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

First, you need a tax overhaul. Primarily on the corporate tax side. SS's problem is in part a funding problem and in part a problem of borrowing against it. If we didn't borrow against it in the past, it's solvency wouldn't be questioned as aggressively. If we funded it from a broader section of taxes, we'd also have less of a problem.

You could set up a UBI to address both problems.

Can you actually do a viable numbers crunch in our current situation? I doubt you can, because it's only going to get harder in the future. We're not talking anything too hard either. You can't balance the books in our favor for a UBI.
 
It seems like your graph is using total population not working. That would include not only those who we consider being able to work but not working and not looking, but also the young, elderly, and disabled. That'd make more sense with the numbers.
It specifically says "Civilian labor force" which is described as able-bodied workers(16&up, it excludes the disabled). The number of 158,000,000 seems pretty accurate. I'm not disputing that 94,000,000 people in the "Civilian labor force" not working sounds extraordinarily large and unlikely but clearly the two graphs produced by BLS contradict each other. I'm curious what the numbers are in that other graph in terms of just how many of that 80% of able-bodied 25-55 year olds working there are.
 
It's the same as my disagreement with the minimum wage. If you can't find a job, the minimum wage doesn't do you any good.
Sure. I think the argument for minimum wage is that, if you can find a job, and we are tying benefits to whether you have a job or not, then at the very least the job should do you some good. Finding a job that pays $2.50/hr really doesn't do you much good at all. You'd be better off collecting cans and committing petty crimes. Worse comes to worse, you go to jail and get 3 hots and a cot.
 
Can you actually do a viable numbers crunch in our current situation? I doubt you can, because it's only going to get harder in the future. We're not talking anything too hard either. You can't balance the books in our favor for a UBI.

I haven't tried but let's start with some things in our favor. Depending on the study, federal employees are making up to 78% more than their private sector counterparts. The General Accounting Office has identified billions in redundancy issues. American corporations have trillions of taxable income offshore.

So with a proper tax overhaul, the shuttering of multiple government agencies and firing the employees (since you won't need any welfare programs at the state or federal level), you can find a decent amount of cash for a program. How much cash is going to require far more time than I'm willing to put into it so here's an alternative:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/timwors...ic-income-do-we-want-one-though/#22ec6929e00a

In my version, every American citizen age 21 and older would get a $13,000 annual grant deposited electronically into a bank account in monthly installments. Three thousand dollars must be used for health insurance (a complicated provision I won’t try to explain here), leaving every adult with $10,000 in disposable annual income for the rest of their lives.

A UBI at this level is actually cheaper than the current system.

The link has links if you want to read them.
 
Sure. I think the argument for minimum wage is that, if you can find a job, and we are tying benefits to whether you have a job or not, then at the very least the job should do you some good. Finding a job that pays $2.50/hr really doesn't do you much good at all. You'd be better off collecting cans and committing petty crimes. Worse comes to worse, you go to jail and get 3 hots and a cot.

My only disagreement is that if the job is paying $2.50 and that's not enough to live then we're right back to some form of welfare. But if the job is paying $12.50 and they're not hiring as many people...we're right back to some form of welfare.

I don't think we can ever force companies to truly pay a living wage AND hire enough people to not need welfare. So, we have to shift our thinking from primarily taxing the income to taxing the corporate entities. Because either way, it's their choices that will dictate who is or isn't in need of a security blanket.
 
My only disagreement is that if the job is paying $2.50 and that's not enough to live then we're right back to some form of welfare. But if the job is paying $12.50 and they're not hiring as many people...we're right back to some form of welfare.

