USA Guaranteed income?

[Sunday21]

Maybe a guaranteed income program http://money.cnn.com/2017/10/27/news/economy/stockton-universal-basic-income/index.html

Previous post: The economy seems to be leaving some people behind: I am reading some sobering stats: in USA wages for men who did not complete high school fell by 32% in real terms between 1979 & 2015. Men who finished high school but not college lost 19% in real terms (The Economist Nov 25, 2017). 

Maybe help some people at the bottom?

 

Edited January 29, 2018 by Sunday21

[person0]

A minimum income would only work in a society where nearly all labor related tasks were complete via automation.  I really don't think we are all that close to that.  There is still too much error in existing technological systems to warrant the removal of people.  Regardless, outside of that, I can't imagine that individuals would be motivated to work by giving them free money.

[Guest MormonGator]

The issue with this (and it's a big one) is that it could lead to problems with a large percentage of people. If you give a opiate addict monthly income-what's he going to spend it on? Hint: it's not going to be on housing and clothes. It'll also cost a lot more than you think, and therefore taxes will have to hiked up or other social services will need to be cut. 

Edited January 30, 2018 by MormonGator

[Sunday21]

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Don’t know what happened to the top of this message!

Lets see what happens. We have 3 locations to try this out in Canada. Finland is giving it a try. Maybe some good things will happen!

[JohnsonJones]

I'm for it.  However, I think I'm in the minority in the US.  The idea in the US is that Americans can work hard and move up in society and life (despite statistics these days showing the exact opposite most of the time for most individuals).  They feel that even if they are at the bottom, they may be part of that 5% that can move between social and economic classes. 

However, we see more and more that a living wage is not being paid to those who are in the bottom 33% of society in the US.  In married homes, mothers and fathers both have to work to make it, and in many instances we see that welfare, CHIP and other social services are being utilized by up to 50% of Americans already.  I'd say that we should have either a mandate that companies work for the public good (as they did when I was young, and they were doing such in the 40s and 50s and 60s...but started a downward trend in the 70s and 80s) where, sure the CEO can make a million dollars, but they aren't going to have a salary 500x their median employees salary and think they earned it...but instead take the Ford approach (his customers are his employees, if he doesn't pay them enough to buy his cars, he's only sabotaging his own company) where they invest in America, the people, and their customers. 

I don't expect the American politicians to do that these days (they are too much in the hands of the corporations already), which means I am in support of such an idea, where there is a Guaranteed income in the US...

In addition though, I'd say that if a company was NOT paying their employees an amount equal or more than that income...that company gets to pay what we call the guaranteed income tax...where they pay the US 10X what the US is paying their employees to raise those employees up to that guaranteed income.

Heck, even without that guaranteed income...instead of walmart or other companies employees taking out welfare...still give those employees the benefits, but TAX those companies at 10X the cost (hence we don't lose that money, we make it back plus some) of it to repay the shortfall that the US is taking because they refuse to pay their employees enough to live on.

[Sunday21]

@JohnsonJones. I think that there are fewer opportunities for the less educated. How do we break the cycle of poverty? It is difficult for the poor to provide education past high school for their children. In my province, we are now paying for dental care for children and free drugs up to age 25. The drug plan especially will help college students. 

[bytebear]

Upward mobility is surprisingly common.  Those in the bottom 20% will not end up there.  And a conscientious parent will ensure their children will for sure be higher in status.  Fact is, there will always be jobs that require no skills, that people don't particularly want to do, but they do them, generally not for their own sake but for the sake of their children.  What a minimum income means is that people will essentially become pets of the government, with no incentive to improve their lot, nor the lot of their offspring, which explains why demographics with high degrees of welfare also have high degrees of child neglect.

[bytebear]

And there are high paying jobs that are low skill still out there, but they take personal sacrifice (oil rig worker, truck driver, etc.)

