undefined | Better HN

0 pointstakno10y ago0 comments

If you're earning more you will effectively pay the money back in higher taxes, so the transfer will be much the same as for a minimum guaranteed income, but without the costly administration, confusing rules and moral judgement that come with minimum guaranteed incomes

0 comments

rhino36910y ago

How much money is actually spent on the costs of administration that would actually be eliminated by UBI, which is mostly just qualification paperwork?

You'd still need fraud prevention--people faking identities. You'd still paper pushers who coordinate payments and customer service.

I can't believe this really would create all that much savings when averaged out over 330 million people.

taknoOP10y ago

Ignoring the government's costs, people on welfare in the UK can easily end up spending 20 hours a week on claiming that welfare, spread between having to transport themselves to attend a weekly signing on session, making a set number of job applications that meet the criteria (at the same time as conducting a real job search), attending worthless courses and filling out the paperwork. If you remove the moral judgement you remove the need for this busy-work, which is a massive overall cost to society

rhino36910y ago

That's not really a cost to society. It's a cost of time from those who have plenty of time to spend.

taknoOP10y ago

They are, last I checked, members of society. It's also unhelpful to assume they have the time to spend on this - low income already means that basic things like shopping and getting around take a lot longer since they can't pay for convenience, and they could be spending the time they have on education or even hunting for actual jobs rather than going through a meaningless tick-box approach.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

0 comments

rhino36910y ago

How much money is actually spent on the costs of administration that would actually be eliminated by UBI, which is mostly just qualification paperwork?

You'd still need fraud prevention--people faking identities. You'd still paper pushers who coordinate payments and customer service.

I can't believe this really would create all that much savings when averaged out over 330 million people.

taknoOP10y ago

rhino36910y ago

That's not really a cost to society. It's a cost of time from those who have plenty of time to spend.

taknoOP10y ago

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse