Universal Income.

psionl0 said:
The rest is just a straight swap between complex pensions/jobseeker allowances and UBI.
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Is the general plan that UBI would replace state pensions? My fear is that in reality this would not be possible.

In the UK at least state pensions are significantly more than basic unemployment benefits not to mention that you have a complex overlay of other benefits like housing benefit, council tax benefit, child benefit, PIPs, mortgage interest support etc etc.

Putting aside the 'how dare they pay our brave pensioners the same as some workshy layabout' political opposition you are going to have to set the UBI at a fairly high level to do away with most benefits (maybe 15-20k in the UK?) and not sure how feasible that is in terms of the numbers.

DWP annual budget is £150bn give or take... giving everyone in England and Wales 15k is £900bn. OK that includes kids so lets say £750bn including admin costs etc

I don't know how the actual numbers would work out (maybe you do?) but assuming you could dump 80% of the DWP (save 120bn) and that two thirds of the UBI becomes a wash with tax ( spend 250bn) you'd still be short £130bn (an entire DWP).

There are 20m people in England and Wales on benefits (13m pensioners) so i think you are going to struggle to get beyond two thirds back in tax balance (that's probably optimistic to be honest) but you'd have to push that up to what 85%? Of course you can pay people less but then it doesn't displace benefits so all that DWP cost remains.

For the record I'm not opposed to UBI in principle but I'm sceptical that it works in practice and i'm super sceptical that it would ever happen on a large scale because there are just too many political roadblocks.

Of course not every country is the UK so mileage may vary in other places. In poorly developed or backwards countries like the USA it might have a purpose ;)

ETA: Fingers crossed that back of a fag packet arithmetic is right, very possible i'm out by an order of magnitude somewhere:)
 
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Archie Gemmill Goal said:
Is the general plan that UBI would replace state pensions? My fear is that in reality this would not be possible. In the UK at least state pensions are significantly more than basic unemployment benefits not to mention that you have a complex overlay of other benefits like housing benefit, council tax benefit, child benefit, PIPs, mortgage interest support etc etc.
Putting aside the 'how dare they pay our brave pensioners the same as some workshy layabout' political opposition you are going to have to set the UBI at a fairly high level to do away with most benefits (maybe 15-20k in the UK?) and not sure how feasible that is in terms of the numbers.

DWP annual budget is £150bn give or take... giving everyone in England and Wales 15k is £900bn. OK that includes kids so lets say £750bn including admin costs etc

I don't know how the actual numbers would work out (maybe you do?) but assuming you could dump 80% of the DWP (save 120bn) and that two thirds of the UBI becomes a wash with tax ( spend 250bn) you'd still be short £130bn (an entire DWP).

There are 20m people in England and Wales on benefits (13m pensioners) so i think you are going to struggle to get beyond two thirds back in tax balance (that's probably optimistic to be honest) but you'd have to push that up to what 85%? Of course you can pay people less but then it doesn't displace benefits so all that DWP cost remains.

For the record I'm not opposed to UBI in principle but I'm sceptical that it works in practice and i'm super sceptical that it would ever happen on a large scale because there are just too many political roadblocks.

Of course not every country is the UK so mileage may vary in other places. In poorly developed or backwards countries like the USA it might have a purpose ;)

ETA: Fingers crossed that back of a fag packet arithmetic is right, very possible i'm out by an order of magnitude somewhere:)
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I agree. I think the age pension in Australia is even more generous than the UK. To provide a UBI to everyone which equals the pension would be unaffordable in my view.
 
lionking said:
I agree. I think the age pension in Australia is even more generous than the UK. To provide a UBI to everyone which equals the pension would be unaffordable in my view.
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You don't provide a UBI that equals the pension to everyone. The UBI for adults of working age is set at a rate that assumes that people will be able to supplement it most of the time. There can be a higher rate for adults of retirement age and people who are disabled. This has already been discussed in detail in previous threads.
 
Elaedith said:
You don't provide a UBI that equals the pension to everyone. The UBI for adults of working age is set at a rate that assumes that people will be able to supplement it most of the time. There can be a higher rate for adults of retirement age and people who are disabled. This has already been discussed in detail in previous threads.
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Edit: sorry misread your post.
 
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Tippit said:
I mean, I just explained why UBI will fail. Band-aids don't treat gaping head wounds.
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It's more like you pointed out that the money printers would still print money for themselves.

Upon re-reading your post, it could be that you are claiming that UBI would cause the money printers to print even more money for themselves but I don't see the nexus.
 
Elaedith said:
You don't provide a UBI that equals the pension to everyone. The UBI for adults of working age is set at a rate that assumes that people will be able to supplement it most of the time. There can be a higher rate for adults of retirement age and people who are disabled. This has already been discussed in detail in previous threads.
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Are you saying the UBI cheque can vary by individuals? That wasn't my understanding at all.
 
