Under the nuclear family approach, children over 18 living with their parents are considered separate families and can qualify independently, regardless of their parents’ income. This raises equity concerns because it may result in disproportionate benefits for high-income families.
In contrast, the economic family definition uses the combined income of all related individuals living in the same household, providing a more comprehensive and equitable basis for assessing eligibility.
So, if my daughter lives in my house, we’re all related, and thus one economic family.
But, if my daughter moves into my neighbor’s house, and their son moves into my house, we’re now four economic families?
How about once a month, we just direct deposit the same amount into the bank account of each and every person over the age of 18?
I had previously moved more towards a negative income tax approach rather than a universal basic income. The latter seems to be consistently found to be too expensive to implement universally, and how does it make sense to give the basic income to someone who’s currently a billionaire or even a millionaire? (Ok, if a former millionaire loses it all and ends up deep in debt, that’s a bit different, but that’s why I’m limiting to current millionaires.)
That’s why I found this,
which found it is possible to halve previously projected costs while maintaining or even increasing its poverty-reduction impact.
To be so intriguing. Alas,
The PBO, therefore, confirms the P.E.I. report’s conclusion that it is possible to roughly halve the cost of a basic income program for Canada and each province by using the economic family definition instead of the nuclear family.
Basically, the use of the artificial “economic family” standard is what justifies giving lower payments to these folks. So the proposal saves money by … refusing to spend extra money.
Since housing is so expensive right now, many more are living together than we’d normally see otherwise, so I think today’s “economic families” are a bit artificially inflated. If a UBI based on this did go through, I’d expect folks to start moving out of their parents homes to qualify for additional basic income - which would legitimately help them afford their new places, but also cause the programme’s costs to skyrocket.
I don’t think the above was accounted for properly. Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to see a UBI or an NIT come to fruition, and Canada does have a working example of this from the past: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mincome
But having a badly designed proposal tried and failed would hurt the movement, so we have to look at these ideas closely. Ultimately, I don’t see that the “economic family” concept makes sense, and without it the cost of the programme doubles. Perhaps it still works, but be prepared to fund it at double the stated level, don’t let that rise catch us by surprise.
Universal: Everyone gets it, no means testing, no bureaucracy and the cost associated with that.
Basic: You are not buying caviar and exotic holidays, just enough to live and pay rent.
Income: Therefore taxed.
E.g. If UBI is 1000 a month it will likely push people into a higher tax bracket therefore their after tax income will not be 1000 more and for the richest they should be taxed more than they revive from the UBI. Basically we need to sort out a proper taxation system before this can be implemented.
push people into a higher tax bracket therefore their after tax income will not be 1000 more and for the richest they should be taxed more than they revive from the UBI
You will never be taxed more than you receive. Who taught you that all your money is taxed at a higher rate when just 1000 is in a higher bracket? It wasn’t the instructions on your tax return. Did Joe Rogan become an economist too?
Universal: Everyone gets it, no means testing, no bureaucracy and the cost associated with that.
Basic: You are not buying caviar and exotic holidays, just enough to live and pay rent.
Agreed.
Income: Therefore taxed.
Minor quibble - technically a concept of non-taxable income does exist, see https://www.taxtips.ca/glossary/non-taxable-income.htm for some examples. But agreed on the main point (that UBI is and should be taxable).
E.g. If UBI is 1000 a month it will likely push people into a higher tax bracket therefore their after tax income will not be 1000 more
In fact it might all be taxed away for those who are actually rich.
and for the richest they should be taxed more than they … [receive] … from the UBI.
I’d go a couple of steps further. Those rich enough (so not just the richest but perhaps everyone who’s even slightly rich) should have the UBI fully taxed away. Another way to put this is that their taxes after UBI should = taxes before UBI + cash value of UBI
Basically we need to sort out a proper taxation system before this can be implemented.
So if this was just some kind of accounting gimmick then this would be perfect.
The issue from what I understand is that real money - the 1000 in your example - has to be sent into the richest person’s bank account (or equivalent money-receiving receptacle) before getting retrieved by being taxed back. Perhaps we could do something like saying UBI is paid out annually and only given the day before taxes are due to be paid in order to minimize the amount of time this money is floating out there - but the issue is that it still costs real money to pay everyone, even the richest of the rich, this UBI, only to claw it back again in full later. (At most, some higher middle class folks might gradually get less and less than the full amount of the negative income tax/basic income, until we get to zero.)
