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by WorldMaker
3941 days ago
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One place I find it useful to start is with the one empirical attempt to actually try basic income, the Canadian Mincome Experiment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MINCOME The other direction is to look at today's Social Security (basic income for the elderly) and attempt to extrapolate what/how you would expand the program to cover every citizen. For instance, examining the impact of fixed incomes on the elderly versus the cost of living in various parts of the country and how the elderly today are already coping with such issues. Another direction I've been trying to keep an eye on and follow as best I can is the discussions and work going on in (fringe) economics under the name "Modern Monetary Theory": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_monetary_theory |
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Mincome was not an unconditional basic income, which is what the recent "basic income" efforts have been about. It was a means-tested social benefit program (though with perhaps lighter administrative overhead, since it was a strictly cash-benefit program with only outside income affecting grant eligibility, rather than the rather complex set of factors typical of social benefit programs.)
Most of the benefits claimed from UBI are tied pretty specifically to the unconditional aspect. OTOH, its results are interesting in that even with the reduction in benefits for outside income ($0.50 benefit reduction on each $1 of outside income), only teenagers and new mothers worked substantially less. This is interesting in considering UBI, since UBI has less reduction in incentive to work (no reduction in benefit for outside income).
> The other direction is to look at today's Social Security (basic income for the elderly)
Social Security isn't even approximately a basic income -- benefits are determined by tax payments (ultimately, by income earned in jobs subject to Social Security tax.)