Hi folks. I don't normally position myself as much of an "expert" on anything - including UBI - but I did my PhD thesis on the drivers and growth of the "welfare system" in the U.S. over the 20th century. Thus I have a pretty strong sense of how policies have affected the general public and targeted populations. That said, when it comes to "social policy", most people already have their own political orientations and biases, which often means that they're not prepared to look at the research and detailed evidence regarding the impacts of policy changes. Or, even worse, they oversimplify complex relationships with multiple moving parts to help confirm their political positions in favour of or opposed to certain policies. The classic example is Charles Murray's Losing Ground, which reduced the impact of "AFDC" (as it was then called) to a series of correlational charts to demonstrate that basic welfare transfers "caused" an increase in poverty over time. To be sure, there are a number of problems with the traditional framing and administration of basic welfare in the U.S. - including certain disincentives, the stigmatization (we say people are "on welfare" as easily as we say people are "on drugs"), and the most egregious problem of restricting the accumulation of wealth or assets (including having a partner) to maintain eligibility. But, at the same time, we saw just the opposite happen with social security, which dramatically reduced poverty among seniors over the same time span - with different eligibility rules and a different discourse around "deserving." Of course, neither of these were UBI as currently being discussed.

My point is not to try to convince anyone of a particular position, but to prompt people to think more about the complexities of the relationships involved and, for that matter, the areas of uncertainty where we really don't know exactly what the real impacts might be. To that end, I've attached two articles on the subject of UBI. The first, written in 2004, makes the point that there isn't a "one-size-fits-all" UBI, somewhat ironically, but rather the nature of such programs vary across institutional and policy contexts - and what might work well under some circumstances may not in other contexts. The second one is an analysis of the Canadian context (since that's where I happen to live!), but demonstrates some of the complexities and nuances of tax credits and the combined transfers at both the federal and provincial levels, can have greater or lesser impacts on certain demographic groups. The point is that with different models of supplemental income (which must vary across regions due to cost of living differences, for example), combined with labour force opportunities, means that the most effective policy option in the Cdn context likely involves a progressive, refundable tax credit targeting those at the lower end of the earning spectrum. The point is that there's serious consideration of the impacts of targeted refunds on labour force incentives, destigmatization, universality (one doesn't have to "opt in" or "opt out" as in the case of Luxembourg), and clearly serves those at the lower end far more effectively. But, that said, we cannot really know unless we put try a national experiment along these lines. 

All best regards, -Joe

Dr. Joseph H. Michalski

King’s University College at Western University

266 Epworth Avenue, DL-201

London, Ontario, Canada  N6A 2M3

Tel: (519) 433-3491

Email: [log in to unmask]

______________________

eiš + 1 = 0


From: tree of knowledge system discussion <[log in to unmask]> on behalf of Lene Rachel Andersen - Nordic Bildung / Fremvirke <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, October 8, 2019 7:03 AM
To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: podcast with Andrew Yang
 

Some people talk about UBS: Universal Basic Services, which I find interesting: https://universalbasicservices.org/ - haven't googled it in a while; that was the first thing that came up.

/ Lene

On 08-10-2019 12:53, Henriques, Gregg - henriqgx wrote:

Thanks, Jason and Lene.

 

One area of my background and knowledge that is woefully inadequate is macro-economics and governmental policy. So, I am outside my wheelhouse in analyzing those things. I did worry about a number of things with UBI, including inflation. And I was arguing with my brother about why income should be contingent and incentivized in a particular direction. I too felt the VAT was not the right idea, as it clearly was a neoliberal frame on domains that needed to be protected from being economically incentivized. (We don’t want to pay people for being good and caring).

 

That said, I shared the podcast and was excited about it because at the VALUES level, he had, IMO, the right kind of “sensibility”. That is, he positioned himself to be outside the traditional political fray and polarization (he has some T shirts on Humanity First, and Not Left or Right But Forward), was someone who both appreciated what capitalism has accomplished and recognized that we need to consider ourselves in late stage capitalism, was concerned about the environment but was not an eco-moralist, saw the need for altering our social values and creating a much more workable safety net, but did not villainize people (wall street barons, white working class poor) that the left often does.

 

Jason, can you share links about the Federal Job Guarantee? That sounds interesting.

 

Best,
Gregg

 

 

From: tree of knowledge system discussion <[log in to unmask]> On Behalf Of Lene Rachel Andersen - Nordic Bildung / Fremvirke
Sent: Tuesday, October 8, 2019 5:58 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: podcast with Andrew Yang

 

Haven't had time to listen to the podcast but love to discover another UBI opponent!

I am convinced that UBI is one of the worst ideas ever.

Now I have to listen to the podcast... :-D

Best,

Lene

On 07-10-2019 23:02, nysa71 wrote:

I am thoroughly opposed to Yang based on just his awful UBI and VAT ideas alone. Basically, it's just neoliberalism dressed up as progressivism, and is nothing but a Trojan Horse that'll ultimately hurt the poor and working class. 

A standalone UBI would most certainly be inflationary, which hurts the poor the most. But he proposes tethering the UBI to a VAT which, (besides being a bureaucratic nightmare), is ultimately regressive, since such a tax would be passed onto consumers by embedding it within the final price of goods.

So essentially, the poor will end up paying for the UBI with the UBI.

On top of that, Yang's proposal will ultimately be used as a justification for cutting other social programs, (e.g., Social Security, SNAP, etc.)

 I 100% support the Federal Job Guarantee as an alternative --- a much a more solid macroeconomic proposal. A full employment program. Federally funded, but locally managed. Since dollars are added to the economy coupled with real output, there's minimal inflationary risk. And it's a counter-cyclical, automatic stabilizer, (as opposed to the UBI, a pro-cyclical, automatic de-stabilizer).

Yang's ideas aren't just wrong. They're dangerous.

~ Jason Bessey

 

On Monday, October 7, 2019, 12:22:55 PM EDT, Helen Wu <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

 

 

I just want to say that Andrew Yang is awesome.

 

On Mon, Oct 7, 2019, 8:01 AM Henriques, Gregg - henriqgx <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

Hi TOK List,

  I visited my brother Mark over the weekend and we were talking about new political movements and he shared with me this freakeconomics podcast by Andrew Yang, which I found to be of interest:

http://freakonomics.com/podcast/andrew-yang/, so I thought I would share.

 

Best,
Gregg

___________________________________________

Gregg Henriques, Ph.D.
Professor
Department of Graduate Psychology
216 Johnston Hall
MSC 7401
James Madison University
Harrisonburg, VA 22807
(540) 568-7857 (phone)
(540) 568-4747 (fax)


Be that which enhances dignity and well-being with integrity.

Check out my Theory of Knowledge blog at Psychology Today at:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/theory-knowledge

 

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