I don't think we can ever force companies to truly pay a living wage AND hire enough people to not need welfare. So, we have to shift our thinking from primarily taxing the income to taxing the corporate entities. Because either way, it's their choices that will dictate who is or isn't in need of a security blanket.
Sure. The problem is that, they way we have it set up, everything is tied to work. You are better off now not working for $2.50/hr than working for it. If you were making $2.50/hr, that's not enough to live on, but you won't qualify for some of the benefits you might if you just didn't work at all. This is especially true for single mothers. Now, there is also a good question about whether we'd rather have single mothers mothering in the home or out there working for diddly squat. My guess is that it is better for the children, and more economical, to have single moms stay home and get welfare rather than send them out to work for beans and subsidize their childcare with childcare workers who likely cost more per hour than the single mom's labor is worth.

I agree that more fundamental systemic change is needed. The problem is that fundamental systemic change is something that America is particularly terrible at.
 
AS much as I hate to say it, but population control will have to be looked at. We will need to reduce population numbers. So maybe reduce the human population to 2-3 billion total people on earth and that would help with the UBI cost issue.

We cant just keep having more kids. The big problem with any UBI scheme is the fact there are so many people to pay for. Reduce the number of humans, and you reduce a number of planetary issues.

Reproduction would have to be carefully selected. Only those with exceptional genes should be allowed to reproduce. The strongest, fastest, smartest, and other mental and athletic markers of a desirable human should be allowed to reproduce. No more allowing diabetics, or people genetically prone to cancer, anyone on the ASD spectrum, or Adhd or any other mental problem.

Sounds harsh, and it is. We just don't have a choice. Shit like UBI become far easier to pay for with less people to pay for.
 
I haven't tried but let's start with some things in our favor. Depending on the study, federal employees are making up to 78% more than their private sector counterparts. The General Accounting Office has identified billions in redundancy issues. American corporations have trillions of taxable income offshore.

So with a proper tax overhaul, the shuttering of multiple government agencies and firing the employees (since you won't need any welfare programs at the state or federal level), you can find a decent amount of cash for a program. How much cash is going to require far more time than I'm willing to put into it so here's an alternative:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/timwors...ic-income-do-we-want-one-though/#22ec6929e00a





The link has links if you want to read them.

So you're making huge leaps before you can even start on the issue.
 
Nope, beyond that, the U6 unemployment rate is 9.1%. That includes discouraged workers and the unemployed.

There's literally no way that 60% of the population is not working. That's why I asked you where you got those numbers, those came out of left field for real.

THat makes no sense to me though. How can you have a Labor force participation rate the way it is, with 94 million people not working and only have 9.1% U6? I mean seriously, that is 94 million humans in this country not working..
 
I haven't tried but let's start with some things in our favor. Depending on the study, federal employees are making up to 78% more than their private sector counterparts. The General Accounting Office has identified billions in redundancy issues. American corporations have trillions of taxable income offshore.

So with a proper tax overhaul, the shuttering of multiple government agencies and firing the employees (since you won't need any welfare programs at the state or federal level), you can find a decent amount of cash for a program. How much cash is going to require far more time than I'm willing to put into it so here's an alternative:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/timwors...ic-income-do-we-want-one-though/#22ec6929e00a





The link has links if you want to read them.
An alternative I was thinking about, especially for a transition period before automation makes it all academic, is children ages 0 - 18 get something like 10k a year, interest bearing, that's not available until they turn 18. Then able bodied working age folks get nothing until retirement (or some age near retirement), which initiates a livable UBI. Disabled working age people would get something like that their whole lives.
 
THat makes no sense to me though. How can you have a Labor force participation rate the way it is, with 94 million people not working and only have 9.1% U6? I mean seriously, that is 94 million humans in this country not working..

-Children (literal children)
-Old people
-Disabled

Those are the 3 groups that just by and large don't work. A good deal of that is those three groups.
 
Sure. The problem is that, they way we have it set up, everything is tied to work. You are better off now not working for $2.50/hr than working for it. If you were making $2.50/hr, that's not enough to live on, but you won't qualify for some of the benefits you might if you just didn't work at all. This is especially true for single mothers. Now, there is also a good question about whether we'd rather have single mothers mothering in the home or out there working for diddly squat. My guess is that it is better for the children, and more economical, to have single moms stay home and get welfare rather than send them out to work for beans and subsidize their childcare with childcare workers who likely cost more per hour than the single mom's labor is worth.

