Wages for Housework Act

[DemPGH]

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.

[DemPGH]

I'd work, for one, and I'm sure you would, Mr. Hagrid.

I'm not so sure. If the state was paying me enough to live comfortably without having to work a job, the long-term "fulfillment" probably wouldn't trump the short-term convenience of staying home. Again, some kind of small basic guarantee is one thing, but a large amount that makes work completely optional is just asking for trouble.

But it wouldn't be necessarily "comfortable", just enough to get by. And people will always want more money, won't they?

Not necessarily. There are incredibly lazy people in the world, and if you deal with the public in any number of capacities for a while, you will see that. People will be happy to sit at home and watch the NASCAR channel all day or work on their novel. In the latter case, great, but you would have a lot of the former. It's also much cheaper to live in the woods than the city, so 30K will go much further in fly-over country than NYC or Chicago.

Ideally, it would be nice if people would put stipend money into projects or home businesses, but man, there are so many people who would just milk this dry.

I think if a person is demonstrably doing something like taking a degree (that would advance the family's interest) or making a movie or something, and can show it, some kind of income for a period of time (not unlimited) would be great, but we're seriously into cost here.

[DemPGH]

At the very most, a stipend should target poverty level and poverty stricken individuals to give them extra money, preferably if they are raising kids or trying to go to university or take a degree. That's probably the deal I would offer, but adjusting the basic minimum income seems to be the best and most fiscally responsible route in which to go. I mean with the original I could see people quitting their jobs just so they could qualify for this.

[DemPGH]

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.

This sounds like a good idea and a pilot program I would support. We'll of course need to keep track of it, which I'm sure Hagrid would be happy to do. The threshold proposed earlier (60K) sounds very reasonable to me.

[DemPGH]

We don't have a GM right now, and in his absence I want to thank Hagrid for all this. No one has expressed interest in the GM position except SirNick, and I cannot appoint him for another 17 days, assuming that he re-registers. I figure he will.

I would be okay with Hagrid coming up with some cost for this, or a bipartisan group of two or three with Hagrid coming up with some cost figures. It will be quite high, I imagine, and I think for the new budget we'll need to have this in there. And we cannot forget about it. Putting it in the budget would be one way of saying, "Hey, we're running this program."

In five years, of course, this place likely will be completely different, and that's a long time to run a program, so we should keep that in mind as well. I'd shorten that to 12-18 months, honestly.