Universal Minimum Income

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I saw a while back, on Facebook, an article about an idea which is apparently fairly popular both among left-wingers and libertarians worldwide (Republicans probably aren't a big fan, but hey): a universal minimum income.

Basically, here's the idea: have the government pay everyone enough money so that they start off at an above-poverty income level.

I can't express just how much I love this idea, and just how much this would pretty much solve all kinds of social problems and political debates.

Pay everyone $24,000 of untaxable, no strings attached income and automatically adjust that amount every year based on inflation.
Abolish social security.
Abolish federal and state entitlements (except, perhaps, as an addition to the universal minimum income).
Abolish welfare.
Abolish foodstamps.
Abolish minimum wage laws.
You get the idea.

Combine this with a single payer health-care system, tuition free universities and extremely tight border controls? I can't even express in words just how supremely epic that would be.

All of a sudden, the need for unions just ends. There's no need for unions, for minimum wages or for all sorts of other government regulation about employment. All of a sudden, the employee doesn't need his employer. They can negotiate on a perfectly level playing field.

"You want me to work for you? Ok. Then treat me like a person, not like a number. Oh. You don't want to do that? That's fine. I don't need your job anyway. :cool:"

Not to mention it would simplify things a lot government wise. No need for a dozen different government agencies.

Here, people will complain about the following:

1. It would decrease productivity and take away peoples' incentives to do meaningless, inhuman work.
2. It would be unfair because pay would no longer correspond to merit.

I answer as follows:

A. 1. is going to happen with technological increases anyway.

B. 1. If the job is meaningless and inhuman, then maybe it's not worth doing in the first place.

C. 1. There's only so many jobs anyway. What's the unemployment rate again?

D. 2. Money shouldn't be a standard of personal worth. It should be a mean of acquiring the necessities of a dignified and properly human life.

E. 2. It's not even true. I'm talking about a universal minimum income. Note the key word: "minimum."
 
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Nick M said:
Even if socialism did what you claim (it doesn't), it would still be wrong. It is coveting and stealing.
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Several points:

1. You are slapping a label on what I've said in order to avoid actually thinking about the content of what I said. "Socialism" is just a Republican buzzword. Practically speaking, it's utterly meaningless. If you compare what I've said to how socialism was defined in the video, then you'll find two things:

A. Practically nobody actually is a socialist (what was described in the video wasn't socialism; it's communism). Bernie Sanders hismelf, the dude who goes around calling himself a socialist, by the standards of your video, is not even a socialist.
B. What I've claimed is not socialist.

Establishing a universal minimum income is not the same thing as eliminating all wealth and income inequalities. I'm perfectly fine with wealth and income inequality. In and of itself, there's nothing wrong with that.

2. It rests on the assumption that wealth is a sign of personal worth. This is a capitalist error which no Christian is permitted to hold. Again, the purpose of wealth and income is to provide for the needs of life, not to measure personal worth. The poor man Lazarus comes to mind.

3. What you are effectively saying is that society cannot function unless some people are exploiting others and some are obscenely wealthy at the expense of other people being in poverty. I.e., you seem to think that poverty and exploitation are the necessary, unavoidable cost of a functional society. I simply dispute this.
 
patrick jane

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What happens to people who can't work, for example: I may be getting disability and the amount ends up at about 15,000 per year. That's way below 24,000 so that would be great
 
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rexlunae

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patrick jane said:
What happens to people who can't work, for example: I may be getting disability and the amount ends up at about 15,000 per year. That's way below 24,000 so that would be great
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There's no requirement to work for the minimum income. It's just a given, no strings attached. What you earn supplements that income. If you earn disability, it would be above the baseline set by the minimum income.
 
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rexlunae said:
There's no requirement to work for the minimum income. It's just a given, no strings attached. What you earn supplements that income. If you earn disability, it would be above the baseline set by the minimum income.
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Actually, I disagree with this. If there's a universal minimum income, we can safely get rid of disability, unemployment, etc. That's what I am saying. We could just start slashing various government welfare programs and departments. It would just be redundant.

