Being on the dole....

A recent news article crossed my desk about Switzerland holding an official vote about a basic living stipend of ~$2500 to be given to every adult. Has anyone else seen this bit of news?

Now, it shows a 70% likelihood of failure at the voting block... I shudder to think what would happen if it passed.

So many things are wrong with this idea. Is it possible to do something like that and not have it go poorly? Or will the free market adjust to reflect this new income that people receive, raising the cost of living by a reflected amount?

Fireflair wrote:A recent news article crossed my desk about Switzerland holding an official vote about a basic living stipend of ~$2500 to be given to every adult. Has anyone else seen this bit of news?

Now, it shows a 70% likelihood of failure at the voting block... I shudder to think what would happen if it passed.

So many things are wrong with this idea. Is it possible to do something like that and not have it go poorly? Or will the free market adjust to reflect this new income that people receive, raising the cost of living by a reflected amount?

Sometimes referred to as Basic Income.

I've heard arguments that it frees people to explore work they'd like to do, or support them through schooling for higher paying more interesting work. But I suspect it can go badly, and just get eaten by inflation.

Also, there's some theory that the overhead on both the people and governments to demonstrate and administer needs based welfare can be quite inefficient and that you can eliminate all that bureaucracy, time, and paperwork if you just give everyone a basic income.
Again, I'd want to see real work examples; and I'd hope the laws implementing such a plan would have some tripwires in them in case the economics of the plan went berserk.

Jonathan_S wrote:

Fireflair wrote:A recent news article crossed my desk about Switzerland holding an official vote about a basic living stipend of ~$2500 to be given to every adult. Has anyone else seen this bit of news?

Now, it shows a 70% likelihood of failure at the voting block... I shudder to think what would happen if it passed.

So many things are wrong with this idea. Is it possible to do something like that and not have it go poorly? Or will the free market adjust to reflect this new income that people receive, raising the cost of living by a reflected amount?

Sometimes referred to as Basic Income.

I've heard arguments that it frees people to explore work they'd like to do, or support them through schooling for higher paying more interesting work. But I suspect it can go badly, and just get eaten by inflation.

Also, there's some theory that the overhead on both the people and governments to demonstrate and administer needs based welfare can be quite inefficient and that you can eliminate all that bureaucracy, time, and paperwork if you just give everyone a basic income.
Again, I'd want to see real work examples; and I'd hope the laws implementing such a plan would have some tripwires in them in case the economics of the plan went berserk.

As you say, there's quite a bit of discussion about it, especially the part that would eliminate a lot of the welfare bureaucracy. Here in Albuquerque we've got a heck of a homeless problem; a basic stipend would get most of these people off the street into relatively cheap housing and in a position where they could dress well enough to look for a job - which is pretty much impossible for someone living on the street and in homeless shelters.

However, this topic has nothing to do with the Honorverse; I'd suggest taking it to Free Range Topics.

Fireflair wrote:So many things are wrong with this idea. Is it possible to do something like that and not have it go poorly? Or will the free market adjust to reflect this new income that people receive, raising the cost of living by a reflected amount?

Okay, a bit of background on why universal income schemes are something that needs to be discussed and tested.

If we look at the jobs we humans do, they can all be classified on two broad axes. One is formulaic/creative, the other repetitive/unique. Throughout our history as a tool-using species, we've found ways to make stuff in the formulaic/repetitive quadrant (that is, any type of job that can be broken down into steps that are each for itself and in combination unchanging and where job performance is measured in terms of how quick the job is done and how consistent it is performed) easier through automation. Generally speaking, humans will only be employed in these roles until a machine can be built that does them better and cheaper than what it would cost to employ a human being.

With recent advances in machine learning, there is a very distinct possibility that our capacity for automation will now also encroach on the other side of the diagram: Tasks such as driving (which fall into the creative/repetitive side) are going to be automated in as little as a decade (and if you believe that insurance companies are going to let you drive without paying a premium, I have some real estate to sell you).

What does this mean for our work life? It does mean that people who thrive in jobs that do not require (or actively discourage) creative thought will come under more and more pressure to outperform machines, and since the only area people can do that is on price per hour worked, well, there's going to be pressure to stay cheaper than the machine. This has obvious implications for the blue collar working class: Witness the stagnation of wages in that segment of the population.

In order to keep our economy alive, it needs a broad consumer base. You can't keep a broad consumer base when wages are stagnant while prices rise or when the value of work goes down. Without a complete move away from a capitalist market economy, we're somewhat out of options.

Again, I'd want to see real work examples; and I'd hope the laws implementing such a plan would have some tripwires in them in case the economics of the plan went berserk.

