[QuixoticQuibit]

> According to a source with the Yang campaign, his revamped UBI plan would grant 500,000 New Yorkers in the greatest need an annual $2,000 - $5,000 through a program administered by the city’s Human Resources Administration, the same city agency that administers other benefits programs.

So it’s municipal-level welfare (means tested). Calling it scaled-back UBI is pretty disingenuous. Also, I wonder how well this works at the city level.

[missedthecue]

Can someone explain to me why this wouldnt cause an influx of very unproductive people who would like a no strings attached $2-5k?

[ag56]

Because moving to NYC from pretty much anywhere else would increase your annual cost of living by far more than $5,000. Net you’d lose.

[unethical_ban]

Homeless in Baltimore, or homeless in NYC?

I'm progressive but I recognize the issues with municipal universal welfare.

[robertn702]

What would be the process for a homeless person from Baltimore to become a homeless NYC resident in order to take advantage of this? I'd imagine it's not as simple as just showing up in NYC. Serious question, just something I've never thought about.

[unethical_ban]

That's the broader point about universal welfare. If there is no friction in someone moving from a place without it to a place with it, of course people will try to claim it from any place.

So unless they set up some kind of residency requirement or collect biometric info from the homeless and register them as NYC beneficiaries, I don't know what would keep homeless people from coming from other areas (other than, of course, a lack of money or transport).

[acct776]

This has been observed in Californian cities.

[Talanes]

It'd make it a far more attractive move from here in SF, but even then it's a pretty mild incentive.

[missedthecue]

Bus tickets cost $5000?

[gpm]

Rent costs far more than $5000/year in nyc.

[missedthecue]

I'm not talking about people who rent

[sigstoat]

what about for folks who are already homeless?

[gpm]

Do they qualify as residents in this scheme? Seems unlikely, if just because it's difficult to decide whether someone asking for xxxx dollars is part of nyc if they don't have a home. Seems likely because they are in the most in need.

I am genuinely unsure.

[qwantim1]

Maybe they should literally dump coins in the street like they did in Switzerland.

It’d produce more physical exercise.

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/business-25415922

But really, there are people that need it. Just maybe not the ones getting it.

[runawaybottle]

I can’t explain it to you, and from my first hand observation this is exactly what it creates.

Without going into details, people know how to get every type of aid from the government and live under virtual welfare for extended periods of time (well before retirement age). The total aid amounts to well over 10-30k easily.

I know people that take advantage of it and honestly I can’t believe we all foot the tax bill for it. It’s free money, people will find a way to get it, the same way corporations find tax havens.

The incentives aren’t right, and the loopholes too many. We cannot pay for freaking everything as there really is a moral hazard argument to be made here, especially when it’s obvious it’s misallocated.

[Robelius]

Whenever I see a comment like this, it's hard not to take it personal. When my parents came to America as refugees, they wanted to come to CA specifically because there was already a community and an understanding that the social programs were better than the alternative of TX.

Of course they tried to take advantage of programs like food stamps. They took advantage of it because they met what the government considered as qualified. The alternative, which my parents did have to do at times, was skipping meals so their kids had enough to eat. It's not taking advantage of a system if the people meet the requirements. No one says they're taking advantage of a coupon at a grocery store, it's there to be used.

[gedy]

I think some mean "take advantage" to mean abuse of the safety net system (by some, not everyone). Which takes away from truly desperate people.

[peteretep]

This argument doesn't really work without data/numbers to back it up. I'm pretty relaxed about some percentage of welfare going to people who are gaming the system and don't want to work as long as the people who need it are getting it.

In the UK: "A poll conducted by the Trades Union Congress in 2012 found that perceptions among the British public were that benefit fraud was high – on average people thought that 27% of the British welfare budget is claimed fraudulently; however, official UK Government figures have stated that the proportion of fraud stands at 0.7% of the total welfare budget in 2011/12."

Hard to know what percentage the people would accept in practice, but I've gotta suspect it's higher than the actual percentage that exists.

[tehwebguy]

Not sure if you are talking about PPP loan fraud, loss carry forward, or some other scam that the extremely wealthy are able to pull but I'm interested to know which one!

