
Universal Basic Income - oli5679
http://www.igmchicago.org/surveys/universal-basic-income
======
PDoyle
This Hacker News headline is bogus. The linked article doesn't prove that at
all. This is click-bait.

A simplistic one-paragraph $13,000 UBI proposal was made, and the question was
whether it was better than the status quo. Many of the economists chose
"disagree" because they felt the details of the UBI proposal were unworkable;
not because they disagree with the idea of UBI.

Here are some of the comments from those who disagree:

"And the children get nothing? The basic idea is sound but too simplistic as
stated."

"A minimum income makes sense, but not at the cost of eliminating Social
Security and Meidcare."

"John Cochrane proposes variants that would be better."

"13K is inadequate for anyone with no other income."

"The simplicity is attractive, but deceptive. Coupled with universal health
care & tax reform it could work. but we are far from that."

------
tpetricek
The title is misleading in two ways.

First, 60% does not sound like too much (makes you think that 40% agree) until
you see that only 2% actually agree with it.

Second, the question is not about UBI in general, but about a very specific
proposal: "[U]niversal basic income of $13,000 a year — financed by
eliminating all transfer programs (including Social Security, Medicare,
Medicaid, housing subsidies, household welfare payments, and farm and
corporate subsidies)".

~~~
snrplfth
Yep, terrible title.

"People disagree with implementing an idea in this specific way? They must not
like the idea at all, in any circumstance!"

Of course, the only way you _could_ finance a $13 000 UBI is by getting rid of
all those other transfer programs, pretty much.

~~~
bryanlarsen
Raising taxes is the best way of financing UBI. Eliminating some transfer
programs will help, but eliminating all of them (like Medicare) will cause
significant pain and suffering.

Most sane UBI proposals have taxes going up just enough so that taxes on the
middle class go up enough to offset the UBI; resulting in no net benefit or
cost to the middle class.

~~~
snrplfth
To pay all adults in the US (240 million) a UBI of $13,000 would require $3.1
trillion. The entire US federal budget (which is still in deficit by $500
billion) is $3.8 trillion. That can't be made up just with a little bit of
increased taxation.

~~~
bryanlarsen
If my taxes increase by $13,000 at the same time as the government gives me a
cheque for $13,000, I'm not going to care, I'm just happy knowing that $13,000
is coming in regularly no matter what happens to my job. So the only people
with an _effective_ tax increase are the rich, and for a lot less than $3.1
trillion.

~~~
snrplfth
Okay, but if you are, on net, not paying in more to the system than you're
getting, then someone is going to have to pay that difference. You cannot
maintain all those social programs, _and_ a UBI, without those very large tax
increases to pay for those who are net UBI consumers.

~~~
bryanlarsen
Certainly. If you work the numbers, you'll find that you can get a workable
UBI with hundreds of billions in benefit reductions and hundreds of billions
in non-offset tax increases.

Really big numbers, but not crazy unworkable big.

~~~
snrplfth
A hundred billion here, a hundred billion there; pretty soon you're talking
real money.

------
Xylakant
The headline here is an unfair summary of the actual question asked. The
question asked lays out a very specific proposal and quite some comments
indicate that the person disagrees because the sum proposed does not
adequately cover the services cut - which is quite contrary to a disagreement
with UBI in principle.

(e.g.: Eric Maskin: "A minimum income makes sense, but not at the cost of
eliminating Social Security and Meidcare.")

------
K0nserv
It seems like an impossible challenge to tackle the downsides of automation
and loss of low skilled jobs without basic income. I can't imagine how society
is supposed to continue to function for the people displaced by large scale
automation without something like basic income.

~~~
bicubic
Basic income isn't some magical panacea. It does exactly the same thing as
social security/welfare, but slightly more efficiently. It has the same
problem: the rich aren't going to give up money to make it work. Would you
accept a 10% tax hike on your income? Because that's roughly what it would
take to make basic income provide anything resembling a quality of life to the
incoming jobless class.

~~~
FussyZeus
Would I give up 10% of my income to prevent riots and a rural/urban civil war?
Yes, yes I would and frankly if you wouldn't you're being penny wise and pound
foolish. You can't just write off the entire blue collar class as they slide
into starvation and go "well that's unfortunate," those are people, and more
specifically people a lot more used to surviving off the grid than you are. We
need them a lot more than they need us.

~~~
sheeshkebab
^ , yes that's the main reason why rich/richer will tolerate.

People without money will tolerate it for a few years, but since it's 99% of
Population it will eventually all explode and either slide into chaos, or some
war. Don't need to look further than czarist Russia/Soviet Union to see what
happens. 10/20% tax hike is peanuts in comparison to getting you and your
family shot.

------
mike-cardwell
If you're an economist or work in finance and you are asked this question,
your answer is almost certainly going to be based on what you think will
happen to the economy. If you think that the economy will get worse, or
improve at a slower rate, you will automatically assume that means it should
not be introduced.

