Current Events > We should slash the federal minimum and introduce Universal Basic Income.

(+) Yeah! (+)

Tax businesses for automation but keep it low enough to make it worthwhile to automate most jobs over actual people. UBI would mean people could focus on schooling for careers they actually have passion for rather than just searching for money. More teachers, more engineers, more scientists, etc etc. This will also let nonprofits and small businesses thrive, because they can afford to hire the staff they need while having a larger pool of people to hire from.

To be perfectly honest, we should be making regulations that force companies to invest in automation.

The entire trucking industry needs to go. I work in it. Something has to change for this employment sector that has over 8 million employees. These are people who are frequently working 50+ hour weeks and involved with hazardous work environments that don't get shut down for OSHA violations because the US economy depends on them.

Every forklift driver, shipping/receiving clerk, and truck is suffering immensely. My people are suffering, I am suffering. It all needs to go to automation.

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Perascamin posted...

To be perfectly honest, we should be making regulations that force companies to invest in automation.

The entire trucking industry needs to go. I work in it. Something has to change for this employment sector that has over 8 million employees. These are people who are frequently working 50+ hour weeks and involved with hazardous work environments that don't get shut down for OSHA violations because the US economy depends on them.

Every forklift driver, shipping/receiving clerk, and truck is suffering immensely. My people are suffering, I am suffering. It all needs to go to automation.

I'd love regulation for trucks at least.

UBI also means people can be lazy, but I'd still agree to it if I have the option to forfeit my UBI to use as tax credit.

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nope
factually a bad idea
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RdVEHfJqAvUPIbk posted...

nope
factually a bad idea

So I'm sure you can explain how.

UBI would mean people could focus on schooling for careers they actually have passion for rather than just searching for money.

But would be there be a corresponding rise in the availability of such jobs? Otherwise it's just making the job market even tougher for everyone, with even more qualified candidates competing for every job.

But with UArchiePeck posted...

But would be there be a corresponding rise in the availability of such jobs? Otherwise it's just making the job market even tougher for everyone, with even more qualified candidates competing for every job.

But with UBI, the tougher job market wouldn't be nearly as harsh because you have that income to fall back on.

OctilIery posted...

But with UBI, the tougher job market wouldn't be nearly as harsh because you have that income to fall back on.

nope
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OctilIery posted...

But with U

But with UBI, the tougher job market wouldn't be nearly as harsh because you have that income to fall back on.

Yeah but a lot of long term unemployed people suffer mental health issues related to the isolation, feelings of worthlessness at the endless rejections and lack of a set daily routine. Being able to afford the groceries won't change that.

ArchiePeck posted...

Yeah but a lot of long term unemployed people suffer mental health issues related to the isolation, feelings of worthlessness at the endless rejections and lack of a set daily routine. Being able to afford the groceries won't change that.

That's actually an interesting point. IMO not enough to quash the idea, but something that should be considered. Do you know of any studies on this?

shockthemonkey posted...

Slashing the federal minimum is a fucking stupid idea

On its own, yes. With UBI? Not so much.

Why not have federal minimum wage and UBI? Additionally why not increase the minimum wage to $15 an hour? I'm a 6 figure software engineer btw, but why should so many of my friends and generation get fucked by corporations for the rest of their lives?

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IllegalAlien posted...

Why not have federal minimum wage and UBI? Additionally why not increase the minimum wage to $15 an hour? I'm a 6 figure software engineer btw, but why should so many of my friends and generation get fucked by corporations for the rest of their lives?

The whole point of the federal minimum is to keep up with inflation and cost of living. With UBI, that's redundant. There's zero need for a minimum wage that high when UBI is already paying for cost of living, the point of this would be so that a job is strictly for supplemental income. Properly implemented UBI would be paying as much as that $15 an hour.

shockthemonkey posted...

Nope, still blatantly dumb as fuck

That's some nice reasoning you don't have there. What would be the point of a large federal minimum when UBI is implemented to replace it?

Imagine thinking that your landlord won't just raise your rent by whatever your UBI is and basically just collect if for you.

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I think people sometimes forget that not-working was always the end goal... UBI is the first step towards that ultimate goal.

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ScazarMeltex posted...

Imagine thinking that your landlord won't just raise your rent by whatever your UBI is and basically just collect if for you.

Not far off. UBI is less than worthless if capitalists arent put in their place. They intend to abuse it. Jeff Bezos doesn't support UBI because he's America's sweetheart, he does it because its convenient for him somehow.

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How much is it going to cost me to get a UBI?

In all seriousness, UBI is a terrible plan endorsed by people who want other people's money without having to work for it. It was tried in Ontario, and like everyone on the right predicted, it was a dismal failure.