 

[Sunday21]

I think that upward mobility in the us is much less than previous generations.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/05/us/harder-for-americans-to-rise-from-lower-rungs.html?sq=mobility&st=cse&scp=1&pagewanted=all

[Sunday21]

I agree that having a large % of the population being kept as pets would be harmful. Perhaps some income sup would be helpful but not enough tp live on?

[anatess2]

9 hours ago, Sunday21 said:

@JohnsonJones. I think that there are fewer opportunities for the less educated. How do we break the cycle of poverty? It is difficult for the poor to provide education past high school for their children. In my province, we are now paying for dental care for children and free drugs up to age 25. The drug plan especially will help college students. 

You're talking about 2015...

There are fewer opportunities for people because jobs moved out of the USA.  With USA having one of the world's highest corporate taxes and burdensome regulations, who would want to open jobs there? This, of course, affects the lowest qualified people as they get edged out in competition.  There is only one solution to this problem.  Attract more jobs to the USA to create an employee market so employers have to compete for employees instead of the other way around.  This was proven by North Dakota during the energy boom, but because of US regulations, OPEC was able to simply drop their prices, shutting down the energy boom in the US.

The past year is a new era in the US.  Jobs are coming back to the US, energy is once again competitive (well positioned to be a net energy exporter!), burdensome regulations got slashed 4 to 1, trade agreements re-balanced, and illegal immigration stifled to prevent them from competing in the marketplace of American workers.  The result is a jobs market with the lowest unemployment rate.  And this just started.  The US' reception in Davos Summit shows a worldwide excitement for the US market.  Trudeau got a smile for his duck socks and a yawn for his ideas.

Canadians and Fins find it easy to say "give a guaranteed income to people even without commensurate work".  They always do not consider where that income is going to come from.  They think - oh, the rich will pay it.  Yeah sure.  If Canada or Finland was the only place to be rich.  They don't consider that heck, they're just gonna move to the USA!  By the way - that has been proven time and time again in Sweden, Denmark, Netherlands, and Norway.  That's why Denmark and the Netherlands moved away from their Democratic Socialist experiment 20 years ago.  Sweden is ailing as they hang on to the last vestiges of the failed experiment being propped up by IKEA. 

In any case, guaranteed income does not guarantee anything.  You're basically just base-lining the cost of living.  When somebody gives people money, they end up competing for what to spend that money on - which means prices are going up.  Also, it is baselining entry-level work.  With people getting X guaranteed income it will take a whole lot more to attract them to work.  As work is subject to return-on-investment, it will then require a whole lot more qualifications to work at McDonald's because the automated burger flipper and cashier is cheaper to hire.

Edited January 30, 2018 by anatess2

[person0]

9 hours ago, JohnsonJones said:

a living wage is not being paid to those who are in the bottom 33%

If they aren't getting paid a living wage how are they still alive?  I bring that up just to show it is intentionally misleading language designed by leftists to pull at people's heartstrings.

Not all, but most of the people who don't receive a so called 'living wage' are receiving government benefits.  Government benefits are paid for by the taxation of the corporations that those people work for.  As we just saw with the recent law, eliminate taxation, and places like Wal-mart begin to pay more.  If an employee receives a 'living wage' they generally lose many government benefits, as a result many prefer to continue with a lower income.  Either the company pays it to the individual, or the government wastes a little bit on their operational costs and then pays it to the individual.  I could easily support a higher minimum wage if it were combined with an elimination of most government social programs.  Because if you are actually receiving a 'living wage', you have enough to live on right?  However, that's not what people are going for, they want their cake and to eat it too.

[estradling75]

If we are going to talk about this from a gospel perspective we need to ask ourselves how it it balances the command to help the poor and needy with the command to work ("By the sweat of our brow")

[Guest]

15 hours ago, Sunday21 said:

Maybe a guaranteed income program http://money.cnn.com/2017/10/27/news/economy/stockton-universal-basic-income/index.html

Previous post: The economy seems to be leaving some people behind: I am reading some sobering stats: in USA wages for men who did not complete high school fell by 32% in real terms between 1979 & 2015. Men who finished high school but not college lost 19% in real terms (The Economist Nov 25, 2017). 

