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The idea of giving people free money is so radical, even some recipients think it's too good to be true.
Later this year, roughly 6,000 people in Kenya will receive regular monthly payments of about a dollar a day, no strings attached, as part of a policy experiment commonly known as basic income.
People will get to use the money for whatever they want: food, clothing, shelter, gambling, alcohol — anything — all in an effort to reduce poverty.
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But instead of accepting the cash transfers with open arms, many Kenyans have recently been saying "No, thank you." It's a legitimate concern: As GiveDirectly moves into its larger basic income experiment, the last thing it wants is for people to turn down the money.
Basic Income is a concept often mentioned on SN, and this is an experiment to do exactly that. Many potential recipients of the basic income are skeptical about the goals of the experiment, though, and rumors have arisen that it's tied to a cult or devil worship.
Opponents of such wealth transfers argue they lead to indolence, while another school of thought believes they would reduce poverty and directly produce economic stimulus because the poor would immediately spend the money.
(Score: 5, Informative) by theluggage on Monday September 12 2016, @07:52AM
At least in a developed country, the money should come from:
(a) raising taxes - anybody on a decent wage should be paying back the basic income in new tax. Plus business taxes - currently many businesses are being stealthily subsidised by the government's welfare payments to low-income workers, enabling businesses to employ labour for less than its real cost.
(b) cutting virtually all government welfare payments (with a few exceptions for people with genuine additional needs) - and consequently also saving on admin.
Long term, as automation advances, there simply won't be enough jobs for anything approaching full employment and something like this will be essential. This was predicted decades ago, but the waters have been muddied by driving down wages, relatively, for mass labour to keep it cheaper than automation.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by LoRdTAW on Monday September 12 2016, @03:32PM
I think most of that has to do with the fact that automation isn't quite there yet. There are still many processes that a machine cant perform. Mainly fine visual inspection, fine manipulation of parts, and smaller shops that handle low volume which cant justify the cost of automation.
It'll come though. And well have no choice but to implement a social system to keep people from starving. Once a reasonable AI is formed, everyone is in trouble. But not because of terminators, but because now any task can be automated and all jobs are under threat. Once you have robots moping floors, picking fruits and vegetables, assembling cars start to finish, and designing those systems, we're in a whole new era.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by theluggage on Monday September 12 2016, @04:26PM
I think most of that has to do with the fact that automation isn't quite there yet....
...and smaller shops that handle low volume which cant justify the cost of automation.
...and one factor in that is that there's no pressure to invest in automation - let alone do expensive R&D in automation - when the price of labour is kept artificially low by outsourcing it to low-wage economies and/or having a welfare system that enables below-living wages.
Basic Income could even speed up the move to automation if it makes people less willing to work for peanuts: that all comes down to the fine-tuning of the tax clawback rate (how much of the extra income do you get to keep?)
(Score: 2) by CirclesInSand on Monday September 12 2016, @07:40PM
anybody on a decent wage
Love how you say "on a decent wage" rather than "earning a decent wage". It's like they just go to the mailbox and happen to find a wage there. But the term "earning" raises some nasty moral questions, so better to avoid it, and pretend that being "on a wage" is just like being "on welfare", right?
Plus business taxes
Yeah...pretending to tax the "business", not the people who own or work in the business.
currently many businesses are being stealthily subsidised by the government's welfare payments to low-income workers, enabling businesses to employ labour for less than its real cost.
If those so-called subsidies actually provided value to the business, then you wouldn't need to tax the business to recover the cost. You could just end the subsidy. You are trying to argue that because of a make believe benefit of a small amount of value, you are justified to tax a tremendous amount back (and disproportionately) in return.
and consequently also saving on admin
The creation of a new government program that will reduce bureaucracy? Let me know when that happens.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 13 2016, @01:42AM
anybody on a decent wage
Love how you say "on a decent wage" rather than "earning a decent wage". It's like they just go to the mailbox and happen to find a wage there. But the term "earning" raises some nasty moral questions, so better to avoid it, and pretend that being "on a wage" is just like being "on welfare", right?
He could have said "Anyone lucky enough to still have a job."
Plus business taxes
Yeah...pretending to tax the "business", not the people who own or work in the business.
The business is a separate legal entity with all the rights that entails, so taxing them is not taking the people who own or work in the business. It's taxing the business
currently many businesses are being stealthily subsidised by the government's welfare payments to low-income workers, enabling businesses to employ labour for less than its real cost.
If those so-called subsidies actually provided value to the business, then you wouldn't need to tax the business to recover the cost. You could just end the subsidy. You are trying to argue that because of a make believe benefit of a small amount of value, you are justified to tax a tremendous amount back (and disproportionately) in return.
Ending the subsidies means people go hungry or without medical treatment and get replaced by the company. What is the lost to the company if that's ended?
and consequently also saving on admin
The creation of a new government program that will reduce bureaucracy? Let me know when that happens.
It's not the creation of a new government program; it's the replacement of many labor-intensive programs with a single, very simple to administer program. This is both directly in the form of medicare, medicaid, welfare, etc. and indirectly in the busy work jobs programs like the TSA.
Your understanding of UBI is on par with your understanding of life in poverty.
(Score: 2) by theluggage on Tuesday September 13 2016, @12:12PM
Love how you say "on a decent wage" rather than "earning a decent wage".
So, people who are on a decent wage but aren't earning it (e.g. [insert the name of your least-respected profession here]) shouldn't pay tax? Context - you might have heard of it. Or you could stop playing silly word games like some sort of libertarian inversion of the SJW stereotype.
If those so-called subsidies actually provided value to the business, then you wouldn't need to tax the business to recover the cost. You could just end the subsidy.
That's the problem with these indirect, stealth subsidies - cutting them directly takes a long time to trickle down to the real beneficiary, if at all. Cut the welfare payments to the "working poor" and they can't afford next week's rent, so first thing you get is public pressure to do something about the poor starving kids and, lo, the payments get put back again. The happened in the UK last year [theguardian.com] ("Tax Credits" is the UK euphemism for welfare payments to low-wage employees) - whether it was cockup or conspiracy (you asked us to cut working welfare payments - we tried) is anybody's guess.
The creation of a new government program that will reduce bureaucracy?
Oh, I agree, the whole universal income idea will probably fail because what actually gets implemented will some kludgey political compromise that attempts to please everybody but completely misses the point of the original idea. In particular, the system would need some sort of fairly degrading remedial "voucher" system for people who prove unable to manage their money, and for that to be fair, the universal income does actually have to be enough to live on, there needs to be adequate provision of addiction clinics, mental health care, affordable housing... However, its not like the current system of welfare payments (even in the free market paradise of the USA) doesn't share those problems - done properly, universal income should be a lot simpler, fairer and possibly cheaper.
Then, there will always be those who simply resent the idea of anybody getting something for nothing and would rather waste taxpayers money in a Quixotic effort to change human nature by trying to limit welfare to the "deserving".