this post was submitted on 05 Nov 2023
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EBT is a flat 200 a month at most and the ongoing application process is humiliating Kafkaesque bullshit I wouldn't wish on anyone after experiencing it, so I think it would work just fine to shut it down and fold it into a UBI, would be nice and simple and without complications. Health insurance on the other hand, cost varies wildly by circumstance but is generally more expensive, and because of incentives, price negotiations, all the bullshit involved with the system would be way more efficient and cost effective to have a universal healthcare program instead of giving out money to buy into a private insurance industry.
Fortunately, this seems to be recognized in most serious discussions about UBI. Almost everyone quickly acknowledges that the idea of replacing healthcare programs in particular with UBI is stupid. The UBI proposals I've seen that got any attention were explicit that it does not replace those. I don't think it's realistic they would actually try to replace Medicare with UBI.
SNAP benefit in my state can easily exceed $1000/mo for a single mother. Nobody has a UBI plan that pays for children (at least full). Housing subsidies in my state average around $750/mo. We're nearing twice what a typical UBI plan gets you. And that's the stable stuff. If UBI is replacing welfare, some people are either screwed or have to opt out, while still being on the hook for paying for it in their taxes.
The problem isn't just about healthcare, unfortunately. UBI has many fatal flaws unless you put it on top of universal-life (housing, groceries, necessities, health). But once you have all those other things for free, there are valid arguments that society has paid at least part of its due to you. So sure, a $100-200/mo UBI so everyone can afford some luxury. I'd be into that.
The core issue, btw, is that cost of living is inconsistent. In some areas, $12,000 is Middle Class. In others, $48,000 is "living wage". So under a UBI, some poor people get rich, sure, but some poor people get poorer.
The partial ones are all more than SNAP benefits for a single child.
Who is getting a free 750 for rent? I've never heard of anyone getting a deal like that, I sure never got government assistance with rent, I assume whatever that's for is hard to qualify for, and there are many many people who need/deserve that kind of help but won't get it. One of the biggest issues with any government benefits program is that, if you know the people who need it most and what they're capable of, and know what it takes to go through the process, it's clear they're never getting it. The system is designed to keep them out.
On the other hand, housing subsidies in particular could synergize very well with UBI, because the biggest mandatory expense for most people is housing, and anything incentivizing the creation of new housing will bring costs down, thus decreasing the necessary amount to allow people to live off it. So it would work better to have those kinds of programs in tandem instead of replacing them, although I would also like a direct focus on new construction and crashing the housing market.
Unfortunately this one is a pretty tricky issue, because any regionally targeted benefits induce market distortions. It is impossible for everyone who would like to live in NYC for example to be free to live in NYC, access is gated by money currently, and must be gated by something due to the impossibility of fitting enough people to satisfy demand. Giving everyone the ability to live most places regardless of income is itself a massively good thing, even if it doesn't enable everyone to be in their preferred location (which currently the vast majority can't anyway, people get priced out of regions constantly). Ultimately I don't buy the idea that there's a significant population of the poor that would be getting poorer, I think the majority of people now struggling financially are not really getting much help outside of healthcare.
Except not really. I have a friend who used to work in SNAP. I picked a lot of random "anonymous" family samples and a surprisingly large number of them would be forced to opt out of Yang's UBI. That's actually what got from from all-in on UBI to "show me one that works".
For eligible families, Massachusetts Section 8 housing subsidizes 100% of the difference between 30% adjusted family income and the FMR of the household. The highest FMR in Massachusetts is $3,608 (Suffolk County 4BR... probably need 3 kids to qualify). If you make $48,000/yr in Suffolk County that means you are eligible for approximately $2,600 in Section 8 rent assistance.
Note, Section 8 makes an apartment 100% means-priced, so anyone can move in to any apartment in the state so long as it's section 8 approved and their income is under the somewhat generous thresholds. Here's a summary.
