Universal basic income and what it may look like

[porkpiesinthepark]

I've been thinking for a while about the criticism of UBI and I think it's due to people not being able to imagine the government trying to 'match' peoples wages. In my opinion, it never will but there will be alternatives to what we have now, which will be able to offer something better.

So say the UBI is £1000 a month for a single person.
We could change the housing market to allow much more public housing with rents set at an affordable level, much more stability, no private landlords and the option to customise/ change your home. Let's face it, home ownership is out of reach for the majority at present. I don't find people are dying to own their own homes but desperate to be out of the instability of the private rental market, out of parents houses, out of house shares etc. If you could offer the next best thing to owning your own house, I think people would go for it.
There would be much more community linked to people having extra time due to not working or not working as many hours. Now, not having enough to do in the day is bad but most people have these huge dreams for retirement and this would just allow them to do some of these things now instead. Also more volunteering, looking after elderly relatives etc.
I don't think that private car ownership would be a thing. There would be a big system like Uber who you could call rides on. There would be a cheaper option, say if ten people wanted to go to the city centre at the same time, they would have to walk to a hub and then the van would pick everyone up, like public transport but based on demand. It would be a status symbol to be able to call a car out just for you.
I think a lot more people would wfh getting the cost of transport and childcare down. Schools might even go remote, as there wouldn't be both parents working and so in theory they could help facilitate the lessons. Then teachers would have small classes of Sen kids like mine, key workers and vulnerable children. Kids would interact with others through volunteering groups with parents, or just playing out as there would be less cars and more parents around to keep an eye on them.
People will either hate this vision as it's so different to what we have now. Or they will like some parts. But what we have now can't continue.

Sounds like you need to make changes to your own life..... rather than suggesting society changes because your work/life balance isn't working.

We just need fair wages and those who can't work need fair benefits.

We are social animals, we need communities, relationships and good social interactions.

We need to have roles in society and be productive.

We need space and the freedom to roam and travel

We need independence and freedom to make choices

What you describe sounds horribly restrictive and terrible for our wellbeing.

@Swrigh1234 I don't think communism is the big take down that you think it is. Obviously it was incomprehensible to people growing up in the 70-80s when house ownership was affordable, job progression was realistic, jobs were for life, loyalty was rewarded.
For my generation, we saw our parents shafted. We have been laughed at in banks when we want to get a mortgage, both on 30k jobs, we have been made redundant, furloughed, paid stagnant wages. We have been forced to live with parents until our mid thirties, if we could, or risk renting where we could be evicted at any time. We have been priced out of the areas we grew up in. We have been told that it's our faults that we can't save up 20k for a deposit.

A house which was secure, although not ours on paper, seems like a good alternative.

There will be less money paid in taxation though as people can work 50-100 hours less each month if they get guaranteed £1000 UBI. How will Public services survive with less public funding? Will people bother going for promotions at work? Will people go on to further education? Will people bother turning up to work if they know they can rely on UBi. Landlords would increase rents by £1000 pcm.

UBI / socialism just does not work. Economic growth needs capitalism.

Secure housing exists in theory, in the form of social housing. I have a housing association flat, I've got a home for life here. There's just not enough of it.

I think this whole concept requires us all to be dumbed down and uneducated

UBI is a great idea but needs testing properly. Richard Nixon (of all people) came close to introducing it in the US. It provides a basic safety net that allows people to work flexibly , take more risks and start businesses. It should ensure that businesses reward their staff fairly. Its nonsense that "people will not work" as if that the case why doesn't everyone just work until they have earned enough to survive?

You're confusing different sorts of pricing.

Houses in most of the UK are a scarcity good. They cost half a million quid or whatever because that's what people can afford to pay. If we had less money they'd cost less.

Bananas OTOH are produced to demand in a highly competitive market. The price charged in UK mass market supermarkets is pretty much what it costs to grow them, ship them across the world, sell them, and for everyone in the chain take a smallish chunk of profit. You could squeeze the profit margins and you could automate the sales process which would make them a bit cheaper but the price is fundamentally not linked to what people can afford to pay. If we could only afford to pay half the current price then the producers would shut up shop or sell to other countries.

You're right about one thing though. UBI could only ever work with massive state intervention in the housing market.

What has not being able to buy a house got to with getting rid of the market economy? That is student politics. Not a serious suggestion.

