Universal income: Things I've heard whispered.

[nightglow]

Please don't quote others in this thread. Let's keep it casual and not heated.

So I've heard bits and pieces of an idea the past couple of years (in USA online) and it comes to mind now and then tbh cuz this idea does sound odd.
So, it's labeled a Universal Income. It's a few thousand dollars for each person. (The amount changes in the range if $5-$15 each time I hear about it) that is suppose to work as kind of a safety net for people. Everyone gets this whether they are working or not. It helps those in-between jobs, who can't work due to whatever, and it basically covers the basic needs of people regardless if they are working or not. A social score can effect this income. A social score is improved with good behavior reported and or volunteer work documented. Other gov supplement incomes are done away with like disability, food stamps, or social security.
Jobs may be harder to get due to robotics taking many jobs. It, in theory, encourages human creativity, and if someone wants stuff beyond the necessities they are pushed to work somewhere or produce something (wanting of better food, knick knacks, video games, certain clothing, digital assets, electronic equipment, different housing, ect). It reduces the cost of human labor in the world of robotics being the main labor, because the needs of a human is covered already. The not living wage would be doable for the employer, and for the worker, it is extra income.
Supposedly (I assume conspiracy theory here, whether true or not) suppose to be a thing around the time after a population drop and something along the lines of a metaverse that is functioning.

Personally I'm not sure it is realistically doable, but lots of things seemed not doable in the past and maybe this would be after a population drop. I find it interesting that it has been whispered here and there online. However it sounds like something in a dystopian novel or film. (Yet the past few years did too so..)

Have you heard anything about it?
What do you think?
Made up nonsense for dinner talk?
A plausible plan B?
Have 2 cents to add to the idea of universal income for very basic needs of a human?

 

[Croconaw]

I just skimmed over this thread as I’m currently at work, but I got the gist and wanted to comment. May look through the thread more thoroughly once my shift’s over.

I haven’t heard of this being talked about, but I also haven’t had any social media for the past two years. I also don’t watch much television or the news because of the constant negativity. I’d say I’m not really in the loop with current events because of this. I just assume if something’s that important, I’ll eventually hear about it. No need for negative connotation from the media. With that being said, I’m indifferent about this. The longest I’ve been out of a job was three months. I can understand why some people would be struggling to work or in general.

One thing to note was I traveled a few years ago to Bakersfield, California and made my way up to Fresno. The homeless shelters there are packed, or at least they were during my time in those cities. Those are two of the absolute worst job markets in the country. I applied to fifteen different jobs in those areas and only one called me back in the three months. It’s harder to get jobs in certain cities. I didn’t nearly have as many issues in other cities. The point of this is, you don’t really know someone’s struggle. Maybe they are trying, or maybe they aren’t, but who are we to judge?

Also, society just likes to stir the pot sometime, so I wouldn’t be surprised if this is made up. I’d be interested in knowing how this would work. Where would the money come from? And would we have to pay it back in our taxes like the stimulus checks?

 

[M'LadyDestani]

I've heard rumblings about this over the past several years. I've never explored the details, so I don't have a strong opinion on it. I'm all for people making enough to survive without all the ridiculous red tape. However, I'm not sure how it could be financially feasible to give everyone an income, especially if there are fewer people working and paying taxes, because my understanding is that it's a proposed measure to deal with automation replacing human jobs.

I also don't think that everybody would need this income. Millionaires certainly wouldn't, but I don't even feel like I would want to receive it as someone who makes a middle class income. I make enough for everything I need and plenty of stuff that I want. I'd rather see my portion be used to increase the amount for others who are struggling. I guess I could always donate it to charity, but that doesn't guarantee it would go to the most in need.

Those are my thoughts, but they are subject to change as more information becomes available.

 

[nightglow]

That is a good point about millionaires. I poked around the World Economic Forum to see what is posted on there about UBI (universal basic income). Millionaires/Billionaires were mentioned in some of the articles on the topic. It seems they too would get the same as everyone else, but they would end up being taxed more than what they received. (They are one of the people working, thus getting income) While someone who earns much less or isn't working wouldn't pay near as much in taxes. I didn't see anything mentioned in my quick search on there about a social score with the UBI.. so that could be one of those made up things to "spice" the story up.
It didn't seem to mention how much taxes would be or the estimated population for something like this to kick in... but there was an estimated collective number of $500 and some billion for USA. There was mention of the monetary effects of poverty on many systems within the usa that already cost tax money such as the justice system, educational system, and healthcare system. Surprisingly, they didn't mention social security or disability, which I would imagine would dissolve with a UBI existing.

 

[Millysaurusrexjr]

I think UBI would be awesome; either that or all basic necessities should be free/extremely affordable. Tax the heck out of billionaires, boom there's the world's financial problems solved.

