Comment by dvdhnt | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dvdhnt | Hacker News Reader

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So UBI is fundamentally a safety-net; insurance, if you will.

The "universal" quality is that all people will be eligible for UBI. Everyone will receive the difference between what they make and what UBI guarantees.

It's sort of like the popular phrase in the U.S. - "everyone is guaranteed the same opportunity but not the same outcome". Thus, while all will have access to UBI, the payout will be determined by individual circumstances.

Regarding Finland's program, it's likely they had to choose a group of individuals who were easiest to justify paying UBI under current popular-thought. Therefore, they chose a group already receiving or eligible for unemployment/assistance and argued they were simply replacing one for the other. That is of course just an educated guess on my part.

So, yes, UBI itself is in fact universal although the initial rollout, or test, is highly compartmentalized.

Edit: As someone pointed out, I'm probably confusing UBI with GMI - Guaranteed Minimum Income.

It's starting to feel like we're discussing rules on laying a foundation while others are already fast at work on their fourth and fifth floor, i/e, what's the point of giving everyone a ladder if the roof is consistently growing out of reach?

> Everyone will receive the difference between what they make and what UBI guarantees.

This isn't UBI either.

UBI would simply give everyone the same income without subtracting the difference for extra earned income. You could earn millions and still receive your basic income.

Yes it's basically a credit.

I think all non-business deductions should go away and turn them into fixed credits (vanishing most of them entirely). Right now two homeowners each with $1000 in deductible mortgage interest, have different tax liability reductions if they're at different tax brackets. The one in the higher bracket actually ends up with a greater reduction in tax for the same deduction. And so on.

As you define it.

I define UBI as having a floor on people's income, where the government ensures everyone is above that floor. So it's universally ensuring everyone had a basic income.

Your definition is not the usual one, I think.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income

http://basicincome.org/basic-income/faq/#income

If I'm understanding it correctly, what I may be thinking of is partial basic income (as defined by Wikipedia). Maybe.

You're right, I'm thinking of GMI - Guaranteed Minimum Income - as I've seen the two spoken of interchangeably while that doesn't seem to be the case.

My fear when comparing the two would be that UBI would, over an extended period of time, put us right back where we started. I say this because UBI would essentially just be moving the starting point, $0/mo in this case, to say $2,000/mo, and that markets would eventually catch up to this resulting in hyper-inflation, i/e $25 gallons of milk.

However, since as wikipedia says, "most modern countries have some form of GMI", either I'm being too optimistic about GMI or too pessimistic about UBI. Then again, perhaps the issue evolves into one on taxation, loopholes, etc. since GMI exists and we're still discussing how to "fix" this issue.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guaranteed_minimum_income

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