What If The Government Guaranteed You An Income?

[SMOGZINN]

What if the government guaranteed you an income?

In general I'm not socialistic in philosophy. But more and more I'm starting to wonder if we are going about our safety net the wrong way. What if we got rid of Social Security, Welfare, Unemployment, Disability, and a host of other safety net programs and just simply paid everyone in America a minimum wage for simply existing? In the long run I think it might be less expensive to combine all these into a simple tax return program then the huge bureaucracies that we have in place to manage the programs we currently have.

 

[Sea Ray]

You have to give people an incentive to work. If you just send a check to every American, how are you going to get people to work the jobs that suck? Where will you find people to do dish duty at a restaurant or clean your motel room? Even Social Security gives people an incentive to do well. SS payouts are linked to your best 10 yrs of income. Someone who contributed to it based on a $100K salary will get more back than someone who had a salary of $40K. That's the American way.

 

[OverVolt]

It would have to be a pittance. It can't be too comfortable.

I'm more for tangible benefits instead of money. IE housing for the homeless, food, healthcare, etc. I don't think giving poor people money is necessarily the best way to lift them out of poverty. That bum you give $50 to on the street probably just uses it to get drunk. Pretty famous story where someone I knew gave a bum a $20 and he walked straight to the liquor store. I don't think just throwing money at a problem solves it.

 

[Sheep221]

Eastern bloc socialism in europe had a good system for this, everyone was guaranteed job and it was obligation to work by law, if you didn't work you were imprisoned. Salaries were high enough that everyone could rise a family and have a house or apartment without mortgages and debts from one single job. The lack of social assurances and consumerism and media influence is just something that hurt us so much, but we don't see it since we are told it's good.

 

[OverVolt]

Eastern bloc socialism in europe had a good system for this, everyone was guaranteed job and it was obligation to work by law, if you didn't work you were imprisoned. Salaries were high enough that everyone could rise a family and have a house or apartment without mortgages and debts from one single job. The lack of social assurances and consumerism and media influence is just something that hurt us so much, but we don't see it since we are told it's good.

Oh you mean the Russian saying "They pretend to pay us and we pretend to work"

 

[SMOGZINN]

You have to give people an incentive to work. If you just send a check to every American, how are you going to get people to work the jobs that suck?

People will work to get more. Subsistence living is not all that great. Most people can just get by on welfare and charity today, but most still choose to work.

It would have to be a pittance. It can't be too comfortable.

No, it can't be comfortable, but it needs to be survivable.

Pretty famous story where someone I knew gave a bum a $20 and he walked straight to the liquor store. I don't think just throwing money at a problem solves it.

No matter what you give those people it will be the same. Those people already live that way. If society gave them a living allowance and they spend it on booze and drugs then society can shrug our collective shoulders at them and accept that they choose to live that way.

 

[Sea Ray]

People will work to get more. Subsistence living is not all that great. Most people can just get by on welfare and charity today, but most still choose to work.


No, it can't be comfortable, but it needs to be survivable.


No matter what you give those people it will be the same. Those people already live that way. If society gave them a living allowance and they spend it on booze and drugs then society can shrug our collective shoulders at them and accept that they choose to live that way.

Well you didn't use any figures but you mentioned doing away with Social Security. SS payments generally range from about $1000-3000/mo. So I figured you had something along those lines in mind. That's a lot of money. Where's it going to come from?

 

[SMOGZINN]

Well you didn't use any figures but you mentioned doing away with Social Security. SS payments generally range from about $1000-3000/mo. So I figured you had something along those lines in mind. That's a lot of money. Where's it going to come from?

I don't have any numbers, as this is just a thought experiment really. But the idea would be to look and see how much we currently spend on welfare, unemployment, Social Security, food programs, and all the associated bureaucracies that support all that. All that will give us a good chunk of change to start with, the rest we get by taxing the top 50% or so.

Don't get me wrong, this is at least a small redistribution of wealth. But it is done in the hope that it will give our economy a huge boost and make everyone more money then they had before.

 

[Sheep221]

Oh you mean the Russian saying "They pretend to pay us and we pretend to work"

That's not the point, point was people didn't ask themselves questions like what I will eat, where I will be living, how I will survive or will take care of my family etc. It was much much better for living, today we are only fed with crap digital entertainment and are fighting for survival like in wilderness.

 

[DougK62]

It won't work, because people are generally terrible with managing money. So they'd get their allowance, blow it all on stupid stuff, and then what would happen when they got injured or needed to pay for something that you'd typically need to save for? Well, they wouldn't have the money for it. Then what?

 

[SMOGZINN]

It won't work, because people are generally terrible with managing money. So they'd get their allowance, blow it all on stupid stuff, and then what would happen when they got injured or needed to pay for something that you'd typically need to save for? Well, they wouldn't have the money for it. Then what?

This is exactly the same as the addict. If we give them money and they can't be responsible with it then that is their problem and not mine. They will need to get jobs to make up for their inadequate planning.

