That is massively different from utilities
£1.6k wouldn’t even cover half of that for me.
Universal Basic Income
- Thread starter esmufc07
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£1.6k wouldn’t even cover half of that for me.
Living on the breadline doesn't deincentivise work.
And I agree this trial is useless. A proper trial at scale is required.
My rent alone is more than that.
For the average person, no. But I can immediately think of many circumstances where it could impact someone’s decision to work, or at least continue to work full time.
For single people I don't see this having much of an impact in terms of stopping work. In terms of couples I can see more having the ability to have one person go part time/stop working.
It would also incentivise work as currently you often can't do low paid/part time work without having what litter social security you get cut. You also waste loads of time jumping through useless hoops to make sure you don't get your payments cut. All of which humiliates the majority in this situation who would love to earn more. Very very few people want to sit on their arse and live in poverty on social benefits alone.
Precisely. And what about individuals or couples closing in on retirement? What about those already living well under this level of income? I’m sure there’s many other scenarios where it could result in less people being part of the active workforce.
I don’t disagree with anything here except the point about incentivising work. I cannot see a scenario where more people will want to work because of this. Of course, many peoples work life and ambitions won’t change, but I don’t see what the incentive is because of this directly.
I'm 59. If UBI came in it would make zero difference to me as I need to earn as much as possible before I retire. After I retire the UBI would be instead of my age pension.
That’s your scenario. But might not be the case for everyone.
Lots of people on social benefits would work more if we didn't currently penalise them for doing so.
For a few who want to retire doing and affording nothing maybe. And given that if any more employment came available there are lots of ubemployed people to take up the slack. People seem to think that unemployed people don't want to work for some reason.
UBI is inevitable so the sooner we start to implement the better. Arguments about incentives to work etc have gone on since unemployment pay was introduced over 100 years ago. The whole concept of employment in general isn't much older.
Things change and we need to adapt to new realities. The reality is that pretty much every "job" will disappear in the next 100 years.
Things change and we need to adapt to new realities. The reality is that pretty much every "job" will disappear in the next 100 years.
That's the usual theory about people being inherently lazy and not working if they can avoid it. But that's not what studies say. The vast majority of people find work valorizing. Even if people might initially think this UBI allows them to quit work, it won't last for most people - they'll want to have work to feel part of society. UBI anyway isn't a free goldmine; it's supposed to be a liveable wage (possibly adjusted by location), which is really pretty minimal in terms of what you can get out of it.
Other than that, it does give people flexibility - for the better. A much bigger test done in Manitoba decades ago showed that people would more often go for additional education or training (bettering their professional position); might be less likely to work overtime and to do volunteering and make for family and hobbies instead (better for society and mental health).
It would also provide a better safety net. The US is often touted (certainly by people from the US) as the most entrepeneurial country in the world, but it's not; countries like Sweden do much better in that sense - because its social safety net allows people to take business risks without the same chance of completely ruining yourself financially for the rest of your life. UBI would provide a similar situation.
I know this wasn't your argument, but the inflation point (often brought up) is ridiculous. Enabling the unemployed and working poor to have a liveable wage does not drive up inflation unsustainably. It's a gross exaggeration of these people's economic influence. In fact, even current arguments that wages shouldnt match current inflation levels as that creates a vicious circle are nonsense: in Quebec, raising salaries by 6.5% would only add 0.8% to inflation. (Link, in French.)
Finally, as for costs, there are two things to consider. First, as many pointed out, a huge government machinery could be dismantled if UBI were implemented, plus all other welfare payments, which would compensate for a lot of the costs of a UBI program. (Plus there's the advantage removing the social discomfort of having to prove you're poor enough to receive various benefits!) And second, for whatever cost is left - why shouldn't it be a government priority to ensure people have a liveable wage? If that means increasing the top tax bracket of business profit taxes, would that really hurt society? What's the priority here?
Are you all millionaires?
