Universal Income.

lionking said:
Aged pensions are means tested in Australia, but replacing them with a UBI payable to everyone (emphasis on the U) will mean, as I posted before, a $300b or so cost to Australia’s economy per year.

This is insanity.
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It seems pretty easy to age adjust the UBI to deal with the issue. I think there are similar suggestions for dealing with children.

Still leaves a very streamlined system that doesn't require a lot of bureaucracy.
 
Another benefit to UBI is the security it would offer even to people who don't need it at the moment. I know how precarious/nonexistent the "safety net" is in my country so I am compelled to save and invest all my excess income, building up private stores of wealth against the risk of future catastrophe. If I knew for a certainty that if I were to lose my job or my ability to work I wouldn't be left entirely bereft of outside support then I wouldn't need to save so much--I would then instead spend it, and put it back into the economy. I guess investing is putting it back into the economy, but I think buying more shares of an S&P mutual fund is less beneficial to the whole than if I simply dined out three times a week and tipped well.

But as long as I'm in the position where if I get too sick to work I lose my income and my health insurance, have to burn through my savings, then die homeless you can bet I'm going to be hoarding my wealth and not spending it where others benefit. Another hundred shares of something Vanguard, please, and the waitresses can weep themselves to sleep in their cars.
 
TragicMonkey said:
Another benefit to UBI is the security it would offer even to people who don't need it at the moment. I know how precarious/nonexistent the "safety net" is in my country so I am compelled to save and invest all my excess income, building up private stores of wealth against the risk of future catastrophe. If I knew for a certainty that if I were to lose my job or my ability to work I wouldn't be left entirely bereft of outside support then I wouldn't need to save so much--I would then instead spend it, and put it back into the economy. I guess investing is putting it back into the economy, but I think buying more shares of an S&P mutual fund is less beneficial to the whole than if I simply dined out three times a week and tipped well.

But as long as I'm in the position where if I get too sick to work I lose my income and my health insurance, have to burn through my savings, then die homeless you can bet I'm going to be hoarding my wealth and not spending it where others benefit. Another hundred shares of something Vanguard, please, and the waitresses can weep themselves to sleep in their cars.
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This mirrors our family's thoughts. We hoard cash and low risk investments because we know the safety net is non-existent.

Actually, my wife retiring will be a huge boost to us because it will lock-in my access to her healthcare benefits, something that is currently at the whim of her employer. There is no other way that I can guarantee access to healthcare benefits when nearly 50% of our country thinks a fair marketplace for insurance is communist and government provided insurance is literally the devil's work.
 
Dr. Keith said:
This mirrors our family's thoughts. We hoard cash and low risk investments because we know the safety net is non-existent.

Actually, my wife retiring will be a huge boost to us because it will lock-in my access to her healthcare benefits, something that is currently at the whim of her employer. There is no other way that I can guarantee access to healthcare benefits when nearly 50% of our country thinks a fair marketplace for insurance is communist and government provided insurance is literally the devil's work.
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My terror is that I'll come down with the largely-hereditary vision loss problem that runs in my family. If I get that before I'm eligible for Medicare I'll be screwed--I won't be able to work, and then of course I'll lose my health insurance. My state is one of the many that does not let adults without dependent children go on Medicaid, no matter how destitute they are. So there is no safety net at all. Blind and homeless is a very possible future for me even though I'm doing everything right and am above-average successful now. That's a ridiculous state of affairs for the planet's so-called hyperpower! We should be closer to being the Federation from goddamn Star Trek than the crapsack world of Game of Thrones, but we aren't.
 
TragicMonkey said:
My terror is that I'll come down with the largely-hereditary vision loss problem that runs in my family. If I get that before I'm eligible for Medicare I'll be screwed--I won't be able to work, and then of course I'll lose my health insurance. My state is one of the many that does not let adults without dependent children go on Medicaid, no matter how destitute they are. So there is no safety net at all. Blind and homeless is a very possible future for me even though I'm doing everything right and am above-average successful now. That's a ridiculous state of affairs for the planet's so-called hyperpower! We should be closer to being the Federation from goddamn Star Trek than the crapsack world of Game of Thrones, but we aren't.
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Yeah, but we have F-35's that kill their pilots and can't fly in the rain, how many countries can say the same? Your situation simply isn't important enough to spend public money on, sorry babe
 
SuburbanTurkey said:
Yeah, but we have F-35's that kill their pilots and can't fly in the rain, how many countries can say the same? Your situation simply isn't important enough to spend public money on, sorry babe
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Implement Medicare for all and then some of my freed-up money could go towards buying even more and better planes. Hell, we could probably make significant inroads into developing weather-control technology if the whole population didn't have to waste so many resources hedging against hypothetical bad outcomes.
 
