So this isn't universal basic income, as it's means based, but this article keeps calling it that for some reason. I really don't understand how a temporary traditional welfare program can give us insight into what would happen if everyone was guaranteed a monthly income - even if the richest didn't have a net increase in income, for example, my behavior might be different if I had a guaranteed income of $1,000/month but paid an extra $12,000 in taxes at the end of the year (because I am high income) than if I didn't have that monthly check and paid $12,000 less in taxes at the end of the year.
Beyond that this is unprecedented times/circumstances so it's really difficult to make general conclusions about this "experiment."
>So this isn't universal basic income, as it's means based, but this article keeps calling it that for some reason.
Yeah, I received "relief income" from the government, i.e. my own tax dollars, even though I'm not unemployed, and am actually saving money by not having to commute.
If this is "universal income", I fail to see how creating a massive government bureaucracy to take my money and then give it straight back to me is beneficial to anyone except bureaucrat middlemen performing glorified ditch-digging jobs.
Huh? This whole program was put together and executed in a matter of days, and mostly via the bureaucracy of the IRS as I understand it.
The point of a UBI is in part that it is explicitly not means tested to avoid "welfare trap" incentives, and it's tremendously cheap to implement relative to, say, food stamps or what's left of cash welfare in the US.
"Means-testing"—as in welfare programs—specifically refers to payouts that have cliffs, that create bad incentives like people choosing to not get jobs because they'd lose access to the welfare payment, and end up with less money than they get with no job.
Progressive taxation has no cliffs; there is never† a tax-related reason to refuse to take a higher-paying job. You'll always be able to keep some of the additional pay. Thus, it's not "means-tested."
† Unless there's a 100% tax bracket. But I don't think there's any country that bothers with these, because of the clearly-wonky disincentives.
> '"Means-testing"—as in welfare programs—specifically refers to payouts that have cliffs...'
means-testing doesn't imply cliffs, only checking (e.g., 'means' of otherwise survival) before providing.
progressive application is simply the continuous form of means-testing, rather than discontinuous cliffs (which are conceptually simpler, but create adverse incentives).
frankly, every fiscal program should phase in/out with income/wealth over the whole range (i.e., be universally progressive), rather than discontinously and/or regressively (e.g., payroll taxes).
in this regard, UBI simply says that instead of just being continuous, let's also make the payout function a constant.
> there is never† a tax-related reason to refuse to take a higher-paying job
This is usually true but not always.
Where I live, if you as a self-employed contractor make revenue over the VAT threshold you must start charging VAT.
If the clients are VAT registered business, they won't mind, they can reclaim it. But if they are not VAT registered, or if they are regular people not businesses, your price will effectively increase by 20% for them.
To avoid losing business with the people who cannot reclaim the VAT, you may decide to lower the prices you charge to compensate.
That's a cliff. You can be better off turning down a higher-paying job (such as a 3 month contract) that would put you over the VAT threshold, if you are close to it and would have to lower prices to everyone else to compensate, depending on your line of business.
This is quite an uncharitable and inaccurate description of how UBI is paid for, least of all because of the implication that you'll be taxed the same amount that you'll be paid. Some folks will be paying in much more than they'll get back (i.e. rich folks), as they should be. Some (i.e. the poor) will be paying little to nothing, as they literally cannot afford to. That's the entire point.
>Although Standing says that the buzz generated by the Spanish proposal is a boon for UBI advocates, he is “disappointed” by the details. Because not everyone in Spain will receive the payment, it is arguably not truly universal. He adds that if the trial doesn’t work, people might see it as a failure of the whole UBI concept.
The opposite is also true though. A lot of "UBI" studies show positive results and are touted as proof of it's potential success. Yet they almost always only test for a short period of time with a very small group of people. So as it stands there's no reason not to discount UBI. It's not only a fringe theory discounted by the vast majority experts and academia[0], but it also never has had any supporting evidence. It's okay to discount a fringe theory especially when it's never been tried but the only way to actually try it is to fully implement it nationwide and just not care about the potential disastrous effects it could have.
[0] People love to dismiss economics as a field and disregard it's consensus, and that's their choice, but it's weird to then believe the few economists who promote UBI are right without any proof.
It is for a definition of UBI that is broader than yours (whatever that may be). Welfare is a UBI for a segment of the population. If the solutions are always the same, with a varying bar of minimum means, the people of the US have already agreed to it. What's left is to argue about degree. The emergency stimulus checks are concrete proof of that.
If one wants to get technical, there's already a pretty rich agreed upon vocabulary for cash aid, including CCT (Conditional Cash Transfer), UCT (Unconditional Cash Transfer), BI (Basic Income), UBI (Universal Basic Income).
Beyond that this is unprecedented times/circumstances so it's really difficult to make general conclusions about this "experiment."