give every household a basic income theory

Parent Cafe
21

If somebody hands our household $15,000 and does not take away my SS (and my Medicare at 65), I think we can retire more comfortably even now.

Let me do a quick calculation: $15,000 plus (say) $20,000 in SS (for a couple), plus $10,000+ small pensions = $45,000. I only need to withdraw $15,000 from my nest egg to supplement $45,000 to make the total to be $60,000. I think we can manage to live with (pretax) $60,000 relatively comfortably as long as we do not live in any city on either coast and not in a big city where there are more jobs.

This is too good to be true and I do not think it will happen. It is as if our SS is increased from $20,000 to $35,000 all of a sudden without any reason.

22

Mcat2, you are not getting it. You don’t get both…ss and $15.000 a year.

Here is another thing… You don’t get ss but workers still pay ss taxes or we need some other revenue. I guess they will call the ss taxes something else. :slight_smile:

This is another proposal that is not going to happen.

I am not a fan of proposals that don’t add up, are misleading and are not going to happen. :slight_smile:

23

I agree with NJRes that it is quite galling to see that as it is both a false equivalency and a total misunderstanding of the various programs and the source of their funding.

24

Agreed.

25

Note at the end of the article, that Switzerland is proposing something similar, and the minor program that gives Alaskans some yearly money has been good for their economy. Some would take this program and do wonderful things with it, caretaking, creative work, and it would be a boon to society. The point made at the beginning of the article, is that full employment will not occur again as the nature of work has changed, and 40 hours per person is not necessarily a societal need any longer. So how ARE we going to support people?

Without good habits firmly entrenched, some would still end up needing food pantries, etc. Smoking alone can eat up a significant amount of money per week. Countries that make this work are perhaps a little more collectivist in their approach.

26

<<<
This proposal of every ‘household gets $15,000’ costs $1.7 trillion. The defense budget is $600 billion?
<<<<

no way…that bursts the bubble of those who think that cutting defense in half or some such amount is the answer to every problem. :wink:

27

I’m still wondering what constitutes a household? if two friends are living in the same household, do they split the money or does each person get the $11k or $15k amount?

If you have widowed grandma move into your home, does she forfeit her money or does she get it as well?

Will couples claim that they’re “just friends” or even divorce so that they both can get the amount?

This, like so many of these ideas, just causes people to come up with new ways to beat the system to get more money.

28

“Mcat2, you are not getting it. You don’t get both…ss and $15.000 a year.”

Please let me know when this is a real thing proposed by our elected officials. Taking away SS is never going to happen so they would have to find another way to pay for it. It’s as simple as that. Means testing SS, raising the SS yearly limit on high earners would be more likely then doing away with SS completely (which is not going to ever happen so why it is being discussed at all makes no sense to me, but whatever.)

I am still in favor of a base income for all. It’s appalling and shameful that a country as rich as ours has anyone living in poverty. I have no problem having my taxes raised for something like this.

29

And when people have no idea how to manage their resources and spend 2 or 3 times that amount on cigarettes, beer or some on drugs, then what? You don’t care as much when it isn’t earned. There will always be the weakest and lowest among us who need help. This idea is just moving around resources.

I have spent many years getting pay right in my company. Over paying people has actually backfired more than underpaying.

Once again, who is paying for this? At what level are you a taker vs a giver? What could possibly be an incentive to get out of taker status?

30

Ever had a family member that couldn’t handle money? Ever notice that loaning or giving money to that family member never solved their problem, they just frittered away what they got from you and ended up in the same hole they were in before, only now it’s deeper?

I don’t mean to say that no one can benefit from a little extra money. But a free handout to all as described in this proposal is so wrong-headed it’s hard to have an intelligent conversation about it.

31

^I agree. Has anyone here read Glass Castle?

32

“Once again, who is paying for this? At what level are you a taker vs a giver? What could possibly be an incentive to get out of taker status?”

That’s always the problem, I think. Who pays. There just aren’t enough rich people out there to support everyone, so it always falls on the shoulders of the vast middle class, for these kind of ideas. When people are incentivized not to work, many will choose not to. Who will do the work? Will it be the working supporting the non-working? And I don’t include elderly in that group, many of whom have already worked their entire lives.

I’d definitely support a higher minimum wage first, however that doesn’t always seem to go so well. People asking to get lower hours so they can still get their government benefits. Look at what has already happened with Obamacare, people limiting their hours and pay so they can still receive it. I can’t blame anyone for that

However, I really don’t like the thought of anyone being destitute, whether through fault of their own, or not. I like the concept of putting money towards more anti-poverty programs that have been proven to work. More money towards housing for low income people or homeless. Seems there could be a living wage monthly stipend available for those people who truly need it…however, you have to work for it. There is plenty of work, everywhere, there are many things that can be done. I look at the huge number of projects just in my community that are accomplished by volunteers, or they wouldn’t get done. Though something like that would probably create another massive government bureaucracy, I think it would be an option worth considering.