In addition, since it would greatly simplify paperwork and cut through a lot of red tape (no need to determine who is and is no eligible), and since there would be a single common kind of payment made to everyone, the government could probably even start laying off a bunch of government employees.

Which would be fine. Since they'd be getting a universal minimum income and single payer health insurance.
 
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rexlunae

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Traditio said:
Actually, I disagree with this. If there's a universal minimum income, we can safely get rid of disability, unemployment, etc. That's what I am saying. We could just start slashing various government welfare programs and departments. It would just be redundant.
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That's why I left it hypothetical. I would argue that there may still be a need for a disability system for people whose routine income is a lot higher than the minimum. But that's a side aspect of the system, any disability system that might be put in place could ignore the first $24k of income or whatever the minimum happens to be, because that would be unaffected by the ability to work.
 
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rexlunae said:
That's why I left it hypothetical. I would argue that there may still be a need for a disability system for people whose routine income is a lot higher than the minimum.
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That sounds like their problem, not the government's. If the person doesn't have a job and isn't going to work, why do they need more than $24,000 plus single payer health insurance? If you tell me that they live in a really expensive area, I'll repeat that they are getting $24,000 a year regardless of employment or lack thereof. Why can't they just move?

At this point, you're just being greedy. That's why Republicans and Democrats can't get along. :nono:

Seriously, the idea behind disability is: "I can't work. I should be compensated for my inability to work."

That's utterly irrelevent if there's a substantial enough universal minimum income.
 
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Knight said:
If $24,000 per year is good why not $48,000 per year?
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Knight, what's the minimum amount of money that you think that you could reasonably live on and maintain your dignity and independence?

Presupposing, of course, that you don't have to pay for health insurance.
 
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rexlunae

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Traditio said:
That sounds like their problem, not the government's. If the person doesn't have a job and isn't going to work, why do they need more than $24,000 plus single payer health insurance? If you tell me that they live in a really expensive area, I'll repeat that they are getting $24,000 a year regardless of employment or lack thereof. Why can't they just move?
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What I'm referring to is short-term disability, i.e. they have a job that they will be returning to, but are not able to do it for a short time due to injury or illness. I see little value in forcing them to miss a mortgage payment because of such a condition if they are living above the condition normally in reach of the minimum income, and realistically, it is reasonable for the employer to shoulder some of the burden of lost productivity if the worker is injured on the job. If they are permanently disabled, and don't have a pension or other alternative source of income, then I agree, they can move somewhere more affordable.

Traditio said:
At this point, you're just being greedy. That's why Republicans and Democrats can't get along. :nono:

Seriously, the idea behind disability is: "I can't work. I should be compensated for my inability to work."

That's utterly irrelevent if there's a substantial enough universal minimum income.
Click to expand...

Ultimately, the reason to offer any sort of disability or welfare program goes far beyond the individual. That includes universal minimum income systems, BTW. There are economic and political ties than bind all of us together, and stability is a general good, not just an individual one. The exact contours of those programs are subject to the political process.
 
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rexlunae said:
What I'm referring to is short-term disability, i.e. they have a job that they will be returning to, but are not able to do it for a short time due to injury or illness. I see little value in forcing them to miss a mortgage payment because of such a condition if they are living above the condition normally in reach of the minimum income, and realistically, it is reasonable for the employer to shoulder some of the burden of lost productivity if the worker is injured on the job. If they are permanently disabled, and don't have a pension or other alternative source of income, then I agree, they can move somewhere more affordable.
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I still don't see this as something that the government should have to cover. This should go into employer-employee negotiations. Again, I reiterate: the person is getting $24,000 a year regardless of employment or lack thereof.

