[MrBlueIncognito]

The idea of UBI, to me at least, is a mind-blowing one. It’s a shame something like this doesn’t exist on a large scale already. I know I’m probably missing something important here, but can someone outline any good reasons, if any, that it hasn’t been implemented yet?

[X6S1x6Okd1st]

https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2020/2/19/21112570/univer...

Exactly what qualifies for you may mean it does already exist on a large scale or doesn't.

Alaska's UBI program gave 1.3k this year, which I'm guessing many commenters here would say is too small to be a real UBI, but it is universal and has been going for almost 50 years

[Ajay-p]

I wouldn't call the permanent fund a UBI. It's proceeds from the sale of oil, whereas every other UBI requires some taxation, wealth transfer, or cuts in spending elsewhere.

[jnwatson]

The permanent fund is proceeds from taxes on the sales of oil and other minerals. There's no difference here.

[X6S1x6Okd1st]

Why would the source of revenue make it not UBI?

[Ajay-p]

Because Alaska is unique, AFAIK the only state in America that sells something. Everything else is income redistribution. The money has to come from somewhere. It's a very fine line, I agree, but the permanent fund only exists because the state can generate that income from something other than increased taxes, redistribution, or reducing spending some place else.

[tharga8616]

What if, instead of oil, the revenue came from solar energy? Or gains in automation, or land value taxes, or CO2 caps...

The point I think is that, it doesn't mind where it comes from, but debunks the main argument against, that "people don't work".

[mathattack]

It’s cost. Multiply population by the amount and you get a huge number. The math only works if you get rid of a lot of others social programs with vested interests.

[13of40]

There are about 250 million adults in the US. If we give each of them $1000 a month, that's 3 trillion dollars per year. For comparison, the US government collected 2.6 trillion dollars in federal income tax in 2022.

[MagicMoonlight]

And then imagine that the 2.6 used to include things like hospitals.

Sorry buddy, you get the $1000 a month but you no longer get medical care or disability benefit or buses. It’s all gone. Don’t you feel better off now that everyone is equal? (The rich obviously still get to go to hospital)

[TheRoque]

My thoughts are there it's not a popular idea, politically. In a lot of countries, getting money "for free" is seen badly by the people who are "working their asses off for barely surviving", and politics push more the idea that "non working people are costly" and instead "we should find a way to make them work" and UBI is seen as something that would make people "lazy".

[underlipton]

The closest thing we had to it - welfare and unemployment benefits without work requirements or onerous means testing - were dismantled on the basis of shoddy (read: nonexistent) research and amidst an atmosphere of racism and classism, and with the current status quo perpetuated by the perverse incentives of public-private "work search support" contracts. Any analysis of resistance to the implementation of UBI should consider this history. Some reporting on the matter:

https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/magic-bureaucrat-rive...

https://revealnews.org/podcast/the-welfare-to-work-industria...

https://www.cbpp.org/research/test-work-requirements-dont-cu...

We've known for a while now that the best approach is to just give people the money needed for them to improve their circumstances (whether that be capital for business or funding for training or other support services like therapy or housing).

EDIT: And a tangential link of some special interest: https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2013/12/20/255819681...

[SV_BubbleTime]

> We've known for a while now that the best approach

Another settled science, and it for the progressive outlook. What an amazing coincidence.

[_a_a_a_]

Did you read his links? At least he gave some, you didn't.

[SV_BubbleTime]

Ultra progressive media outlet says UBI is great, comment posts progressive outlet sources, upvoted on a site with progressive users.

No, I’m not interested in playing that game.

I’m not trying to convince anyone of anything. Just pointing out to others that the fanatics seriously think this is a known-quantity / settled science.

[_a_a_a_]

> Ultra progressive ... progressive users ... fanatics

You say more about yourself than anyone else.

> ... think this is a known-quantity / settled science.

I don't think anyone thinks it is settled. Personally I don't know and I very much want to, but comments like yours do not illuminate in the least. Actual facts would be welcome

[SV_BubbleTime]

> We've known for a while now that the best approach

> I don't think anyone thinks it is settled.

Heard.

[crooked-v]

It already does exist in some places in the form of sovereign wealth funds, such as the Alaska Permanent Fund [1].

