So what you’re saying is that your “unemployed-only” solution will make the words “We’ll quit” into a more credible threat, and employers will meet their demands because employers are too stupid to call their bluff?
If a single employee threats to quit, it’s not credible, just like if he or she threats to strike. If they many employees threat to quit, and they have the means to support themselves without a job, then the threat is credible.
You do recognize there are benefits to being employed other than the wage, right? Health care, networking, friends, knowledge, experience, etc?
If health care isn’t free then it should be at least included in the unemplyment benefits. The other stuff are real benefits, but they aren’t necessarily decisive to make the threat empty.
And, as I suggested before, what if the employees are paid well above your “unemployed-only” solution but wish to strike for shorter hours or a safer workplace?
If they are payed well above the unemployment wage then they can afford to strike. And basic income wouldn’t make much differnce to them anyway. You are making up increasingly contrived scenarios.
Nope. We’re not talking about signalling “I’m poor” to the cashier at the supermarket. We’re talking at the level of policy. You know, Washington D.C. and all that. By the way, maybe you should have looked at a SNAP card before going all scarlet letter on me. Look at this mountain of shame. And here’s a film about the people who carry such cards. Maybe the film will help you stop calling them “filthy poor and social parasites.” Even Tyler Cowen praises SNAP.
What is your point? Are you going to argue that food stamps are not low-status?
Randomized control trials (here’s one for example) indicate that basic income encourages work.
So if you give starving people cash, then maybe they don’t starve and improve their condition. How surprising...
Are there any RCTs for your idea? If no, why? As it turns out, the Negative Income Tax RCTs decades ago were probably the closest to your idea, since it tapers off as you earn more (similar to Viliam_Bur’s suggestion in this thread). The results inspired mixed reactions, with many critics claiming a drop in labor.
These weren’t unemployment benefits, but anyway it’s unsurprising that giving away money, in whathever way, reduces incentive to work.
As I’ve stated before, basic income has its implementation problems. But it’s nowhere near the level of complexity of your idea, which you insist is not that complex, because you haven’t spent much time actually thinking about it. This brings me to my main complaint against you.
Oh, come on. If the government can collect taxes, then it knows how much each of its citizen makes, with the exception of criminals, who face the risk of legal prosecution. Yes, unemployment benefits would have implementation costs. Still, these costs are probably less than the costs of the subsidy to Walmart, McDonald’s, et al. that basic income would impose on the government.
On topic, because I’m actually the one keeping the level of this discussion high, just like in past encounters. See, when I pointed you to this article last year, I discovered that you didn’t actually read it, and you went right back to ridiculing cryonics advocates.
A desperate person forfeiting the last months of her short life by starving herself to death, for a most likely misguided hope in a pseudoscientific and quite prossibly fraudulent procedure is not something I would call ridiculous. “Tragic” seems a much more appropriate description.
Anyway, you are arguing ad hominem. Just to give you a taste of your own medicine, if I were to lower myself to the this level of discourse I could say that since you buy into cryonics, which is bunk, then your general ability to form rational judgments on any topic is probably deficient, therefore you are probably wrong on basic income. I suppose that this would make sense from a Bayesian point of view. But that would be an ad hominem, hence I’m not going to make that argument.
I understand you may be pressed for time, so instead of inefficiently talking past each other, let’s just exchange some links to books of our respective ideas. I’ll go first: here’s a huge anthology of Basic Income research. Your turn.
Here’s another Wikipedia entry. Search “Argument by verbosity”.
If a single employee threats to quit, it’s not credible, just like if he or she threats to strike. If they many employees threat to quit, and they have the means to support themselves without a job, then the threat is credible.
If health care isn’t free then it should be at least included in the unemplyment benefits. The other stuff are real benefits, but they aren’t necessarily decisive to make the threat empty.
If they are payed well above the unemployment wage then they can afford to strike. And basic income wouldn’t make much differnce to them anyway.
You are making up increasingly contrived scenarios.
What is your point? Are you going to argue that food stamps are not low-status?
So if you give starving people cash, then maybe they don’t starve and improve their condition. How surprising...
These weren’t unemployment benefits, but anyway it’s unsurprising that giving away money, in whathever way, reduces incentive to work.
Oh, come on. If the government can collect taxes, then it knows how much each of its citizen makes, with the exception of criminals, who face the risk of legal prosecution.
Yes, unemployment benefits would have implementation costs. Still, these costs are probably less than the costs of the subsidy to Walmart, McDonald’s, et al. that basic income would impose on the government.
A desperate person forfeiting the last months of her short life by starving herself to death, for a most likely misguided hope in a pseudoscientific and quite prossibly fraudulent procedure is not something I would call ridiculous. “Tragic” seems a much more appropriate description.
Anyway, you are arguing ad hominem.
Just to give you a taste of your own medicine, if I were to lower myself to the this level of discourse I could say that since you buy into cryonics, which is bunk, then your general ability to form rational judgments on any topic is probably deficient, therefore you are probably wrong on basic income. I suppose that this would make sense from a Bayesian point of view. But that would be an ad hominem, hence I’m not going to make that argument.
Here’s another Wikipedia entry. Search “Argument by verbosity”.