If he can't come to an agreement with his employer prior to accepting the job, then, at that point, it's his fault. You can't claim that he was coerced into an unfair employment contract.

If all of my needs are covered prior to me accepting an employment offer, then I'm in no urgent hurry to become employed. I can take my time to negotiate. The employer doesn't want to negotiate? Oh well: again, I'm in no urgent hurry to become employed anyway. I can wait and look elsewhere.
 
nikolai_42

nikolai_42

Well-known member
Traditio said:
I saw a while back, on Facebook, an article about an idea which is apparently fairly popular both among left-wingers and libertarians worldwide (Republicans probably aren't a big fan, but hey): a universal minimum income.

Basically, here's the idea: have the government pay everyone enough money so that they start off at an above-poverty income level.

I can't express just how much I love this idea, and just how much this would pretty much solve all kinds of social problems and political debates.

Pay everyone $24,000 of untaxable, no strings attached income and automatically adjust that amount every year based on inflation.
Abolish social security.
Abolish federal and state entitlements (except, perhaps, as an addition to the universal minimum income).
Abolish welfare.
Abolish foodstamps.
Abolish minimum wage laws.
You get the idea.

Combine this with a single payer health-care system, tuition free universities and extremely tight border controls? I can't even express in words just how supremely epic that would be.

All of a sudden, the need for unions just ends. There's no need for unions, for minimum wages or for all sorts of other government regulation about employment. All of a sudden, the employee doesn't need his employer. They can negotiate on a perfectly level playing field.

"You want me to work for you? Ok. Then treat me like a person, not like a number. Oh. You don't want to do that? That's fine. I don't need your job anyway. :cool:"

Not to mention it would simplify things a lot government wise. No need for a dozen different government agencies.

Here, people will complain about the following:

1. It would decrease productivity and take away peoples' incentives to do meaningless, inhuman work.
2. It would be unfair because pay would no longer correspond to merit.

I answer as follows:

A. 1. is going to happen with technological increases anyway.

B. 1. If the job is meaningless and inhuman, then maybe it's not worth doing in the first place.

C. 1. There's only so many jobs anyway. What's the unemployment rate again?

D. 2. Money shouldn't be a standard of personal worth. It should be a mean of acquiring the necessities of a dignified and properly human life.
Click to expand...

EDIT : Money is a standard (measurement) of worth - not personal worth, but value of work, product or service. An economy with a fixed GNP has a known (and probably low) actual value of work since there is no incentive to excel. Innovation and productivity will suffer.

Traditio said:
E. 2. It's not even true. I'm talking about a universal minimum income. Note the key word: "minimum."
Click to expand...

So you have no problem with price controls on food products and other (currently) low cost items?

EDIT: Sorry...misread the OP...it would be more like price supports (and wouldn't necessarily be for lower priced items)
 
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nikolai_42 said:
So you have no problem with price controls on food products and other (currently) low cost items?

EDIT: Sorry...misread the OP...it would be more like price supports (and wouldn't necessarily be for lower priced items)
Click to expand...

Um...

Er...

Uh...

:idunno:
 
nikolai_42

nikolai_42

Well-known member
Traditio said:
Um...

Er...

Uh...

:idunno:
Click to expand...

Artificial price controls (setting, limiting, or propping up) implies an artificial value, doesn't it?

EDIT : If people can't trust the value given, why should they pay for it (or expect to receive proper remuneration - and thus, why should they expend significant effort for something that may not be worth what they are working for)?
 
nikolai_42

nikolai_42

Well-known member
Traditio said:
With all due respect:

I haven't the slightest idea what you are talking about.

What do you take the OP as saying?
Click to expand...

What is the incentive to innovate? To excel? To work hard?

I misread the OP originally to mean "Give everyone $24,000 to start - in place of welfare, food stamps etc... and leave the economy alone to run as it already does". Then I read it as though the UMI was what everyone gets across the board (no more, no less).

Am I still misreading it?
 
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