Should there be a guaranteed national income?

[Yavin4]

I say, Yes. Emphatically so. Look, we already pay millions of Americans a federal income. We just disguise it as something else like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Food Stamps, defense jobs, etc. Why not just pay everyone a basic salary every year and be done with it.

In addition, automation will soon replace most jobs any way. For example, soon cars and trucks will drive themselves. Millions of Americans dependent on driving as a vocation will suddenly become obsolete. Software has already made millions of clerical positions obsolete. Even most fast food and WalMart jobs will be automated.

What can't be auotmated will be out-sourced overseas to cheaper labor markets.

We're entering a world without work and a guaranteed national income is the only logical conclusion.

[Larsonb]

1. So no one in the USA will have a job, and we should give what...$35K a year to each adult?

That's over $7 trillion dollars a year. Since, as you've postulated, almost no one will have a job, revenue to the Federal government will plummet.

I'm quite curious...just where is this money going to come from?

[oldhippie]

5. Where does the money come from?

Easy peasy. Tax the rich.

[Larsonb]

6. As per the OP, (virtually) no one is working...so the rich, while they have substantial assets, will

presumably have no income.

I suppose you could confiscate their assets. As per Wikipedia, the total wealth of all households in the United States is in the ballpark of $60 trillion, so if you took every single dollar of wealth from every household in the US, you could redistribute it at $35K per person per year for about 8 years.

Of course, things might just start falling apart before then...

[oldhippie]

11. Damn, .....

Maybe we could capture the rich and force them to work and then tax them?

[Larsonb]

25. Brilliant!

[Kingofalldems]

27. A DUer posts a thoughtful OP and you have done nothing but make fun

of it in this thread. What would be your suggestion? Have any?

[Yavin4]

72. Thanks for the support

it's a difficult concept to get people to wrap their heads around. We're coming to a day where there won't be a need for most workers. We're going to have an idle work force no matter what.

[snooper2]

91. The OP is fucking ridiculous for anyone who has taken basic economics LOL

By the way, when you going to send that crown back in to internetdemkings.com

You lost it back in June of 2013

[Luminous Animal]

40. It was good enough for George McGovern and Nixon to consider...

How far we have fallen from a rational compassionate society.

http://www.remappingdebate.org/article/guaranteed-income’s-moment-sun?page=0,2

[Shandris]

55. With post-scarcity approaching faster than anyone ever thought imaginable...

...we'd better come up with a better solution that cute Youtube clips and 'EERYONE MUST DO DA WERKZ!', wouldn't you say? There aren't going to be enough jobs, so our current list of options are: 1) find a way of making sure everyone can live or 2) write off a significant portion of the population as not worthy of living. Your call.

Welcome to DU.

[me b zola]

33. No one is working (for other people) now

I personally believe that people given the security to pursue happiness they will give to the community the gifts that they have to offer. Those with a love for gardening will produce food, others with a love of cheeses will produce cheese, tinkerers will tinker, artist will create art to makes us think/make us feel.

Have you ever considered the people (possible some you know) who are talanted at certain things/endeavorers but unable to invest time/money into pursuing it due to realities of making rent and feeding the family? There are seriously gifted science geeks who for practicality sake are working at home depot or some electronic shop.. Wouldn't we thrive in a society where we actually benefit from the gazillion of individual gifts that people possess rather than continue to feed them into the meet grinder of "modern" life?

I want the painter to paint, the tinkerer to tinker, the philosophers to think, science nerds to pursue their hypothesis.~~Kind of difficult to do when they are caught in the cycle of meeting ends meat month after month, year after year.

[Aldo Leopold]

46. Ye gods, I don't cry often but I actually got misty-eyed

reading this. I would love to live in such a world...

[Scruffy Rumbler]

60. What a wonderful world this would be! nt

[Yavin4]

12. First, this is incorrect "So no one in the USA will have a job"

Most people who want to work will be able to work and make more than the national income. So, that's a silly argument. Just like today, most people would rather work than collect food stamps.

Second, money would come into the Federal government like it does now, through taxation. Everyone on the national income would spend that money which would be taxed as sales taxes.

[Chan790]

15. While I'm not in favor of such proposals for the reason you've cited...

I believe the proposed number is usually closer to $12K income-tax-free and you don't get it if you work or having a working partner unless you/they make less than a set threshold. It's generally understood to be a poverty-level stipend and may also qualify one for subsidized housing and probably now Medicaid. Since most people wouldn't give up their right to work in exchange for $12K, you end up actually spending comparatively little.

It provides a base-stipend for those that can't work, have been placed out of the job market and those that opt out of employment. (Really, we need less workers today and wages would stabilize and rise if more people were able to opt out of the employment market.) It also provides a base living for those seeking to transition careers, take time off to care for others and patronizes the arts. Let's be honest, not everybody needs to be creating wealth with their labors.

[treestar]

28. It could be as simple as unemployment lasting for as long

as the person can't find a job.

[jeff47]

78. Which could be forever.

Technology is rapidly shrinking the amount of work done by humans. It's not going to be that long until there simply isn't enough work to be done for everyone to have a job.

[karadax]

104. If you're rich (5 million +) and you die

Only 25% can be passed on to your next of kin. The rest is reabsorbed.

Doesn't hurt a thing. It'll get rid of those "old money" types that really don't contribute as much as they say they do. Want to be ultra rich ? WORK for it.

[defacto7]

2. Interesting thought..

When I lived in the Netherlands, every citizen was entitled to housing and a minimum amount to live on if they had no work. It wasn't huge but it covered basics. Starvation and homelessness was practically zero. That was before the surge in the last few years of conservative government intervention which has caused a lot of problems. The same kind of social support of citizens is not uncommon in Europe. People don't like to talk about it here much.

In the long run, your idea is not a bad one but the American political machine will have to undergo massive disruption to say the least.

[badtoworse]

3. Sounds great. Who would pay for it if nobody is working?

[oldhippie]

4. Details, shmetails, ......

There is always a killjoy trying to kill a great idea with details. Just DREAM IT, Dude!

[Larsonb]

8. Imagine no possessions...I wonder if you can....no need for greed or hunger...

A brotherhood of man!

[Kingofalldems]

21. I get it.

[kcr]

23. So hilarious!

These dumb hippies! But who's too stupid to realize no one's going to quit their job for 10 grand! Now that's funny.

[davidthegnome]

54. What's so funny about it?

Sure, it's naïve, but it's a beautiful notion.

[Yavin4]

13. Where did I say that " nobody is working"?

Why would you assume that people would not want to work? The national income would cover the basics.

Also, did you read my post where I stated that most jobs would be lost to automation and over-seas labor markets?

[Shankapotomus]

35. More lions feed than hunt

How do they do it? Are lions smarter than us?

[LuvLoogie]

85. Lions don't hunt for more than they need...

And are often stressed to meet those needs. The dominant adult males stake out and protect territory in which the pride can survive. The non-hunting roles are as important to survival as are the hunting roles. The weak and old die. The young are fed and protected until they can contribute or set off on their own--procreation.

Lions don't hoard, and they don't eat for nothing.

[Shankapotomus]

89. But humans DO acquire more than they need individually

All the more reason why the OP is correct. Abundance should be spread around. If we are indeed united, the success some members of society have with resources should be spread around. Some members of human society can acquire far more abundance than a lion can. Therefore, we can and should support a larger demographic than lion resource gathering allows. If everyone just owns what they have acquired themselves, the group, cooperation as a united society, becomes meaningless. Like the young lion cubs, the non productive status of some members may change over time. So too may the productive status alter of those members currently good at resource gathering. Sharing with those "undeserving" now will help ensure your own continued access to resources when and if you yourself fall to the status of "undeserving" of resources.

Otherwise, if you own what you gather and I own what I gather, what's the point over cooperating over anything??? I mean, why even cooperate over territory??? If I'm strong enough to claim an entire hunting area, why should I share any of it with you???

This idea of full ownership of anything based on this self contradictory concept of effort just doesn't make any sense.

The truth is, there is a benefit to sharing your resources with the "undeserving." And that benefit boils down to this:

If you're a powerful alpha individual (of any species) who is strong enough to control a territory on your own that is the prime spot -maybe even the only spot - for nutritional resources, your effort may have indeed secured that access for you. Morality may dictate that no one has any right to that hunting spot but you. But a bunch of starving animals are not going to sit around and analyze the moral legitimacy of your effort based entitlement to resources. They're going to try and kill you and take the resources you refuse to share whether they fucking deserve it or not. So this presents a dilemma in regards to the moral range and degree effort has on any resource. The dilemma is starving living things kill without regard to morality. And the way our evolution has partially (not fully yet) developed to solve this dilemma is through sharing and cooperation. In other words, territory originally evolved in apes to be shared because the silver backs that didn't share territory were ganged up on and killed. So the next silver back came along and thought to himself, "You know, this is a big hunting area. May, maybe I'll let those guys hunt here? What the hell."

[LuvLoogie]

108. Agree with your points.

What is needed/desired versus its availability often rends and spills much flesh and blood. Hoarding can be its own pathological end, but more often its the power of that manufactured scarcity.

People have a mistaken notion of what that the second coming of Jesus entails. I suggest that The Second Coming is internal, of the mind and soul--when we recognize that mutual benefit IS singular benefit.

[grahamhgreen]

53. 6 people have as much wealth as the bottom 40%. So those 6, to start.

[JDPriestly]

59. That's the question the Opening Post is trying to answer.

The assumption underlying the question is that so much of the work is being done by machines or technology rather than by humans that jobs are more scarce than the numbers of qualified people to fill them. If the number of people without work increases greatly, then how do we keep our economy going?

As long as there are jobs, we can continue as we are. But we are headed in a direction in which jobs will be harder to get than they are today although not impossible to find for the very skilled and talented. What about the rest of the population?

Should they just be left to die? Or what to do?

Make work? What would you suggest?

[Hoyt]

69. I agree. Don't know the answer, but we have to try something. There just won't be enough jobs for

everyone unless we ban computers and sophisticated machines worldwide, perhaps using our bombs. Don't like that picture.

[Hosnon]

67. The owners of the producing technology.

Be it individuals or states. The alternative is fighting off 99.999999999999999% of the world's population.

[Luminous Animal]

73. Will wealth disappear? Will people stop innovating and creating?

It becomes a matter of distribution.

[Yavin4]

92. There are cheap public universities and colleges, yet people still go to Ivy League schools

There is free television, yet people still pay for cable and streaming.

There are libraries with free books, yet people still buy books.

Just because there will be subsistence income for all, that doesn't mean that everyone will take advantage of it.

By working, you can earn more and have more.

[PlanetaryOrbit]

7. How much? Like $10,000 a year?

And what if millions of people quit their jobs?


$10k would be more like a stipend, but not enough to make people quit their jobs.

[Yavin4]

18. "And what if millions of people quit their jobs?"

Then millions more would take them. Why would anyone quit a decent paying job and live on just a national income?

[madinmaryland]

9. So what would you suggest everyone do if they were not working?

$10k on beer??

[Yavin4]

14. Whatever they want to do.

Again, not everyone would sit at home and not work.

[madinmaryland]

19. I suppose I could get a job in health care.

[alphafemale]

10. Not for sitting at home. But there is plenty of work that needs done.

Rebuilding bridges, roads and schools for the able.

Childcare for others.

Just processing the backlog of veteran benefits for others.

There are very few people that cannot contribute to society if we tried to engage them.

And I think most people WANT to contribute.

[Yavin4]

17. Let's look at your post

"Rebuilding bridges, roads and schools for the able. " Okay. Once those tasks are complete, then what?

"Childcare for others." Sure. But not everyone is cut out for this type of labor, and those that want to do this would make more money because there would be less competition for such jobs.

"Just processing the backlog of veteran benefits for others." That would take one or two top notch IT consultants a few months to correct. Then what?

"There are very few people that cannot contribute to society if we tried to engage them." I agree, but most of what society needs, mentoring young people, volunteering, assisting others in need won't pay people enough money to survive.

[alphafemale]

22. Pay people enough to survive.

But unless there are extraordinary circumstances.


Most people can work in some way.

MOST people want to work and contribute in some way.

[kcr]

29. Then what's the problem?

Why do some people react so strongly to proposals like this? I agree, most people do want to work and contribute, which is why I think the lazy welfare bum meme is a crock. What the OP suggests really makes solid safety net that applies to everyone and makes sure no one falls through the cracks. That will become more important in the future for exactly the reasons the OP suggests.

[tazkcmo]

36. let me try

"Rebuilding bridges, roads and schools for the able. " Okay. Once those tasks are complete, then what?
These tasks will never be completed as the items are constantly being used and thus in constant need of repair and upgrades or expansion.

"Childcare for others." Sure. But not everyone is cut out for this type of labor, and those that want to do this would make more money because there would be less competition for such jobs.
You can say the same thing for EVERY job. In fact, I make this argument about fast food workers and a higher wage.

"Just processing the backlog of veteran benefits for others." That would take one or two top notch IT consultants a few months to correct. Then what?
It's more than the back log. In fact, the back log is a symptom of a much larger problem of an antiquated system that has been in the process of being "updated" for over a decade now so I'd love to meet the few IT workers that could rectify the problem in a few months.

"There are very few people that cannot contribute to society if we tried to engage them." I agree, but most of what society needs, mentoring young people, volunteering, assisting others in need won't pay people enough money to survive.
Why not? If these are the jobs that are most needed by our society and all the others have already been automated or out sourced then it stands to reason the skills needed to do these jobs would be valued and in demand.


