. The extra money accelerated their usage. Blaming their deaths on CERB is sidestepping the addiction itself in favor of convenience.

It's sad, but whether the idea of UBI is a winner or not, this particular argument feels like a baby with the bathwater scenario.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by Harry Lime

Drug addicts spending their money on drugs? Couldn't see that coming. The thing that this article skirts over is that the CERB did not cause these people to become addicts. That and they were feeding their habits somehow without the funds from the gov't before the pandemic. The extra money accelerated their usage. Blaming their deaths on CERB is sidestepping the addiction itself in favor of convenience.

It's sad, but whether the idea of UBI is a winner or not, this particular argument feels like a baby with the bathwater scenario.

Well sure it is a minor issue now, but in this supposed dystopian future we are heading towards, drug use is headed for an increase as well.

People that qualify for UBI (if we do it that way) are the same people who are more likely to have abuse issues.

Simply handing out money without conditions or programs to support these kinds of problems is a terrible idea.

Just reading through this thread and the different ideas, to me UBI will come down to something as basic as giving $10 to a homeless guy on the street thinking he might go buy himself a meal, but in reality he goes to get more drugs. To think otherwise is a bit delusional.

[Harry Lime]

Not to re-launch this discussion too much, but as this came across my screen I thought that I would plunk it down here.

Study done solely on the homeless, with one set payout of $7500. There seemed to be a fair share of abuse, but the amount of people who simply and immediately spent it on getting a place to stay was eye opening. Once they had their own place, the drop in consumption of alcohol, drugs and cigarettes went down significantly.

A UBI might not be economically feasible, but a yearly 'chance in hell' payment of $7500 for people making under $50K, $5000 for under $75K and $2500 for people under $100K, might make a pretty significant change in social program costs and crime rates.

Anyway. It's nice to see a positive study.

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1...560739328.html

[bizaro86]

I saw that piece. One thing about the study was how they selected the population.

All 115 participants, ranging in age between 19 and 64, had been homeless for at least six months and were not struggling with serious substance use or mental health issues.

I wonder what percentage of homeless people that includes - my guess would be pretty low.

I do agree that giving people money when they have none and that is their primary problem is almost certainly a value add. Those people can get back into the system and it probably reduces health care costs etc.

I'd be more cautious about giving large cash payments to people with substance abuse issues - it seems like there are some obvious potential issues there. And I'm not sure how you would differentiate that if you scaled this up vs just a study.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by Harry Lime

Not to re-launch this discussion too much, but as this came across my screen I thought that I would plunk it down here.

Study done solely on the homeless, with one set payout of $7500. There seemed to be a fair share of abuse, but the amount of people who simply and immediately spent it on getting a place to stay was eye opening. Once they had their own place, the drop in consumption of alcohol, drugs and cigarettes went down significantly.

A UBI might not be economically feasible, but a yearly 'chance in hell' payment of $7500 for people making under $50K, $5000 for under $75K and $2500 for people under $100K, might make a pretty significant change in social program costs and crime rates.

Anyway. It's nice to see a positive study.

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1...560739328.html

There are quite a few studies that have shown that some kind of housing support leads to positive results.

Whether that is in the form of rent support, mortgage payments, free housing, etc....I think it would help a lot.

Having a place to stay as you are trying to climb out of poverty or the lower class would be massive.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by bizaro86

I saw that piece. One thing about the study was how they selected the population.



I wonder what percentage of homeless people that includes - my guess would be pretty low.

I do agree that giving people money when they have none and that is their primary problem is almost certainly a value add. Those people can get back into the system and it probably reduces health care costs etc.

I'd be more cautious about giving large cash payments to people with substance abuse issues - it seems like there are some obvious potential issues there. And I'm not sure how you would differentiate that if you scaled this up vs just a study.

IIRC, 75+ per cent of homeless people have addiction or mental health issues.

[Harry Lime]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

IIRC, 75+ per cent of homeless people have addiction or mental health issues.

This would also go a long way to stopping people from becoming homeless in the first place.

[Leondros]

Originally Posted by Harry Lime

Not to re-launch this discussion too much, but as this came across my screen I thought that I would plunk it down here.

Study done solely on the homeless, with one set payout of $7500. There seemed to be a fair share of abuse, but the amount of people who simply and immediately spent it on getting a place to stay was eye opening. Once they had their own place, the drop in consumption of alcohol, drugs and cigarettes went down significantly.

A UBI might not be economically feasible, but a yearly 'chance in hell' payment of $7500 for people making under $50K, $5000 for under $75K and $2500 for people under $100K, might make a pretty significant change in social program costs and crime rates.

Anyway. It's nice to see a positive study.

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1...560739328.html

That scale feels way too high for me. Why should someone making $50K to $75K get $5 extra K? Same with the $100K band. That money would just go to luxury items.

I read the article and if the numbers are true, and we spend roughly $55K each year for society to fund social programs to keep the status quo, I am all for re allocating that type of money to help impoverished people.

2014 data has roughly 2.5M adults below the low income measure (at 2014 for a house of 4 it was $32K) and 235,000 are considered homeless. So that's roughly $13B in social programs catering to the homeless. To give everyone below the low income measure $10,000 it would be $25B or incrementally an extra $12B. That to me seems much more doable than the whole UBI discussion we had earlier in this thread.