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Permanent_Fund

[Ajay-p]

But that is derived from profits from the sale of Alaskan oil. It is not a wealth redistribution program, increased taxes, or reductions in spending elsewhere. Alaska is also a very costly place to live. It's also the only state that actually sells something and makes a profit which it can redistribute to its citizens. Maybe if America as a whole profited from the sale of its natural resources then it could, in theory, redistribute that and call it a UBI. Either way, to implement a UBI the money has to come from somewhere which at this moment means it has to be taken from someone/something else.

[DFHippie]

The point of a UBI is not to redistribute wealth. It's to provide a minimum standard of living for everyone more efficiently than means-tested programs do.

If you're going to provide a minimum standard of living to everyone, a UBI does this with minimal distortion of incentives.

[randomdata]

> The point of a UBI is not to redistribute wealth.

Right, technically the point is to redistribute the productive capacity of that wealth so that everyone has access to a minimum amount of its production.

But is there a meaningful difference? For all intents and purposes, capturing a share of the production is equivalent to owning a share in the wealth.

[jnwatson]

Huh? The Alaska permanent fund comes from mineral royalties, which is literally a type of tax.

[Ajay-p]

Royalties are not really a tax like taxes on citizens are.

[ethanbond]

A UBI of $x/month will just yield rent increases of $x/month.

[danenania]

That depends on how it's paid for. If the money is printed, then yes. If it's raised through taxes, then not necessarily.

[ethanbond]

It doesn’t depend on how it’s paid for. If I am a landlord and I know that my tenants now earn an additional $600/mo, and every other tenant in my market is also earning an additional $600/mo, I would be an idiot not to raise my rents by $600/mo, and so would every other landlord.

[judofyr]

"Well, I'm a [store, café, bar, gym, etc] owner and I know that my customers now earn an additional $600/mo, and every other customer in my market is also earning an addition $600/mo, I would be an idiot not to raise my prices by $600/mo, and so would every other owner."

"Oh, also, I'm building a new set of apartments and I discovered that when I set the rent to today's price + $300/mo then suddenly everyone was interested since everyone else on the market now takes +$600/mo."

Yes, inflation is a real concern which should be discussed, but "duh, all the money will just go to X" is far too a simplistic argument.

[ethanbond]

Store, cafe, bar, gym owners will try to raise their prices, and they’ll succeed (obviously not everyone independently by the $UBI amount).

But then ya know what will happen? The store, cafe, bar, and gyms’ landlords will raise their rent accordingly and eat approximately all of the gains that came from their price increases.

Why on earth do you think rent is so expensive near high-productivity? The buildings aren’t better. The land itself isn’t higher quality. The landlords aren’t better. It’s more expensive because it can be due to the market’s productivity, and corollary ability to pay high prices.

[danenania]

You're only considering the first order effect. A tax increase large enough to fund UBI would change the whole economy.

[YiraldyGuber78]

True, instead of just the low-income earners dropping out now that they have an unconditional deposit in their bank every week, now you also have a significant number of middle and high income earners consciously choosing to earn less because of the crushingly high taxes.

[ethanbond]

And competing for housing with lower-income people.

[ethanbond]

In ways that… mitigate rent increases? Say more what specific effect is relevant to this.

[danenania]

Well, you have the UBI increasing incomes at the lower end of the economy, which does apply upward pressure on lower-cost rents. But on the other side, you'd be decreasing the income/wealth at the top, which applies downward pressure at the high end of the market. The ultimate effect is not a straightforward calculation. I think the total size of the money supply is probably the most significant factor, and that wouldn't change if the UBI is funded by taxes.

[jnwatson]

We already had a natural experiment for it over COVID. Rent didn't immediately go up. The price of everything went up sure to inflation.

The Fed understands this. As soon as the checks start flowing, interest rates will rise to keep money supply flat.

[ethanbond]

It’s not that great of a natural experiment given all the other dynamics of inflow/outflow from cities, money supply changes, and eviction moratoriums.

Rent is higher than pre-COVID basically everywhere and they continue to rise faster than inflation so I’m not sure what this “experiment” shows.

[bee_rider]

No it won’t, why would it?

[ethanbond]

Rents are set by only two things: 1) the tenant markets’ ability to pay and 2) competition with other landlords.

If every single landlord knows with certainty (2) that every single tenant in their market has increased their ability to pay (1) by $1000/mo, then every landlord independently will come to the conclusion that they can raise rents by $1000/mo.