Maybe help some people at the bottom?

If people are failing because they did not complete high school, then don't just pay them for not completing high school.  Educate them to a high school equivalence.  If not completing college is causing failures, then help them complete college.

I've also seen statistics of college graduates having minimum wage jobs because they only have useless SJW degrees with no practical application to real life.  Then those without degrees are being chosen against.

People are being told to get a desk job.  So, we have a glut of people prepared to do fairly unskilled desk jobs.  Thus, wages for those jobs goes down.

There are PLENTY of other jobs that are perfectly fine jobs that no one is (at least, very few are)  being trained for.  Those jobs, such as a welder, can get a salary of $100k to start and over $250k with some experience.  But it's not a "desk job".  So people aren't getting trained for them.

A basic income is giving a patient aspirin hoping their brain tumor will go away.  How about we do some surgery and remove the tumor?

[JohnsonJones]

1 hour ago, person0 said:

If they aren't getting paid a living wage how are they still alive?  I bring that up just to show it is intentionally misleading language designed by leftists to pull at people's heartstrings.

Not all, but most of the people who don't receive a so called 'living wage' are receiving government benefits.  Government benefits are paid for by the taxation of the corporations that those people work for.  As we just saw with the recent law, eliminate taxation, and places like Wal-mart begin to pay more.  If an employee receives a 'living wage' they generally lose many government benefits, as a result many prefer to continue with a lower income.  Either the company pays it to the individual, or the government wastes a little bit on their operational costs and then pays it to the individual.  I could easily support a higher minimum wage if it were combined with an elimination of most government social programs.  Because if you are actually receiving a 'living wage', you have enough to live on right?  However, that's not what people are going for, they want their cake and to eat it too.

This is a burning point with many in the US who recognize what has happened.  Walmart for example has made the news multiple times in the past decade in regards to this.   The employees are receiving welfare and food stamps.  Walmart is literally being held up by the US welfare programs.

This, of course, should outrage most people that a corporation is taking advantage of the US in this way.  This is why I'd say, whether we have a living wage or not...ANY COMPANY that utilizes employees that have to take out welfare and food stamps and other expenses from the US government...MUST PAY BACK THE GOVERNMENT that money...but x10.  Once they get it that they are paying 10x what they need to...it will incentivize them to pay that living wage...or a wage which makes it so employees do not have to rely on welfare.

 

Edit: Short of doing something like that, yes, I'm in favor of a guaranteed income.  If our society is to the point that it is uneconomical for companies to pay their employees a living wage so that 50% of Americans are already relying on some sort of financial or other governmental aid anyways...institute it.  It was predicted that a situation like this would come about in the future already...and though we are not quite there yet, we get closer to it every day. 

That does not mean people do not work...it means they are guaranteed the basics of life.  In many ways, this is similar to what Brigham Young and Joseph Smith tried to institute, but in many times and places people were too wicked (they think they deserve things because they "earned" it rather than seeing that it is all a gift from the Lord) to live by the Law of Consecration. 

Some of the differences, which I think would be a good thing if this was instituted was that every person according to their needs.  Hence, someone who has 8 children is going to have a larger amount of money or food in order to support their family than someone who is older and has kids out like me and my wife. 

Of course, the BIGGEST difference between the Law of Consecration and the government doing something like this is divine inspiration...and thus knowing what each should try to be doing and working at while getting the needs that are necessary for their life.  In the Law of Consecration there are no poor or needy.  People still work, and can still work.

This is what a guaranteed income is supposed to deal with.  Instead of having people reluctant to work because they'd lose their benefits, they still get the income, but can also work.  In theory, it can be successful.  In reality, as Brigham Young's practices show in Utah and other times this has been tried, it's success is limited.  At times it fails due to the greed and avarice of humans.