33

“Ever had a family member that couldn’t handle money? Ever notice that loaning or giving money to that family member never solved their problem, they just frittered away what they got from you and ended up in the same hole they were in before, only now it’s deeper?”

God, yes. Please don’t remind me :slight_smile:

34

<<<
Ever had a family member that couldn’t handle money? Ever notice that loaning or giving money to that family member never solved their problem, they just frittered away what they got from you and ended up in the same hole they were in before, only now it’s deeper?


[QUOTE=""]

[/QUOTE]

Not a family member, but my housekeeper. She cleans four of my properties and I hire her to do various other projects (she’s an amazing painter and can do many odd jobs.). She has a steady income, a home that is paid off (from her dad), yet she is always in a hole. I do lend her money, and even outright just gave her money when I know she wouldn’t likely be able to pay it back, but in the long run it doesn’t help. Cigarettes, beer, giving money to her flakey over 30 sons, pay per view TV, pricey purses, upgrading her smart phone, rock concerts, impulsive whatever.

This may sound mean, but I kind of shamed her so much about the cigarettes that she quit a few months ago and she’s got the beer purchases down to only Saturdays (her sons would drink most of what she bought anyway!) She owes everyone money.

I don’t mind helping her when it’s a serious expense (right now I’m paying for her dogs’ Rx’s), and I do buy her pets’ food (she’s a rescuer and pet-foster so I pay for all the pets’ food because my H will only let me have 2 cats and 2 dogs). We bought her a new bed because her old one was giving back problems. We’ve fixed her car’s AC and fixed her home’s AC (we live in the South and frankly, it’s in our best interest that she have those things.)

I get calls and texts from her at all hours asking for “an advance.” Sometimes she’s nearly hysterical when she calls…mostly because she’s gotten herself into a hole (i.e. electricity or cable is about to be turned off). I don’t care if her cable gets turned off, but obviously she needs electricity. I hate advancing money to her because then when she’s working, her morale is low because some of her payment will pay back the advance. To relieve some of that, I still pay her most of her fee, and “pay myself back” an hour at a time.

One reason I really hate lending her money is because I know that sometimes she’s giving it to her flakey sons. Ugh. They’re able bodied men, but they’re part of that seemingly growing number of men who’d rather sit at home playing video games (what’s up with THAT!!!) One son would order Pay Per View and “promise” to pay when the bill came, but would have some lame excuse when that time came. God forbid that guys like this would be handed $11k-15k per year just for breathing. I know that they would never work another day in their lives if they got that money!!

For her birthdays and Christmas, I find that it’s better to actually purchase a large item that she needs rather than give her a cash bonus (learned that the hard way). If I give her cash, she blows it on stupid stuff and then complains when she doesn’t have what she needs. Right now, she needs a washer, and if I hadn’t bought her a laptop for Christmas, I would have gotten her one. So, now I’ll look on CraigsList or whatever for a reliable used one.

She recently wanted to visit a friend in another state. She asked if I would help her buy her ticket, even though it would be a higher last minute purchase. I told her that the tix would cost much less if we bought it 7-14 days in advance. She didn’t like that. She wanted to go NOW. I refused to pay for a last minute tix. I don’t even do that for my own family unless emergency.

But that’s the rub…it’s that impulsive, “I have to have this,” “I deserve this,” “I don’t want to wait,” “I want what others have,” and so forth.

If she were given an add’l $1k a month from the gov’t, I know that she’d still be having the same troubles.

35

What about a guaranteed basic “income” in the form of vouchers that could be used for food, housing, clothes, etc, but NOT for inessentials? I don’t love the paternalistic aspect of it, but will grudgingly concede that it is probably necessary to avoid waste.

I do think at some point, we’re going to have to have something resembling a guaranteed income as technology eliminates more and more jobs. It doesn’t matter how hard-working you are if there simply aren’t enough jobs to go around.

36

We had a yard man like that, who did basic yard work at a rental. Whenever he had a cash flow crisis, he’d call H and offer to trim trees. The last year he did work for H, he was calling every month, sometimes several times/month and we paid many times over what we had budgeted for landscaping. We fired him and switched to a yard man who never calls with cash flow woes, whom the property manager recommended.

37

But just like how Margaret Thatcher said the problem w socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money, looks like Alaska’s Permanent Fund payments have bitten the dust, due to the collapse of oil prices.

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/ready-or-not-alaska-faces-choice-taxes

38

If that happens, then why maintain the fantasy that it’s a public pension system. Just call it welfare already.

39

Post 37 is illogical. :slight_smile:

40

Means-testing universal benefits causes political support for such benefits to crater, especially whens means testing starts in at the bourgeois upper middle class level (i.e. the people who vote religiously) and not the superrich. It also occurs to me that if you know that you will lose old-age benefits by saving too much or making too much money, you will be incentivized to slack off during your working life. Most people already collect far more SS than they put in anyway. I support the continuance of Social Security and I think means testing would destroy it. The Scandinavian countries have figured this out re university benefits: everyone (including the poor) pays some tax, however symbolic, and everyone benefits, no matter how much they do not need it.