Universal basic income

Sounds very ideological like the poll tax and would start a race to the bottom.
 
Nothing new really. We've already made the ideological/economic decision around 40 years ago that it made more sense to have an underclass on benefits than a working class earning a wage. This is just a rebranding of tax credits, housing benefit and income support which run by the Tories will probably ammount to less per person than those things do now.
 
Rascal said:
Back in the news, trials starting in certain areas.
Click to expand...

Yes saw the news earlier today: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-65806599

In my opinion we have to find a way to make this work because I think the scale of redundancies we will see from technology in the next 10 years may be unlike anything we've seen before. That's not to mention the increasingly unaffordable state of things as wages stagnate but prices go up.

There have been numerous pilot studies from other countries already with various criteria and varying levels of income supplementation. Without proclaiming to be an expert, the common observations are that it doesn't reduce employment as some might fear it would - in fact it leads to increases in risk-taking, entrepreneurship and new business start-ups, it also generally leads to better health outcomes and quality of life - thus reducing public health spending.

The issue always comes down to funding and affordability. The catch-22 of UBI is that the theoretical benefits are nearly impossible to prove by dipping your toe. Yes, it could lead to huge increases in average earning potential, education levels, health outcomes etc. thus increasing tax revenues, while decreasing spend on existing expensive bureaucracy. The problem is you would only see that kind of benefit over decades, not in 2-3 years. That is the big flaw with all of these trials.

I imagine at some point a country will decide to be the proper guinea pig and jump in the deep end, and we'll watch and wait. I think there has to be a balanced approach, maybe some kind of slow progressive change or ratcheting up of a 'minimum income guarantee' that we can change over a number of years that gives us the opportunity to roll things back if it's not working.
 
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SkyBlueFlux said:
Yes saw the news earlier today: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-65806599

In my opinion we have to find a way to make this work because I think the scale of redundancies we will see from technology in the next 10 years may be unlike anything we've seen before. That's not to mention the increasingly unaffordable state of things as wages stagnate but prices go up.

There have been numerous pilot studies from other countries already with various criteria and varying levels of income supplementation. Without proclaiming to be an expert, the common observations are that it doesn't reduce employment as some might fear it would - in fact it leads to increases in risk-taking, entrepreneurship and new business start-ups, it also generally leads to better health outcomes and quality of life - thus reducing public health spending.

The issue always comes down to funding and affordability. The catch-22 of UBI is that the theoretical benefits are nearly impossible to prove by dipping your toe. Yes, it could lead to huge increases in average earning potential, education levels, health outcomes etc. thus increasing tax revenues, while decreasing spend on existing expensive bureaucracy. The problem is you would only see that kind of benefit over decades, not in 2-3 years. That is the big flaw with all of these trials.

I imagine at some point a country will decide to be the proper guinea pig and jump in the deep end, and we'll watch and wait. I think there has to be a balanced approach, maybe some kind of slow progressive change or ratcheting up of a 'minimum income guarantee' that we can change over a number of years that gives us the opportunity to roll things back if it's not working.
Click to expand...
I thought Finland tried, and failed.
 
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