I'm all for a national minimum standard of living with 12k a year, housing and energy a reasonable starting point.

[jeff47]

43. No, there really isn't plenty of work.

And it's going to get worse as technology continues to advance.

Rebuilding stuff? Will be done by 3D printing robots.

Vet benefits? Scanners and computer software.

Childcare? Not enough kids for all the people who will not have work.

Technology has always created fewer jobs than it replaces. That's why we bother to advance technology. The combine harvester displaced far more agricultural workers than mechanics it employed. At that time, cities could absorb the displaced laborers. But that doesn't go on forever.

We're rapidly approaching the point where there isn't going to be enough work for all the people. That's going to require some massive society changes. 32-hour work weeks becoming "normal" fixes the problem for a while, but technology continues. Cut it to 24-hour work week? Technology continues.

Most people want to contribute, but they are not going to be able to via a job. Something else is going to have to fill the role of a basic job while society works out how to deal with the massive changes. Minimum income is a good filler.

[JDPriestly]

62. I think that everybody wants to contribute.

But it is possible that in the future, fewer and fewer will be given the opportunity to contribute.

I become rather worried when I see how many young people are studying things like massage and Chinese medicine, etc. Nothing wrong with those fields but I at least in Los Angeles, the numbers of young people going into them suggests that they don't see opportunities in traditional careers. It's very troubling.

How many masseurs and masseuses do we need?

Repairing refrigerators and stoves is probably not a good career direction because nowadays getting an appliance repaired can cost almost as much as a new, cheaper, made in the third world one.

What is the future of employment in the US likely to be? It looks pretty grim right now.

[frwrfpos]

16. how about making Capitalism a criminal offense

punishable by life imprisonment. Profit over human beings would earn you life in prison. Sounds good to me. How about we cooperate instead of compete. How about we love instead of fear others and hate.

I know I am old school..

[Lost_Count]

45. Rainbows and sunshine for about 24 hours...

... and then it comes crashing down.

[mike_c]

24. I agree....

Yes, there should be. But there should also be wealth redistribution and a maximum income, perhaps simply a maximum practical income, because above that threshold taxes eat any additional. Like N.F.S. Grundtvig I hope for a country in which “few have too much and fewer too little.”

[ZombieHorde]

26. Yes, or at least guaranteed food and shelter. nt

[reformist2]

30. Hell yes. It's time again to dream of things that never were before, and ask why not.

Our problem as Dems has been that we've been thinking too small.

[CFLDem]

31. Hell yeah

But isn't this concept just basically welfare with a higher limit?

[Shankapotomus]

32. Yes

And in addition to your excellent reasons, I want to add an additional one:

The concept of employment is a relatively new phenomenon to humanity. Before the mass of humanity was put to work for others, subsistence was largely an individual affair and the individual's, or at most, the family or tribe's responsibility with little to no sense of performing tasks as a service but more as a shared responsibility. With the organization of large kingdoms, empires, the city-state and feudalism, tasks shifted from being performed as an individual or shared responsibility to tasks being performed for a specific entity in exchange for payment. Therefore direct subsistence on the natural world was replaced by an indirect subsistence through an intermediary. As the gears of mass production revved up all the way to our modern day pace, the mass of humanity became further removed from direct subsistence on the natural world, thanks to the new paradigm of employment as well as the destruction of that environment by modern industry and production. The result is, if I wanted to exist via direct subsistence on the natural environment today, it would be a very difficult prospect. That freedom, that option has been largely taken away from you and me by modern industry. Modern industry and poor resource management destroyed the natural environment's capacity to feed us, to quench our thirst, to shelter us without artificial manipulation or permission of those that claim authority. Unless we are one of the "owners" or self employed, we are all almost forced to work for someone else.

So I think this makes an additional case for a guaranteed income as not just an allowance but as restitution from modern industry or a tax for taking away our capacity to sustain ourselves directly from the natural environment.

There is the further argument based on the proportion of natural resources due a living entity. It has always been my argument, that since we all need to survive, essentially, any resources beyond what you require for your comfortable existence, to the extent that hoarding them endangers the lives of those lacking resources, are not yours and they shouldn't be. None of the resources on the planet can ever really be earned. You take them. You may get to them first before anyone else but you didn't earn them anymore than you earned the nutritional material in a deer by killing it. You can't claim sole ownership over a resource based solely on the effort you exerted to acquire it and then claim ownership of the deer you shot but which also exerted the same effort for the nutritional material it was composed of. Nothing that we take from the earth belongs to us therefore you can't earn all of it and deny any of it to others. If your excuse for taking the resources provided by the deer was because you "needed it", why is it now wrong when someone turns around and does it to you via government sanction?

