[Strilanc]

Another solution, that doesn't starve the unfortunate, is basic income. It solves the negative marginal return on the effort of finding a job not by giving nothing, but by unconditionally giving even after you get the job.

This shifts the system away from incentivizing you to be unemployed, and towards countering the centralization of wealth.

[talmand]

Actually, providing basic income will eventually mean a large number of people simply choosing to not work at all. That may be a good thing or bad thing, I don't know for certain and I believe it's one of those things that might be good for one area but bad for another.

My natural inclination is that such a system will create a huge incentive for a percentage of people to willingly choose to be unemployed for most of their lives. If the amount isn't enough as a "living wage" amount then people will either adjust to make it work for them or they will clamor for the powers that be to increase the amount given to make it "livable". I'm sure it would soon become a "right" of some sort.

I'm not saying that such a system would inherently be a bad thing, but it has to be designed with that outcome being considered and the consequences it implies.

If by countering the centralization of wealth you mean take from Paul to give to Peter, then you're just trading one problem for another.

[freehunter]

If people willingly choose to be unemployed for $15,000/yr (as an example income), that's fine. There's no reason we need to be at 100% employment. Some amount of the population just doesn't need to work.

The problem is, basic income will likely lead to inflation. The government would need to control prices in the necessities market (food, rent, utilities, etc) to make basic survival possible on $15,000. The price of luxuries can go up as long as necessities are affordable.

There's your incentive. You can survive on the basic income, but if you want any luxuries, you have to have a job. That way the people who don't want to contribute to society are taken care of, and there's an incentive to actually get a job paying more than $15,000. I'm sure we've all heard stories about families on welfare buying expensive toys, TVs, Xbox, dirtbikes, cable TV, etc. If we want to get rid of that, welfare needs to pay exactly what it costs to survive, and nothing more.

[talmand]

Of which I can only agree. But history shows that entitlements almost always balloon out of control. Often in an effort to be fair or not disparaging to the recipients. For example, food stamps became EBT because the term food stamps has a negative stigma to them. It made people feel bad to be on food stamps so they rename it so they won't feel bad. But you can't really call them food stamps anyway as they have become their own form of currency and you can buy nearly anything with them. So now it's become the "here's some money we hope you'll buy food with" program. Not to say that there are no people who do need these programs to survive through tough times. I'm sure there are many out there who do actually, truly need these programs and I'm happy that they are there to help them. But at the same time, one must recognize that over time such programs may lead to severe problems that require yet more programs, i.e. money, to "fix".

On the other side, if the government installed such controls as you describe then that part would potentially get worse simply because of abuses by the government on its people. Plus, government controls often do not have the intended outcome anyway resulting in worse problems than what they were trying to solve in the first place. Also, keep in mind that politicians often offer to increase the money to these programs to increase their power in their own little corner of the political landscape. Or to buy votes. Or to attack political opponents. I can easily recall the accusations that one party must not be elected because "THEY WERE GOING TO TAKE AWAY YOUR SOCIAL SECURITY!!" even though that party did not claim wanting to do such a thing. The more control you hand over to the government over its people, the more control that it desires to get in the future.

Some would say that welfare is already supposed to provide just enough to survive on to help that person. But with some groups that use the money clearly for things outside of surviving, some groups that are constantly redefining what "surviving" means, and some groups blatantly using welfare measures to buy votes to obtain power means that welfare will almost always not be the solution to the problem at hand.

Taking care of humans fairly is a rather difficult thing to succeed at.

[ForHackernews]

> But you can't really call them food stamps anyway as they have become their own form of currency and you can buy nearly anything with them.

That's not true at all: http://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/eligible-food-items

You might be confused, because some states provide other forms of benefits (SS or TANF) on the same debit cards as SNAP ("food stamps"), but the food stamps program only pays for food--and not even all kinds of food.

You wrote a lengthy post, and you seem to have strong opinions about this subject, but you are badly misinformed about the underlying facts.

[talmand]

If I'm misinformed on the food stamps being used to purchase nearly anything, blame the news because that's where I got my information from. I see you posted a link to the USDA, interesting that you are assuming that since the government dictates it, then that must be the way they are being used. I suppose no one has ever received something from the government and used it in a way it was not intended.

[ForHackernews]

Some people do sell their food stamps (at a discount) for cash: http://www.kpho.com/story/23509709/food-stamp-recipients-sel... But that's an illegal abuse of the program.

If anything, it's an argument in favor of replacing current welfare programs with unconditional cash transfers.

[jl6]

It costs very little to merely survive. A warm coat and a bowl of soup twice a day is survival.

[freehunter]

The US government actually has a calculation on what the minimum cost of living is. There's the living wage, the poverty wage, and the minimum wage. For my city, two adults and two children is a hair shy of $20 for living wage and $10.50 for living at the poverty line. Minimum wage wouldn't even get you close to that.

For the record, the US government does not tend to view a warm coat and two bowls of soup to be surviving in the US.

[talmand]

"Vote for me and I'll be sure to change the law that says 'survival' is a warm shack and three bowls of soup a day."

"My opponent must not be elected because he'll take your warm coat away and prevent me from providing for your 'right' to two bowls of soup a day."

"Vote for me and I'll put real chicken in your broth!"

"My opponent calls this 'surviving'?"