Disaster Area - 06/22/2017
basically
what they're testing there in finland (and is being tested in other parts of the world too) is people basically getting given a certain amount of money per month from the state which is given unconditionally
that's what a universal basic income is
there's a lot of reasons for considering such a model for the social safety net
for example:
- less bureaucracy. As you're not means testing for a number of benefits because of the universal basic income usurping, for example, a jobseekers allowance, you have fewer bureaucrats determing who shouldn't be able to receive certain benefits. This means both less money spent by the state on bureaucrats (offsetting some of the, possibly higher, costs of the program), and it means people have to spend less time and energy form-filling, etc.
so as a consequence people are less stressful and have more freedom to be entrepeneurial
another idea is that it actually eliminates the need of a minimum wage, or at least a minimum wage set to being a living wage. Since everyone would be able to subsist off of universal basic income (Plus maybe one or two other benefits... any UBI system proposed so far doesn't cover housing to my knowledge) employers don't need to pay as high wages. This is good for the businesses and this means that they can reduce labour costs, which is one of their biggest costs. This means that businesses and industries that might otherwise struggle because of labour costs caused by the minimum wage, often choosing instead to outsource in larger business cases, are now much more viable
another thing is that people who want to make art, e.g. music or paintings, are under a lot less pressure because it is incredibly difficult to be successful in those industries and most people who might otherwise consider working in a cultural field like that might not do so because of how difficult it is to just survive from the money you would make from it.
another upside of eliminating or minimising the minimum wage because of the universal basic income is that it makes recessions sting less
recessions are an inevitable part of economics, because infinite growth is unsustainable in a finite world. Therefore, having an economic means to make a recession "fun", or at least less painful, is really important.
That was actually the perspective from which Clive Lord created this as a policy idea in the UK Green Party a few decades ago. I got the opportunity to meet him once :3 ...
let's see what else... it does rather a lot haha
oh also another idea behind it is one of justice: the belief that everyone should have access to a certain bare minimum in a civilised society. A roof over your head, food in your stomach, clean drinking water, and all that
It's much better than a means-tested benefits system at achieving that aim
think there was something else too... let's see, helping the worst off, making recessions more manageable and making businesses more viable, increasing the amount of people who can be artists, enriching the society culturally... ah I remember one more thing
with automation quickly becoming a reality, it's becoming increasingly unrealistic to aim for a maximally employed workforce. So it also softens the blow that automation could have for the worst off, and gives us more room to share the fruits of those technological gains in a just manner as a consequence.
also since it means that more people have more disposable income (since almost everything that's earnt will be disposable income) then people will spend more in the local economy and therefore more tax revenue is brought in
it might sound like a lot but I mean, in part it pays for itself (it's not just public spending, it's an investment in the public, you get some of that money you put in back out), and it isn't really significantly more expensive than say the UK or the US's social safety nets currently cost