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.

It would create a massive divide though between those living in cheaper areas and those in more expensive areas. At the moment each area pays different amounts of UC to people based on local rent prices.

Do people not get outraged when high income levels get benefits?

I recall energy supplement and people complaining it wasn’t targeted, then some pensioner benefit (warm home?) gets same

The main issue is many people don’t want to further subsidise and others will absolutely take it easier and just lower work

AI is going to be like the industrial revolution on steroids. Society will have to massively remodel its structure. This can either be done in a managed and planned for way, or with chaos, civil unrest and large scale destitution. There's no alternative where the status quo is maintained.

However, with huge leaps forward in technology come huge productivity gains. Laws and social systems can be structured to share those gains (and wealth) across society through large taxes on businesses, given there won't be as much employment. The money comes from the productivity gain that is putting the workers out of work. The whole point of technology is to reduce the amount of work that humans need to do to complete tasks and therefore improve quality of life, from basic tools first invented through to this, it's why we try to create it in the first place.

The issue here is entirely about whether the right systems are being planned and will be implemented to create as smooth a transition as there can be and ensure that everyone enjoys the benefits of it. A life free from much need to work and spend almost entirely on leisure pursuits is not a bad thing. The problem is we don't have competent people in charge who understand the scale of the issue or have even the faintest idea how to lan for large scale change. They can't even seem to manage tinkering around the edges without being completely incompetent about it.

@kitsuneghost It sounds quite good. I work, but an extra 1600 a month would mean we could have a holiday or dental work done, those extra luxuries that are beyond us at the moment.

These would be in social situations. Pubs, restaurants, parks, family events, just as they are now. Who needs work to be able to socialise?! Surely you'd rather spend that time doing things you want to with people you choose to see?

Increase in productivity doesn’t mean less with for people. It means different work. This has been happening since automation began, which is the beginning of time itself. AI is just another chapter in this story.

Agree about the being led by incompetents though. Incompetent and corrupt to the core.

The whole point is that they would because of the enormous productivity gains AI will bring, hence it making people unemployed. Therefore there will be far more productive activity to tax.

In an ideal scenario, non resident parents would be forced to pay decent amounts of child maintenance, rents would be capped, and employers would pay higher wages. I'd treat housing benefit as separate to working tax credit, the way it used to be. Working tax credit shouldn't have to exist. Childcare cost is also a separate issue.

However the powers that be aren't doing any of that, they've chosen to lump all benefits together and pay Universal Credit. So that's the way it goes. That's what the public voted for.

Is weird apocalyptic style shift into dystopian sci fi because of AI what the people who are disappointed that covid didn’t end that way now pinning their hopes on?

There is no shift. It's been well-known this is coming since at least the 1990s. Look at the books by Ray Kurzweil etc from the time. The only surprising part is that so many people think this is a surprise.

I don't think anyone on benefits get upnto £1000 a month on basic or standard benefits. Those who get up to or more than that have other add ons like children, carers, disability benefits, etc.

UBI should be the equivalent of basic/standard benefit per person. The add ons should still be separate because they're based on different personal circumstances and not everyone gets the same.

UBI would be the downfall of society as we know it. You can't have a society where a tiny number of people work to support the masses who don't work. Sooner or later the people paying for it all would revolt and refuse to pay and you'd be left with tens of millions of people who have no way to exist. It would be genocide.

It feels like people have swallowed the hysteria about AI hook, line and sinker. It has been the same throughout history. Tech advancement creates this frenzy that all jobs will disappear, when really they just get replaced by different ones. Of course part of the AI hysteria narrative is ‘nudge politics’ to get people to accept things they wouldn’t otherwise accept. Some may call it manipulation. If people didn’t learn about how nudge policy works during Covid, they never will.

Depends how you work. I dislike working from home, I only do it 2 days a week so I can be a bit more present for my teenager. I like my work colleagues and I actually like going to the office, I feel I'm more productive there. If I had to work from home permanently 5 days a week I'd look for something else!

It’s been tried so many times before and it always fails. Venezuela is the most recent example.

These would be in social situations. Pubs, restaurants, parks, family events, just as they are now. Who needs work to be able to socialise?! Surely you'd rather spend that time doing things you want to with people you choose to see?

Well I love my job and the social side of it so I wouldn't want that to disappear completely. Plus there are some aspects of my job that just work better in person.

I appreciate that remote/online has it's benefits but moving everything online is not optimal ... remember the OP mentioned remote learning as a benefit. We learned during Covid that it wasn't optimal at all. Young people hated it and they missed out on learning key skills that only develop when you are in a classroom with other people.

I wasn't sure, but now I'm leaning to it being a good idea. It won't be enough to live on, for many, but it would make an enormous to those in minimum wage jobs. A one bedroom flat in my area is around £800 pcm, so it wouldn't mean someone wouldn't need to work. It would give them more disposable income, however.

One thing about the UK which I will always find fascinating is its sheer, unwavering dedication to suffering and subjugation. Any hint of a mere idea which could improve society as a whole will always be laughed out of the room.
Working from home?? Forget it! Why should you be able to have a life balance. You should spend 2 hours every morning commuting to your office just because!! UBI?? Forget it! Won't it affect inflation and why should people get money for doing nothing! Young people can't afford to buy houses?? So the fuck what! Maybe if they stopped eating avocados and cancelled their Netflix subscription they'd manage. Pay rises?? Absolutely NOT!! Everyone is struggling so let's all struggle instead of collectively fight for better pay and conditions for all.

It's quite funny but also very sad too. I'm used to this attitude now but it still gets me every time. Because even those who would benefit from some of these ideas are some of the loudest shouting it down.

@DojaPhat I know. I'm very fond of my country, but we do make putting up with crap an art form!

Nobody would benefit from UBI. You can't just say "well things would be just like they are today, but people would have more money". Because that wouldn't be the case at all.

Not everyone likes fully wfh but yes it’s good if it’s more flexible

I’m more amazed at the never ending ask for others to subsidise

In short, how it would work in practise is;

1. Everybody gets a guaranteed income of £2000, say, a month.
2. House prices go up another £150 - £300k ish because people can afford to pay an extra £2000 a month each.
3. Rent prices go up an extra £6000 a month
4. Childcare goes up £2001 a month
5. Cars go up another £8000 - people can afford it, after all
6. Food prices go up
7. Fuel prices go up
8. Utility prices go up

It would be no different to when Tax Credits started and childcare providers whacked the equivalent maximum amount claimable onto their fees, or when LHA came into force - cool, you'll pay up to £1100 a month? Great, I was only charging £680. Oh, I don't want those people, I'll have to charge £1600.

It sounds attractive if you don't look too closely, but it'll be just another inflationary pressure because of all the people and companies clamouring to take advantage of that extra money floating around. But they'll be able to say 'The country is richer now - look at how much everybody's houses are worth'

That’s really not how it would work because the job market is going to be significantly reduced amongst other things.

Increase in productivity doesn’t mean less with for people. It means different work. This has been happening since automation began, which is the beginning of time itself. AI is just another chapter in this story.

This is not the same as previous times. Work will be necessary because some roles can't be automated, and because new roles will be created but those will be more skilled and far fewer of them.

@NeverDropYourMooncup Can't a lot of those things be capped?

I wasn't the one saying everything will be remote: clearly it won't be. My response was to the poster who said that, pointing out that even if someone works remotely and orders all their shopping online etc, they still have interaction with other humans. I have worked remotely for years, since well before Covid and haven't been to a supermarket in over a decade. I like it. My life is not sterile, I see friends and family when and where I want to.