Talk:Guaranteed minimum income

GMI = all programs for welfare?

I'm from Sweden, so I perhaps misunderstand. But when one reads the first sentences it feels like GMI just means all programs with which the state combats poverty, but giving people to people, including the minimum-income rules. But then the focus is on basic income anyway. I think you should rethink what it actually is, and primarilly what the difference between GMI and basic income. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mats33 (talk • contribs) 23:18, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Your point is an excellent one. What gives these "editors" the right to make arbitrary distinctions in the definitions of GMI or BI? As pointed out later in the article, Robert Theobald coined the term GMI in his book Free Men, Free Markets, and if you read that book, you'll realize that nothing could be further from the truth than trying to define GMI in such a way that it incorporates all the corruption built into the the current "welfare" programs, especially "means testing". From Robert Theobald onward, GMI always referred to an income that each citizen would receive as a right of citizenship. Period. To add "means testing" to the definition of GMI is simply obscene, and reveals nothing but the political agenda of the editor trying to perpetrate such fraud. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.28.141.145 (talk) 18:57, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Criticism

This article lacks the Criticism section I see in most economic policy articles. I added one, and the the basic argument against it. I'm not sure if this is article needs more work, or if the GMI is an genuinely asinine idea. A criticism section would help readers understand why common objections are false. For example, I saw in another discussion section that Portugal has the nearest thing to a GMI. Portugal is almost broke. I could cite newspaper articles, but I'm not familiar with Wiki policies. I'm afraid it may be Original Research if I form the arguments myself and support them with citations, instead of citing someone else who made the argument. I'm hoping others will know where to find a criticism of the GMI. -- MutantPlatypus (talk) 23:22, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Fair enough. However since it is an uncited criticism at the moment it needs a "citation required" tag, so I've added one. -- Derek Ross | Talk 01:38, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

In an earlier discussion you mentioned that the reduced incentive to work was debunked (or limited a few percent) by recent studies. You failed to cite said studies. Could you please provide one or two here? -- MutantPlatypus (talk) 03:59, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Sure. It's been a while since I read them but I'll search them out. -- Derek Ross | Talk 07:00, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

This was the main one, "Whatever Happened to Canada's Guaranteed Income Project?". 1993. Canadian Public Administration, Vol 36, No 3, (Fall) 442-50, but you need a subscription to read it (or you can get it from a library). The article text does seem to be available at this website though, and it includes citations for the reports on the four US studies from the 1970s. The second interesting one is the more recent Namibian Basic Income Grant experiment. According to the project report, GMI has led to an increase in employment rather than a diminution. Der Spiegel wrote up quite an interesting article on this trial too. -- Derek Ross | Talk 07:43, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Unfortunately, the article text seems to refrain from making conclusions on the effect of the basic income on work incentive. The real substance of the article is in the tables, which I don't have access to because I don't have a subscription. Would it be legal to copy just the tables?

Also, the Namibian experiment explains nothing about the macroeconomic effects of the basic income on a developed society. The money the villagers received came from outside the village - from charities. In this case, it was much more like an investment (that didn't need to be repaid). In fact, I didn't even get the feeling the Namibians were told they were guaranteed this income for life. So, instead of expecting the money indefinitely, they used it to buy things that would have future value (education and livestock), as well as necessities like food. In a developed society, the money from the basic income must be taken from others in the society. The education the Namibians bought with their income is already guaranteed to members of a modern society. —Preceding unsigned comment added by MutantPlatypus (talk • contribs) 21:07, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

...and here's a report on the Portuguese system. It's a bit more technical. -- Derek Ross | Talk 05:06, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Hmmm... yeah, I can't quite understand it. The gist of it seems to be that it reduced income inequality but didn't decrease the number of poor, only how poor they were. It had some kind of negative effect on the labor supply canceling many benefits, leaving only a reduction in inequality of some sort. They spent 30.6G estudos, didn't create any extra wealth, and didn't measure the overall effect on GDP growth. Do I understand this right? -- MutantPlatypus (talk) 05:29, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. I found it difficult to understand too. The only thing that I really got out of it was that the GMI had little effect on those who were poor but was of some benefit to those who were absolutely destitute. Like you I would have been interested to see the overall effect on GDP. Based on reports on the Speenhamland system, I would have expected it to reduce unemployment a little owing to the subsidy effect making workers cheaper for employers but I didn't see any investigation of that either. The reports that the Canadian researchers have produced seem much more informative. -- Derek Ross | Talk 05:46, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

...and another Canadian report. Not so technical and mentions a 5% average reduction in hours worked. -- Derek Ross | Talk 05:12, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Is it safe to assume that "hours worked" means "hours spent creating wealth"? I'll add this Canadian report to the article. Thanks! -- MutantPlatypus (talk) 05:31, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

<Grin>, yes that's always the big question. People may get paid for 40 hours a week but I often wonder how many of those are actually productive "hours spent creating wealth" as you put it. I think you're safe to make the assumption. -- Derek Ross | Talk 05:44, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