The reason we have a skewed situation with wages and housing is that the free market was destroyed by Labour 25 years ago. Tax credits did untold damage to this country. Is there any surprise that the gap between wages and house prices started to widen at the same time as tax credits were introduced. Effectively the government put a cap on wages by subsidizing employers. If employers don’t have to pay the going rate, they won’t invest in automation and productivity, meaning median income stagnates.

That government and every single one since relied on mass migration to massage the economic growth figure because more people means more GDP while GDP per capita drops and everyone gets poorer. While further corruption and money printing since 2008 caused money to flow into assets, inflating house prices.

Tax credits and universal credit since then is basically a form of corruption to take from the taxpayer to give to lobbying businesses so they don’t need to pay the going rate or invest in automation. It is socialism by the back door.

So the root of our problems lies with destruction of the free market, which if allowed to set wages have meant higher incomes and higher productivity and less asset price inflation.

The minimum wage needs to be higher so people don't need state top ups. The money would come from salaries higher up the chain - CEOs do not need an income of several million per annum. I would rather see this than UBI.

I'd love to understand how a UBI would work in practice.

Some of the proposals I've seen include a mechanism where tax rate increases to recover the UBI from people earning extra money above a certain level, which means that it wouldn't really be a UBI.

And what protections would there be against general cost increases given that people can now afford more?

I do think that linking UBI to the rest of your ideas isn't ideal though.

I could be persuaded to be in favour of UBI (subject to details of how it would work), but I really the benefits that private car ownership brings me and my family. I'm also generally supportive of kids developing their social skills and learning in a dedicated educational setting.

Scott Santen's UBI FAQ answers most questions and objections that anybody has about UBI. It's well worth reading through his site or looking at his Twitter. He writes from a general international perspective as well as the US.

https://www.scottsantens.com/basic-income-faq/

Home ownership isn’t your of reach for the majority of people. The majority of houses are owner occupied.

Your proposal is bonkers and not informed by even the most basic understanding of economics or human behaviour.

UBI was never designed to be enough to live on. Read up before you comment.

Exactly! Imagine when inflation makes the UBI worthless. I would never put myself completely in the hands of governments.

This type of handouts is what third world countries offered on exchange of votes.

This is not true because some jobs are going to disappear and one of the solutions is the income to be replaced by the UBI.

I read the OP and thought, she's reinvented East Germany!

When you read memoirs of people who lived under that regime, there were good aspects.

But also massive downsides. To the extent a wall was built to stem the population drain.

You need a huge amount of government intervention in everyday life to control prices and rents. It can go really wrong. Look at Venuezuela. Or just look at our politicians. Do you really want them having more power?

And no there wouldn't be any bananas.

I had assumed that most UBI proposals are not meant to allow people not to work but to take the shame, complication and cost out of means tested benefits.

So say everyone gets a standard £1k a month no questions asked. For many they would work as well as this is no where near enough to live on. This £1k would then be progressively reclaimed via the taxation system.

The big question, as ever, is how to avoid very high marginal tax rates that would put people off taking low paid or seasonal jobs - so the same dilemma that the current benefits system faces.

As others has noted the other issue is housing costs. Someone living in a very cheap part of the country or in a paid for property could live on £1000 pm happily. In an expensive city like London or Bristol it would not even cover the rent. So it would create some odd labour market distortions.

It’s strange that!

Everytime such a utopia is created, the government has to build walls to stop people from escaping that paradise. East Germany, USSR, North Korea. Cuba, with its sea border Venezuela, although without a wall.

Why do so many millions prefer neighbouring evil, free market hell holes instead? Can any proponents of UBI explain?

’Some jobs’ have been disappearing since the dawn of time. It’s called automation. It’s been happening long before even the wheel was invented. What’s new?

What’s the point at all then if it’s not enough to live on?

If it was it’d be communism, which has failed. What’s the incentive to clean toilets? Enlighten me.

I think a lot of people don’t realise just how revolutionary AI is and just how much it’s going to change everything. UBI in some form will absolutely be needed.

This!!!

It’s utter bullshit. I’d haul arse right out of the country taking my money with me if some nut job floated this idea.

it’d require so much control in peoples lives. Creepy.

“Some jobs’ have been disappearing since the dawn of time. It’s called automation. It’s been happening long before even the wheel was invented. What’s new?”
Well, I am not advocating UBI so just replying to the person saying they are not meant to replaced salaries lost due to AI.

Some smart arse just quoted me saying duh it’s not meant to be enough to live on?

I’m struggling here. If I could live without it I’d not clean toilets. Who would, for some ‘spends’? People do jobs to live.