[Ozy_Flame]

Originally Posted by bizaro86

I'd be more cautious about giving large cash payments to people with substance abuse issues - it seems like there are some obvious potential issues there. And I'm not sure how you would differentiate that if you scaled this up vs just a study.

I would say that the money assigned to them is vetted through an appointed advisor/care worker, to ensure the money is used appropriately. I would also be hesitant to give a lump sum of cash, especially for those who may not be mentally fit to make sound financial decisions by themselves.

[mrkajz44]

Originally Posted by bizaro86

I saw that piece. One thing about the study was how they selected the population.

I wonder what percentage of homeless people that includes - my guess would be pretty low.

I do agree that giving people money when they have none and that is their primary problem is almost certainly a value add. Those people can get back into the system and it probably reduces health care costs etc.

I'd be more cautious about giving large cash payments to people with substance abuse issues - it seems like there are some obvious potential issues there. And I'm not sure how you would differentiate that if you scaled this up vs just a study.

I think this study actually shows why UBI is a bad idea. Giving money to people who need it most is a really good idea. Blindly giving money to everyone is a bad idea. The real objective here is to keep improving our "social safety net" programs by getting proper support to those that really need it because:

1) It really doesn't "cost" that much because there are great benefits
2) It greatly benefits those that need it vs minor/no benefit for those that don't need it

[Bill Bumface]

Originally Posted by mrkajz44

I think this study actually shows why UBI is a bad idea. Giving money to people who need it most is a really good idea. Blindly giving money to everyone is a bad idea. The real objective here is to keep improving our "social safety net" programs by getting proper support to those that really need it because:

1) It really doesn't "cost" that much because there are great benefits
2) It greatly benefits those that need it vs minor/no benefit for those that don't need it

I disagree.

The problem with support programs with defined criteria, is at some point, someone hits a threshold that takes said support away. By making it a constant, there is no disincentive to improving yourself. Taxation should be used to make it a gradient of benefit, where high income earners who are nowhere near making decisions based on UBI have it clawed back via taxation.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

IIRC, 75+ per cent of homeless people have addiction or mental health issues.

This is why simply giving them money to pay for rent isn't going to work.

We could have controls in place to handle the rent for them.

Someone who is homeless and is given a place to stay could easily hold down a job if they are motivated. We've seen good success with these types of programs on a local level.

[GGG]

Housing first as a philosophy for homelessness usually has been shown to be a cost effective means of dealing with the issue.

It does create some perverse incentives so needs to be national policy to prevent migration.

[mrkajz44]

Originally Posted by Bill Bumface

I disagree.

The problem with support programs with defined criteria, is at some point, someone hits a threshold that takes said support away. By making it a constant, there is no disincentive to improving yourself. Taxation should be used to make it a gradient of benefit, where high income earners who are nowhere near making decisions based on UBI have it clawed back via taxation.

I think we are actually saying the same thing for the most part. Maybe I'm just getting hung up on wording, but UBI is universal - everyone gets it. My point is there should be a means test for those that actually need UBI-like support and it gets clawed back as they start to meet their own needs. Your suggestion of having it clawed by via taxation is the same concept, but just with a different mechanism.

[Harry Lime]

Originally Posted by GGG

Housing first as a philosophy for homelessness usually has been shown to be a cost effective means of dealing with the issue.

It does create some perverse incentives so needs to be national policy to prevent migration.

People barely holding onto existing housing needs to be part of the conversation, which is why UBI is on the board at all. Simply rotating homelessness would be detrimental.

There should be a way to identify the line between the cost of programs/crime/social constructs that deal with low income and the benefit of simply giving that to citizens with any threat of having to access those avenues of support.

The suggestion seems to be that line is $8000/year where government money spent/saved is a wash. (yes I understand that this is for people already on the street and accessing public housing and food resources, but the previous arrival at $20 000/year as being too expensive and effectively shutting down the conversation shouldn't be happening)

[Bill Bumface]

Originally Posted by mrkajz44

I think we are actually saying the same thing for the most part. Maybe I'm just getting hung up on wording, but UBI is universal - everyone gets it. My point is there should be a means test for those that actually need UBI-like support and it gets clawed back as they start to meet their own needs. Your suggestion of having it clawed by via taxation is the same concept, but just with a different mechanism.

Gotcha, I misinterpreted. As long as it doesn't get "removed" at some point, I think it can work. You just don't want anyone weighing a decision to improve themselves or progress with "You will lose X thousand dollars per month" as an element of that decision.

[mrkajz44]

Originally Posted by Bill Bumface

Gotcha, I misinterpreted. As long as it doesn't get "removed" at some point, I think it can work. You just don't want anyone weighing a decision to improve themselves or progress with "You will lose X thousand dollars per month" as an element of that decision.

Agreed, though even clawbacks can have a certain level of disincentive that comes along with it. I remember I worked with a guy who had 8 kids and he told me once that not getting a raise at work wasn't the worst thing in the world. He calculated his marginal rate to be around 75% since each extra dollar made clawed back a lot on other support programs. His situation was a bit unique, but that's still not an ideal scenario.

I think a good goal of something like UBI would be to prevent issues that like happening. Where we combine as many social programs into one as possible, so the clawback is slow and predictable and hopefully not a disincentive.