For the benefit of the Platypus, here is a brief quote from "Lessons from the Income Maintenance Experiments: An Overview" by Alicia H. Munnell (which you can find at www.bos.frb.org/economic//conf/conf30/conf30a.pdf): "In summary, the survey of empirical findings suggests that the income maintenance experiments caused a moderate but manageable reduction in labor force activity, had no statistically significant stabilizing or destabilizing effect on the marriages of couples with children, and basically did not alter noticeably the consumption and investment decisions of recipients. The question that remains is: how much weight can be placed on these results?" 97.123.229.196 (talk) 21:40, 21 February 2011 (UTC) Frank

Fiscal resources

Why is there a list of all possible sources of government revenues? I think it goes without saying that any kind of income supplement would be funded out of general government revenues, which in turn implies the various means listed here. Maybe there should be a link to the wiki article on taxation or public finance, but it's unnecessary to list every possible method of raising revenues. Further, I understand that certain varieties of the GMI (like a negative income tax) are intricately intertwined with the tax system, but I've never heard of, say, a Tobin Tax imposed specifically to fund a GMI. Why are all of these obscure and marginal means of revenue generation listed here? -- wrote someone who didn't sign with ~~~~

I would guess that it's because one of the questions that always comes up for GMI is "How would this be funded ?". And once one source of funding has been added the normal Wikipedia "tweaking" process means that the list will just grow and grow. By all means prune it back. -- Derek Ross | Talk 02:58, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Would it be copacetic to replace the existing list section with a prose passage such as -

"Tax revenues would fund the majority of any GMI proposal. As most GMI proposals seek to create an earnings floor close to or above poverty lines amongst all citizens, the fiscal burden would require equally broad tax sources, such as income taxes or VATs, in order to fund such expenditures. To varying degrees, a GMI might be funded through the reduction or elimination of other social security programs such as employment insurance. Though neutral with respect to government finance, Milton Friedman also proposed a GMI in the context of abolishing minimum wages, which he argued unduly distorted labor market economics. The extent to which a GMI is designed to reduce or supplement existing social security programs can be seen as one of the unresolved cleavages amongst GMI advocates; more economically conservative seeking to replace the bulk of welfare spending with a GMI while more social or egaliarian proponents see the GMI as a component of a broader social welfare system. "-- [dave] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.235.8.35 (talk) 22:43, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Wait

So a high school dropout working at bk would get the same amount of pay as a person who went to college to be a doctor? 174.20.184.100 (talk) 01:37, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

GMI isn't pay. It's a tax refund of, say, $7,800 per year that every adult citizen gets, whether they are rich or poor, teaching or learning, working or golfing, taxpayer or not. If someone is getting pay, that's on top. -- Derek Ross | Talk 23:58, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

And here we see Derek display the complete lunacy and ignorance of basic economics that are necessary to buy into the "guaranteed minimum income" scheme: it's not a "tax refund" if one isn't holding a job and earning an income that can be taxed. It's simply being provided money that was taken away from those who do work. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.213.192.187 (talk) 08:49, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

And here we see some anonymous idiot display the capacity to insult which makes up for his lack of insight. Even people with no income pay taxes. Sales tax? Property tax? Heard of those? And as for taking money from people who work, that's an issue with the tax system not with a GMI system. If you want to stop taking money from people who work, then replace the taxes on earned income with a tax on unearned income. That's what they do in Alaska where the GMI is funded by a resource tax. But whatever, for the 80+% of people who work, a GMI payment is basically a tax refund; for the 20-% who don't, it's part-tax refund, part-welfare payment. -- Derek Ross | Talk 07:30, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

The title of the article should perhaps be "Basic income with conditions"

According to BIEN, Basic Income Earth Network, there is two kind of guaranteed income-systems, basic income and negativ income tax. Both are per definition without conditions (except for citizenship). So it is by definition not a pure basic income nor a negative income tax if there are conditions, for example the condition to stay ready for the labour market while not working, or to have readiness to work "for free" for the comune while not having a paid job. So, what Im trying to say is that this article may have a place, because of this, but that it may be wiser to call the article something else, for example "Basic income with conditions", as this seems to be what is meant. Or?--Mats33 (talk) 13:59, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Whatever the definition may be, "Guaranteed minimum income", is a well known phrase that people will seek out on the internet. When they do so, they will find our GMI article which can discuss the points that you make (if it doesn't already). "Basic income with conditions" is not a well known phrase and people are unlikely to search for it. They are more likely to sarch for "Basic income" which will lead them to our BI article. Hence it would not be a good idea to change the name of this article from "Guaranteed minimum income", which people will be searching for, to something else, which they won't. -- Derek Ross | Talk 02:52, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

I´m not sure that "Guaranteed minimum income" is a well known phrase, can you convince me? --Mats33 (talk) 14:52, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

I don't know anything about you, so I can't really answer that. Are you easy to convince? Or next to impossible? If the former, I would say yes. If the latter, I would say no. The phrase, "Guaranteed minimum income", returns 162,000 results on a Google search (many of which are convincing in their own right) whereas "Basic income with conditions" returns 9 results (none of them particularly compelling) and "Basic income" returns 2,510,000 results. So the GMI phrase appears to be less well known than the BI one but better known than the BIWC one. If this argument convinces you, then I can convince you. If not, then I assume that I cannot convince you without putting in more effort than I am prepared to do. However that is neither here nor there since I do not have to convince you. The onus is on you to convince me (and any others who may take an interest) that it would be an improvement to make the change that you have suggested. Otherwise no change will be made. -- Derek Ross | Talk 03:14, 19 August 2011 (UTC)