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UBI could do a lot of good if it were combined with existing social programs, including a minimum wage.

but that's not the way it's intended -- it's clearly meant to be a replacement for them

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Let me make sure I am understanding this correctly. So if UBI is $15 an hour and someone gets a job for $25 an hour, they would make $40 an hour all together based on what TC is saying?

OctilIery posted...

The whole point of the federal minimum is to keep up with inflation and cost of living. With UBI, that's redundant. There's zero need for a minimum wage that high when UBI is already paying for cost of living, the point of this would be so that a job is strictly for supplemental income. Properly implemented UBI would be paying as much as that $15 an hour.

Federal minimum wage has not kept up with either inflation or cost of living. Without federal minimum wage however expect corporations to pay, say $1 an hour. The market is always right after all...

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IllegalAlien posted...

Federal minimum wage has not kept up with either inflation or cost of living. Without federal minimum wage however expect corporations to pay, say $1 an hour. The market is always right after all...

Such a worn out talking point. Would you work for $1/hr? Would you want somebody to work for you at $1/hr? Of course not. Places like Sweden have no minimum wage and surprise, things work out fine.

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r4X0r posted...

Such a worn out talking point. Would you work for $1/hr? Would you want somebody to work for you at $1/hr? Of course not. Places like Sweden have no minimum wage and surprise, things work out fine.

Why would you work for 7.25 an hour? Because there are more workers than jobs and everyone needs to put food on the table.

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And of course, you bring up a tiny European nation which is totally comparable to the capitalistic hellscape that is the USA.

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And yeah obviously if you're a corporation you want labor as cheap as possible. Are you even thinking before typing lol

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IllegalAlien posted...

Why would you work for 7.25 an hour? Because there are more workers than jobs and everyone needs to put food on the table.

That's... just a lie, because there's seven million unfilled jobs in the country and record low unemployment. There are more jobs than workers currently.

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/12/us-job-openings-jump-to-record-high-of-7point3-million.html

Why would anyone work for $7.25/hr? Because they're unskilled young people who are only worth $7.25/hr. Minimum wage jobs aren't careers, they're entry level jobs for people first joining the work force. Most minimum wage workers are the second or third earner in the household, and the number of people actually trying to support a family on a minimum wage job is so small that they are taken care of with the current welfare system and the Earned Income Tax Credit.

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IllegalAlien posted...

And yeah obviously if you're a corporation you want labor as cheap as possible. Are you even thinking before typing lol

No, you don't. When you pay people crap wages they HATE YOU and they steal from you.

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I literally have no idea what you're trying to argue.

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IllegalAlien posted...

I literally have no idea what you're trying to argue.

The only person who's going to work for you at $1/hr is going to steal from you. How can I make that any more simple? I would get into employee theft and shrinkage but I don't get the feeling you have the business and economics background to understand.

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So you want ubi to be a "livable" wage to be able to eliminate the federal minimum wage which isnt intended to be a livable wage. And offer no idea how you're going to generate the insane amount of revenue in order to afford it.

This is a new level of stupidity from you. Throwing money at a problem has never been a solution. It failed with educational. It failed with health care. And it will continue to fail every time some idiot thinks it's a solution. It shows a fundamental lack of understanding of the problem.

The people you're trying to play this off as helping, long term unemployed, already have federal programs designed to help them. The entirety of this is you've failed to accomplish anything of value, get fired from your jobs, and now you want the government to help you live a quality of life you can't earn from yourself.

You want more money? Learn a skill that people value. Sorry your endless defending of police brutality didn't open any opportunities for you.


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No.

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r4X0r posted...

The only person who's going to work for you at $1/hr is going to steal from you. How can I make that any more simple? I would get into employee theft and shrinkage but I don't get the feeling you have the business and economics background to understand.

What about $5 an hour? What about $3 an hour? What about $2 an hour?

What about the fact that $7.25 is already too low. The idea that minimum wage jobs are entry level jobs is out of touch bullshit. Many adults work minimum wage jobs (since I make 6 figures of course I'm considering things like $8 or $10 minimum wage, in fact where I live minimum wage is higher than federal).

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You want more money? Learn a skill that people value.

But you need money to learn any skills.

So we're right back to square one.
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i was just wondering last night about what society would look like with a totally free market save for ubi

i think an increasingly pressing concern in such an economy would be the (higher) frequency of corporations leveraging roach motel style practices to secure recurring revenue from unsuspecting customers as a result of cutthroat competition

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Perascamin posted...

To be perfectly honest, we should be making regulations that force companies to invest in automation.

The entire trucking industry needs to go. I work in it. Something has to change for this employment sector that has over 8 million employees. These are people who are frequently working 50+ hour weeks and involved with hazardous work environments that don't get shut down for OSHA violations because the US economy depends on them.

Every forklift driver, shipping/receiving clerk, and truck is suffering immensely. My people are suffering, I am suffering. It all needs to go to automation.

