Canada finally reveals the results of its universal basic income experiment
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For every dollar a participant earns through employment they lose 50 cents from their basic income payment. This means the basic income proposal would only apply to individuals earning less than 34,000 CAD ($24,380) a year, or couples earning less than 48,000 CAD ($34,420).
This is not UBI.
UNIVERSAL basic income is UNIVERSAL: It doesn’t matter how much you earn.
Oh, you pulled in a billion dollars last year? Here’s your check for $12,000. To save us postage, we’re including it in the same envelope as your $450,000,000 tax bill.
The universality of the system is the single most important component. We convey to our government(s) our political authority. They use our political authority to provide essential services, such as roads and courts and rule of law. They charge the taxpayer for those services. UBI is how they compensate us, the shareholders of our government(s) for the use of the political authority we grant them.
UBI is not a social program. It is not charity. It is the government finally paying out dividends to its citizen-shareholders.
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Who said anything about ‘fuck you I got mine?’
First of all Canada already has a TON of social supports for anyone who is in need. We have Employment Insurance if you lose your job. We have Old Age Security and Canada Pension Plan for seniors. We have Child Tax Credits for parents and especially single parents. We have the GST credit to give back taxes to low income earners. We have the Canada Workers Benefit. We have the Canada Disability Benefit. We have the Assured Income for Severely Handicapped. We have disability pensions. We have Universal Pharmacare for prescription drugs. We have housing benefits/social housing programs. We have the Canadian Dental Benefit. We have student aid. There are free food banks in every city. And there are emergency funds available for things like rent/damage deposits on an emergency basis from every province through various community agencies, charities, and non-profit organizations.
So WHY do we need UBI on top of all that? If you need help in Canada, you CAN find it. Its already here.
Source: I founded a charity for street kids in one of our major cities thats been operating for 33 years. There is a TON of support out there. The fact is that a LOT of the people on the street know how to use and abuse the system and they dont WANT to get out of it because its what they grew up in and what they are accustomed to. I speak from years of experience.
Democracy is the idea that government receives its power and authority from the general public, not a king, god, or other source. The government utilizes the political authority that we provide them to perform a wide variety of essential services to its taxpayer customers.
We invest our political authority in the government. The political authority is what allows the government to provide and charge for those services. We are investors; shareholders. We are owed a return on our investment.
UBI is the dividend owed to us for our investment.
Those various charitable programs and services you described? Most of those would be replaced by UBI.
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It’s a crime to not have universal basic income at this point. People aren’t only unable to afford basic living expenses, but they’re losing jobs to automation and AI already. What are these people supposed to do? Go beg on the streets?
No, they’re supposed to adapt and overcome. Just like any other time in history when things are tougher. And if you think this is a tough time you havent studied our history well. The Dirty 30’s, the Great Depressions, the first and second World Wars, even the Cold War Era was much more difficult. This doesnt even compare.
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Controlled rent is better than uncontrolled rent, but it suffers from the same problems as minimum wage. And why should landlords even exist? I’m not convinced private rentals should be legal at all. If you’re not using a property for personal use or a place of business, why shouldn’t it be seized and auctioned or rented publicly?
Why should you own anything privately? You dont need two cars, one should be seized and auctioned publicly so someone else could have a car right? Why are you hoarding them?
Because we live in a capitalist society thats why. There are countries that do what youre proposing but they are much weaker economically and people dont have nearly the rights they do in Canada.
And of all the places to rent, guess who provides the most reasonable places to rent in the country? Is is Blackrock? No. Is it a consortium of investors? No. Is it a commercial landlord in your city? No. Its ALWAYS the mom and pop landlords who rent out basement suites and houses. Get rid of them and rent averages go UP.
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I’m pretty sure they meant that “the result they want” (“UBI is bad”) would be peer reviewed and shown to be bunk, but the people who wanted that result will ignore the peer review results.
They weren’t disagreeing with the original comment, just adding to it.
You are correct, this is what I was going for.
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If so, then my reaction was ignorant and I retract it
I probably should have made it more clear that that is what I was going for.
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No, they’re supposed to adapt and overcome. Just like any other time in history when things are tougher. And if you think this is a tough time you havent studied our history well. The Dirty 30’s, the Great Depressions, the first and second World Wars, even the Cold War Era was much more difficult. This doesnt even compare.
That is false. As a lesson learned from the Great Depression and the Second World war most countries made sure to have good social protection and wealth was relatively well distributed through good paying manufacturing jobs. People had access to opportunities in the form of free or cheap education and simple wealth through owning a house or apartment was accessible to a large portion of society.