So yes, people who need it should get an allowance at the expense of other members of society who are having more success acquiring resources. Advocating anything close to what we have today I think is looming with contradictions.

[Boom Sound 416]

34. So when the fed ex drone truck shows up at my door

What happens? I get a text?

[Yavin4]

39. The robot will ring your bell and deliver your package from the truck

It will even ask you to sign for it.

[westerebus]

37. Yes.

There is no reason not to, if it is below $7,200 a year for adults and $4,800 for those under 18.

That's not enough to live off of if you aspire to a middle class lifestyle.

It is enough to help you get there.

It is not an incentive not to work.

With that income more money would be spent in the local economy which would grow demand for services like adult education, advanced job training, improved schooling for children, better housing, improved infrastructure, a national WiFi grid, tutoring for at risk children, funding for the arts, to mention a few off the top of my head.

It would decrease the rates of property crime. It would improve the general health of those now living in poverty or near poverty. It would improve the general education of the population.

It is probably the most progressive way to end poverty without stigmatizing anybody.

Now a word about taxes. Taxes take money out of circulation.

It is how governments control the flow of wealth in a society.

Currently, you support the corporations and their wealthy owners.

It is not necessary to tax either of them to a point of destruction, it is necessary to hold them to standard no less burdensome than that which is enforced upon you.

It is in everyone's interest that we all succeed in becoming financially secure.

So, yes the tax structure would change.

But, the expense would be born by those that reap the greatest rewards.

The rich would still be rich, just not rich enough to own Government.

Sorry that was a bit long winded.

* apologizes grammar etc

[Luminous Animal]

38. Yes. I've been advocating for one for decades. Nixon even considered it. As did McGovern

http://www.remappingdebate.org/article/guaranteed-income’s-moment-sun?page=0,2

Guaranteed income’s moment in the sun

Guaranteed annual income had arrived. From the margins of economic thought just a generation earlier, the GAI was now at the heart of President Nixon’s domestic policy agenda in the form of the “Family Assistance Plan” (FAP).

Nixon himself refused to call the FAP a guaranteed annual income, saying that “a guaranteed income establishes a right [income] without any responsibilities [work] …There is no reason why one person should be taxed so another can choose to live idly.” But, despite Nixon’s rhetorical distinction, many conservatives opposed the president’s plan for just those reasons: they worried not only about cost, but also about the creation of a large class of people dependent on “welfare.”

Rhetoric aside, the FAP was indeed a form of GAI. The President’s Commission certainly thought so, writing in their letter submitting “Poverty Amid Plenty” to Nixon, “We are pleased to note that the basic structure of the Family Assistance Program is similar to that of the program we have proposed…Both programs represent a marked departure from past principles and assumptions that have proven to be incorrect.”


.....


In August, McGovern presented what he called “national income insurance” to the public, a plan that would have provided “jobs for those who are able to work [through public service employment], a reasonable income for those who cannot work [$4,000 per year for a family of four, or $22,275 in 2013 dollars], and truly adequate Social Security” for the elderly and disabled.

Not entirely confortable with this formulation, McGovern added, “we must resolve the question of income supplements for working people who, in spite of their labor, still have trouble making ends meet. Even the unacceptable Nixon Family Assistance Plan recognizes the need to boost the income of those who earn too little.”

[jeff47]

41. Aside from the upcoming employment problem, there's another good reason for this.

Various social programs don't always fit well.

Someone I know is proud of his family not taking food stamps despite being desperately poor. Why didn't they? They lived in a rural area. They could grow a lot of food.

That obviously won't work for a poor family in New York City. At the same time, the rural family sure could have used help with cars and gasoline, while the NYC family can use public transportation.

So instead of creating individual programs to fix some people's problems and ignore others, just give out cash. No more unemployment, SNAP, TANF, WIC, and so on. Instead, just give them money and they can use it for what works best for their situation. That NYC family can use it to buy food. That rural family can use it to buy gas. And we only need to manage one program instead of dozens.

Will there be cases of people spending it on the wrong stuff? Sure. But that's an easy enough problem to solve.

Give it to everyone.

If it's a program for the poor, it will be hated. Any "wrong" purchases will have intense scrutiny. But how often do you hear complaints about people spending Social Security on the "wrong" things? Obviously rich people don't need the money from this new program, but they also don't need the money from Social Security.

