What Mark Zuckerberg Gets Wrong About UBI

[Chris]

This is presented as a strawman liberal view of what Universal Basic Income should be and should not be. I will present one argument against it to get things started.

What Mark Zuckerberg Gets Wrong About UBI

...UBI, a concept that dates back centuries, is the idea that every person should receive some amount of money so that no one dips beneath a basic standard of living. For those on the left, it’s seen as an alternative to our country’s woefully limited cash welfare system. For libertarians, a basic income is lauded as a slimmer, less intrusive way to deliver government benefits. It is the rare utopian idea that people of different political stripes can agree on—Zuckerberg himself made sure to note the “bipartisan” appeal of the policy in his post.

But Zuckerberg reveals exactly why the left should be alarmed that Silicon Valley is taking the lead on this issue.

First, the idea that UBI has bipartisan appeal is disingenuous. The left would have a policy that redistributes wealth by funding UBI through a more progressive tax scheme or the diverting of capital income. But libertarians like Charles Murray argue for a UBI that completely scraps our existing welfare state, including programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and housing subsidies. This would be extremely regressive, since money currently directed towards the poor would instead be spread out for a basic income for all. And certain benefits like health insurance can’t effectively be replaced with cash.

Second, Zuckerberg asserts that Alaska’s Permanent Fund—which uses the state’s oil resources to pay a dividend to each Alaskan and is seen as one of the few examples of an actual UBI-like policy—is advantageous because it “comes from conservative principles of smaller government, rather than progressive principles of a larger safety net.” But a UBI policy can only reflect small government principles if one envisions it eating into the country’s existing welfare state, rather than coming on top of it. In this respect, Zuckerberg’s advocacy of UBI “bipartisanship” starts to look more like a veiled libertarian agenda.

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The author comes close to being accurate. However, when she says "And certain benefits like health insurance can’t effectively be replaced with cash, " she is misrepresenting Murray's proposal. He does not merely propose giving everyone cash. He proposes that $3000 of the money given out as UBI must be spent on health insurance. So health insurance woould not be repolaced by cash.

[pjohns]

This is presented as a strawman liberal view of what Universal Basic Income should be and should not be. I will present one argument against it to get things started.

What Mark Zuckerberg Gets Wrong About UBI



The author comes close to being accurate. However, when she says "And certain benefits like health insurance can’t effectively be replaced with cash, " she is misrepresenting Murray's proposal. He does not merely propose giving everyone cash. He proposes that $3000 of the money given out as UBI must be spent on health insurance. So health insurance woould not be repolaced by cash.

This is a very good post.

I am rather queasy about such a proposal.

Still, in all candor, it probably should be noted that another conservative thinker--Milton Friedman--is onboard with some version of the plan: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guaranteed_minimum_income

[donttread]

This is presented as a strawman liberal view of what Universal Basic Income should be and should not be. I will present one argument against it to get things started.

What Mark Zuckerberg Gets Wrong About UBI



The author comes close to being accurate. However, when she says "And certain benefits like health insurance can’t effectively be replaced with cash, " she is misrepresenting Murray's proposal. He does not merely propose giving everyone cash. He proposes that $3000 of the money given out as UBI must be spent on health insurance. So health insurance woould not be repolaced by cash.

I think UBI, at the state level, coupld work only if benefits were mostly "non-cash" like a place to stay, some basic bland food pantries etc. The minute you insert cash you just raise the COL and leave them back in poverty in a few years.
Did Mark and his wife ever give away all that money?

[Chris]

This is a very good post.

I am rather queasy about such a proposal.

Still, in all candor, it probably should be noted that another conservative thinker--Milton Friedman--is onboard with some version of the plan: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guaranteed_minimum_income

It all depends on how it's implemented. Tacked onto other welfare programs, no, as a replacement, yes. And everyone gets it.

[Chris]

I think UBI, at the state level, coupld work only if benefits were mostly "non-cash" like a place to stay, some basic bland food pantries etc. The minute you insert cash you just raise the COL and leave them back in poverty in a few years.
Did Mark and his wife ever give away all that money?

Why? Let people decide how they want to spend it, other than the $3000 for health care insurance.

[Cletus]

All I can really see such a program accomplishing is to destroy the incentive to achieve.

[Chris]

All I can really see such a program accomplishing is to destroy the incentive to achieve.

That's what welfare now does, disincline people to climb out of poverty, because there's a step there where doing so means you lose income, iow, where welfare is cut off. But with this each and every citizen receives the UBI no matter how little or how much you make. So making more income will never hurt you.

It meets the requirements of general welfare.

[Chris]

Here is Murray explaining the incentives, A guaranteed income for every Americanhttp://www.aei.org/publication/a-guaranteed-income-for-every-american/

Finally, an acknowledgment: Yes, some people will idle away their lives under my UBI plan. But that is already a problem. As of 2015, the Current Population Survey tells us that 18% of unmarried males and 23% of unmarried women ages 25 through 54—people of prime working age—weren’t even in the labor force. Just about all of them were already living off other people’s money. The question isn’t whether a UBI will discourage work, but whether it will make the existing problem significantly worse.

I don’t think it would. Under the current system, taking a job makes you ineligible for many welfare benefits or makes them subject to extremely high marginal tax rates. Under my version of the UBI, taking a job is pure profit with no downside until you reach $30,000—at which point you’re bringing home way too much ($40,000 net) to be deterred from work by the imposition of a surtax.

Some people who would otherwise work will surely drop out of the labor force under the UBI, but others who are now on welfare or disability will enter the labor force. It is prudent to assume that net voluntary dropout from the labor force will increase, but there is no reason to think that it will be large enough to make the UBI unworkable.

[donttread]

Why? Let people decide how they want to spend it, other than the $3000 for health care insurance.

Like I said if you pay everyone a living stipend it will just fuel inflation and they'll be back in the same boat in a decade.

[donttread]

Like I said if you pay everyone a living stipend it will just fuel inflation and they'll be back in the same boat in a decade.

Don't get me wrong, I think ending the link between employment and insurance and high out of pocket deductibles to force real competition in healthcare is one of our options. But we can't do it with just one segment. Also under by vision apartments would be clean and very basic. Food would be bland and healthcare would be wherever we can get the best collective deal plus free clinics. This way people who don't need the baisics don't get them, gretly reducing program cost. You could live in the free apartment even if you weere a millionarre. But it's goona be 500 square feet .