What do you think?
http://www.newsweek.com/2014/12/26/how-fix-poverty-write-every-family-basic-income-check-291583.html
I love the idea but I’m probably an outlier.
I’m with emilybee.
Completely in favor. We had a thread on this recently:
The fact that poverty exists in this day and age in the US is absolutely disgusting. Not only does it exist, but the levels at which it exists are mind-boggling: approximately 1 in 4 children are in poverty in the US. Unacceptable.
When I was on food stamps and other cash assistance, the amount of paperwork they sent me and the amount of hours a case worker spent on one person was ridiculous. Of course I did it because I didn’t particularly want to starve, but it was such a waste of money and resources. Our safety net systems are inefficient and getting worse due to more “regulations.”
I think it would have to be coupled with price controls on basic necessities, such as rent – otherwise I just see it as a potential inflationary pressure. That is, if everyone has a guaranteed $X – then a lot of landlords, especially in lower income areas, can raise the rent to $X or $X+. Those who are able to supplement the government allotment with additional income might do well – so a boon for the working poor – but that hypothetical single mom with the 3 kids and the mother with Alzheimer’s? She isn’t going to be able to quit work – at best she ends up with a tiny bit more flexibility as what kind of work she takes.
Also, that idea of “$15,000 per year … for every household” is problematic – if you tie the subsidy to a “household”, then being part of a large household is no benefit – is a person living alone getting the same money? Does a married couple with no kids get the same as a two-parent household with 5 kids?
Basically the concept needs a lot of tweaking to work. I agree that it would be a much better approach than our current welfare system, simply because by putting a lot of conditions on the distribution of funds, the government ends up with a costly infrastructure.
You mean to give money to someone just because he is breathing? If I have to pay for such benefit, I would rather pay higher minimum wage to reward people for working.
What will define a household? Would people pretend to be two separate households to get two payments?
And what’s going to force addicts to spend some of the money on feeding their kids?
I hope posters realize that what this proposal does is end social security…
That is where the savings comes from. 
End social security? So you take potentially the only source of income away from elderly people, many of whom can no longer work and have paid into social security for all their lives… and give it to able bodied younger people, so they can cut down on their work load or even quit. Who comes up with this stuff?
I’m guessing… not senior citizens.
For those of you who are pro, what happens when folks STILL can’t cope? They don’t use that basic income to the good, just fritter it away and still whine they are poor and someone needs to help them? I don’t think that scenario was addressed. I guess hopefully that percentage would be very low. It really is true though, as they pointed out…some people cannot work yet what they do IS benficial, i.e. being the caretaker of others. Boy howdy.
I can’t see that it says S.S. would be scrapped for this plan.
Oldfort, part of the reason there is support for this from some circles is that you are ALREADY giving money to people because they are breathing.
We need a system where an extra dollar earned ALWAYS equates to more money in someone’s pocket. Right now, that is not the case. Right now, sometimes if you earn $1 more, it puts you into a new income threshold where you no longer receive certain benefits, and thus get less money total when you combine income + government assistance.
The broken system right now leaves people sometimes better off to work less. That is terrible.
This is why Milton Friedman supports a negative income tax (which has the effect of creating a basic income).
The first paragraph that dstark quotes talks about the money spent on unemployment, food stamps and social security, so I’d assume that’s where it’s coming from.
Since no one in our government has even proposed this it’s ridiculous to assume it would replace SS - which is never going to happen as the hue and cry would be deafening.
We could, of course, afford it without touching social security. Like cutting the defense dept budget. But we wouldn’t do that either because our priorities are all wrong.
And that is a system that makes a lot more sense to me. It creates a basic income – it could be scaled in a way so that it is beneficial to earn more and that the benefit tapers off in a way that is not a disincentive to individual’s producing (and reporting) their own income.
Milton Friedman is dead.
dstark’s post is most definitely factually accurate… and most definitely irrelevant.
[-X
Just an observation: Some supporters of Obama Care make the similar arguments (in addition to other arguments): You are ALREADY paying the healthcare (via costly emergency room!) for people because they are breathing (and not dead yet.)
First they include Social Security in the calculation that gets to the total expenditure of $1.88 trillion:
Then they suggest using that $1.88 trillion - which includes Social Security payments - to provide an income for all:
Most galling, perhaps, is lumping Social Security with food stamps and unemployment and calling it part of the welfare system. (Recipients of unemployment INSURANCE may also be offended)
The only way you “save” money is by eliminating Social Security payments.
Well…I am not the one who wrote Milton Friedman supports…
This is relevant…
This proposal of every ‘household gets $15,000’ costs $1.7 trillion. The defense budget is $600 billion?
The author of the piece added social security to welfare. I find that interesting.
Edit: NJres is correct.