[Yavin4]

42. "Will there be cases of people spending it on the wrong stuff?" What exactly is "wrong stuff"?

Even if they buy drugs or gamble or prostitutes, then that money gets recycled back into the economy. No one is going to hoard it.

[jeff47]

44. People attack the current programs claiming the poor are buying t-bone steaks and Cadillacs.

If we restrict minimum income to the poor, similar complaints will be made. So give it to everyone.

[Yavin4]

47. If they're buying T-Bone steaks, then the grocers make money

If they're buying cadillacs, then the auto workers, dealers, etc. make money.

[jeff47]

52. I'm not talking about logical people here.

They want a way to attack the programs because the people getting the money "don't deserve it". So you get Reagan's Cadillac-driving welfare queens as the reason we need to end welfare.

If minimum income is just for poor people, similar complaints will be made as Republicans (or whatever party replaces them) try and cut or end the program.

If minimum income is for everyone, those complaints won't happen.

[Fearless]

48. Yes.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

49. Contrary to popular myth, "work" doesn't create wealth....

Ask any housewife.

[Aldo Leopold]

50. I like your idea, for

We are the music makers. And we are the dreamers of dreams.

[grahamhgreen]

51. No, people should be forced to steal if they can't find work!

[aristocles]

56. So how much is enough? $10,000? $100,000? $1,000,000?

And I suppose that if $1,000.000 is too much, we can always print more money...it's just paper after all.

Of course if we do that, a loaf of bread will cost, say, $10,000.

Is that OK?

[reformist2]

58. You're fighting the last war. If we don't do something to support income, deflation will start.

[aristocles]

63. Don't look now, but deflation started in 2013.

See shadowstats.com. .

[westerebus]

106. Closer to the last quarter of 2007.

The economy has drifted from there.

[JDPriestly]

57. K&R simply to encourage the discussion and not because I necessarily agree.

As someone else asked, "Where would we get the revenue to implement such a plan?"

And why give millionaires $35,000 per year?

But, we do need to start rethinking how wealth will be divided in a future in which jobs are scarce due to so much automation.

Or is our belief that in the future machines will do the work that people are paid to do today realistic?

We have allocated wealth based on work for centuries, maybe millions of years. Is there any other fair way? Won't we always want to use money to reward effort and talent, to give meaning to life and to motivate people to work?

This is a really basic question. We aren't entirely in a reality in which machines do most of the work. That is especially true in fields like harvesting food and nursing, even waiting tables.

But clearly there is not enough demand for workers in our country right now. And much of the world's population is doing work that machines may well be doing in the not-so-distant future.

So, it's good to suggest solutions. Will we end up just fighting with each other? Or will we find a harmonious way to live together in peace in a very different economy? A very different reality? Or are we just imagining things?

[jeff47]

75. You get the money the same way you get money for any other government program

Taxes.

A minimum income doesn't mean everyone only gets the minimum income.

And why give millionaires $35,000 per year?

To stop them from killing the program.

Social Security and Medicare have survived so well because they are given to everyone, regardless of income.

Welfare and similar programs have been hacked to near oblivion because they are only for poor people.

And while millionaires don't need the support. there's lots of middle class folks who'd love to try their hand at their own business, but do not because of the lack of safety net.

Or is our belief that in the future machines will do the work that people are paid to do today realistic?

Yep. Cars can already drive themselves. 3D printers are better at assembling (currently small) items. Manufacturing is returning to the US....but to "dark" factories that are completely automated.

We aren't entirely in a reality in which machines do most of the work. That is especially true in fields like harvesting food and nursing, even waiting tables.

Tons of crops are harvested by a machine driven by one person. There's little reason to keep that person in the machine. Yes, there are some crops we currently harvest by hand, but image recognition is going to make that obsolete very soon.

Waiting tables can be more efficiently done by touch-screen ordering and robot food delivery.

Many parts of nursing could be automated pretty easily. Currently, not 100%, but that's just an algorithm problem, not a physical problem.

Will we end up just fighting with each other?

Probably not....we have robots for that too.

[JDPriestly]

79. Social Security and Medicare are paid for out of the wages of people who, if they work and pay in

long enough receive benefits that are never very high but that are in some way based on their earnings. So that is not the same as a welfare program.

While Social Security was a pay-in-pay-out program in the early years, after about 1985, working people paid in additional benefits to save for the retirement of the baby boomers. The additional money that was not paid out to the then recipients of Social Security was placed in a trust fund for future beneficiaries of the program. That money has been borrowed by the US government. That is part of the national debt -- the money owed to Social Security.