So it’s not the most efficient way to handle money. By contrast, with a NIT we avoid needing to have that extra cash to move around - we’d only have to give the basic income to those who wouldn’t qualify for this claw back. That frees up funds, real money. The catch is that we’d need some bureaucracy to deal with it - but by making it part of the income tax, the existing taxation bureaucracy can deal with it, hopefully minimizing this aspect of the cost. We’d likely have some costs here anyways as part of the “sorting out a proper taxation system” prereq for a true UBI, and the hope is that a NIT wouldn’t cost more than that.
There will always be cheaters, you can’t stop that. You can make it as hard and as small as possible, though.
I wouldn’t characterize that “kidswap” plan as “cheating”.
The government has no interest in whether my kid moves in with my neighbors. It should not be establishing a regulation that encourages them to do so, nor should the government claim fraud because they dont think the kid moved far enough away to qualify as “leaving home”.
This plan is discrimination on the basis of familial status, which should be prohibited.
Simplicity makes it more difficult for paper-pushers to game the system to help the rich. So any suggestion to complicate it oughta be taken skeptically.
“Announce it to big celebration and then put in the fine print that it’s only for single-parent households making less than $100 a year”
They’ve been pulling a lot of this shit lately, like that dental program a while back
They’ve been pulling a lot of this shit lately, like that dental program a while back
You write “introducing a programme with a staged roll-out” a little weird, just like the guy above writes “support people who need it because you’re Canadian” a little selfishly. You’re not pissed at the programme, but you seem to be pissed you’re not in it on day one.
BE HAPPY not to be in a target demographic in need of added support on day one. Take that as a win. I know people in that position. I’ve been someone in that position twice before and I’m chuffed as hell not to be in that position today.
Please re-examine why hatred towards the less fortunate is what you’re feeling, as well as disparaging a government who in a minority was able to even start a programme amid the constant flack from our cruel, bigoted, elitist Opposition.
The key is to base eligibility
And that’s how you know this is the usual contempt and hatred for Canadians behind a proposal trying to use the philosophical clout of UBI in a despotic corrupt way.
Their scheme is to reduce old age spending by forcing their kids to support their parents.
UBI is inherently a zero cost program. Government gets no say in what to do with any tax revenue meant for it, and does not pay for administering “eligibility”. Its just another (refundable) tax credit that gets paid by higher taxes on others, but who also inherently qualify for UBI.
UBI becomes an easy cost savings program when other programs are eliminated. UBI that is higher than social programs and EI, means programs can be eliminated to the benefit of people both receiving them and not. Unconditionality means no poverty trap preventing them from seeking additional income. Eliminating crime and homelessness is such a massive quality of life increase to all, including tourism related businesses. Massive economic growth and wage (that multiplies economic growth even more) benefits of UBI, means that the rich get richer even after tax hikes.
Hi friends I didn’t actually click the link so my skepticism may be unfounded. But I have a few concerns open to criticism or validation lol
In a primarily private sector “market” supply chain etc does basic income not just put downward pressure on wages in the form of a pseudo business subsidy ick.
Or if everyone has the same level of income before labour income **without pricing control **we end up just raising the floor on the cost of living? Sure there are long tails where only nice to have things get more expensive but in aggregate.
I’m 100% for wealth redistribution and believe heavily in public goods so please don’t at me as a capitalist pig 🐽. Maybe I’m missing the mark but adding more money into our under served areas of society without thoughtful discussion about financial literacy and about where that money inevitability ends up we’ve already lost the plot on the program lol
Thank you if you made it to the end of my poorly punctuated run on mess ❤️
There have been experimental deployments of Universal Basic Income, one of which lasted five years and involved an entire town, and none of those things ever materialized.
Thank you for your comment. I’m confident a towns economic capacity is of no consequence to the interconnected nature of national economics unfortunately. But am also woefully ignorant lol
You’re not woefully ignorant, you’re correct.
This is the thing people keep missing with those prior experiments; their limited nature insulated from the negative consequences of the devaluation of money because neighbouring communities were meta-stable under the current strategy.