 

[Sea Ray]

I don't have any numbers, as this is just a thought experiment really. But the idea would be to look and see how much we currently spend on welfare, unemployment, Social Security, food programs, and all the associated bureaucracies that support all that. All that will give us a good chunk of change to start with, the rest we get by taxing the top 50% or so.

Don't get me wrong, this is at least a small redistribution of wealth. But it is done in the hope that it will give our economy a huge boost and make everyone more money then they had before.

I'm not a fan of gov't handouts. We have way too many entitlements as it is right now. This country was founded on self reliance and I wish we'd get back to that

 

[SMOGZINN]

I'm not a fan of gov't handouts. We have way too many entitlements as it is right now. This country was founded on self reliance and I wish we'd get back to that

That is the point of this, to remove almost all the government entitlements while still maintaining a minimum standard of living for every citizen. If you simply removed all entitlements with out replacing them with something you would have riots and civil unrest that would destroy our country.

 

[moonbogg]

OOPS, wrong forum. I disagree with the OPs idea. Its bad!

 

[Mr. Pedantic]

I'm not a fan of gov't handouts. We have way too many entitlements as it is right now. This country was founded on self reliance and I wish we'd get back to that

Is that why you have a military, so that other people can protect you for you?

 

[Sea Ray]

Is that why you have a military, so that other people can protect you for you?

Yes, the military is here to protect me. I also have 2nd Amendment rights which I can use to further protect me

 

[SMOGZINN]

Yes, the military is here to protect me. I also have 2nd Amendment rights which I can use to further protect me

What he is pointing out is that the country is founded on a lot less self reliance and a lot more on collective strength. We already had self reliance, we formed a country because we needed collective strength.

 

[Mr. Pedantic]

What he is pointing out is that the country is founded on a lot less self reliance and a lot more on collective strength. We already had self reliance, we formed a country because we needed collective strength.

:thumbsup: Have a cookie.

 

[Sea Ray]

What he is pointing out is that the country is founded on a lot less self reliance and a lot more on collective strength. We already had self reliance, we formed a country because we needed collective strength.

I disagree. I think we have a lot less self reliance now. We weren't founded on a gov't giving handouts.

“I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constitutents.”
-James Madison

There's tons of money "expended on benevolence" these days

It certainly was founded on a military to protect it. That power is stated in the Constitution

 

[Sea Ray]

That is the point of this, to remove almost all the government entitlements while still maintaining a minimum standard of living for every citizen. If you simply removed all entitlements with out replacing them with something you would have riots and civil unrest that would destroy our country.

You'd be giving entitlements to everyone whereas today about half of us get them. That's moving in the wrong direction

 

[Blackjack200]

What if the government guaranteed you an income?

In general I'm not socialistic in philosophy. But more and more I'm starting to wonder if we are going about our safety net the wrong way. What if we got rid of Social Security, Welfare, Unemployment, Disability, and a host of other safety net programs and just simply paid everyone in America a minimum wage for simply existing? In the long run I think it might be less expensive to combine all these into a simple tax return program then the huge bureaucracies that we have in place to manage the programs we currently have.

I think the Devil is in the details. How would this work? Would everyone get a check? Starting when? When they're born?

In my view, it is the humane thing to do to feed, clothe, and shelter those that cannot provide for themselves, but by the time it gets to this point, it is mostly too late to turn them into productive people. That has to happen at a much earlier stage, and it is done by improving the social environment that they're born into.

I think there is a baseline level of homelessness and poverty that is inevitable due to mental illness/social friction, and our policies shoud aim to get as close to that level as possible, and to provide for those who do end up in that situation one way or the other.

 

[SMOGZINN]

You'd be giving entitlements to everyone whereas today about half of us get them. That's moving in the wrong direction

The way this would work is that X% of your income is taken from your taxes, and you get Y back, where Y is a static amount. This should be set up so that the majority of Americans have the X withholding and Y credit equal out to close to zero. As your income increases you start to pay more and more X while still getting the same Y, and income decreases you pay less and less X (to eventual 0) and get the same Y as everyone else.

In this instance it can be looked at as an entitlement, but it is not an entitlement in the same concept that welfare is, it is more an entitlement in the way that the Earned Income Credit is.

 

[SMOGZINN]

It certainly was founded on a military to protect it. That power is stated in the Constitution

The threats people need to be protected from today are not foreign men with guns but advertising executives, accountants, and lawyers in cheap suits. We are much more likely to lose our freedom to a corporation then to a foreign invasion.

 

[dphantom]

There is some interesting discussion around such a concept. Certainly the current method of entitlements is badly broken is quite frankly is an utter failure in the programs professed goals. Something like a guaranteed income can make some sense, the mechanic of which need to be thought out.

So I am certainly open to fresh ideas on how we handle the desperately poor in our country. We do it badly now and it just seems to me to be more of a disservice to these people than doing them any real good. The fact we have more people collecting on entitlements now and it is continuing to grow certainly does not bode well for the future. Raising generation after generation to look to government as their means of survival just cannot seem to be in any persons best interest.

So maybe something like this may be a better approach.

 

[irishScott]

I'd be busy finding a private sector job that paid better.