If it was implemented right now, it will enable people to work jobs that they wouldn't be able to without UBI if those jobs wouldn't cover their cost of living. It would also encourage entrepreneurship. Imagine you had a great business idea but couldn't follow it up because you had to hold down a full time job. You could go part time or quit your current job and focus on your new venture without having to gamble the food on your table.
This is of course only my personal experience and it doesn't apply to most people. I work as a freelancer so I don't have a fixed income. Sometimes I can't work because I struggle a lot with depression and anxiety, it just kicks me in a way where I can't work for a day or two. I'd say most of this anxiety comes from financial concerns, I don't earn much so I live month by month. When I'm paying the bills and doing the math I just feel like drowning. Luckily I have always been able to pay for everything and never needed to ask my family or friends for help. But I know my health suffers because of this.
My landlady has told me she is planning on selling my apartment at the end of 2024 and going by the current market, I don't see how I'll be able to rent another apartment (my current rent is below market because I know my landlady since I was a kid and she offered me a good deal). The prospect of having to go back to my mom's house is absolutely destroying me.
I'm saying all this because I believe that if got UBI I would actually work more and be more productive. Just being able to not think about money all the time, not having these concerns of whether I'll have my own place in the near future or if I'll be able to pay for all my expenses it would probably transform me into a new person. Those days of being unable to work would mostly be gone. I would probably even go back to school.
I know this is a very specific situation, but I believe a lot of people are on the same boat, we see rates of depression and anxiety going up among the youth and that's mostly because of financial anxieties, no job prospects, rent market all fecked up, etc. Sure, we would have a percentage of people who would just not work, but I don't believe for a second that would be a high percentage. Once those worries about basic needs would be gone, people would invest in themselves, education, doing something they like or even something they don't like but without the stress of knowing their lives depend on it so they're stuck, it would be more manageable.
My experience talking about this topic, and I know a pretty diverse group of people, is that the idea most people would turn into lazy shits who would not work and spend all day doing nothing is completely false. Even those who would not directly work, would probably do volunteer work, help elderly family members, etc which would indirectly help society and save the state money.
Anyway, yeah...
My landlady has told me she is planning on selling my apartment at the end of 2024 and going by the current market, I don't see how I'll be able to rent another apartment (my current rent is below market because I know my landlady since I was a kid and she offered me a good deal). The prospect of having to go back to my mom's house is absolutely destroying me.
I'm saying all this because I believe that if got UBI I would actually work more and be more productive. Just being able to not think about money all the time, not having these concerns of whether I'll have my own place in the near future or if I'll be able to pay for all my expenses it would probably transform me into a new person. Those days of being unable to work would mostly be gone. I would probably even go back to school.
I know this is a very specific situation, but I believe a lot of people are on the same boat, we see rates of depression and anxiety going up among the youth and that's mostly because of financial anxieties, no job prospects, rent market all fecked up, etc. Sure, we would have a percentage of people who would just not work, but I don't believe for a second that would be a high percentage. Once those worries about basic needs would be gone, people would invest in themselves, education, doing something they like or even something they don't like but without the stress of knowing their lives depend on it so they're stuck, it would be more manageable.
My experience talking about this topic, and I know a pretty diverse group of people, is that the idea most people would turn into lazy shits who would not work and spend all day doing nothing is completely false. Even those who would not directly work, would probably do volunteer work, help elderly family members, etc which would indirectly help society and save the state money.
Anyway, yeah...
I'm sorry to hear about your situation - that doesn't sound great! But I agree, I think your story is among the reasons why we need something like UBI in the world. Obviously, there are many different people with many different situations, but every examples helps to paint the picture of the need for this program.
And as for your last paragraph: actual studies agree, few people would choose to stay home and sit on their bums all day.