In the Millenium there is a common thought (I don't think it's doctrine...more of a Mormon cultural thing) that we will live by the Law of Consecration.  in many ways, it is very similar in which you are guaranteed the necessities of life as per your situation...but you still will be needed to do the work that is assigned or that you choose.

Edited January 30, 2018 by JohnsonJones

[estradling75]

1 minute ago, JohnsonJones said:

This is a burning point with many in the US who recognize what has happened.  Walmart for example has made the news multiple times in the past decade in regards to this.   The employees are receiving welfare and food stamps.  Walmart is literally being held up by the US welfare programs.

This, of course, should outrage most people that a corporation is taking advantage of the US in this way.  This is why I'd say, whether we have a living wage or not...ANY COMPANY that utilizes employees that have to take out welfare and food stamps and other expenses from the US government...MUST PAY BACK THE GOVERNMENT that money...but x10.  Once they get it that they are paying 10x what they need to...it will incentivize them to pay that living wage...or a wage which makes it so employees do not have to rely on welfare.

The myth of this statement is the assumption that "All Jobs" should provide a Living Wage... and that is a lie.

There are jobs that are suppose to be part time, supplemental, extra cash on the side, learn how to work, summer break types jobs.  These stepping stone jobs are important but they are not 'living wage' jobs.  Any one trying to support themselves and family on these types of jobs are going to be in a world of hurt and need to do whatever it takes to get a job that is designed to provide a 'living wage' not force every job to be a 'living wage' job

[JohnsonJones]

8 minutes ago, estradling75 said:

The myth of this statement is the assumption that "All Jobs" should provide a Living Wage... and that is a lie.

There are jobs that are suppose to be part time, supplemental, extra cash on the side, learn how to work, summer break types jobs.  These stepping stone jobs are important but they are not 'living wage' jobs.  Any one trying to support themselves and family on these types of jobs are going to be in a world of hurt and need to do whatever it takes to get a job that is designed to provide a 'living wage' not force every job to be a 'living wage' job

There are jobs out there like that...but those used to be a pretty small number of jobs.

When a majority of jobs in the US are retail these days, and a majority of those are NOT paying a living wage, you get something where we are today...50% of the US is on some sort of government subsidy.

When 50% of your population is like that...something is SERIOUSLY wrong.  We can say all we want about how we should make them starve or kill them off (neither of which I support), OR we can find a solution where 50% of the population doesn't have to worry about whether the government will give them food next month or if they will have CHIP to help when their kid gets into an emergency room situation.  Instead, those things should be guaranteed in my opinion...OR...we need to make it so that the businesses in the US stop mooching off the government in employee pay...and instead pay a living wage. 

Either way...we already have an example as Mormons of what this should look like, which is in the Law of Consecration.  In the Law of Consecration it does not matter whether you are assigned as a Hotel Housekeeper or Manager (Joseph Smith and Emma Smith) or a Blacksmith (there was a story, I can't recall who it was, who was assigned to be the Black smith who had not ever been one, it was a learning experience for him).  They are ALL given the necessities of life...whether it is seen as a stepping stone job...or a heavy duty job.

[estradling75]

1 minute ago, JohnsonJones said:

There are jobs out there like that...but those used to be a pretty small number of jobs.

When a majority of jobs in the US are retail these days, and a majority of those are NOT paying a living wage, you get something where we are today...50% of the US is on some sort of government subsidy.

When 50% of your population is like that...something is SERIOUSLY wrong.  We can say all we want about how we should make them starve or kill them off (neither of which I support), OR we can find a solution where 50% of the population doesn't have to worry about whether the government will give them food next month or if they will have CHIP to help when their kid gets into an emergency room situation.  Instead, those things should be guaranteed in my opinion...OR...we need to make it so that the businesses in the US stop mooching off the government in employee pay...and instead pay a living wage. 

Either way...we already have an example as Mormons of what this should look like, which is in the Law of Consecration.  In the Law of Consecration it does not matter whether you are assigned as a Hotel Housekeeper or Manager (Joseph Smith and Emma Smith) or a Blacksmith (there was a story, I can't recall who it was, who was assigned to be the Black smith who had not ever been one, it was a learning experience for him).  They are ALL given the necessities of life...whether it is seen as a stepping stone job...or a heavy duty job.