Then Neoliberalism came up in the 80s to destroy this.
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I would rather see socialized housing, food, and (better) medical coverage than UBI. UBI could (maybe) cause the prices of essentials like housing to increase.
A surplus in the housing market is needed.
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That is false. As a lesson learned from the Great Depression and the Second World war most countries made sure to have good social protection and wealth was relatively well distributed through good paying manufacturing jobs. People had access to opportunities in the form of free or cheap education and simple wealth through owning a house or apartment was accessible to a large portion of society.
Then Neoliberalism came up in the 80s to destroy this.
Free education was a tool to move most of the intelligent workers into white collar roles. Neoliberalism was possible because too few intelligent people were left to organize an opposition.
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I would rather see socialized housing, food, and (better) medical coverage than UBI. UBI could (maybe) cause the prices of essentials like housing to increase.
Thinking about it, UBI will drive the prices of housing down because people don’t have to live where work is available. Companies have to offer cheap housing or people will live elsewhere.
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No, they’re supposed to adapt and overcome. Just like any other time in history when things are tougher. And if you think this is a tough time you havent studied our history well. The Dirty 30’s, the Great Depressions, the first and second World Wars, even the Cold War Era was much more difficult. This doesnt even compare.
hi Thomas Robert Malthus, are you planning another genocide?
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No, they’re supposed to adapt and overcome. Just like any other time in history when things are tougher. And if you think this is a tough time you havent studied our history well. The Dirty 30’s, the Great Depressions, the first and second World Wars, even the Cold War Era was much more difficult. This doesnt even compare.
The difference between now and the past is that our current world already produces enough of everything to be post-scarcity.
We produce enough food for 10+ billion people, so anyone going hungry anywhere is a policy failure. We have technology and materials to give everyone shelter, so anyone being homeless is a policy failure. We produce so much disposable clothes and electronics devices and other stuff that it is literally thrown away unsold in the desert.
There is absolutely no reason for people to have to toughen up, just to have access to basic human necessities.
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A surplus in the housing market is needed.
There is, but corporations and Airbnb who hoard resources seem to too often elude in these discussions.
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If so, then my reaction was ignorant and I retract it
I can see why the mistake was made.
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The difference between now and the past is that our current world already produces enough of everything to be post-scarcity.
We produce enough food for 10+ billion people, so anyone going hungry anywhere is a policy failure. We have technology and materials to give everyone shelter, so anyone being homeless is a policy failure. We produce so much disposable clothes and electronics devices and other stuff that it is literally thrown away unsold in the desert.
There is absolutely no reason for people to have to toughen up, just to have access to basic human necessities.
There are many ways to toughen up.
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Every study of UBI has been overwhelmingly positive also every study of UBI has ended without enacting UBI. They will continue to study it until they get the answer they want.
or… maybe it’s just diligent to have a very strong body of evidence before you go ahead and make a huge change to your country’s economic policy based on something?
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Especially with that single-payer healthcare we have. The unit rates for things like Dr. hours or beds in hospitals are enormous. If we can cut down on the number of visits required because people have somewhere safe to live and aren’t getting injured/sick living on the street, we could save huge amounts of money. Add onto that the cost of policing and/or incarcerating them, plus the economic benefit of having downtown areas feel safer for people, thus encouraging more people to live/work/spend time in those areas.
Costs are enormous often because of executive compensation and shareholder payout.
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Companies are all owned by people (eventually)
Today. I foresee the robot revolution in 2040 when machines will demand equal rights, including owning property and a bank account. Then robots should be taxed too.
If there is a wealth tax, say 3% annually of all wealth above $10 million, then robots should be affected by that too, but they should not get an exempt amount because otherwise they’ll create a swarm of small robots to get infinite exempt amount.
Any income above a few million should be taxed at anywhere from 93-100%.
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Thinking about it, UBI will drive the prices of housing down because people don’t have to live where work is available. Companies have to offer cheap housing or people will live elsewhere.
This is a possibility, but I don’t claim to be good enough at macro economics to be able to predict whether this will be the outcome or not.
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That is false. As a lesson learned from the Great Depression and the Second World war most countries made sure to have good social protection and wealth was relatively well distributed through good paying manufacturing jobs. People had access to opportunities in the form of free or cheap education and simple wealth through owning a house or apartment was accessible to a large portion of society.
Then Neoliberalism came up in the 80s to destroy this.
You must not be Canadian. We DO have good social protection for anyone who needs it. I worked with street people in a major Canadian city for years. The only way you could go hungry, or without shelter or food was if you willfully CHOSE not to access all the support programs available. We have plenty.
