5 ms·
Didn’t read the article, but why would you go work at a lower end job when you can make 80-90% of what you would make by just collecting unemployment benefits?
by soccerdave 5y ago
Didn’t read the article, but why would you go work at a lower end job when you can make 80-90% of what you would make by just collecting unemployment benefits?
I personally know at least 2 people that admitted this and said they would wait until unemployment benefits expire to seek work.
- blacktriangle 5y agoAnd yet people still think UBI will work.
- freedomben 5y agoUnemployment isn't UBI. If you work you lose the unemployment money you would have got for free, hence the disincentive. UBI (most proposals) would supplement work not replace it.
- sltkr 5y agoWith UBI, if you take an additional job, you would lose a large share of your income to taxes used to pay for the UBI. Yes, you can restructure income tax levels so that people get to keep most of their additional income, and then you'd have to tax the remaining people more heavily to compensate. But if that's the solution, why don't we do that today? This argument shows that UBI doesn't solve the incentive problem. It can only be solved by keeping welfare benefits significantly lower than minimum wages, which means lowering one or raising the other. This isn't logically impossible, but it's matter of political feasibility. That's true of UBI also.
- freedomben 5y agoI don't necessarily disagree. I think UBI is an important thing to study and consider as we increasingly displace workers with the ever-moving capability of tech, but it will undoubtedly have some unintended consequences. I do think it's important to point out though that you lose unemployment if you work, so there's direct incentive there.
- Maxion 5y agoJust look at the Nordic countries, very good unemployment benefits but we do not have any issues with people staying on benefits even if they could get a good paying job. A UBI that works as e.g. a negative income tax would definitely work.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- Tarrosion 5y agoUBI seems very different? You lose unemployment benefits if you start working; you wouldn't lose UBI benefits.
- dageshi 5y agoThe point from most of the comments seems to be, if unemployment is enough to live on and the alternative is a job you don't particularly want to do, then there's no incentive to do the job you don't want to do? If UBI just replaces unemployment, how does that calculation change? You still have enough money to live on you still don't want to do the job being offered? Unless UBI is sufficiently low that you need a job to survive, in which case... is it UBI?
- akvadrako 5y agoNothing says people aren't willing to work if they pay is good enough. Unemployment is effectively a 90% tax rate in the bottom bracket, making work pointless.
- breakfastduck 5y agoUBI isn't even remotely comparable to employment benefit. You stop getting the benefit if you get a job, you wouldn't stop getting UBI, so there's no negative response to being employed.
- sigspec 5y agoSounds like you misunderstand the point of UBI.
- DavidButter 5y agoWhat does he misunderstand about the point of UBI?
- akvadrako 5y agoThe U means that you still get your monthly basic income even if you work. With unemployment working earns you 10-20% more. With UBI working earns you 105-115% more.
- lumost 5y agoWhy don't companies pay more then? In Switzerland service employees make 20-35 dollars an hour. Is there some intrinsic reason why employers feel compelled to pay so little?
- dahfizz 5y agoUnemployment scales with how much money you used to make. In my state, you can receive the equivalent of $31/hr on unemployment.
- seanp2k2 5y agoIt does scale, because the assumption is that you’ve built your life around that previous level of income. Going from a few hundred K/year down to 60k/yr would probably be devastating for most. The thing that people seem to forget is how higher AGI = higher taxes. People are just getting back some of what they’ve paid into the system already. Would you expect to get full coverage insurance on a new Ferrari, with premiums based on the value of that, then get compensated by the insurance for the value of the cheapest car on the market in the event that it was stolen? Edit: minor typo
- dahfizz 5y agoI'm not arguing against the fact that unemployment scales, I am merely stating a fact. OP's question was "why don't you pay more? That will make people want to leave unemployment". My response was "higher wages will not incentive people to leave unemployment because they would be receiving unemployment that scaled with those higher wages".
- gher-shyu3i 5y agoThey can't afford to. This is the natural outcome of running businesses on loans.
- 6gvONxR4sf7o 5y agoAnd the natural outcome of the business’s landlord running off loans/mortgage. Credit makes everything harder to change, and the more coupled the system, the worse it is.
- ChuckNorris89 5y agoSame in Germany and Austria. Local farmers complain about a shortage of fruit pickers in the season even though there are plenty of able bodied unemployed locals with no skills or degrees but since they have the option of staying on unemployment, why would they do back-breaking work for 10-20% more money then what they get paid for sleeping in at home? So they just import and abuse poor workers from Eastern Europe[1] living and working in illegal conditions, who have no better options back home than to do back-breaking work for what would be peanuts in Germany but somewhat-half-decent money back home. The local authorities know about these illegalities regarding foreign worker exploitation but turn a blind eye as this keeps the meat and vegetables cheap in the supermarkets for the very price sensitive local consumers, since the farmers are all under the pressure of the big supermarket chains to deliver produce on time and on razor thin margins so they have no other way but to find cheap exploitable workforce to stay competitive or lose their contracts. Welcome to 21st century European capitalism. [1]https://youtu.be/OUiFYhVEUvU https://youtu.be/OUiFYhVEUvU
- CodeGlitch 5y agoYes exactly the same happened in the UK pre-brexit. Now we have left I wonder if the situation will change much (I suspect not).
- CodeGlitch 5y agoI wonder if the solution to this is to offer workers a non financial benefit, so it doesn't cost the farmer and more to employ a local person, but that local person gains something that they wouldn't get just by sitting at home collecting benefits...
- fatnoah 5y ago>Didn’t read the article, but why would you go work at a lower end job when you can make 80-90% of what you would make by just collecting unemployment benefits? I think you wouldn't. A family member runs a small shop and unemployment plus additional COVID benefits ended up being very close to wages of some employees, who did the math and decided that 90% of the pay for 5% (not zero due to expectations for unemployment) of the work.
- driverdan 5y ago> Didn’t read the article Then why are you commenting? Your point was addressed in the article.
- 6gvONxR4sf7o 5y agoYou’re getting downvoted to hell, but it really is a let-me-google-that-for-you kind of question, given what the article presents. It’s frustrating to see so much discussion going that way.
- 6gvONxR4sf7o 5y ago> Didn’t read the article, but why would you go work at a lower end job when you can make 80-90% of what you would make by just collecting unemployment benefits? There’s a good article somewhere that looks into that specific question and provides some data and weighs alternative explanations. I wish I could find the link. Alternatively we could all just debate it without any of the data from the article. I’m pretty sure I know which option is most popular.