Maybe. Just maybe. Something which makes the economy worse, might also be a
good thing to do.

------
grzm
From June 2016.

"Universal Basic Income – Poll Results from IGM Economic Experts Panel"

Previously posted on HN with 120 comments:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12009562](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12009562)

------
imagist
You don't need economists to disprove basic income works, you need evidence.
All the evidence I've seen points to it working well.

A lot of economists work in finance, the industry that benefits the most from
our financial system staying the way it is.

~~~
funkyy
No, it doesn't. Look up communism. Look up productivity in conservative
communist countries. They had universal income and a huge group of society was
milking the system. If you want to help people, deregulate street trade and
small trade and you will be able to help unemployed people get simple jobs
selling homemade products etc. Add $0,10 tax on all plastic bottles - force
large supermarkets to buy them back from people. This will eliminate extreme
poverty immediately. Remove brackets that force a person to forfeit welfare if
they find part time job - instead dynamically reduce welfare when other income
is introduced. Allow people to work and to earn money easily, and the will. Do
not hand out money for free.

~~~
imagist
Hint, if you start off by assuming the person you're disagreeing with is so
uneducated that they need to "look up communism", you may not be responding to
what they are actually saying.

Case inpint: communism is nothing like basic income. With basic income, you
always are rewarded for working: people who work are paid in addition to their
basic income. If you wish to disagree with me, please tailor your
disagreements to what is actually happening, not straw men.

~~~
funkyy
Well, you are wrong. Not sure what communism you are talking about, but
communism in countries like Poland and East Germany had exactly that. Everyone
was receiving income no matter what. People working on higher positions were
receiving higher income and were allowed to buy more. As simple as that.

~~~
imagist
But higher positions weren't based on the value of work, they were based on
nepotism, corruption, etc. Incidentally, I think that's essentially how
capitalism works too, but if you're going to claim that work determines pay in
a capitalist economy, then you have to admit that it also does in a UBI
system.

------
onion2k
If you pick a bunch of people who all think the same way it's not very
surprising when a majority takes one particular side in a debate. For example,
in another survey of the same group of experts, 98% agreed that the USA is
better off after NAFTA[1]. That isn't to suggest they're wrong, but is does
indicate that this might be a group of people who aren't very diverse in their
opinions.

[1] [http://www.igmchicago.org/surveys/free-
trade](http://www.igmchicago.org/surveys/free-trade)

------
BjoernKW
Some of their comments show a deplorable lack of vision:

> "Bill Gates would get 13K, which is crazy. Raising taxes is costly and so
> redistribution should be targeted to those who need help most."

People like Bill Gates without a doubt would have to be taxed more (amounting
to much more than 13k) for this to work. The current system works by
redistributing and targeting those who supposedly need help most. As of now,
it works somewhat ok for the most part but it's tremendously wasteful and
promotes wrong incentives. A basic income can reduce that waste and puts
everyone on an equal footing.

> "Total health expenses and risk will remain high for individuals. It might
> also shift the norm whether to work. Work = being part of society" > "Lots
> of conflicting incentives that can discourage work in the existing rules."

Because work is an end to itself? Opinions like these seem to be founded in
Puritan ethics (work as penance in this life) rather than economic reasoning.
If human work doesn't necessarily create value anymore what's the point in
continuing to work by the current rules from an economic perspective?

> "What about e.g. national defense?"

Sure. Everything's up for discussion. Save for sacred national defence.

> "A minimum income makes sense, but not at the cost of eliminating Social
> Security and Meidcare." > "This is a dumb question. We are not going to
> eliminate Social Security and Medicare etc."

Why is that exactly? Are we that stuck in ideology that as a society we can't
seem to think beyond concepts that date back to the first Industrial
Revolution anymore?

~~~
icebraining
Regarding _" People like Bill Gates without a doubt would have to be taxed
more"_, the problem is that the question doesn't include those taxes - i.e.,
it's the proposal that is shortsighted, not the voters. They can't invent
other stuff out of the blue to justify their vote, otherwise each person would
be effectively voting on a different question.

------
swalsh
The necessity for something like a universal basic income is pretty obvious to
me. However I wonder, as it expands if politics will change in a very negative
way.

Let's say distribution is an even division between the entire population. If
the distribution is low, the obvious solution soon becomes "reduce
population". The specifics of that can be pretty gnarly, even if it's a simple
"attrition" policy. My imagination for what's possible goes to dark places.

I wonder "who" will make the policies, and I fear the power structures will
change in very negative ways. I can see reactions to power structures changing
to change to a blockchain type system ran by algorithms... but that has
equally dystopian ramifications.

Though its defiantly a rosy picture, the old west I think appeals to a lot of
people like me because old world capitalism allows for independence. As we
scale society we're giving a way that independence for equality and comfort.
The problem is there are always inherit problems in every system, and someone
finds a way to exploit them.

------
pg314
The economists are responding to one very specific version of UBI: _Granting
every American citizen over 21-years old a universal basic income of $13,000 a
year — financed by eliminating all transfer programs (including Social
Security, Medicare, Medicaid, housing subsidies, household welfare payments,
and farm and corporate subsidies) — would be a better policy than the status
quo._

E.g. William Nordhaus disagrees as follows: _And the children get nothing? The
basic idea is sound but too simplistic as stated._

Some of the comments seem quite shallow too. E.g. Oliver Hart (Nobel prize
laureate) says: "Bill Gates would get 13K, which is crazy". You might object
to giving the 1% $13K on moral grounds (but they profit from e.g. free
infrastructure too, that is no problem?), but if the wastage is only 1%, it
would compare very favorably with many other programs.

