It may not be a bad thing if companies have to pay more. They are paying less than 30 years ago as it is, and many companies’ low wages are subsidised by government.
Public debt might increase, but private debt would decrease.
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Good points.
I’ll admit I’m attracted to the potential flexibility it offers and of course the potential to stop the reliance on things like food banks which is a growing issue here in the UK.
From a personal level having a UBI fallback could provide the opportunity for a change in direction. Currently I have little option and that stresses that I could personally do without to be honest.
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Philosophically, it’s better (certainly feels better) to use “money printing” to increase the living standards of the masses rather than merely massively increasing the net worth of the very well off. All the bond buying has benefited the well-heeled disproportionately, even if by healing the economy it has helped everyone. That UBI is now being discussed as a serious possibility seems to me to underscore we may be entering a new economic phase.
And this is why so many governments (and their puppet masters, the neoliberal elite) are so fervently against UBI: it gives people choice.
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While this is pretty intuitive, there are now a couple of real world experiments with UBI and the results seem to not follow these patterns. At least not the employment disincentive. See Finland as a great example of this, but also the previously mentioned Stockton.
The rationale is that currently people are pressured into taking the first offer that comes along, and employers who understand that imbalance then underpay for their services, creating a deflationary effect on wages. That has systemic effects, but also works to trap people with responsibilities in situations of underemployment. If backstopped by UBI, then the individual effect is more freedom to wait for the right offer. On a systemic level if also resets the balance between employer and candidate. And while you see that as inflationary and negative, what it does is remove a competitive advantage the employer has and forces them to pay properly for the right talent. I appreciate the argument about inflation, especially now in the context where we’re doing 3 or 4 things simultaneously that each might encourage inflation, but I don’t think avoiding inflation for the sake of it when worker salaries have stagnated so badly over a generation is a worth goal to pursue.
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scary thought!!!
That has been repeatedly shown to be untrue in every UBI that has every been undertaken, to my knowledge. The take away point is always that people aren’t fundamentally lazy, and actually become more productive and more entrepreneurial, when freed from the stress of having to struggle to meet basic needs.
Isn’t it interesting that it’s generally accepted that if you want to incentivise wealthy people to work harder you give them more money, but if you want to incentivise poorer people to work harder you take their money away?
On the inflation point, we can’t argue that this isn’t a side effect. But it’s got nothing to do with people not working and therefore not producing - it’s because people having more money reduces the value of that money, and therefore pushes up prices.
The biggest inflationary worry would come from landlords and house prices. They would need to be controlled.
UBI is not something that can be dismissed out of hand, especially not as trials generally show the opposite of what it’s critics fear.
My biggest worry is that UBI would drive production and greater resource use. That’s the last thing the planet needs now.
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Bit of a pipe dream, though. Most of these UBI experiments have been with small groups of people. In Stockton, CA it was only 500 people. To give every man, woman and child in the U.S. UBI at even a $10K/year level is a $3.5T/yr commitment. $10K is not going to give people the kind of freedom needed, and anyway prices will rise to meet the money supply. Better, in my opinion, to fix things like healthcare and education, give lower income people better access to higher quality components of them. Those are both expensive but at least econonimcally feasible.
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We had this little discussion about 18 months ago and my idea of a UBI was to make food free to all. All that idea seemed to invoke was visions of Soviet style food lines. I still think food should be a basic right to the citizens of any country.
The idealogical warfare that we humans insist on embarking on is likely to be one of the stops on the way to the top of the hill that our civilisation will die on.
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I feel kind of embarrassed to ask, but what’s UBI? Following the discussion, it seem to refer to some kind of government benefit scheme.
Universal Basic Income.
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BWaaaaaa
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One hand Fox says this:
“Fox News Media is proud of our 2020 election coverage, which stands in the highest tradition of American journalism”
And on the other, lawyers for someone they gave a pedestal to shout their claims from the rooftops says this:
"Earlier this week, lawyers for Ms Powell argued in court that her claims that “Democrats were attempting to steal the election and had developed a computer system to alter votes electronically” were clearly an exaggeration and protected political speech.
“No reasonable person would conclude that the statements were truly statements of fact,” her team argued in an attempt to dismiss Dominion’s separate lawsuit against her."
Eeeeeeer… 
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So she is arguing that Fox news is actually the Fake News Channel??
Crikey these people have some balls
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I support UBI, but feel other issues would need to be resolved concurrently to make it work.
Take the UK and the lack of housing. If everyone’s expendable income went up £200 a week. I don’t think it would take long before rent similarly increased. Or used that £200 a week to help towards a more expensive mortgage.
You would need laws brought in to curb house flipping, perhaps deposit rules for investors, perhaps rent control mechanisms.
I also fear a consequence (long term) would be an excuse not for wages to increase. A bit like tax credits in the UK. As the push by employers is to pay as little as they can, I feel like they would exploit UBI to continually push down wages.
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Housing is the elephant in the room. There is plenty of housing in the UK but it is concentrated in the hands of too few people.
Getting back to UBI, employers would have to make their jobs more attractive if putative employees have the choice of saying no; increased wages and benefits would need to be offered to workers.
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I think this is where I come down on the minimum wage debate as well. Yes, it needs to be higher, but I think legislation that mandates a higher number without addressing the root cause of why so many adults have a primary job that pay minimum wage is not the solution
Good point. I think this is similar to one example I have in Singapore that I was talking to my friends about. The government in Singapore is trying to give so many incentives and making the infrastructure available to encourage people to buy Electric Cars because Singapore is so full of cars. Those incentives are meant to lower the cost of car ownership. But then commercial electric companies knowing full well there are such incentives given, instead raise the prices upfront and selling the idea that there will still be savings years down the road, this cycle counters the impact of these incentives. Now what does the government do, come in and regulate electric car prices? And put into the bigger context of UBI, I think no humans will a heart would want to see their neighbours die of hunger but like you rightly point out, its not just lets have UBI and everything else will be ok, there are just many issues to work out because there will be ripple effects in some other parts of the economy and the society.
In Singapore, although its not a perfect system, we have a rebound system, meaning, if you are willing to help yourself through government schemes, then the government will help you. For example, I am retrenched because of Covid. Through a government scheme, I applied for an University 9 month course to upgrade my skills to make it relevant to current context. Its free through a SKILLSFUTURE credit given to mid career citizens like myself and on top of that, as long I meet the minimum attendance, I get $1200 allowance (around 700 GBP I think) per month just for your basic expenses and all these hopefully to help people like me rebound when the economy recovers and to help me find another employment or even start my own business.
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That is a great scheme. Incentivising training and education is an excellent idea.
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