[jeff47]

81. No, that's only Social Security.

Medicare is available to everyone over 65. Whether or not they ever worked.

Again, any program where the benefits are paid to everyone is much, much more popular than any program that only pays the poor. That includes Social Security, even though your benefits are determined by how much you pay in.

[JDPriestly]

82. Medicare is available to everyone over 65 is correct, but I do think that part of your FICA taxes

go toward Medicare. I could be wrong, but I don't think that Medicare is entirely paid from the general fund although it is partly paid from the general fund.

Under the Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA) 12.4% of earned income up to an annual limit must be paid into Social Security, and an additional 2.9% must be paid into Medicare.

That limit is $113,700 for 2013.

There are no earned income limits on Medicare taxes -- so even if your salary is well above the cap for Social Security tax, you will still owe Medicare tax on your total earned income.

If you're a wage or salaried employee, you pay only half the FICA bill (In 2013, 6.2% for Social Security plus 1.45% for Medicare), and the tax is automatically withheld.
. . . .

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/moneymag/money101/lesson18/index4.htm

[jeff47]

83. K, now try to get to the point I was actually making

The fact that (basically) everyone receives Social Security makes it much more popular, and much harder to cut, than programs for the poor.

The fact that everyone receives Medicare makes it much more popular, and much harder to cut, than programs for the poor.

[JDPriestly]

84. True. Agreed.

[Beearewhyain]

61. Yes, because if we do this

others have the opportunity to add their brilliance to the society at large making us all better. Instead of one Steve Jobs we end up with dozens and millions more who can take advantage of the progress...leading to a few dozen more "Jobs".

While I don't agree with all Maslow says I do think this is not a bad rule of thumb.

[TexasBushwhacker]

64. I think there should be guaranteed employment

I think we should have work programs paid for by the government like the WPA, that would offer employment to the long term unemployed. Rather than people staying on unemployment for 99 weeks, after 6 months, they could work for WPA projects. That way no one would have to be branded as "long term unemployed". The pay should be enough to squeak by on, but not so much that the worker wouldn't want to look for something better.

[jeff47]

77. The problem becomes what would they do?

Road maintenance? Why have people do that? Automated paving machines can handle it. And so on with other potential public works.

We're rapidly reaching a point where there simply won't be enough work for everyone to have jobs.

[dilby]

65. Would this be to supplement or replace existing incomes.

Because if it replaced incomes we would quickly become bigger serfs than we already are. 99% of us would live just above poverty while 1% would be richer than they already are.

[westerebus]

105. It would be in addition to your income.

[Hosnon]

66. It's inevitable.

AI and automation will simply eliminate the need for humans to work. And since the planet will be even more productive, wealth will have to be distributed or you'll have several billion people rioting.

Work is not inherently necessary.

[WillyT]

68. Hey Yavin !!! - Did You Catch THIS:

DULink: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024353349

Just sayin...



& Rec !!!

[WillyT]

107. And...

DULink: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024374640

[seveneyes]

70. Does everyone take turns cleaning the toilets?

There will still need to be physical effort put forth. Who does it and who doesn't?

[Yavin4]

71. Toilets and bathrooms will be designed and programmed to clean themselves

Toilets can already flush themselves.

[El_Johns]

87. As one who does that work, I doubt it. Try programming a bathroom to sense when someone has

just shit all over the wall, the toilet, the floor, and left shit on the sink, during business hours.

[Yavin4]

90. Automatic self cleaning toilets are already here

[snooper2]

96. missed the pee on the rim under the seat

[El_Johns]

109. That's a single stall toilet, which can be automatically locked to keep people from entering.

I'm talking about restrooms commonly found where lots of people congregate (malls, theaters, train stations, schools etc) that are large, have multiple stalls, multiple sinks, and need to be cleaned at multiple intervals daily to keep them even somewhat sanitary.

[snooper2]

93. until they break and get clogged LOL

I'll have to give you one thing though...

Cars have been able to rebuild themselves for some time-


Check this out!

[quakerboy]

74. maybe, but I would prefer redistribution

Say, a new flat 20% tax on all income. Then take the total pot and divide it equally among every adult citizen. Based on quick numbers from the internet, that would have been about 12k/person in 2012. Not sure if the numbers I found represents earned income or all income though, so it could actually be higher.

[flying rabbit]

76. Interesting post

Kicking.

[JI7]

80. People still wash dishes by hand and dishwashing machines have been around for a while now

[SamKnause]

86. Yes,

the answer is yes !!!