All points well made. I don’t purport to be able to judge, on the balance of all relevant factors, how it would play out. But I would say that it’s a grand assumption to think my point was based on the lazy argument that people don’t want to work. I for one enjoy working (to an extent!) and feck knows what I would do with my time if I didn’t work. So rest assured I’m not starting off from a position of “people generally don’t want to work”. My point is solely that I can easily envisage certain scenarios where people may well stop working, partially or fully, as a result of this. Like feck I know if that would be more people than those in situations as some have described above where some may be incentivised to work more. Just saying that there are certainly people where this risk exists.
Ultimately, it’s a significant shift in economics which no one truly knows how all the different factors offset. I am not either for or against it as such, and in some ways a viable version of this would perhaps be the most preferred outcome, but my immediate feeling was that there should (note, should - not are) be better ways of implementing something like this. If we are going to go down this route, which would be as I said a radical shift, then such radical other options should also be explored, whatever they may be, which ultimately results in more money going to those who need it.
Isn't it part of the idea behind UBI that less people will be required to work due to the advancement of AI and automation in the workplace? It could also help towards more people working part time and job sharing, creating more roles for more people.
That’s the logic yes. Or at least part of it. But there surely has to be a catch here - less people working means less income - so how does UBI get funded in the first place? Yes we’d have less spend on the benefits system. Perhaps taxes would increase for those in work. Perhaps overall GDP would increase due to more efficient output as a result of AI and automation. I don’t know. But the book needs balancing.
None of which will be answered by 30 people studies. Hell, even trying to ascertain changes in peoples habits can’t even be ascertained by this.
Even on salaried work this applies. Being freelance adds a whole other level of uncertainty!
The anxiety of living paycheck to paycheck with no fallback used to be out of sight out of mind for a lot of people. You'll find few people under 40 these days that wouldn't be absolutely fecked if they went a month or two without their salary. It's what forces people into jobs they hate. It limits their ambitions to taking jobs they hate just as much but pay slightly better in the hope it gives them a little bit more breathing room. It's not a healthy environment.
That is correct but the premise that AI and automation will displace workers is flawed, new types of jobs appear as old ones disappear, I read something recently that said 40% or so of all jobs in the US today didn't exist 50-60 years ago.
The introduction of automation should equate to bigger profits for companies, therefore increasing how much Corporation Tax they will pay. Imagine tax rates would go up a little too, both income and corporation.
If I recall correctly, Andrew Yang said that Tech companies would be taxed more as well to cover the cost
Aye I can see the logic. Though, ensuring those profits end up taxed in the UK would be very important obviously. So lots of work to be done from that perspective too.
Automation is exponential. There isn't a job that exists today or tomorrow that can't be done by a machine in the future.
That is true, however I imagine the type of jobs you'd expect automation to take over are those where there are a large workforce, for example manufacturing, so the numbers of people being made redundant in their field will likely be quite large in comparison to modern jobs. That of course is a bit of a guess, but I would assume most of the modern jobs are more service related.
Oh definitely. Something that has needed to be sorted in this country for a long time.
But that would potentially create 2 part time jobs for other people who only want to work 2-3 days a week.
So it wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing.
Snuck that one in there!
Half my bills to be fair, will probably be 3/4 this time next year
How do you know? You can't possible conceive of what might happen in the future
I'm no Mystic Meg but common sense and a basic understanding of technology is all you need to see where we are heading
There's literally loads of them. Anything healthcare related, most things construction related.
We're one step closer to a Star Trek idealism that everyone just works for the fun of it, doesn't get paid and lives in a spaceship.
Half my bills to be fair, will probably be 3/4 this time next year
By my terrible maths sounds like you’re still keeping it under a grand. Which is impressive.
Types of work will evolve as technology changes, there's plenty of historical examples to show this, some jobs die out and new ones appear over time
I'm not sure manufacturing is a good example to use though, this is an industry where automation has been happening for decades and the numbers currently employed is a fraction of what it used to be
Once we develop a machine that scans you and can diagnose to precision what your ailment is and what treatment you require, do you need doctors?
Why do you need humans for construction? Most of it is already done by machines.
RU sure you're not Elon Musk in disguise?