Archie Gemmill Goal said:
In the UK at least state pensions are significantly more than basic unemployment benefits not to mention that you have a complex overlay of other benefits like housing benefit, council tax benefit, child benefit, PIPs, mortgage interest support etc etc.
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If UBI is less than the old age pension then there would need (in the interim) to be top up payments for old age pensioners.

As for the special purpose payments, some of them could be converted to UBI. It would give the recipients greater spending freedom. I know that these payments are being made to people who are too stupid to manage their finances but if somebody needs to be micromanaged to that extent then that should include taking control of their income anyway.
 
Elaedith said:
You don't provide a UBI that equals the pension to everyone. The UBI for adults of working age is set at a rate that assumes that people will be able to supplement it most of the time. There can be a higher rate for adults of retirement age and people who are disabled. This has already been discussed in detail in previous threads.
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I don’t think this has been discussed in this thread.
 
Belz... said:
Are you saying the UBI cheque can vary by individuals? That wasn't my understanding at all.
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The ideal is not to have payments or supplements that are means tested or that people have to jump through hoops to get, because these create poverty traps, require expensive administration, and end up being denied to people who need them. Having a higher rate for pensioners who are assumed to be past working age is not an issue. It was discussed in previous thread that people assumed not to be able to work due to disability would need a higher rate because UBI is supposed to cover only basic necessities and is not supposed to be an amount that most people would want to live on long term. This would probably be the only aspect where some more complex proof of eligibility would need to be retained, but it would still be based on proof of inability to work without means testing.
 
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Elaedith said:
The ideal is not to have payments or supplements that are means tested or that people have to jump through hoops to get, because these create poverty traps, require expensive administration, and end up being denied to people who need them. Having a higher rate for pensioners who are assumed to be past working age is not an issue. It was discussed in previous thread that people assumed not to be able to work due to disability would need a higher rate because UBI is supposed to cover only basic necessities and is not supposed to be an amount that most people would want to live on long term. This would probably be the only aspect where some more complex proof of eligibility would need to be retained, but it would still be based on proof of inability to work without means testing.
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That thread is not this thread.
 
psionl0 said:
If UBI is less than the old age pension then there would need (in the interim) to be top up payments for old age pensioners.

As for the special purpose payments, some of them could be converted to UBI. It would give the recipients greater spending freedom. I know that these payments are being made to people who are too stupid to manage their finances but if somebody needs to be micromanaged to that extent then that should include taking control of their income anyway.
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I think you've kind of missed my point though. If you don't include them in UBI then you don't make any saving in administering them, if you do include them then you pay them to everyone and it's very expensive.

From memory 2/3 of the DWP budget is related to pensions so if you are still having pensions then you have very little fat to get rid of in the system to fund the UBI.
 
cullennz said:
What data?

From my admittedly might be wrong knowledge it has only ever been tried in a sample of 2000 people in one country and no one worked more.
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You've shifted the goalposts. The post I was replying to was talking about "inflation on everything when everyone has more money", and now it seems you've shifted to one particular trial of one particular system.

Some data on the correlation between a raise in minimum wage and inflation has been presented earlier in the thread. The results of looking at 30-40 years of data on that happening are that there is not a strong correlation between the two.

There is likely to be an even less strong correlation between UBI and inflation, because it will not cause the cost of manufacturing and distributing goods to go up like a raise in the minimum wage does.

So it's not "posters" who disagree with you that people having more money would equal "inflation on everything", but systematic reviews of the data of times when people have been given more money.
 
Squeegee Beckenheim said:
You've changed from talking about people working two part-time fast food jobs to talking about full-time social carers.
What I was responding to was the specific case of why a shortage of caregivers doesn't result in increased wages to attract more caregivers.

In a previous post, I talked about people not working second jobs and people choosing to stay home instead of taking a job for extra family income. Again, I don't see this as a bad thing. But it that result would, in fact, shrink the labor pool and gives some credence to the idea that it could exacerbate labor shortages in some areas/fields. (Though I also hypothesized that this could bring teenagers back into the workforce with after school jobs.)

So yes, I switched from a general scenario to a specific case because the specific case was mentioned. The general and specific cases are not locked together.
Yes, the price of some services will have to go up. Those effects will be market-wide, and don't amount to a much higher cost of living compared to before the introduction of higher wages.
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I agree. I think that was my point. But if you raise the price past the point that your customers are willing or able to pay, you will lose customers. And whatever services you offer will now be out of reach of some.
So if it's true that traditionally lower-paid jobs will start paying more, then the net result is still positive, especially for the people at the bottom of the ladder.
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I'm not making an argument that it's not. I'm actually not sure if I support UBI or not. It depends on the form. For example, I think that pensions should not be counted among the things that are replaced by UBI because those replace your employment income after retirement and employment income would be separate from UBI. (At least in terms of U.S. Social security. I don't know how government retirement benefits work in other countries.
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