[seahawks78]

We need universal basic income (UBI)! Period. I believe that in a country like US every working adult (18 - 64) should get a minimum of 5k a month for paying basic expenses. Furthermore, Payflow should be integrated with the government UBI program so that anyone can withdraw money against it similar to what is being done now. This will go a long way in solving the Payday problems/worker exploitation issues as mentioned above.

[gruez]

>I believe that in a country like US every working adult (18 - 64) should get a minimum of 5k a month for paying basic expenses

$5000? The median pre-tax income in the US is only $2854/month. https://www.ssa.gov/oact/cola/central.html

[scarby2]

> $5000? The median pre-tax income in the US is only $2854/month. https://www.ssa.gov/oact/cola/central.html

Op is probably in NY or SF where that doesn't even make you middle class and people who make double that still don't feel rich. $2854 a month would be absolute poverty wages in many parts of the country.

Conversely my company has announced it's not going back to the office ever. I'm tempted to go back to Tennessee where I can live live a king on my California middle class income.

[throwawayboise]

LOL yeah that "living wage" just keeps going up and up the more we're talking about it.

I don't even take home 5K/month and I'm a professional software dev. Granted the reason is I am maxing out every pre-tax savings plan I can (retirement, HSA, etc.) but the notion that a 22 year old couple should be getting 120k/yr for doing nothing is absurd.

[hpkuarg]

Yeah, $5k a month for "basic expenses" is beyond ridiculous.

[seahawks78]

I don't think it is especially if you are living in one of metro regions/tech hubs i.e. SF Bay area, Seattle, NYC etc.

[ceh123]

Grad student stipend checking in. $21k/year in a large metro area (although not quite on the level of SF/NYC expensive). Median household income in my city is ~$100k/year.

Yes this is "enough" but no, it is not enough (especially after having worked and lived for a few years in a medium/low cost of living city).

That being said, $5k/month for "basic expenses" is definitely ridiculous. NYC/SF COL is like 30% more expensive than where I'm living, not a full 2.8x more expensive for basic expenses.

Edit: Also worth noting that in this context the $5k/month is spendable, so in SF for example this translates to about $82k/year pre-tax income, which according to the 2019 census is well above the median individual income of ~$52k.

[imtringued]

Those are places that force poor people out because not everyone can live there. What kind of logic makes you believe that every single individual should obtain the right to live there for free? There is a reason why those places are expensive, because a huge amount of people wants to live there.

[pb7]

Most people don't.

[gruez]

The number itself as it pertains to cost of living isn't ridiculous, but the implied policy proposal of "let's give everyone $5000 so people in high CoL areas can cover their basic expenses!" is ridiculous. The #1 cause of high CoL in those areas is because it's a desirable place to live and there are more people who want to live there than there are housing units, so people bid up the price. Giving everyone $5000 wouldn't make it suddenly affordable, because everyone would just increase their bids by $5000, causing the situation to be the same.

[seahawks78]

No I didn't mean blanket 5k to everyone. It could very well be dependent on the place you live. 1k - 5k might be an acceptable range. If you live in NYC you get more, rural Alabama may be not so much. But you get the idea.

Assuming that not everyone can be successful in life (in spite of having boatloads of IQ + work ethic) UBI might be one of the few ways left to reduce generational in-equality. Don't get me wrong - I am no fan of socialism/communism and I understand the problems that come with a collectivist mindset. But I am also practical. I certainly don't want to live in a dystopia where a select few "masters of the universe" type rule over vast swathe of humanity.

[imtringued]

>It could very well be dependent on the place you live.

Then it would have to be funded with local taxes. Why should people with a median salary pay taxes so that someone can get a UBI that is higher than the median salary?

>Assuming that not everyone can be successful in life (in spite of having boatloads of IQ + work ethic) UBI might be one of the few ways left to reduce generational in-equality.

Or you could just get rid of money hoarding and land hoarding. Just think about it. The time people spend unemployed or underemployed is gone but the money isn't. Thus the value of the claim to labor (money) is greater than what the economy can support. The inevitable result is inequality just from a pure logical perspective. The conventional solution had been to just let the economy grow endlessly so that the economy becomes strong enough to support all the freeloaders. Alternatively you let inflation act as a soft default on that unsustainable claim to labor.

https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2019/08/27/754323652/the-...

[scarby2]

You have to be very careful with ubi (which I'm a huge fan of btw.), it could cause hyperinflation, probably would at $5k a month, because we have a pretty severe housing shortage there's going to be a whole bunch of people with an extra $5k that they could spend on housing so average rent may rise significantly.

Instead of jumping to straight UBI we need to build an abundance of housing that is of good quality, affordable to build, is operated by the state and is available to everyone regardless of income on a cost plus model. Also given that rent is most people's single biggest expense we could take the pressure off the poor. This plan however is politically untenable as affordable housing is something that anyone who owes money on their home does not want

[sigstoat]

> Instead of jumping to straight UBI we need to build an abundance of housing that is of good quality, affordable to build, is operated by the state

since you're willing to take incremental steps, perhaps we could have the state stop preventing cheap housing from existing, first.

it's not even legal to rent out decent, clean, individual rooms in many places.

[imtringued]

Well, I am in favor a negative income tax funded by taxes on regressive behavior.