They know the tenants are able to sustain it, and they know other landlords know the same thing.

[bee_rider]

The landlords will still be in competition, anyone who breaks with the conventional wisdom will have an easier time getting tenants. It would probably raise prices, but the laws of supply and demand don’t just go away.

[ethanbond]

Huge amounts of the demand just moves $x up the price curve, but that doesn’t suddenly conjure supply into existence, so you have the same demand willing to pay higher prices across the same supply: that’s just higher prices. In HCOL areas the vast majority of rent prices stem from land rent, and that supply is not just less elastic than demand, it’s totally fixed.

Most insidiously: the demand that will move most aggressively up the price curve is lower income people seeking better lower/middle income housing. So those prices will move the fastest.

[bee_rider]

You are making a lot of predictions from basic principles and very simple models, I’d be amazed if the market was really that simple.

[pixel8account]

Can you link to some study that confirms it? This sounds far too simplistic to be true, especially for something as complex and unpredictable as the economy.

[ethanbond]

It’s a special case of this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_George_theorem?wprov=sft...

This says public investment will just increase aggregate land rents to at least the cost of that investment. UBI is effectively a gigantic “public investment” that is everywhere. It’ll get baked into land rents, which will then propagate into actual rents.

[danbruc]

In a certain way every country with taxes and good welfare system has an UBI, the difference is more of an implementation detail.

[crooked-v]

There's a huge difference between typical welfare programs and UBI, in that the fundamental principle of the latter is just handing over money with no strins attached and trusting people to (on average) use it efficiently and effectively.

[toomuchtodo]

Social Security and Medicare comes to mind (age tested of course, Medicaid if you are in some measure of poverty) in the US. Retirees receive a monthly check as long as they're alive (worst case, they spend through it too quick and go without between monthly pay dates), and they receive healthcare regardless of their ability to manage their finances.

I see a wide swath of the population strata in my travels, and I can tell you with absolute certainty that some benefits must remain universal and UBI alone (only the fiat, no other support) is insufficient, due to combinations of lack of education, unsophistication, and mental health challenges. We don't rely on people coughing up for police and fire protection on the spot, for example.

I think that's the real conversation: what must be universal (healthcare for sure, non market housing potentially [1]), and what do we fill in with direct fiat transfers on a monthly cadence (which provides for autonomy and choice in matters where discretionary spend is involved). Non market/"socialized" housing ensures a relief valve so these aggregate support mechanisms aren't simply soaked up by rent seekers (with the potential for a "benefit rent" price spiral). You cannot hold hostage what you cannot buy and extract returns from. Think in systems.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38117223

(i provide material support to and advocate for some folks very much on the margin as well as some elderly folks, so these ideas and optimal potential configurations are top of mind, strong opinions on the topic)

[Ajay-p]

Not everyone gets typical welfare, only those who meet certain criteria. A UBI.. Universal by it's very name.. is given to everyone.

[danbruc]

Depends on the country, here there is some bottom welfare tier that will support everyone who is not eligible for support by higher tiers or other means.

[YiraldyGuber78]

To me it is some combination of ridiculous, naive, and pointless. I don't have a positive view of the Western welfare state, with its excesses, inefficiencies, and catastrophic effect on incentives especially for the poorer and more dysfunctional demographics.

And you want to fix this by making it unconditional? The few who need (and warrant) state financial support will get less than they need; the many rorting the system won't even have to lift a finger to do so; the many many low-income earners disillusioned with the state of Western economies and cultures will happily down tools the moment the first payment hits their account; people like you and I who probably have no need at all for it still get paid regardless.

These stories of Kenyan entrepreneurs changing their villages with a $500 lump sum are completely irrelevant. It's absurd to think this in any way represents the way it will mess with incentive structures in the West, and the cynic in me sees it as a very transparent appeal to doe-eyed progressive types desperate to fawn over darker-skinned people enjoying tiny successes. Or grasping for any "scientific" evidence that we should give them money just for being a lazy dropout. Or playing into their fantasy that they would be a productive master artist if not for the oppressive demands of the capitalist.

It's a con. It's silly. But it makes people like me look like meanies so people like you turn out in droves to vote for the "good guy" progressives who just want to give everyone free money.

[forward1]

Monetary supply is finite for all who aren't members of the ruling class.

[elif]

Inflation and labor demand