See here. Also this.

JohnRoth wrote:As you say, there's quite a bit of discussion about it, especially the part that would eliminate a lot of the welfare bureaucracy. Here in Albuquerque we've got a heck of a homeless problem; a basic stipend would get most of these people off the street into relatively cheap housing and in a position where they could dress well enough to look for a job - which is pretty much impossible for someone living on the street and in homeless shelters.

However, this topic has nothing to do with the Honorverse; I'd suggest taking it to Free Range Topics.

Well, if you think the people looking for handouts are trying to get money for a home I've got some bad news. Most of the people who are homeless are homeless due to a combination of substance abuse and/or severe mental health issues. So if you give them money for housing they will drink it or smoke it.

kzt wrote:Well, if you think the people looking for handouts are trying to get money for a home I've got some bad news. Most of the people who are homeless are homeless due to a combination of substance abuse and/or severe mental health issues. So if you give them money for housing they will drink it or smoke it.

Is that a fact backed by statistical evidence, or just things you believe to be true?

Like, I know that it's comforting to think that you can't become homeless unless something's wrong with you, but that doesn't seem to be the case for a lot of people currently homeless. See:
http://www.homeaid.org/homeaid-stories/ ... melessness
https://web.stanford.edu/class/e297c/po ... causes.htm
http://www.nationalhomeless.org/factsheets/why.html

kzt wrote:

JohnRoth wrote:As you say, there's quite a bit of discussion about it, especially the part that would eliminate a lot of the welfare bureaucracy. Here in Albuquerque we've got a heck of a homeless problem; a basic stipend would get most of these people off the street into relatively cheap housing and in a position where they could dress well enough to look for a job - which is pretty much impossible for someone living on the street and in homeless shelters.

However, this topic has nothing to do with the Honorverse; I'd suggest taking it to Free Range Topics.

Well, if you think the people looking for handouts are trying to get money for a home I've got some bad news. Most of the people who are homeless are homeless due to a combination of substance abuse and/or severe mental health issues. So if you give them money for housing they will drink it or smoke it.

My church deals with homeless projects, and I can tell you for a fact that is flat, absolutely wrong.

The leading cause of death of homeless people is drug overdoses. Before that it was HIV from IV drug use. What does that suggest about the homeless population? http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article ... qundefined

And if you don't think a lot of the homeless are on the street because of mental illness I have news for you. They are.

"Depending on the age group in question, and how homelessness is defined, the consensus estimate as of 2010 was that, at minimum, 26% of the American homeless—165,000 individuals were seriously mentally ill at any given point in time. (HUD 2013) Over 200,000 with any mental illness are homeless. More would be homeless if these were annual counts rather than point-in-time counts."

http://mentalillnesspolicy.org/conseque ... y-ill.html.

kzt wrote:The leading cause of death of homeless people is drug overdoses. Before that it was HIV from IV drug use. What does that suggest about the homeless population? http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article ... qundefined

And if you don't think a lot of the homeless are on the street because of mental illness I have news for you. They are.

"Depending on the age group in question, and how homelessness is defined, the consensus estimate as of 2010 was that, at minimum, 26% of the American homeless—165,000 individuals were seriously mentally ill at any given point in time. (HUD 2013) Over 200,000 with any mental illness are homeless. More would be homeless if these were annual counts rather than point-in-time counts."

http://mentalillnesspolicy.org/conseque ... y-ill.html.

26% is hardly a majority. It's barely a healthy minority.

For most of the rest, they're on the street because they fell through the safety net through no obvious fault of their own, and many of them are committing suicide by substance abuse.

Mentally ill homeless typically spend a lot of time in our modern version of mental hospitals - jails and prisons. http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archi ... ll/389682/

So the point in time view misses them. But they cycle in and out of jail and prison.

And not everyone who has a substance abuse problem DIES of it. That was just the references I found first while standing in line at the restaurant.

Here a better one:
"Although obtaining an accurate, recent count is difficult, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (2003) estimates, 38% of homeless people were dependent on alcohol and 26% abused other drugs. Alcohol abuse is more common in older generations, while drug abuse is more common in homeless youth and young adults (Didenko and Pankratz, 2007). Substance abuse is much more common among homeless people than in the general population. A ccording to the 2006 National Household Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), 15% of people above the age of 12 reported using drugs within the past year and only 8% reported using drugs within the past month."

http://www.nationalhomeless.org/factshe ... iction.pdf

Anyhow, I doubt that giving money is the answer to significant percentage of homeless people. I have no idea if it's 20% or 70%, but they have really serious problems.