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RE: The End Of Jobs... UBI

in #busy5 years ago

In my opinion, this analysis breaks down at #1. Let's suppose, as you do, that UBI at a level of $1,000 has been implemented. Let's assume it's done by introducing negative taxation meaning that the tax rates are adjusted so as to make $1,000 the minimum take home income regardless of how much you earn and that, at some point below average earnings, you become a net payer instead of a net recipient.

You say:

Those who pay taxes and work are angry. Those who feel they will receive are happy. The budget is done and they begin to print and mail checks. Many keep working, but those who hate their jobs quit and decide to collect UBI.

I don't think living on $1,000 will make anyone happy. If you don't believe me, ask people who subsist on benefits like that. The very reason a growing number of people will be forced to live on that kind of money is that jobs requiring a low skill level will be automated. There wouldn't be enough jobs paying $1,000 to $2,000 to go around. Those people who would be willing to quit a job in which they earn $3,000-$4,000 or more just to get to live on $1,000 without working would be few and far between. There is a massive difference between the lifestyle you can have earning the current average full time salary and $1,000. Besides, jobs are not only a source of income but identity and self-respect for a large majority of people.

Do you really expect a lot of people to sacrifice the financial well-being and future of their own and their dependents for an opportunity to collect a small fraction of what they earned previously for the opportunity to sit around all day, do nothing and feel completely useless? Do you think that would sit well with their spouses for one thing especially if they're husbands?

UBI will be introduced simply to replace the much more complicated bureaucratic, and expensive-to-run systems of welfare already in place. The problem with the current welfare systems is that they tend to be unsuited to the needs of modern working life requiring constant updating of skills and the gig economy becoming a larger part of the labor market. From what I've heard, there are significant discouraging elements to the way unemployment benefits and the means tested income support system work where I live.

What about dismantling current welfare systems altogether if they are so problematic? If you did that, it would be courting disaster. Not a penny would ultimately be saved as the basic problem of rapidly changing skill distribution demanded on the labor market will not only persist but become worse. Even higher costs would be incurred elsewhere like the criminal justice system. Why wouldn't current welfare recipients simply get jobs instead? Because if you look at not simply the number of jobs available but the pay available from those jobs, you will see that employers are increasingly unwilling and unable to pay a living wage except for jobs requiring much higher than average IQ. There is a huge demand for competent software engineers, in particular. The problem with that is that the typical laid off middle manager or industrial worker does not have sufficient innate intelligence to learn programming anywhere near as well as is required for anyone to make a living on it.

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This is the kind of ubi i agree with. It uses existing social welfare monies to make the system more efficient.

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Yes, that's the idea. It isn't without problems, however. About €1,000 is someone living alone and not able to get a job would get in form of unemployment benefit, housing support and means tested income support put together where I live. The problem is that you can't pay everyone that much because it would cost way too much. But if you only paid, say, a half of that, a lot of people would end up in the street. What I'm proposing is implementing UBI in a gradual manner. There are benefits that are part of basic welfare that are mutually exclusive such as unemployment benefits and the state-paid minimum pension. Those components should be replaced with UBI because, in practice, you collect one of them no matter what if you're not working for one reason or another. One good thing about implementing UBI gradually and starting from a lower level is the opportunity to gain information on UBI works.

Actually youbare right, some people like babies won't need it and people with jobs would be happy with tax write offs. Tax deductibles and rebates, etc. are already over 2000 per month in most developed countries. Simplfying the tax code would save us billions.

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The $1000 was arbitrary and I should have said that. Meaning it was a made up number. No one is going to pay people to not work for any length of time it is unsustainable and will quickly collapse on its self. It's just an opinion. I love how people say, what it WILL be.

It's a fantasy, some form of it will likely be briefly introduced before it brings whatever nation that launches it to its knees. If you can't get companies to pay a living wage to people for working, how will they pay people for not working and more importantly... why

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