“Universal basic income usually covers people’s basic needs but we want to see what effect this unconditional lump sum has on people’s mental and physical health, whether they choose to work or not,” says Will Stronge, the director of research at the thinktank Autonomy, which is backing the plan.
Surely if everybody had £1600, wouldn’t there be the same problems as if they all had £0 and were getting things for free? Because iirc it’s inequality in a society that ensures there aren’t shortages, not lack of money.
The way these are usually envisioned long term is that tax rates go up to progressively eat up the universal payment, and maybe even then some at the high end. This raises the floor for those with little or nothing, without also raising it for those of us who are living comfortably.
See, means testing is actually quite expensive, so it’s easier a d more efficient to just give it to everyone, and claw it back from people who don’t need it. Not only does this free up public servants to do something actually productive, but it also means that if something happens to you, and you go from being safe and comfortable to being not, you don’t need to do something that feels like begging for help from a cold bureaucracy, which is something most people feel is humiliating and degrading.
Is there a risk that slum lords and the like will just jack rent prices to whatever the UBI amount is? Absolutely. UBI is not a panacea to social problems, greed, or inequality. It’s a safety net. Plus, landlords above slum level will not be able to raise prices by much, meaning there would actually be increased market competition if they did that.
But what it does do is give the domestic abuse victim an easy way to avoid financial abuse. It gives families a way for one partner or another to go back to scool and uograde their education. It makes room for people who need home repairs to afford them. It does a lot for those who are not totally destitute or homeless.
And besides, it’s not like there’s a lack of housing. There are more empty homes in North Americathan there are homeless. The market is failing people right now, and that’s going to give.
while what you’re saying is generally accurate, i think this talking point isn’t a good one because it papers over the distribution of those homes, which isn’t a trivial detail. upon examination, the vast majority of them aren’t where people want to live (usually these are in rural, exurban, or suburban areas where there are few or no social services and job opportunities) and probably wouldn’t live short of forced relocation. quite a lot of them are also decrepit, unsafe, or just really old and not that good.
some house is without question better than no house, but i do also think we should aspire to give people housing where they want to live, and give them better housing than a lot of what’s technically available by the numbers.
Since those houses are empty and there are homeless people, it seems to me that those houses are in fact worse than having no house at all, which is a very sad commentary on the situation here.
Agreed, that’s an inefficient use of resources from a humanist’s perspective. Would UBI allow the homeless to move into the empty houses until they were pushed out by working people?
@alyaza Absolutely, that’s exactly the underlying idea of UBI imho, to give people choice. An UBI puts people in a much better position to negotiate all kinds of contracts like rent, mortgage, or employment, as they don’t have to accept the next best offer for having trouble making ends meet.
@Kichae I agree there are many UBI schemes that don’t really deserve the name for various reasons. A true universal basic income, however, could never be eaten up by tax for whatever group of people exactly because it’s universal and basic.
A possible scheme, for example, would be that a UBI of 1,600 is guaranteed by the state, while every income above the UBI level is then taxed. So if you earn 2,000 and the tax rate is 40%, your tax amounts to (2,000 - 1,600)*0.4 = 160.
An income of 1,600 would mean you pay no taxes at all as the 1,600 is the UBI, and any income below 1,600 triggered a negative tax rate (for example, if one earned 1,000 they would be given 600 from the state).
In a nutshell: a real UBI can never be lowered by tax or any other public measures. Practically all researchers agree that this a very important feature of any UBI, no matter how it is designed.
Thanks for this explanation. I still don’t think I get the
tax rates go up to progressively eat the universal payment. Do you know a good article or graphic that explains it?For this particular test, I suspect there are positives to mental health that are easier to justify as “it’s unconditional”, like avocado toast, video games, painting supplies, etc. Specific things for free makes more sense for things that literally everyone needs.
@SubArcticTundra How would markets work then? People want different things, different volumes, they want to have choice. I don’t see how product and service exchange would be organised if everything is for free.