Re:We Need a Basic Income Guarantee
by yason on Monday September 02, 2013 @04:06AM
(#6314003)
BI isn't so much of a radically new idea because nearly all if not each and every (at least non-developing) country in the world already does provide some sort of welfare and/or unemployment benefits.
Currently this is generally done in a highly inefficient manner though dozens or hundreds of different subsidies and benefits, and it costs a lot to process everything through a thick wall of bureaucracy, and it still ends up being unfair and unmotivational to many. The canonical class of problems is that it doesn't make sense to work because your benefits received would drop in direct proportion to what you get paid. Or it's simply forbidden work even a little in order to be eligible to receive benefits.
The point of BI is to redistribute the already redistributed money in a fair and simple way: everyone gets something that may or just may not be enough to live on its own, but there are no questions asked and if you work on top of that, you scoop most of the extra money to yourself after taxes.
If you're really, really a scrooge you might just make it with the BI only if you're willing to drop your standard of living a couple of decades back. But most people want more money and they'll work for it, if it's five hours a week or 20 hours a week, and they don't lose BI if they do. For any middle-class adult, BI would simply translate into a slightly lower tax rate. They would still get $500 of BI per month or so, but because they would make $5000 per month in salary on top of that the significance of BI would be marginal.
Currently this is generally done in a highly inefficient manner though dozens or hundreds of different subsidies and benefits, and it costs a lot to process everything through a thick wall of bureaucracy, and it still ends up being unfair and unmotivational to many. The canonical class of problems is that it doesn't make sense to work because your benefits received would drop in direct proportion to what you get paid. Or it's simply forbidden work even a little in order to be eligible to receive benefits.
The point of BI is to redistribute the already redistributed money in a fair and simple way: everyone gets something that may or just may not be enough to live on its own, but there are no questions asked and if you work on top of that, you scoop most of the extra money to yourself after taxes.
If you're really, really a scrooge you might just make it with the BI only if you're willing to drop your standard of living a couple of decades back. But most people want more money and they'll work for it, if it's five hours a week or 20 hours a week, and they don't lose BI if they do. For any middle-class adult, BI would simply translate into a slightly lower tax rate. They would still get $500 of BI per month or so, but because they would make $5000 per month in salary on top of that the significance of BI would be marginal.