I agree that more fundamental systemic change is needed. The problem is that fundamental systemic change is something that America is particularly terrible at.

But that is exactly why conversations about the minimum wage are unproductive, imo. They allow people to avoid looking at the necessary fundamental systemic change that is needed. Sure, $2.50 isn't enough to live on so people argue to raise it to something that can be lived on. But that doesn't really help the single mother since she's not going to land that job. This means she relies on the old (and flawed) welfare system and since it's not designed for the current economy, we continue funding a system that doesn't really help.

If we stopped worrying about raising minimum wage and subsequently pricing the very people who need it out of the economy then we could shift our attention to more fundamental changes.
 
-Children (literal children)
-Old people
-Disabled

Those are the 3 groups that just by and large don't work. A good deal of that is those three groups.

Interesting, thanks for the information. Do you have any numbers? I am having a hard time picturing that many disabled. Also, I thought it was the labor force participation rate, which I didn't think included children of non working age.


Also, was hoping some of the people here would address my previous post on Population reduction, and how it is a necessity to paying for world wide UBI. Reducing populations by 60% would also solve a lot of other issues, like environmental issues and a host of others.
 
An alternative I was thinking about, especially for a transition period before automation makes it all academic, is children ages 0 - 18 get something like 10k a year, interest bearing, that's not available until they turn 18. Then able bodied working age folks get nothing until retirement (or some age near retirement), which initiates a livable UBI. Disabled working age people would get something like that their whole lives.

It's interesting but how do you handle people who get fleeced? Because if I was unscrupulous then I would target young people who just lucked into $180k for all sorts of "investments".
 
So you're making huge leaps before you can even start on the issue.

What huge leaps? I linked to an article where others have addressed the financing issue. Did you read the Forbes link? The links in the Forbes links?
 
It's interesting but how do you handle people who get fleeced? Because if I was unscrupulous then I would target young people who just lucked into $180k for all sorts of "investments".
I wouldn't do anything about that, other than whatever consumer protection/information you might be able to put in place to protect people from that kind of thing.

But I'd also continue to have some way for adults with children to access a safety net program, given a qualified need. It just wouldn't be automatic for being a certain age, like the "ubi" program.
 
I wouldn't do anything about that, other than whatever consumer protection/information you might be able to put in place to protect people from that kind of thing.

But I'd also continue to have some way for adults with children to access a safety net program, given a qualified need. It just wouldn't be automatic for being a certain age, like the "ubi" program.

I don't know if that addresses what I see as the core issue which is a continuous shrinking of both the availability of jobs and the wages that those jobs pay.
 
-Children (literal children)
-Old people
-Disabled

Those are the 3 groups that just by and large don't work. A good deal of that is those three groups.
Wrong.

That figure(as I've pointed out multiple times) excludes those who cannot work. It includes people capable of working aged 16&older who aren't working AND aren't looking for work.
 
Interesting, thanks for the information. Do you have any numbers? I am having a hard time picturing that many disabled. Also, I thought it was the labor force participation rate, which I didn't think included children of non working age.


Also, was hoping some of the people here would address my previous post on Population reduction, and how it is a necessity to paying for world wide UBI. Reducing populations by 60% would also solve a lot of other issues, like environmental issues and a host of others.
URates.jpg
"Can work and are looking"
"Can work but are not looking"

Can work means not children under 16, disable, or elderly resulting in a total US working force of 158,000,000. Clearly 158,000,000 people can't include kids and old farts. Our population is over 300,000,000....
 
Why do you keep referencing that unsourced graph instead of the U-6 rate, or even labor force participation rate? You know you can pull the numbers from the BLS site right?
 
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