I don't think it's likely to happen any time soon though.

Also, it's not something that's merely been whispered about, IIRC Andrew Yang included UBI in his 2020 platform, and several countries and US states have tried it/are trying it out.
I've never heard of it being tied to metaverse or a social score

 

[-Blue-]

I can't really say I've heard of this, maybe I did through passing but didn't realize it had a name. And I'm not really that smart for all of this, but I feel like those in charge would just inflate/spike prices, where it wouldn't matter that there was additional support/money to help those who needed it, just because they can.

 

[PoppyPumpkin]

I can't really say I've heard of this, maybe I did through passing but didn't realize it had a name. And I'm not really that smart for all of this, but I feel like those in charge would just inflate/spike prices, where it wouldn't matter that there was additional support/money to help those who needed it, just because they can.

This is my view too. We could solve money issues, only to have new issues because people will always inflate/spike prices :3

 

[Bilaz]

I signed a petition for it for the EU but it didn’t get enough signatures. I think it would work in my country where taxes are already high, it’s nice to help students and lower and middle class incomes.

I don’t like the social score idea though and I’ve never seen *that* talked about in Europe. Of course, rewarding volunteer work is a nice idea and I know I would become a full time animal shelter volunteer if this was implimented. But good behavior? Who decides what is good behavior? How is it monitored? That sounds dystopian

 

[demoness]

sounds like some people watched black mirror and attached that to a good idea any truly developed society should strive to reach a practical facsimile of; or some capitalists decided they could throttle idealism before it gets out of hand with meaningless faux-ethical platitudes and arbitrary social darwinisms per usual.

i don't see a government, world or otherwise even having the resources to track a social score, unless the assumption is a pop science AI nightmare , in which case it does sound dystopian. but so does a terminator. and dystopia isn't the only thing in common with those two fears

 

[Romaki]

I think giving everybody a little bit of financial security would be a better investment than other measures to tackle unemployment, homelessness, etc. All these issues require millions too, money is better invested in citizens.

If my family got that, we could afford warm water and surgery for my mom. We don't live in total poverty and I can afford nice things for myself, but at the end of the day bills covering quality of life just can't be covered unless we save up for 10 years or 5 years being unhappy.

 

[Corrie]

It's a sweet idea but as human nature goes, people take advantage and ruin it for everyone. It's a given that some people would live off this income without working and be okay with it til they die. Also, who'd be paying for this? The working class through taxes taken off their hard earned money? I vote no to this idea personally. I think disability/welfare is already being taken advantage of by lazy people as is so to give them even more money is not a good idea.

 

[Bilaz]

sounds like some people watched black mirror and attached that to a good idea any truly developed society should strive to reach a practical facsimile of; or some capitalists decided they could throttle idealism before it gets out of hand with meaningless faux-ethical platitudes and arbitrary social darwinisms per usual.

i don't see a government, world or otherwise even having the resources to track a social score, unless the assumption is a pop science AI nightmare , in which case it does sound dystopian. but so does a terminator. and dystopia isn't the only thing in common with those two fears

100% agreed, I’m not even sure where the social score idea came from. I called it dystopian because it indeed sounds like black mirror.

Like I said it’s been actually discussed in Europe with no such mentions. The idea is kind of more a rearrangement of our current social system. Where instead that only people without a job or with illness get a boost it can help middle class families too, to change jobs or get out of a bad situation.

 

[.: Meri :.]

Deliberate inflation rendering the whole thing moot is my main concern with the idea. On principle, I'd love to have a world where everyone's baseline needs are met, and no one has to struggle to literally just survive or feed their families. I know I'd breathe a lot easier, and personally, I'd love to have the opportunity to do more volunteer work, or give more of my own earnings to charity. Of course, I couldn't do everything for free (because hey, hobbies still cost money, and I like buying stuff too), but I'd like to be comfortable enough to do more, at least. At the risk of sounding sappy, my dream careers are in creative work because that's the kind of stuff that's always made me happy, and I want to return the favor as much as I can. I'd keep doing it even if I won the lottery and never had to worry about money again.

I hadn't heard of the concept of it being tied to a social score, but I'm... very iffy about that idea. I'd need to know how such a thing would be implemented of course, but in theory, it sounds like something that would be far too easy for governments to abuse/use to discriminate.

 

[Midoriya]

You know it's funny because in around a year or two I'm going to start earning money from land I own, which will double every year, and I wouldn't even necessarily need a job. I'm also someone who could technically qualify for disability.