The second we have universal basic income, money will devalue until the significance of that money essentially trends towards zero in terms of impact.
In other words, we’ll make the “free” money worthless, which will cause hyperinflation or require extreme market controls that traditionally haven’t done much but stifle economic activity.
Not super well informed on the subject, but the idea is that money looses it’s value the more you have. If you’re struggling to make ends meet, even a small amount of additional income helps a ton, but if you’re already stable, that same amount is inconsequential.
Now for the increase in prices, again “cost of living” is not a single thing, so it can’t increase uniformly across the board and affect everyone the same way. The various products have to stay competitive with each other and your local farmer doesn’t suddenly need more income either. So I dont expect essentials to get a massive price bump. The one thing we have to be careful with is rent, and that’s already an issue.
We need to ban (or tax out of existence) the concept of owning a house you don’t stay in. Landlords should be illegal, what value they provide to society is so marginal and so minimal that it would be an overwhelmingly net positive.
That tackles one of the largest worries against a universal income.
Rental housing makes sense for people who aren’t intending to stay where they are in the long term (young single people or people whose situation is in flux in some way). If you’re expecting to move on, lumbering yourself with an expensive asset that will take years to pay for and may require months to unload when you no longer need it isn’t smart.
It may make sense to restrict rentals to multi-unit buildings, and also restrict the number of buildings or units under the same owner, but having none at all causes more problems than it solves.
Housing is one of the most expensive purchases most people will ever make. Are you saying everybody must be able to commit to that to have a place to live?
I understand the principle behind the concept but believe it lacks depth and is a bandaid for a systemic problem. If you’re struggling to make ends meet there’s been a failure giving you more money isn’t going to solve.
You’re 100% right the cost of living is far to broad to make assumptions about which areas it would impact at scale but the net idea of you increase monetary supply and capitalism does what it does best.
It sounds good in a vacuum but when you take a step back and think about it in aggregate at national scale with monopolistic national supply chains that are poorly regulated I might add see fixing the price of bread 😂 it’s going to be something we can pat ourselves on the back for but is a big nothing burger :(
In a primarily private sector “market” supply chain etc does basic income not just put downward pressure on wages in the form of a pseudo business subsidy ick.
The freedom to say no to job offers, or unfair working conditions, suggests a higher pressure on wages. Getting 5 recruiter calls per day would also raise your wages.
OTOH, people liking their society and wanting to give back might motivate them to work a few hours for beer money. The previous dynamic can mean eliminating minimum wage. You might be happy to work in a library for $3/hour if you feel it is helping educate society, and it doesn’t happen to be illegal, as an example.
Can you reword your response to the scale of a country rather than an individual?
Primarily how basic income would increase competition for labour? Stating an anecdotal scenario where you have more opportunity is a nice thought but does little to support or dispose the proposal
I can appreciate the sentiment of wanting to give back to community when you’re grateful and many people do donate and volunteer their time for such causes.
Your point that it could remove the need for minimum wage is a scary thought when you consider the corporate obligation to maximize investor returns.
UBI directly creates economic growth by having more people able to afford more things. That means needing more people to make and sell the things. The freedom to say no to work makes it easier for people who want jobs to get better jobs.
Your point that it could remove the need for minimum wage is a scary thought when you consider the corporate obligation to maximize investor returns.
Your fear is that corrupt markets are the normal inescapable form of markets. That we are all just slaves desperately hoping for the kindest of asshole master to pay us for work. UBI fixes the power imbalance (corruption) in labour market. It also means power redistribution to the people.
I don’t think it would have to be any different than people getting a bigger tax return at the end of the year. Or like the HST rebates Ontario has been doing where they pay it out I think quarterly?
As it is right now, I’ve seen the occasional “tax return sale” because businesses know people just got paid a chunk of money and might be impulsive with it. I don’t think this is necessarily a bad thing, the demand for everyday items won’t change, and people will try and save money regardless of income level.
Please reconsider your example of tax sales with the perspective of a pressure sales tactic designed to extract the extra income from “consumers” lol
Who are woefully undereducated in how to manage their money. When you think about those who are most vulnerable financially your proposal misses the point of the value of a basic income program :(
