How can Universal Basic Income be possible if Social Security is in trouble

[WorldofWarcraft]

Universal Basic Income has been getting more and more attention lately. Social Security is always being talked about getting cut or the age being pushed further.

Jobs are disappearing because automation, and it'll only get worse. UBC seems like the only alternative as practically all jobs will disappear sooner or later. But if the US can barely afford handing out Social Security, how can it afford taking care of everyone at every age?

 

[Pwent]

in the words of the japanese

"The old people need to finally die"

baby boomers not having enough kids and not setting them up for success ruined the ponzi scheme of social security and health insurance. there arent enough new entrants to pay for all their 500 pharmaceutical medications

the problem with UBC is, if i quit my job I still get a paycheck. once everyone realizes this, nobody is going to want to be the cuck working so that everyone else can lie around on the beach drinking margaritas

 

[IppoMakanuchi]

Social Security could be made permanently solvent today by removing the cap on FICA.

SS rose out of a need to protect an aging population.

UBC will rise out of a need to protect an entire generation.

You can craft a law that creates a Universal Basic Income that is fiscally solvent.


I think the real question is, will market economies cease to exist when full automation is achieved?

 

[CableandThanos]

yea, lets say 200 million people age 18 and older, times $2000 a month? so $24000= 4,800,000,000,000. 4.8 trillion

we only take in about 3.2 trillion in federal taxes, 1.9 trillion in state and 1.3 trillion in local.

Now the gov and states would have to work something out about who is gonna share the cost.

Now does the UI go down if you work and are making money? say you have a $70,000 job, do you still get $24,000 or is it phased out as you work? But isn't the issue that most jobs have now been phased out as well, so not as many people working. So now the majority of taxes fall on businesses. I guess as long as everyone spends all the money and businesses don;t mind being taxed at 90% to kepp the free money going, then it could maybe work?

 

[Thurisaz]

The rub is that universal basic income is impossible. It destroys motivation to work and makes resentful.

 

[IDL]

Maybe trouble is a requirement for it to be instituted

"The Cloward–Piven strategy is a political strategy outlined in 1966 by American sociologists and political activists Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven that called for overloading the U.S. public welfare system in order to precipitate a crisis that would lead to a replacement of the welfare system with a national system of "a guaranteed annual income and thus an end to poverty""

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloward–Piven_strategy

 

[AFewDollarsMore]

there is already a ubi system in place:
earned income credit
welfare
social security

of course it's mainly for the poor. a ubi would give money to rich people who don't need it. how is that an improvement?
expand earned income credit if you want poor people to have more money.

 

[IppoMakanuchi]

Something to consider, automation will ramp up the unemployment rate to unprecedented levels. Think >50%. It's not hard to imagine that situation resulting in violence. Immense political pressure will be brought to bear on whoever is in charge and something will be done about it.

 

[Burning Hammer]

It's not possible.

 

[EvilWasLittle]

College is too god damn expensive. College jobs are being taken by people who don't belong here. Gateway jobs to a career are now seen a career. People don't want to take responsibility for shit, when they have children an can't afford them. When bums can't afford shit, they blame everyone else but themselves. Unless you have a chronic illness, your ass should be fucking working toward a career, not blaming everyone else.

 

[Anung Un Rama]

The rub is that universal basic income is impossible. It destroys motivation to work and makes resentful.

The rub is that it will eventually be a necessity due to automation

 

[Thurisaz]

The rub is that it will eventually be a necessity due to automation

Can't belee dat.

 

[Letssnuggle]

Automation has taken all our jobs? Haha.....

 

[Metusalemi]

Automation has taken all our jobs? Haha.....

Yeah. You can forget your dream career as a Sherdog mod.

 

[Cubo de Sangre]

The rub is that universal basic income is impossible. It destroys motivation to work and makes resentful.

Just need people to buy in to a caste system or something that makes the masses being comfortable with their status of being unable to work for extra.

 

[Sycho Sid]

Social Security is not in trouble.

UBI is not really possible these days.

 

[original doom]

The only way for it too work is too introduce credits that cease to exist after 4 weeks.

Ie you arent saving or using your credits as a down payent for a car or house. You are using those credits for food and maybe entertainment.

You cant just give people a secured income that tops the dole or welfare. No one will work as dish washers, in pubs, labouers, Trade Assistants etc etc. This is what upperclass pencil neck liberals dont understand.

 

[xcvbn]

60% of the working population have no job and 10% are unemployed, or 110,000,000 people.. This leaves about 50,000,000 fully employed people at the moment. What happens when the fully employed becomes 25,000,000 and unemployed+not-in-labor-force becomes 135,000,000?

Seems terrifying to me.

 

[Higus]

The rub is that universal basic income is impossible. It destroys motivation to work and makes resentful.

I wonder about that. I'm sure some people would just sit on the couch all day, but I think it would have a different effect for others. People might use the time they would have spent on at a job they didn't care for to pursue personal passions, like continuing education, athletics, creative endeavors, charity work, or raising families. An interesting thing about UBI is that there is still room for capitalism in it. Even if people don’t spend their extra time bettering themselves, there are still markets for providing other services and goods that might not be exploited today.

I do wonder what the long term effects of UBI might have on society, though. I sometimes wonder what it would be like growing up as a 2nd or 3rd generation in a post-scarcity society. Either something like Star Trek where excess mental energy is used to pursue education and technology for the benefit of mankind or Idiocrasy where energy is spent on diversions and self-gratification.

 

[Thurisaz]

I wonder about that. I'm sure some people would just sit on the couch all day, but I think it would have a different effect for others. People might use the time they would have spent on at a job they didn't care for to pursue personal passions, like continuing education, athletics, creative endeavors, charity work, or raising families.

Yeah, I'd guess most of the people doing the nasty and dangerous jobs would stop doing them. Then we'd wonder why we're drowning in shit and nothing works.

It's not a workable system.