[zozbot234]

I don't know where this idea is coming from that UBI will incent people to drop out of the labor force. Any reasonable and currently-feasible UBI would do the opposite. And experiments bear this out - those who seemingly leave the workforce are actually doing something quite different: namely, they're temporarily shifting from formal employment to working towards human capital acquisition, or else providing care for others.

[klmadfejno]

> those who seemingly leave the workforce are actually doing something quite different: namely, they're temporarily shifting from formal employment to working towards human capital acquisition, or else providing care for others.

Providing care for others is a great use of labor. Working towards human capital acquisition sounds great, but then you realize you still need people working the bottom jobs.

Bottom jobs suck. If people have legit UBI, they won't do them. They'd be stupid to do them unless they truly believed they could not do better with self investment. But we need those jobs to be done.

So maybe you raise wages. So prices rise a bit, cheap foreign labor becomes even more enticing where available, and the UBI is not Universal-not-quite-Basic-Income. What do you do when your UBI isn't quite livable?

[zozbot234]

The thing is, one you've raised those wages enough, the "bottom jobs" are no longer at the bottom. Especially if people are no longer limited to that single source of income. So some people get actively drawn into that sector, and prices stabilize. The whole notion of some jobs being at the "bottom" while others aren't is quite dysfunctional and not really an inherent part of a functioning economy.

BTW, an UBI can be less than "livable" and still be quite useful. Even a baseline subsidy can bring a very welcome increase in flexibility in the seemingly "bottom" sector, which is also often the entry point into the labor market.

[klmadfejno]

If wages rise, then prices rise. The stabilization occurs at the point where people need to do the bottom jobs. It's great if individuals can earn a partial UBI and a higher paid bottom tier job.

However, when you raised the wages, you inevitably caused some of those jobs to be outsourced. So now there's a class of people who bottom tier job doesn't exist anymore and whose UBI isn't enough to live on. Now they're screwed. They could offer to work for cheaper and lower the wages, and let's be fair and acknowledge that even if they do, overall real wages per capita will probably rise net positively. But it's much more difficult to compete with neighbor nations.

[c22]

Do you realize that arguing we must keep some people impoverished so they will do the work no one wants to do is basically an argument for slavery? If there are jobs in society that are essential that no one wants to do we should automate them or increase the pay to an amount that appropriately reflects their level of crappiness and importance.

[klmadfejno]

I do realize that. It sucks.

If you automate the jobs, then these people have nothing. If you increase they pay, then they get globalized away.

It's a difficult problem. Solutions that sound nice are full of holes.

[Barrin92]

If firms have to raise wages for workers with low bargaining power (i.e. low wage menial workers) that's a positive outcome of the policy.

If they outsource or automate jobs and thus become more profitable we would always have the option to raise the UBI, because after all they can afford it then.

[klmadfejno]

> If firms have to raise wages for workers with low bargaining power (i.e. low wage menial workers) that's a positive outcome of the policy.

Agreed. You could also just raise the minimum wage to achieve the same for far less.

> If they outsource or automate jobs and thus become more profitable we would always have the option to raise the UBI, because after all they can afford it then.

That just shifts incentives higher up the chain so we have more labor done by other countries and more dependent people in domestically producing nothing. That's the worst possible outcome. Outsourcing jobs is a bad thing.

[gwright]

There are people today not returning to work because unemployment plus the $600 extra/week from the COVID-19 program means that it makes more sense to just be unemployed.

I'm not saying this is directly analogous to what might happen with a UBI program but it certainly demonstrates that there is a price point where some people will choose not to work.

I feel like this is one of the major weaknesses of the UBI concept. When people believe the safety net is designed to help people who find themselves in unfortunate circumstances beyond their control, then they can support the idea of taxes to fund the safety net. If on the other hand there are significant number of people who choose not to work, then it is very difficult for those who are working to accept that they should be funding that choice.

[samatman]

On the contrary, this demonstrates the major strength of the UBI concept.

Unemployment is means-tested. If you are paid more to not work than to work, it's economically rational to not work.

It's also against the rules of unemployment to keep collecting it when you've been offered a job, but this is difficult to enforce.

With UBI, this isn't a problem: a temporary bump in UBI in response to some future pandemic crisis would be in addition to any work someone could or couldn't get.

Andrew Yang's proposal of $1000 a month should be enough to survive on... maybe. But if someone could make another $500 on top of it, that's going to be a much higher quality of life. I'm confident most people would take that job if they could get it.