Re:The evidence behind putting money directly in the pockets...
by AnthonyMouse on Wednesday May 20, 2020 @03:52AM
(#23244394)
> Employers would have increase wages significantly above the UBI level in order to attract workers, but that would either erode the UBI through inflation or cause an inflationary spiral if the UBI were indexed.
Employers would not have to increase wages "significantly above the UBI level" because the UBI is paid in addition to wages. They might have to increase wages somewhat in order to convince people to do undesirable jobs, but isn't that a good thing?
It also makes automation of those jobs more profitable, which allows more people to do what they want to do instead of being forced into drudgery out of survival.
Meanwhile there is no obvious means for this to cause inflation because no additional money is inherently being created. There would merely be less income inequality because some money is transferred from executives and shareholders to workers when they have to pay higher wages.
The only real mechanism for inflation would be if you transferred money from people inclined to save it to people inclined to spend it immediately, but there is no way for that to consume the entire amount unless the supply of all goods and services is completely inelastic. Otherwise some of the money gets spent on things whose prices don't increase significantly with demand and you just get more production.
Meanwhile necessities with inelastic supply are evils in themselves, because it's nearly always an artificial barrier. If people had more money and housing supply is constrained then rents might go up, but the problem there isn't that people have more money, it's that housing supply is artificially constrained. A solution to one problem isn't defective just because it fails to solve a completely independent problem. We have to solve the other problem either way.
Employers would not have to increase wages "significantly above the UBI level" because the UBI is paid in addition to wages. They might have to increase wages somewhat in order to convince people to do undesirable jobs, but isn't that a good thing?
It also makes automation of those jobs more profitable, which allows more people to do what they want to do instead of being forced into drudgery out of survival.
Meanwhile there is no obvious means for this to cause inflation because no additional money is inherently being created. There would merely be less income inequality because some money is transferred from executives and shareholders to workers when they have to pay higher wages.
The only real mechanism for inflation would be if you transferred money from people inclined to save it to people inclined to spend it immediately, but there is no way for that to consume the entire amount unless the supply of all goods and services is completely inelastic. Otherwise some of the money gets spent on things whose prices don't increase significantly with demand and you just get more production.
Meanwhile necessities with inelastic supply are evils in themselves, because it's nearly always an artificial barrier. If people had more money and housing supply is constrained then rents might go up, but the problem there isn't that people have more money, it's that housing supply is artificially constrained. A solution to one problem isn't defective just because it fails to solve a completely independent problem. We have to solve the other problem either way.