Very good thoughts in the beginning, and I wanted to agree completely until near the end. But then there's an error in your thinking:
After implementing a basic income no one in the U.S. will be willing to work at rates competitive with overseas workers.
That's wrong. When you receive a basic income, you can afford to work for way less than the minimum wages. The amount people receive can be directly substracted from employment cost. In the end american companies could finally afford american workers again!
The only jobs affected are those that already don't pay enough for a living right now. We have a lot of those in Germany, and government pays the rest until you have what you'd get when you didn't work at all. 30% of welfare receipients here are in that category! So even today people work "for nothing". When your basic needs are covered even a dollar an hour makes some more at the end of the month, that's enough to motivate.
"That's wrong. When you receive a basic income, you can afford to work for way less than the minimum wages."
I see what you're saying and I'm sure that's true to an extent. However if you're making 1300 a month already and someone tries to get you to work 40 hours a week for another 500 a month, I think you'll find plenty of people who'd be perfectly fine with the original 1300. There ought to still be some reasonable minimum wages. How you define what's reasonable is always going to be debatable
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No doubt. But is that bad? We have those in today's welfare systems already. And it's a minority. The majority is trying to find a way to get more. We have mandatory jobs that pay 1€/h for welfare recipients here in Germany. While some do complain about that "wage", most are happy that they got something to do and appreciate the 200€/month they have more. I'm opposed to those measure, but only because government forces people to do them. (Great jobs, really. One I attended in Hamburg in my twens consisted of two groups. One drilled holes in a wall, the other filled them and painted the wall. Next day we switched. Another one was a 2-week seminar on how to write job applications, with role-playing-games and glueing spaghetti onto pieces of paper.)
And there's still those working for less or the same. This group has been growing steadily here, we'll have to see how the new minimum wage influences that number, I guess most in that group are on part-time for one or another reason anyway.
Minimum wages have side effects on higher qualified jobs though (now that guy gets the same as I do? I demand a raise!).
A basic income would level the field for all of them, and allow employers to pay for what the work is worth instead of what the worker needs to survive.
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Interesting perspective. I disagree with the idea that employers pay their employees based on what their work is worth. Maybe I'm misinterpreting the point you were trying to make, but the productivity of american workers has tripled in the last 30 years, yet the employee has benefited almost nothing from that. Our work has certainly become more valuable. It has more to do with supply and demand, which is the whole purpose of requiring a minimum wage . Its only a matter of time before automation floods the supply side of the job market, driving wages down, which has nothing to do with the utility they provide to their employer.
But as you mentioned, is it such a bad thing, as long as we are guaranteed basic income? I think it certainly could be if it causes the wealth gap to continue to explode at the rate that it currently. Human beings strive for purpose, I think most people do indeed want to work, but it is pretty demoralizing if you don't even get a small fraction of the fruits of your labor
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While there are a lot of good-guy employers which care about the situation of their employees, the big businesses dominate the markets and force those wages.
But why do employees accept them? Only because they're forced to. You're not free to value your own work, take what you're offered or be a dirty welfare sucker.
While a basic income doesn't solve this by itself, it offers a great possibility to change the mindset of the workers. When they're not just working to feed their kids and pay the state, they could have a chance to start fulfilling their own dreams. That's when people become their best anyway. It could even result in an entrepeneurial spirit which makes it hard to find regular employees unless you pay them very well.
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Quite possible, yes. Many people may not be too excited to take huge pay cuts, just due to the cognitive biases at play which make it look like a loss or downgrade of their value - even if they come out at the end with the same amounts.
And of course, you'll have people on either ends of the spectrum, with no clearcut, predictable responses from all people. Some may refuse to work for less than minimum wage out of principle - though some will continue to work just because they enjoy being of service in their jobs.
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i wanted to reply here, no idea how i ended up below :D
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I believe in the urge to create in everyone. If it got lost on the way, having time off the stress of being poor can help to bring it back to its full potential. Money isn't the primary factor to do something.
If a company doesn't find someone for what they offer that's their problem. You'll kind of have an automated minimum wage - the amount needed for someone to accept doing the work. Nobody would need to work for a lower amount, because their basic needs are covered.
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Good arguments. Like. Let the discourse begin!
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I still agree with the headline and see issues with local solutions.
My preferred concept would also eliminate all taxes except a VAT of about 50%, the same as the current total tax rate but a lot easier to handle (besides other advantages over the current tax system). But borders are too permeable for that to simply work when the neighboring countries don't cooperate.
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One other factor to consider is the decreasing number of jobs that will even exist for humans, with the increase in automation with technological improvements, robotics, and AI. More & more jobs will become obsolete, both in America and abroad.
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