Well America has the world’s most dubious social safety net and is also the most dynamic , richest major economy. Meanwhile much of Europe has extensive income protections in the case of job loss (less so in the UK) but also vastly less dynamic economies. Almost immediately there’s a large presumption against increasing welfare universality imo, and it can’t just be assumed away. There needs to be some argument for why the massively increased taxes & redistribution necessary to fund a meaningful UBI won’t have hugely negative dynamic effects! Especially in a world of mobile capital and tax competition.
I think the idea that UBI would ‘massively increase taxes’ could do with some solid numbers. Taxes would increase moderately, but it’s not nearly as high as you think:
Widerquist’s research used U.S. Census Bureau data for 2015 to examine an estimated poverty-level UBI of $12,000 per adult and $6,000 per child. It also found that some 43.1 million people (including 14.5 million children) would benefit from this increased income, reducing the poverty rate from 13.5 percent of the population to zero.
The additional $539 Billion would account for less than 10% of the U.S. federal budget, even though proponents think it would be far more positively impactful than… well… pretty much everything else the government does put together. Creating a stable foundation for society is the function of government.
I do not believe that UBI of 12k a year is going to abolish poverty. It might well be an improvement over the current welfare system, but I assume you’d have to abolish quite a lot of the existing welfare system in order to fund your UBI. And I struggle to see who is going to sign up for increasing America’s entitlement spend by 25%!
It is true that the ‘poverty line’ is an arbitrary number that doesn’t necessarily equate to life experience not being ‘in poverty’ if you’re above it. It is also true that UBI puts every person, universally, over a certain amount of income. If you define poverty as people living under the poverty line, then a UBI reaching the poverty line would abolish poverty by definition.
Regarding the welfare system, almost everybody is in favor of dramatically reforming the welfare system because a lot of it right now is actually harmful to people. The one program most people approve of, social security, already functions (sort of) as a UBI for the elderly.
I struggle to see who, after looking at the numbers, would be against spending <10% of America’s budget ($539B) on a UBI that would pay for itself several times over & make it so the government can delete a ton of less effective welfare programs. Do you know that child poverty alone (only one small part of the damage of poverty) costs over $1.03 Trillion annually?
This is a fake, made-up number that massively overestimates the effects of child poverty by ignoring the huge genetic confounding that accounts for a very substantial part of the correlation between child poverty experience and worse adult outcomes.
Hold up. That $1T number originated from this peer-reviewed study that I cited. I’d be happy to see your strong evidence that the $1T number is overblown, or perhaps even off by 10X. The goal here is to be less wrong.
But this is the EA forum, my friend. You can’t just claim something’s “a fake, made-up number” without any evidence. Especially when that source is a peer-reviewed academic study.
ignoring the huge genetic confounding that accounts for a very substantial part of the correlation between child poverty experience and worse adult outcomes.
If anything, this seems to me like an extremely dubious claim. The idea that ‘genetic confounding’ has anything to do with why impoverished childhood experiences lead to worse adult outcomes absolutely needs a strong RTC Study cited. Actually, it would need several gold-standard studies and a meta-review.
At first glance, ‘genetic confounding’ (especially in the context of poverty) also seems like a slippery slope to the idea that poor people are poor because there is something wrong with them, ignoring the multitude of ways the cards are stacked against them.
However, I’d really like to give you the benefit of the doubt. What were you trying to get at?
Well America has the world’s most dubious social safety net and is also the most dynamic , richest major economy. Meanwhile much of Europe has extensive income protections in the case of job loss (less so in the UK) but also vastly less dynamic economies. Almost immediately there’s a large presumption against increasing welfare universality imo, and it can’t just be assumed away. There needs to be some argument for why the massively increased taxes & redistribution necessary to fund a meaningful UBI won’t have hugely negative dynamic effects! Especially in a world of mobile capital and tax competition.
I think the idea that UBI would ‘massively increase taxes’ could do with some solid numbers. Taxes would increase moderately, but it’s not nearly as high as you think:
Research by Karl Widerquist of Georgetown University shows that it would cost only $539 Billion, less than 3 percent of the U.S. GDP, to permanently end poverty with Universal Basic Income. Widerquist says the $539 billion per year is 2.95 percent of America’s GDP & about one-sixth of the cost of commonly circulated estimates, and that this amount is less than 25 percent of current entitlement programs.
Widerquist’s research used U.S. Census Bureau data for 2015 to examine an estimated poverty-level UBI of $12,000 per adult and $6,000 per child. It also found that some 43.1 million people (including 14.5 million children) would benefit from this increased income, reducing the poverty rate from 13.5 percent of the population to zero.
The additional $539 Billion would account for less than 10% of the U.S. federal budget, even though proponents think it would be far more positively impactful than… well… pretty much everything else the government does put together. Creating a stable foundation for society is the function of government.
I do not believe that UBI of 12k a year is going to abolish poverty. It might well be an improvement over the current welfare system, but I assume you’d have to abolish quite a lot of the existing welfare system in order to fund your UBI. And I struggle to see who is going to sign up for increasing America’s entitlement spend by 25%!
It is true that the ‘poverty line’ is an arbitrary number that doesn’t necessarily equate to life experience not being ‘in poverty’ if you’re above it. It is also true that UBI puts every person, universally, over a certain amount of income. If you define poverty as people living under the poverty line, then a UBI reaching the poverty line would abolish poverty by definition.
Regarding the welfare system, almost everybody is in favor of dramatically reforming the welfare system because a lot of it right now is actually harmful to people. The one program most people approve of, social security, already functions (sort of) as a UBI for the elderly.
I struggle to see who, after looking at the numbers, would be against spending <10% of America’s budget ($539B) on a UBI that would pay for itself several times over & make it so the government can delete a ton of less effective welfare programs. Do you know that child poverty alone (only one small part of the damage of poverty) costs over $1.03 Trillion annually?
This is a fake, made-up number that massively overestimates the effects of child poverty by ignoring the huge genetic confounding that accounts for a very substantial part of the correlation between child poverty experience and worse adult outcomes.
Hold up. That $1T number originated from this peer-reviewed study that I cited. I’d be happy to see your strong evidence that the $1T number is overblown, or perhaps even off by 10X. The goal here is to be less wrong.
But this is the EA forum, my friend. You can’t just claim something’s “a fake, made-up number” without any evidence. Especially when that source is a peer-reviewed academic study.
If anything, this seems to me like an extremely dubious claim. The idea that ‘genetic confounding’ has anything to do with why impoverished childhood experiences lead to worse adult outcomes absolutely needs a strong RTC Study cited. Actually, it would need several gold-standard studies and a meta-review.
At first glance, ‘genetic confounding’ (especially in the context of poverty) also seems like a slippery slope to the idea that poor people are poor because there is something wrong with them, ignoring the multitude of ways the cards are stacked against them.
However, I’d really like to give you the benefit of the doubt. What were you trying to get at?
Cite your sources, this isn’t Twitter.
Approach disagreements with curiosity