~~~
pakitan
The Bill Gates comment sounds shallow because Bill Gates getting $13K is
certainly not the problem. The problem is that this version of UBI essentially
takes money from poor folks and gives it to middle class, well-off people.
Someone who was getting, say, $2K/month disability benefits, would get $1000
under this UBI version. While a SV programmer would get additional $1000/month
out of nowhere. How is that making the society function better?

------
ThomPete
I would love to see on what basis. Basic income might or might not work but
current economic models have no way of calculating that as they arent able to
take externalities into account such as exponential growth of technological
progress.

------
VA3FXP
It seems to me that the only thing that a universal basic income will do is
make corporations richer.

If you "double" the income of people living at or below the poverty line, you
do not double their buying power. Mile that cost $2/L will now cost $4/L, rent
will skyrocket, because more "welfare" will be available.

I wholly support the concept of UBI. But it can ONLY work if we restrict how
much corporations can charge. Some things that would help in that regard:
restrict the $ divide between the highest paid and lowest paid positions in a
corporation.

~~~
Touche
Do people really not see that all of this central planning stuff is just
economic whack-a-mole?

So what happens to the middle class families that are looking to buy their
first home when their taxes increase by 10%. If the household income is $150k,
that 1000/month basic income check is going to be less than what is taken in
the tax increase. Looks like that family can't buy that house now.

One tiny example, but central planning has a million trickle effects that have
to be compensated for. It's too much to try and balance and get right.

------
neals
I've been thinking there should be a 'second' (?) currency. Basic income would
be paid in this currency and you can buy certain stuff with it. Food, rent,
gas etc.

Then we keep our current currencies right next to it. You can buy the same
stuff but also other 'luxury goods' (or find a better nicer name for it)

I know that the Dutch government already makes this distingsion where we have
6% tax on food, art, medicine (and other stuff) and 21% tax on the rest. Since
the distingsions is there and recognized, we can utilize it for other
purpuses.

~~~
snrplfth
Well, they have that, as "food stamps". But of course it gets arbitraged often
by people buying storable commodity goods (like soda or detergent) with it,
and selling those things at a discount.

------
ZenoArrow
It seems a number of the responses were based on the specific wording of the
question ($13000 per year, no other complementary reforms such as abolishing
medical insurance industry mentioned).

------
flippyhead
It sure seams like 60% of economists missed the Great Recession, too

------
jbmorgado
Well, economists only get things right 50% of the time (i.e. their predictions
are purely aleatory), so this doesn't really mean much.

Here is a very interesting article about all those major failed recent
predictions by economists:
[http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/06/magazine/06Economic-t.html...](http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/06/magazine/06Economic-t.html?pagewanted=all)

------
known
Because In India,
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_mobility](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_mobility)
!=
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_mobility](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_mobility)

------
valarauca1
60% of economists disagreed that market conditions were correct in 2008 for a
global recession.

Why people continue to put so much stock in economists?

The only other profession I know of that is proven wrong so consistently but
remain doggedly dedicated are religious institutions.

------
inopinatus
My beef with UBI is that it is seen as a fiscal policy to replace welfare (and
therefore funded by tax), rather than an alternative distribution of money
created by monetary policy.

------
keredson
some math on how much UBI would cost in america:
[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zat6b6_8vYYBo4rVSwqN...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zat6b6_8vYYBo4rVSwqNvhAZBmqQFEisqoRUX9EXSIg/edit?usp=sharing)

try editing the "UBI Benefit" and "UBI Tax Rate" to see the total budget
effects.

* assumes no money from medicare, medicaid or SS, just existing welfare benefits.

------
Pica_soO
If there is no ladder to power to climb, what to do with all the unemployed
climbers, who paid those economists so well?

------
xbmcuser
The more truthful statement would be economists disagree with abolishing
social security and Medicare

------
nerdponx
A shame that more didn't provide even a one-sentence note.

~~~
kondor6c
I think some of the votes left comments.

------
known
Because they're living in a world devoid from reality;

------
IshKebab
Yeah but since when did economists know anything about the real economy? The
fact that it is 60% and not 10% or 90% illustrates that.