Hercules56 said:
I know of a few people who would prefer to just collect UBI and not work.

Its shameful.
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I'm curious about the notion of not working being shameful. If I retire and live off investments and pensions I won't be working. Is that shameful? What if my investing goes really well, so well I can afford to simply live off the income from them long before I retire? Would that be shameful? If tomorrow, for some reason, my shares of BoringCo shoot up in value by a millionfold and I sell them, dump the money into CD ladders, and spend the rest of my life living off the interest payments would that be shameful?
 
I think folks do have an obligation to contribute to society rather than simply living off society. Its pretty subjective as to what that means though.
 
TragicMonkey said:
My terror is that I'll come down with the largely-hereditary vision loss problem that runs in my family. If I get that before I'm eligible for Medicare I'll be screwed--I won't be able to work, and then of course I'll lose my health insurance. My state is one of the many that does not let adults without dependent children go on Medicaid, no matter how destitute they are. So there is no safety net at all. Blind and homeless is a very possible future for me even though I'm doing everything right and am above-average successful now. That's a ridiculous state of affairs for the planet's so-called hyperpower! We should be closer to being the Federation from goddamn Star Trek than the crapsack world of Game of Thrones, but we aren't.
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Rubbish! You just need to stay away from Starbucks and not buy so many fancy smartphones, and then you'll be able to save up for any contingency. And if you can't, it's still your fault!
 
Hercules56 said:
I know of a few people who would prefer to just collect UBI and not work.

Its shameful.
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Joke, right? Some kind of subtle irony thing?

Or did you actually mean that? Just in case the latter: why would it be "shameful" for people to not work if they did not need to?
 
ahhell said:
I think folks do have an obligation to contribute to society rather than simply living off society. Its pretty subjective as to what that means though.
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If you think you have that obligation, you are entirely free to discharge it. That has nothing to do with holding down a job or a business that enriches you personally.
 
smartcooky said:
If you think it should be means tested, then everyone who is entitled to the pension will have to be means tested every year, and who is going to pay for this?
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You may have heard of this new invention called a "computer".

IRD has the records of income and it would a be a one-day job to link the data to MSD and stop paying Super to everyone showing earnings over whatever arbitrary figure is arrived at.

We do exactly that with tax rates, so extending it Nat Super would be a piece of cake.
 
lionking said:
Aged pensions are means tested in Australia, but replacing them with a UBI payable to everyone (emphasis on the U) will mean, as I posted before, a $300b or so cost to Australia’s economy per year.

This is insanity.
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Offset by savings in other areas that are eliminated by UBI. Yes, some extra taxes would be needed. An increase of 1% to the tax rate of the hyperwealthy, which is something that they won't even notice, but will fight tooth and nail against regardless, as well as closing loopholes that allow corporations to avoid paying tax (ditto), and removing tax exemption status on churches (ditto again), will likely cover the rest. Also, see below.

lionking said:
Woah. Are you saying that UBI should replace welfare payments like child care, aged care and disability care? I’ve only seen it argued that it replace pensions and unemployment benefits.

This is an appalling suggestion. People with disabilities have specific, high cost needs so they will be worse off under a UBI. I would have thought that any UBI plan would also take account of special needs.

If your scenario is the case, UBI is both ridiculously costly and heartlesss.
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Child care and aged care should absolutely be covered by UBI. As others have said, a person is eligible for UBI from the day they pop out of their mother until the day they shuffle off their mortal coil, and it is sufficient to cover the basic living costs of both infants and the elderly.

Disability Services is, as you say, a special case and would need to be handled separately. But think of this: a small, focused Department of Disability Services would be essentially replacing the giant bloated monstrosity that is Centrelink. So you'd be saving a lot of money there, too.
 
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