Except of course none of these are UBI experiments. The U has been completely forgotten.
They’re trying to water down the idea of UBI to renaming “benefits”. There’s only one class of people who would find this advantageous, and it ain’t us.
The reality is that we won’t know for sure how it works across an entire population until a small country changes its tax structure to make this possible across everyone. Would people quit shit jobs more often? Would minimum wage be abolished? How much work is considered saturation when all the crap is stripped away?
Real actual UBI would be an enormous societal change (I believe for the better), and I’m not sure that giving a handful of poor people some money and watching them spend it on things they need to survive is particularly worthwhile. We know that. It’s everyone else that might throw a spanner in the works.
This has been my primary question about UBI: if landlords know that everybody has an extra $1000 per month, what stops them from raising rent by exactly that amount?
My biggest concern with UBI is that it would be great for a couple of years, and then the greedy fingers of capitalism would find a way to start clawing it back. I don’t see how UBI works without including a bunch of protections to keep the newly financially stable populace from being exploited again.
Because not everyone has an extra $1000 a month. The median working person’s tax will increase to the point that the UBI is wiped out (and high earners will find their tax burden more than it is now). This is how it works. It’s not free money on top of your existing money. It’s a barrier at the low end preventing money from going below a certain level.
I see, so it sort of scales where they take some or all of the UBI back in taxes based on your income? Would the tax evasion that is common with the ultra-rich thwart this design?
And if only the poorest demographic has the extra $1000, then wouldn’t that concentrate potential price increases in low income neighborhoods?
Thank you for answering my questions and feel free to tap out whenever, I just haven’t had the chance to ask anyone about this who seems to have done any real research on it.
Well the ultra rich don’t really pay a level of income tax that reflects their wealth anyway, but even if they were actively trying to fiddle things any amount of UBI would be but a rounding error in their finances. For the actual rich, nothing short of a wealth tax will do.
As for the second question, possibly. Although UBI does replace benefits, and I’d wager most low income neighbourhood are already using those benefits to top up landlord retirement funds anyway. UBI is as much about letting people have the money without making them balance it on their nose first while praising the glorious taxpayers that fund it.
Oh look UBI experiment number 1578 says the same thing.
And people will still ignore it and pretend UBI is unproven.
Except of course none of these are UBI experiments. The U has been completely forgotten.
They’re trying to water down the idea of UBI to renaming “benefits”. There’s only one class of people who would find this advantageous, and it ain’t us.
The reality is that we won’t know for sure how it works across an entire population until a small country changes its tax structure to make this possible across everyone. Would people quit shit jobs more often? Would minimum wage be abolished? How much work is considered saturation when all the crap is stripped away?
Real actual UBI would be an enormous societal change (I believe for the better), and I’m not sure that giving a handful of poor people some money and watching them spend it on things they need to survive is particularly worthwhile. We know that. It’s everyone else that might throw a spanner in the works.
This has been my primary question about UBI: if landlords know that everybody has an extra $1000 per month, what stops them from raising rent by exactly that amount?
My biggest concern with UBI is that it would be great for a couple of years, and then the greedy fingers of capitalism would find a way to start clawing it back. I don’t see how UBI works without including a bunch of protections to keep the newly financially stable populace from being exploited again.
Because not everyone has an extra $1000 a month. The median working person’s tax will increase to the point that the UBI is wiped out (and high earners will find their tax burden more than it is now). This is how it works. It’s not free money on top of your existing money. It’s a barrier at the low end preventing money from going below a certain level.
I see, so it sort of scales where they take some or all of the UBI back in taxes based on your income? Would the tax evasion that is common with the ultra-rich thwart this design?
And if only the poorest demographic has the extra $1000, then wouldn’t that concentrate potential price increases in low income neighborhoods?
Thank you for answering my questions and feel free to tap out whenever, I just haven’t had the chance to ask anyone about this who seems to have done any real research on it.
Well the ultra rich don’t really pay a level of income tax that reflects their wealth anyway, but even if they were actively trying to fiddle things any amount of UBI would be but a rounding error in their finances. For the actual rich, nothing short of a wealth tax will do.
As for the second question, possibly. Although UBI does replace benefits, and I’d wager most low income neighbourhood are already using those benefits to top up landlord retirement funds anyway. UBI is as much about letting people have the money without making them balance it on their nose first while praising the glorious taxpayers that fund it.