Can we stop putting these "universal income" posts on the front page until someone has something genuinely new to say about the idea or there's some news about an actual implementation?
I had a genuinely new idea this morning. Paying people for idleness increases idleness, which isn't necessarily good for the recipient. Why not pay them instead for doing things that make their life individually or collectively better?
* Pay them for taking and passing college classes.
* Pay them for losing weight and getting their BMI to an acceptable level that reduces collective health care costs.
* Pay them for giving up smoking, drugs, or drinking or not starting.
* Pay them to drive more safely.
* Pay them for art appreciation.
* Pay them to adopt children and make their lives better.
This is an alternative to the model where everyone works for a living. It produces non-work social good that is to the benefit of the recipient and the society they live in.
But then the money has strings attached and you need to check whether people really comply (= cost). Basic income wants to avoid that by simplifying the welfare system assuming that most people do not want to simply be idle.
Simplifying the welfare system is a good idea, but my idea is more like gamifying the system and giving people rewards for doing good things. Simplicity is not the only virtue, what about tangible, measurable outcomes that have improved people's lives?
Some things are not immediately measurable? Who is going to decide what is worthy? I may take care of my community by planting pretty flowers all day (like in Minecraft), would that fit your criteria?
You try to gamify and I think people would game it instead.
Instead, basic income makes you free to figure out what is a worthy endeavour.
Wouldn't this impose some sort of control mechanism, akin to the "employment search" one which is already mentioned as inefficient and bureaucratic in the article?
For instance, isn't "pay them to drive more safely" similar to "make them pay fines when they drive unsafely, i.e. speeding"?
Actually, it's more like giving them an insurance discount when they carry around one of those black boxes that measures their driving. But it's not very different from what you said, really. Is it inefficient and bureaucratic? It's not that difficult to ask someone to step on a scale and measure their weight and height, or determine whether they have completed a college course. I think the benefits are worth the effort.
Now we have someone thinking. Economics 101: people respond to incentives. If you incentivize them to do nothing they will do nothing. If you incentivize positive behavior you'll get positive behavior.
Of course this is an over simplification because it's easy to overlook the real incentives and impact of such actions. Still, incentivizing positive actions is far better than incentivizing idleness.
4. Not fit to adopt kids (not everybody is fit and we should never make this an incentive to get money. We had many horror stories of froster parents gaming the system to earn more money while neglecting kids). The best way to do this is to limit to 2-3 kids and pay based on the grades, not just because they have a kid.
5. Already took college classes or even graduated but there's not enough jobs in the field. This is one of the biggest problems we have in USA, a lot of high-class graduates but many of them just end up doing jobs that are not related to their majors because there's not enough jobs or the wages aren't enough.
By your logic, this person would be earning far less than the person who is fat, an alcoholic, adopted several kids, and just taking some boring classes that usually might not lead them to anything.
In fact, the main reason I'd support basic income is that it'd lead to people doing more for society than LogicialBorg's idea.
Why?
1. Mothers don't have to work two jobs to support their kids, they can actually spend more time home with their kids. Which would actually benefits our future, led by kids in stable homes. (over-simplication but this is one of the potential benefits).
2. Folks who can't do art projects, read or anything that'd improve their artistic side because they don't have the time or money to do so, would actually be able to do this with the basic income. They're not so stressed about making ends meet.
3. There are many folks where staying idle just upset them more, so they'd go out and do something useful and not have to worry about money to do it. They might be more motivated to do some menial jobs like taking care of elders, cleaning up the streets near them, and so on.
The reality is that the smarter we make our robotics, the less jobs there'll be for anybody, even those who did everything right to get a job, they just won't be able to find a job.
Interesting thought! But then we are back to the huge bureaucratic system that needs to reinforce all those rules. Also, several of those ideas sounds very exploitable.
They're just a brainstorm. The simplest and most effective would probably be measuring BMI for rewards. It could put some brakes on the obesity epidemic. Being paid to do nothing isn't exploitable, because there are no rules, but that doesn't necessary make it better, because there is no connection between effort and reward.
But that's exactly the point of universal income. You don't pay them for idleness, you pay them regardless. You just don't pay them enough for their desires, just their needs.
All those things you want cost money to verify and adds massive administration costs. Another point of universal income is it's cheap to administrate.
If you want to "pay" people for taking college, just subsidize it.
I don't think cost of administration is a big deal. The outcome of the system in people's lives is more important. Otherwise you'll end up creating a system where people sit around in idleness and drink themselves to death on booze. Paying for their needs is a good idea, but what about using the payment to motivate them to make their own life better in other ways?
I think the costs of administration would exceed the payments. We're fine with bureaucratic jobs now because we need employment numbers, but those jobs aren't producing anything real. Look at the VA, it employs half as many people as the Army, just to manage benefits. What your proposing would, like the VA, require filings, delays, rejections, appeals and a whole lot of heartache. Simplifying things is the key selling point. You reduce pointless jobs that produce nothing and get rid of red tape in the process.
I just don't think adding bureaucracy is the solution. If I want someone to go to school I don't manage it on the individual, you'll spend half your money on administration. I spend it by subsidizing tuition.
Some people will drink themselves to death, but they already do that in our current system. How does that matter? The only difference I see is they'll have a lot more free time. Maybe they'll waste it, maybe they'll improve themselves.
isn't it possible at least in theory to decrease this administrative costs using technology, But maybe it costs said much because there's no real push to do so and large resistance from the public sector ?
You're describing effectively a Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice. A much softer version than most regressive states offer, but nevertheless a similar thing. I think you'll run into a lot of the standard problems relating to good intentions and unanticipated results.