Then ask yourself were the good jobs went?  We use to have them.  But the Government drove them away with short sighted and punitive regulations.  And you want to add more...

Guess what happens if you get your way and charge a 10x taxes on any business that has employees on welfare?  Even Less jobs.  The companies respond by slashing their workforce so they can pay the remaining employees what is required, or they move overseas to areas with less restrictive laws, or the business goes under and everyone is out of a job...  Brilliant you just made the problem worse  so should we all go camp on your doorstep because you will supply what your laws will not allow us to do for ourselves?

People throw out ideas that sound "good" all the time.  But you really have to think and ponder the impact because odds are you just make it worse.

 

 

[anatess2]

12 minutes ago, JohnsonJones said:

There are jobs out there like that...but those used to be a pretty small number of jobs.

When a majority of jobs in the US are retail these days, and a majority of those are NOT paying a living wage, you get something where we are today...50% of the US is on some sort of government subsidy.

When 50% of your population is like that...something is SERIOUSLY wrong.  We can say all we want about how we should make them starve or kill them off (neither of which I support), OR we can find a solution where 50% of the population doesn't have to worry about whether the government will give them food next month or if they will have CHIP to help when their kid gets into an emergency room situation.  Instead, those things should be guaranteed in my opinion...OR...we need to make it so that the businesses in the US stop mooching off the government in employee pay...and instead pay a living wage. 

Either way...we already have an example as Mormons of what this should look like, which is in the Law of Consecration.  In the Law of Consecration it does not matter whether you are assigned as a Hotel Housekeeper or Manager (Joseph Smith and Emma Smith) or a Blacksmith (there was a story, I can't recall who it was, who was assigned to be the Black smith who had not ever been one, it was a learning experience for him).  They are ALL given the necessities of life...whether it is seen as a stepping stone job...or a heavy duty job.

So many things wrong in this.  The first step is to understand the movement of free markets.  The second step is to understand why Socialism doesn't work in non-theocratic governments.

[JohnsonJones]

8 minutes ago, estradling75 said:

Then ask yourself were the good jobs went?  We use to have them.  But the Government drove them away with short sighted and punitive regulations.  And you want to add more...

Guess what happens if you get your way and charge a 10x taxes on any business that has employees on welfare?  Even Less jobs.  The companies respond by slashing their workforce so they can pay the remaining employees what is required, or they move overseas to areas with less restrictive laws, or the business goes under and everyone is out of a job...  Brilliant you just made the problem worse  so should we all go camp on your doorstep because you will supply what your laws will not allow us to do for ourselves?

People throw out ideas that sound "good" all the time.  But you really have to think and ponder the impact because odds are you just make it worse.

 

 

Well, then we'd get onto some of my more extreme types of programs.  Nothing to do with guaranteed income, but more in taxing imports at 1000% to even the playing field.  This means we would have a crash in the US for a little bit until people started making things in the US again and the US became more self reliant.

HOWEVER...the thing about a guaranteed income, or at least a living wage is that this is something that we as Mormons, culturally, in many instances, actually strive for.  We talk about the Law of Consecration and the way it is part of a higher law.  If we truly feel that we will eventually live the Law of Consecration, than we are already advancing the idea of a theocratic socialistic government.  This is one way to view these things, in how the Law of Consecration falls into this and how it would be seen by us today.  Would we defy it and disgard it because of our own prejudices and greed, or would we resolve to live under it and share with others.  Thus we still work, we still do what we are called to do, but we only receive what is necessary...not what we think we earn.

PS: Just to be clear, as I said originally, I could be in favor of a guaranteed income.  I see the benefits of it if it actually worked (people don't rely as much on the government and do not fear going back to work and losing their benefits, instead going to work and working).  However, I'm not going to say this is the ONLY way to do things, or that it is the best way to do things...but I could be in favor of it if it ever came out as something to vote on, depending on how it is handled and how it will be done.