[pampango]

88. MLK, Moynihan and many Swiss voters agree.

I am now convinced that the simplest approach will prove to be the most effective — the solution to poverty is to abolish it directly by a now widely discussed measure: the guaranteed income.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where_Do_We_Go_from_Here:_Chaos_or_Community%3F

In 1973, Daniel Patrick Moynihan wrote The Politics of a Guaranteed Income in which he advocated the Guaranteed Minimum Income and discussed Richard Nixon's GAI proposal.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Patrick_Moynihan

Swiss to vote on 2,500 franc (~$2,800 per month) basic income for every adult

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/04/us-swiss-pay-idUSBRE9930O620131004

[jwirr]

94. Yes, it should be enough that the poor do not NEED the other programs such as food stamps. It would

be universal so that would mean it would be much simpler to administer and be coupled with the income tax deadline. Every April 15 everyone would send in their income form and those owing taxes would pay while those below the guaranteed level would get a notice stating the amount of money they would receive monthly. That would leave the rethugs yelping about those who are just setting home and doing nothing. Which brings us back to the same old argument. By the way we already have earned income benefits and the elderly who are poor have SSI. Both of these programs are an effort to make sure there is some kind of living wage level. However neither is high enough to really help. The rethugs over the years have blocked all efforts to see that would really help the poor.

[DLevine]

95. Yes, absolutely.

Unfortunately, I don't think it will ever happen.

[Orsino]

97. Money is speech. Speech is a right.

Let's complete the syllogism already.

[Lady Freedom Returns]

99. K and R.

[Stevepol]

100. Not a guaranteed income but a guaranteed JOB!

This is what Truman was for and what is logical. If you want to work you should be able to work. Doing what? Cleaning up the national parks, cleaning up streets, highways, teaching in the inner city, planting trees. There's no end of jobs that serve a useful and constructive purpose. If a guy tries to find work and says he will be willing to take any job that comes up that he can do, then in the meantime, instead of unemployment insurance, instead of food stamps, etc., give the guy a job for gosh sakes. Let him get out in the great outdoors like the CCC camps in the 30s, like the Peace Corps.

In the long run, it would be less expensive and a helluva lot more constructive and fair than passing a hundred laws to make sure the guy survives from one day to the next. It wd add money to the economy and stimulate further economic activity. I'll bet the number of people in the various jobs programs would be far less than the percentage of unemployed before jobs were given as a matter of course to anybody that wants to work.

Of course, if a guy doesn't want to work, that's his prerogative, but he shd be able to if he wants to. A society should provide for its members. A society that provides for its members will not only survive: it will thrive. All for one and one for all. Let each man work for his fellow man in whatever way he sees fit, supported by private business or the government, but LET HIM OR HER WORK.

[jeff47]

101. Actually, yes there is an end of jobs that serve a useful and constructive purpose.

Technology always replaces more jobs than it creates. That's one of the main reasons we bother to advance technology.

Clean up parks, streets and highways? We can already automate that. Same with planting trees. And the machines will require less care and feeding than humans.

Teach in inner cities? Yeah, having someone who doesn't want to be in front of a classroom is a fantastic way to educate kids.

We've been cranking out lots and lots of technological advances for the last 300ish years. We are rapidly approaching the point where there simply is not enough work to be done by humans to employ everyone. For example, factories are "returning to the US"....As 100% automated assembly plants. 3D printing will utterly destroy virtually all manufacturing jobs once it scales up.

Society is in for some very, very large changes. A minimum income would greatly help to ease the transition.

ETA: This is generally called a "Post-scarcity economy"

[Yavin4]

102. The problem with that is....

Automation and machines will replace many of the jobs that you describe. You won't need that many humans to clean a park or plant a tree or do any of those things.

It's a waste of human potential to trap people into doing menial jobs just so they can eat when machines can do the same job, faster and more efficiently.

[The2ndWheel]

103. Should or should not, I figure it'll happen

for no other reason than to keep people from turning to crime as they're just needed less for society to function. If people are needed less and less, what else would they do if they have nothing else?

Where does the money come from to do it? A dollar only has worth because enough people agree that it does. So as we move further and further into abstraction, the money will come from the limits of our imagination.

There will be problems though. What they'll be exactly, who knows, but nothing that humans have ever done has come problem free, no matter how advanced the progress has been. I would think that not everyone will become critically thinking artists for example. Some people may just play video games all day, or completely surrender themselves to whatever other stimulation may be available. Just eat Carl's Jr burgers all day. Lose themselves in porn. Some other issue that will only exist in a world of no work that nobody can predict just yet.