I'm not sure if this pertains to it but I've read through this article several times because it's downright depressing if it's accurate:

https://www.usatoday.com/pages/interactives/news/rigged-forced-into-debt-worked-past-exhaustion-left-with-nothing/

It's in 4 parts.

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IllegalAlien posted...

What about $5 an hour? What about $3 an hour? What about $2 an hour?

What about the fact that $7.25 is already too low. The idea that minimum wage jobs are entry level jobs is out of touch bullshit. Many adults work minimum wage jobs (since I make 6 figures of course I'm considering things like $8 or $10 minimum wage, in fact where I live minimum wage is higher than federal).

That just isn't true. You're entitled to your own opinions, but you aren't entitled to your own facts.

https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimum-wage/2017/home.htm

Characteristics of minimum wage workers, 2017

Among those paid by the hour, 542,000 workers earned exactly the prevailing federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour.
...
Age. Minimum wage workers tend to be young. Although workers under age 25 represented only about one-fifth of hourly paid workers, they made up about half of those paid the federal minimum wage or less.

Furthermore, places that have jacked up the minimum wage have found it to be putting people out of work, which is exactly what people on the right said would happen. See: Washington, California, New York. The simple fact of the matter is that minimum wage jobs are for people who don't have any skills. The number of adults trying to support others on minimum wage jobs is so small that they are cared for on a case by case basis. A minimum wage earner with a kid has access to a plethora of welfare programs, which is the system actually working, taking care of people in need.

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What are you trying to argue? I get that you were hung up by a number before which was pretty disappointing, so I generalized. I'm arguing that the amount that workers are paid in the USA is too low and that this affects the vast majority of service workers and other "unskilled" labor.

You're essentially arguing "I got mine fuck the poor" and poor people can rely on social programs. Well news for you, social programs are being gutted as we speak. If you are willing to admit you're arguing "I got mine fuck the poor" or "don't raise minimum wage because then it puts my wage closer to minimum" I don't know what to tell you.

Everyone deserves to have enough money to have a home, a family, some peace of mind. If you're arguing that there's nothing else to say.

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I also liked how you tried to trash talk my education on business when you're probably making what like 50-65k as an analyst for some shit company? Wow, so impressive man. (Fine I admit this was childish)

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Raising the minimum wage does not result in people having more money. Reduced hours and layoffs are the result of increased minimum wage laws.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-seattle-minimumwage-idUSKBN19H2MV

A Seattle law that requires many businesses to pay a minimum wage of at least $13 an hour has left low-wage workers with less money in their pockets because some employers cut working hours, a study released on Monday said.

I keep posting empirical evidence that what you support does not work and you keep turning around and going "Hurr, wat u talkin bout?"

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IllegalAlien posted...

I also liked how you tried to trash talk my education on business when you're probably making what like 50-65k as an analyst for some shit company? Wow, so impressive man. (Fine I admit this was childish)

Actually I'm an ironworker making around $80k, the desk jockey lifestyle isn't for me. I just hold a bachelor of science in business administration and information systems management with several years of experience figuring out that the desk jockey lifestyle isn't for me.

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I Like Toast posted...

You want more money? Learn a skill that people value.

This. I wish trade schools were pushed more, and people were given better advice in public schools to be more open to opportunities and to diversify themselves instead of trying to brainwash them with college.

The Catgirl Fondler posted...

But you need money to learn any skills.

So we're right back to square one.

So then do like I did and have the financial responsibility to save and invest, then you have the money to afford such things. I did it, and so can others. Life isn't easy, and there will be times that you will fail... but it's how you handle those failures that ultimately define you.

And just so you know, I was raised in a lower income family, but now I'm in the lower end of upper class. Yes, some luck was involved... but more in the sense that it was opportunities that arose and I went after them; everything else was purely hardwork and determination.

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IllegalAlien posted...

Why not have federal minimum wage and UBI? Additionally why not increase the minimum wage to $15 an hour? I'm a 6 figure software engineer btw, but why should so many of my friends and generation get fucked by corporations for the rest of their lives?

$15 an hour federal minimum wage would kill a fuck ton of jobs in low income areas like small towns.

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kinetika_ posted...

So then do like I did and have the financial responsibility to save and invest, then you have the money to afford such things. I did it, and so can others. Life isn't easy, and there will be times that you will fail... but it's how you handle those failures that ultimately define you.

this is a problem at the systemic level. you are treating it like a problem at the individual level. stop doing that.

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Reduce military spending by 90 percent.

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r4X0r posted...

Raising the minimum wage does not result in people having more money. Reduced hours and layoffs are the result of increased minimum wage laws.

Gotta love the whole "raising minimum wage is bad because companies are greedy assholes that don't want to pay their employees a livable wage despite having the means to do so" argument.

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