But I do have a job, I intend to continue working for the rest of my life anyway, and I actually really don't ever want to accept disability money. Why? It's because I actually want to continue improving myself and growing my skillsets and knowledge my entire life. I've worked harder than others to get to where I am, and I've always been someone who enjoys their craft, so to just not work just because I could would never sit right with me.

After explaining all of that, my answer to this should be obvious by now. No.

 

[nightglow]

For those who are against the idea of UBI, would you be in favor for job placement for people based on what an agency of some kind sees a person would do well in?

 

[Corrie]

For those who are against the idea of UBI, would you be in favor for job placement for people based on what an agency of some kind sees a person would do well in?

Absolutely. Get people out there. There's people who claim they can't work because of this and that but yet stand on the side of the road for the entire day begging for money. Imo if you can stand for 8+ hours there, you can stand at a cash register. It's just laziness and mooching off others.

Obviously I'm not talking about people with actual disabilities.

 

[Croconaw]

Absolutely. Get people out there. There's people who claim they can't work because of this and that but yet stand on the side of the road for the entire day begging for money. Imo if you can stand for 8+ hours there, you can stand at a cash register. It's just laziness and mooching off others.

Obviously I'm not talking about people with actual disabilities.

And if homeless people keep getting money, they’re not going to stop if it’s working. They’re getting what they want begging. There’s no motivation to change… if people stop helping, they’ll see it’s not working and maybe then will things change.

 

[ali.di.magix]

Absolutely. Get people out there. There's people who claim they can't work because of this and that but yet stand on the side of the road for the entire day begging for money. Imo if you can stand for 8+ hours there, you can stand at a cash register. It's just laziness and mooching off others.

Obviously I'm not talking about people with actual disabilities.

I absolutely agree. I have unfortunately seen far too many people leech of the benefits for so long. I have even seen rich people leech off of benefits who obviously don't need tax payers to pay for them as their support group are rich enough to do without. I'm not talking about people with disabilities, sickness, mental illness etc. - I'm talking about people who have literally no reason to not work.

I'm sure in some cases it would be a systematic thing where they haven't learnt the skills to actually be successful in securing a job and keeping it. Not to mention, a lot of people out there don't know how to read or write, but are actually willing to learn. Coming into the industry I'm in (construction industry), I'm genuinely shocked about how many people I've met who can't read or write. So I'm sure that there's a lot of people out there that get stuck in the system because they lack basic skills. But wouldn't it be great to get them into jobs where they'd be suited to? Get them into jobs that don't require basic skills, get them started, and train them up as they go. In theory, this sounds good, but I have no idea how you'd put into practice (e.g. getting resource to manage this, funding etc.).

Same with UI, it sounds good in theory. However I don't think anyone about a certain pay bracket should be getting it - they're already well off so why would they need more? Just seems like a waste where it could be put elsewhere.

 

[Bilaz]

For those who are against the idea of UBI, would you be in favor for job placement for people based on what an agency of some kind sees a person would do well in?

I actually really like the idea of job placement.

The beauty of job placement is that it allows the government to hire people to work on projects that benefit the entire society. Things that are normally volunteer work or things that require a lot of workers. Anything from cleaning garbage off the street to planting trees and community gardens to even building roads.

Forgive me for not sourcing my post because this is the animal crossing forum and to be frank I just want to have a chat xD. I’m not interested in winning an argument.

But from family anecdotal evidence I’ve been told that Germany actually did this post WWI. My great grandfather was paid to work on the Autobahn. Which gave him a good income and the state new roads. Of course things went terribly terribly wrong after that and my great grandfather was forced to leave the country for being Dutch. But it’s an interesting concept. He did get a living, and it’s still a very nice road.

 

[M'LadyDestani]

Honestly, the more I've thought about this and read other people's posts, the more I think that if we were to consider universal income it should only come after fixing other things first.

As others have pointed out, inflation will always be a problem. We have this same issue with minimum wage. People can't make a living off the current minimum wage so it is raised. Then all the businesses paying their employees minimum wage raise their prices to offset the extra cost and we're right back where we started. Nobody comes out any better in the end and some come out worse. Rising costs will quickly nullify the income you're given and since it will be managed by the government it will likely be harder to approve cost of living increases.

Healthcare is also a major issue. Whatever income is decided on can and will be wiped out if anyone has a serious medical condition or medical emergency. I've seen both ends of it, with my family having to declare bankruptcy twice due to my mom's heart disease and now working for an insurance company myself with inside knowledge of how and why things are done. The US healthcare system is not pretty and needs a major overhaul.

Basically, what I'm saying is that you can give people more money and logically that sounds like it would help. But after accounting for other factors, it's still very unlikely that there will be any real improvement in people's lives.

*Please note these are simply my opinions and are based on my own experiences living in the US. Your mileage may vary.