Talk:Universal basic income

Need for separate page from BIG

Yes most of the content here was taken from BIG page. Basic income guarantee is a form of guaranteed or minimum income. It simply is not the same as basic income. There is some content improvement on this page. The arguments section is better than the BIG page, and the clarity for why the 2 are different is better made.

I fail to see any justification behind your decision to split the 2 pages. Please at least provide sources that prove that BIG is different from BI. Also, when splitting the pages you could have done it properly, ie. take the good stuff from the BIG page (implementations, worldwide movement...). Stanjourdan (talk) 10:33, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

The sources used to be on the page. http://www.naturalfinance.net/2013/03/basic-income-real-definition-and.html shows that they are completely different philosophies. Guaranteed income is payment to not work, and can be abused by any item in the long list of example abuses. Basic income is freedom to do any work. The same payment is received regardless of other income. To advocate for minimum income instead of basic income is to recognize that you would prefer more free money than less free money, but hope that no one sees how broken and unaffordable the policy would be. The stupidity/objectionability of minincome causes no one to have nice things. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.48.171.46 (talk) 14:39, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

Aggressive Distinction section

It seems strange to me to have this be the first major section of the article, but, more importantly, the example used to compare basic income and guaranteed income doesn't make sense. When talking about basic income, the example talks about the policy as giving an effective wage increase to workers as a way of pointing out that people take home more money. It's not obvious from the example that a basic income actually doesn't change the effective marginal pay someone receives for an additional hour of work; I'd say the example misleadingly suggests that marginal pay increases. When talking about guaranteed income, the example seems to be saying that a guaranteed income reduces marginal pay for everyone, but this isn't true. A guaranteed income reduces effective marginal pay to $0/hr until a worker has earned more than the guaranteed level given his/her nominal pay rate, and then effective marginal pay is equal to the nominal rate after that. This is really important since concerns about incentives are central to arguments about a basic or guaranteed income. 72.177.123.14 (talk) 02:42, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

Agreed. A decent graph is probably the best way of making this clear. -- Derek Ross | Talk 02:02, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

The marginal pay calculation was correct at: http://www.naturalfinance.net/2013/03/basic-income-real-definition-and.html. For basic income, marginal pay is equal to any actual work pay. For guaranteed income, it might be 0 for the first 6 months of the year, then your actual pay for the rest of the year. If you lose your job midway through the year, then you receive no pay. If you were out of work for first half of the year, then there is no reason to get a job until the start of next year. If you can get your employer to pay you once every 3 years, then you can make much more money abusing the system that way. Basic income has no possible abuse/disapointment. Minimum income is a scam that is poorly thought out, has a cute political ring to it, but will (and should) not actually win a political vote because it is a corrupt scam. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.48.171.46 (talk) 14:58, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

And yet it is the system which is being used, apparently quite successfully, in Brazil. Perhaps we need to look at that and see what the actual rate of abuse is rather than talking about theoretical means of abusing it which may actually be quite rare in practice. It is not Wikipedia's mission to judge which method is worthy and which unworthy. We should only be setting the facts in front of our readers and letting them decide which is best for themselves. Those facts may of course include the fact that others hold opinions (which we may describe) on Basic Income but that's it. Like yourself I think that a Basic Income is far better than a Guaranteed Income and for the same reasons. But we need to make people aware of the pros and cons of each so that they can make their own minds up. -- Derek Ross | Talk 10:23, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

The contrast to Guaranteed income is necessary because of the common confusion between the two. Its also relevant to prevent this page from reverting back to a forwarding link to guaranteed income, and guaranteed income proponents and basic income opponents hijacking the page to leave readers confused.

Criticism

This article could really, really use a criticism section. I'm somewhat in favor of a basic income and it still read as rather one-sided to me. 129.72.136.213 (talk) 21:31, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia prefers to avoid criticism sections if possible. Could you point out the particular sections, paragraphs or sentences that need attention? -- Derek Ross | Talk 01:55, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

The article has an advocacy section which consists of explanations of why a bunch of people from various groups like basic income. It starts by listing all the Nobel prize winners who like the idea. Even when factually accurate, without a discussion of who doesn't like basic income and why it really comes off as trying to sell something. 129.72.129.41 (talk) 16:08, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. You're right. If we have a list of advocates we should have a list of opponents too. -- Derek Ross | Talk 18:29, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

The list of opponents are perhaps less well known. Those who don't like the idea usually dont research it. --Mats33 (talk) 20:58, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

The current criticism section is outdated as trials have debunked five the seven arguments in that section. Wayne (talk) 04:22, 26 May 2016 (UTC)

Neutrality Nomination

After reading the page multiple times, I don't feel like this really conforms to an encyclopedias neutrality. It comes off as more of a sales pitch as to why basic income is good and fails to address concerns of the model and it's disadvantages. In the section about disincentives, the article does a fair job at explaining some of the issues but I feel it breaks the neutrality by providing its own counter-arguments directly after. The entire point of a neutral article is to give the reader all the information on a topic, the good and the bad. Another user in the talk page has pointed out that there are no shortage of advocates listed, but where are the opponents? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.112.100.21 (talk) 06:21, 27 December 2015 (UTC)

There are not many opponents, but here are four opposing views I know of: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/09/business/economy/a-future-without-jobs-two-views-of-the-changing-work-force.html?_r=0 https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601019/the-danger-of-the-universal-basic-income/ http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/don-t-fall-for-universal-basic-income-it-s-a-utopian-fiction-that-wastes-public-money-on-the-rich-a6945881.html http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11610662 149.254.51.238 (talk) 09:04, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

Opposition to basic income is almost a fringe view now academically. Wayne (talk) 04:25, 26 May 2016 (UTC)

Guaranteed Residual Income

Is a "basic income" & "guaranteed residual income" considered the same thing? So residual means some is leftover (do some work once & that generates a sort of permanent income that never stops). Pepper9798 (talk) 22:45, 5 January 2016 (UTC)