Wages for Housework Act

[President Tyrion]

What does the total cost of this look like?

That's a concern that I have as well.

I'm also wondering if there shouldn't be a limit to something like this or if there would even be an incentive to find work.

It also seems innefficient to create yet another program. If we were to do something like this it would make more sense to do it as an extension of the minicome.

Yeah, I'm all for fleshing out the UBI, but I'd rather do it in that form, rather than in smaller pieces of legislation.

[President Tyrion]

Why would prices increase? It's not as if a UBI would dramatically increase labor time, cause supply to fluctuate, or interfere with distribution.

Increased consumer buying power, in general, and there might be less supply because of a more taut labor market.

[President Tyrion]

I've been reading all the commentary, and I'd rather we make this a UBI debate, to put it simply.

Sorry TNF for moving this in another direction, although I know you're receptive to the proposal.

Hagrid, to your concerns: I think it's reasonable to think people will just stop working (at least, some of them) if the UBI is high enough. Essentially, there's a trade-off in play, here: we provide for the basic services of the needy, and we are forced to accept some free riders. In those terms, it's not so different from the welfare debate, or any other social service debate. There will be people who take more from the system than give back. Such is life. I don't think any of us on either side can deny that lazy people exist.

The real question is: how much of the bad can we accept for the good? I personally think we should guarantee a basic income grant, rolling in all social services, enough to provide for all the tools necessary to survive: Food, Utilities, Education costs, Transportation to and from work, Clothing, Shelter commensurate to the size of the family

And to encourage city living, this should definitely be indexed to location. The only reason to give someone in SF the same grant as someone in the outskirts of Omaha is simplicity; no reasonable person could suggest that the dollar goes the same distance in those locales.

Our next step: putting numbers to these things.

[President Tyrion]

There already is a UBI (unless I'm misunderstanding the Basic Income Guarantee), so if you want to increase that you should amend whatever bill created that, not start a new program.

Well, in essence, Nixcome is a negative income tax, although they're very similar in practice. And what we're considering doing is expanding Nixcome benefits, so we'll certainly keep the BIG in mind with whatever we do.

[President Tyrion]

Nixcome is extraordinarily progressive. It was a huge overhaul. Why is a change needed so early? Especially when it will come at the expense of more debt and higher taxes? To have this talk now strikes me as very excessive. You've got the senators to make it happen, but that doesn't mean it's the best thing to do at this juncture.

I personally want to have this talk as soon as possible for a major apolitical reason: I actually want the minimum wage to come down. I think we can serve the dual purpose of protecting the common man while de-stressing small businesses, and that's a goal which I want to achieve ASAP.

Nixcome is very progressive, undoubtedly, but there are more steps we can take. And it's quite possible that this may turn out not to be as great a net expenditure as you think, Hagrid. By rolling up most social services into one check, we're basically just changing the entitlement structure, not just adding to it (although it'd be a bit foolish of me not to expect at least a little bit of an uptick in expenditure). And, of course, we'd save on long term administration costs if we're just cutting one check to poor families, as opposed to ten from twenty different departments.

[President Tyrion]

So we are dsicussing the same thing on two different bills?

Yes, yes we are.

Yes, Mr. President and Mr. Simfan, sirs, that is why we have moved on to discussion of a UBI.

So why isn't Nixcome enough?

Nixcome, while a good step, is not sufficient to provide for the needs of the many.

[President Tyrion]

First off, by what amount is the nixcome insufficient and how would we pay for bridging that gap?

Also I think you grabbed the wrong quote box on one of those.

Ah, yes, I edited my post to put in the right quote. Didn't mean to reply to you twice, Yankee

I think $10000 isn't nearly sufficient for the basic needs of a person. I'd need to do more research to get to a "better" number, but my first impression is that it needs to be doubled (and treated as a grant, rather than a negative income tax).

[President Tyrion]

I don't necessarily agree that a major target of a UBI should be to subsidize those who wish to stay at home on a whim.

I think the threshold we should be aiming for is $60,000 per year for a base unit family of four. That's generally the consensus on the "required" amount for basic necessities and basic lifestyle.

That'd break down as $20k per adult and $10k per additional dependent, on average.

But, like I said, I'd like to see it indexed to location in whatsoever manner possible.

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Another point is that a UBI might allow us (and particularly me) to stomach lowering barriers in the labor market. We can probably roll back the minimum wage, and we can probably be less stringent on the length of the work week (since workers have more leverage, they can choose to work 40 hrs if they so desire without us fearing for their mistreatment as much).

[President Tyrion]

A pilot program would be great!

Hopefully we can lay the groundwork for a full plan, as well, as we move forward.

[President Tyrion]

In fact, you could just pass a bill that a) makes the funds available to the region, and b) outlines the parameters of a qualifying program. Once the region passes a suitable bill, I can just release the funds through the Department of Internal Affairs. This is probably the easiest and most collaborative way to do it.

I'm not quite sure what the benefit is. Could you elaborate?

[President Tyrion]

I don't like the idea of forcing it down the region's throat at the federal level, that's all. I mean, otherwise you'd be passing a bill that only affects one region... Basically you'd be passing a regional bill. Plus, doing it the way I suggest would actually involve the regional assembly in the process. Obviously it's up to the senate, but I'm willing and ready to help bring things into effect if need be. Two regions almost immediately passed anti-homelessness legislation after y'all passed the Public Means Public Act, so obviously the system can work.

Well, presumably we'd have the region's permission to do a pilot program. If they want to design it to a greater extent than we can, I'm fine with it.

[President Tyrion]

What time frame are we looking at with regards to the pilot?

Well, we'd want to see implementation ASAP, I believe.

And then I'd really like to see us be able to have a full-fledged discussion of the issue next year (which is nearly half a decade forward in Atlasian time). Naturally, 5 months isn't really long enough for a real pilot program, but we don't have forever.

[President Tyrion]

Does anyone have a rough idea of what they would want the pilot program to look like? I have a few ideas, but I'd like to see some input from everyone else before I present them to the whole Senate for consideration.

I really have no idea what the preferred scale of this Senate is. I'd be willing to really just introduce it to a whole region, but that might not be tenable.

[President Tyrion]

Pick a county at random..... Santa Clara!

[President Tyrion]

Sorry for a bit of a late response here, but I'm not sure if opt-out is the manner by which we can hold this.

It's tough to expect 100% of people to be informed; barring that, a sizable group of people will be expecting their welfare, social security, unemployment, and whatnot to continue, and I'm assuming that the Basic Income is, by and large, meant to replace these forms of government assistance. And an opt-out would essentially switch all these people over without warning.

With that said, an opt-in would leave the program punchless to truly demonstrate its worth, so long as we let people stay on the old program (which, long term, a supporter of a UBI should be attempting to avoid, as I'm sure was TNF's intention with the clause in the first place).