Edited January 30, 2018 by JohnsonJones
Clarification

[Guest MormonGator]

4 minutes ago, JohnsonJones said:

  I see the benefits of it if it actually worked (people don't rely as much on the government and do not fear going back to work and losing their benefits, instead going to work and working). 

so...giving out checks from the government makes people not rely on the government? 

[anatess2]

14 minutes ago, JohnsonJones said:

Well, then we'd get onto some of my more extreme types of programs.  Nothing to do with guaranteed income, but more in taxing imports at 1000% to even the playing field.  This means we would have a crash in the US for a little bit until people started making things in the US again and the US became more self reliant.

HOWEVER...the thing about a guaranteed income, or at least a living wage is that this is something that we as Mormons, culturally, in many instances, actually strive for.  We talk about the Law of Consecration and the way it is part of a higher law.  If we truly feel that we will eventually live the Law of Consecration, than we are already advancing the idea of a theocratic socialistic government.  This is one way to view these things, in how the Law of Consecration falls into this and how it would be seen by us today.  Would we defy it and disgard it because of our own prejudices and greed, or would we resolve to live under it and share with others.  Thus we still work, we still do what we are called to do, but we only receive what is necessary...not what we think we earn.

Another thing wrong.  You cannot tax by a thousand percent ALL imports because America is not the Earth.  There are resources that can only be found in abundance in other places outside of America.  For example - you cannot make an iPhone without using materials that can only be sufficiently supplied outside of the USA.  Now, to make this work, countries trade with each other that which they have in abundance.  Free trade is a great thing unless the trade is so imbalanced that one country is exporting a whole lot more than they're importing... this has been the problem with the USA until Trump became the President and corrected all these Trade Agreements to make it more balanced.

And another thing - the law of consecration has nothing to do with a living wage nor the GOVERNMENT's institution of such.  The first law of Godliness according to the book of anatess2 is not to put your life into the hands of an institution that is inherently susceptible to corruption... that would be all institutions who does not have Jesus Christ at its head, the US Government being one of them.

Edited January 30, 2018 by anatess2

[warnerfranklin]

Bad idea

”The more government could do for you the more it can do to you“.

Thomas Jefferson

The original idea of serfdom was along these lines. The commoner provides services for the lord and the lord provide for the serf’s needs and security. This arrangement never worked out welll for the serfs...  the serfs often starved to death, were subject to the whims of his lord, and caught in the middle of power struggles. 

But more to the point, if the govt is providing for all your needs how long is before they say, “either you do this or that or I’ll stop providing for you’”? Or “since you think or believe this or that I’ll stop providing for you,”

or speaking on a theological level I would remind you this is exactly what we are told the anti-Christ is going to do (see revelations 13:17).

[estradling75]

11 minutes ago, JohnsonJones said:

Well, then we'd get onto some of my more extreme types of programs.  Nothing to do with guaranteed income, but more in taxing imports at 1000% to even the playing field.  This means we would have a crash in the US for a little bit until people started making things in the US again and the US became more self reliant.

Which has many things wrong with it... but the point I want to address is that is that you can not solve the problem with more Government programs. 

The Law of Consecration which you keep pointing back to has repeatedly failed for the same exact reason all the Government programs will fail.  We need better people, as long as people are selfish, self-centered, greedy, aka fallen all the programs (including the Law of Consecration) will fail.

The government and its programs can't make better people.  Only the gospel can do that and the Church has and is doing everything it can to help people be better

[anatess2]

5 minutes ago, estradling75 said:

The government and its programs can't make better people.  Only the gospel can do that and the Church has and is doing everything it can to help people be better

And this is why the early Saints prospered - not because of the institution of the law of consecration but because of the gospel.  They continued to prosper even with the law of consecration taken away.  This threatened the government so they got driven out of the lands they inhabit until they migrated far out of government's reach.