[bioinformatics]

Municipal, and not universal. So it's BI.

[markdown]

MBI

[mhh__]

As long as the cut-off is fairly simple, I really think a BI (as you call it) is a good idea.

This is from a UK perspective, but my opinion on this is partly practical (to avoid waste) and partly ethical as the ruling classes generally don't view poor people as being worthy of financial autonomy (They actually have more in common with socialists on this matter that they would be comfortable with).

We've just seen recently a scandal where the government, rather than just giving people money ("Money can be exchanged for goods and services."), has paid some contractor to dole out - at potentially significant cost, although the figure seems to be wildly varying depending on whom you ask - some tins of beans and pasta.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-55641740

[grecy]

No need to speculate, there are plenty of countries doing variations on UBI already, and they have been for many decades. We can learn from what they do.

Australia gives around $1130 AUD / month to anyone that is low income, or doesn't have a job [1] (There is an additional $300/mo right now for COVID, but lets ignore that.)

It is means tested, but the result is that anyone that doesn't have a job (for any reason at all - don't want one, quit, can't be bothered) gets that payment. You get more if you have kids, and you might get more for rent assistance too. It's been that way for decades, and Australia's economy has not magically been destroyed. Inflation is not through the roof, prices did not magically go up to just use up this free money.

On the plus side, crime and violence are extremely low, and multiple Australian cities are in the top 100 most livable on the planet. [2]

[1] https://www.servicesaustralia.gov.au/individuals/services/ce...

[2] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/04/global-liveability-index-201...

[el_dev_hell]

UBI and welfare (what we have in Australia) are very different. Andrew Yang has spoken about this better than I could off the top of my head, but to add a few things about our system (which does work very well from a global perspective):

* The stigma (in non-covid times) toward "dole bludgers" is pretty significant. We're a pretty egalitarian society, but there's a fairly common distain towards welfare recipients. This would likely be reduced if everyone was receiving the payment.

* You mentioned that recipients receive payments even if they quit or can't be bothered getting a job. That's kind of the situation with the current payment (JobSeeker), which was created last year when covid hit. The usual adult benefit (formally called Newstart allowance) had very strict "mutual obligations" and required you to apply for N number of jobs per fortnight otherwise your benefits were cut (https://www.servicesaustralia.gov.au/individuals/topics/mutu...). Also, if you quit a job you would have a cooldown period (usually 8 weeks) before you would receive benefits (with exceptions for injuries, redundancy, etc).

* Rent assistance is basically guaranteed. If you pay rent, you will get a portion of this covered.

* Our welfare program also includes a pharmaceutical discount (almost all prescription meds are $6.60 for recipients).

It's a really decent program overall, but it's not UBI.

[grecy]

Obviously welfare isn't identical to UBI, though in my opinion it has many of the same results.

> * The stigma*

Sure, there's some stigma, but that's irrelevant in terms of the economic/financial impact to society.

> very strict "mutual obligations"

It's easy enough to fill out job applications left hand, etc. For anyone that wants it, it is extremely easy and TONS of friends from University did it for over a decade.

[danielheath]

Anecdotally, the mutual obligations have ratcheted up quite substantially since I was at uni 10-15 years ago. There have been several scandals involving accredited "Employment Services Providers" mistreating applicants, most commonly around offering them unsuitable (dangerous, to themselves or others) work at a firm controlled by the ESP.

Applicants can't refuse, or they'll lose their payment, and this is taken advantage of.

[umeshunni]

Perhaps more comparable is the cash for every citizen programs that many oil rich gulf states run.

E.g. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen%27s_Account_Program_...

And

https://www.wellesley.edu/albright/about/blog/3926-downsides...

Also,

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/jeffreydor...

[mandelbrotwurst]

That’s all well and good, but if the payments don’t actually go to everyone, they aren’t “Universal”.

[KMag]

Here in Hong Kong, some years, flat payments are made to every legal permanent resident. It's kind of UBI, with flat payments and no means testing, but it fluctuates a lot. When it's payment scheme time, my bank puts up posters near ATMs reminding people to go to the government website and register their accounts to receive the wire transfer.

That being said, we have a very high wealth gap here. My understanding is that social programs are generally very lacking.