And the thing is, while that's the highest, numbers at or above $1000 are typical Section 8 figures. There are a lot of cons to Section 8, but for those who utilize it, it is always going to blow Yang's UBI out of the water. Which means if declining all welfare is a requirement to accept UBI, nearly 100% of poor people in Massachusetts would find themselves opting out of the UBI. But most of them would still be taxed for it.
Not really. But it's hard to qualify landlords for. It's one of those rare situations where landlords have to prove they're a viable residence, and many don't have any interest in Section 8 because they've been burned by the increased risk of renters damaging things. But there's always available rentals.
EDIT: To clarify, it's still means-tested with red-tape. I am a strong advocate to remove all means-testing and the stigma around welfare, to grow it to a QOL baseline instead of a safety net. Importantly, even without means-testing it has certain advantages like guaranteeing apartment quality and holding landlords to task.
Exactly. This is why I'm a huge fan of regionally independent benefits, like classic-EBT subsidized food. It can get complicated, but it can cut across the country and prevent someone from getting rich by living in Mississippi while renting a closet in NYC. Something like Section 8 would do a great job of this if it wasn't means-tested because then anyone would be able to afford to live anywhere they chose. Obviously rich people in Martha's Vineyard wouldn't like that.
I use that reference because there IS Section 8 housing available on the Vineyard, and the rich people aren't dying over it :)
Fair enough that you can feel how you want. You probably don't live on one of the many areas where the math is so clearly one-sided it's depressing. $12,000/yr is genuinely pocket change in many parts of the US... But those areas happen to have the highest homelessness rates in the country.
I've had income less than that most my life so yeah, idk, it seems like a lot to me.
Is that really true? So if you're poor you can basically live in Massachusetts for free? Has to be some catch. So many desperate people around who would want that. And if the answer is that most of them just don't know about it, that not-knowing must be a part of how it's able to be sustained.
Ultimately for me the whole issue is about freedom. If someone is trapped in a job or relationship they don't want, finances shouldn't be any barrier to saying no. Not understanding how welfare systems work, not being willing to subject yourself to the process or being too ashamed or whatever, should not be a barrier to getting help. People shouldn't have to be paranoid about anything that might make them more money because they're going to have to go through a lot of paperwork as a result and maybe end up worse off. It shouldn't be possible to use someone's struggle to survive as leverage to make them work.
Let me just confirm with you. Is the topic making "chicken" rich, or about reducing poverty? The places with the highest homeless rate are the places where $12,000 won't buy you out of the gutter. My niece just got her first tiny little apartment with a roommate. Rent alone is $2,400 a month, and it's the cheapest thing money would buy, and 2 friends splitting a 1-bedroom is a tight squeeze. She'll be ok and doesn't need any aid, but there's nothing around cheaper than that. A lot of labor jobs are making $15-18/hr (sounds like a lot to you, but that is well under our poverty line here) and they are living with parents or 3-5 people in a 2-bedroom slum. I'll explain Section 8's why below.
Yes. Yes. And....... Yes :-/
There's a few catches. But before the catches, understand that section 8 is "tier 2", for people with some income. Tier 1 are projects. They give Section 8 to people they find more "stable", and families/elderly, and send the rest to projects.
There are currently about 150,000 Mass residents in Section 8 or Projects. Unfortunately, there are still 15,000 homeless in Massachusetts. Of those, 93% live in shelters (no questions asked). That's about 1,000 people sleeping on the streets, and that is not ok. But a vast majority of those 15,000, and nearly 100% of those 1000, have severe issues - mental and/or drug-related - that are preventing them from taking the steps necessary to get into the housing they need.
The real scary problem is that THIS MONTH an article came out that the shelters finally hit capacity, and are waitlisting homeless people :(. A $1000/mo UBI isn't going to get even one of them off the street. Yes, it would give them money for food, drugs, or alcohol. Hopefully the former because Yang would make those homeless people opt out of EBT and (possibly) Masshealth. The UBI wouldn't significantly help any of the 150,000 people in subsidized housing who would have to opt out of it under a plan like Yang's.
I agree. And you nailed it. The issue isn't money, it's freedom. A person being able have a decent place to live and food, no questions asked, is what they really need. And we can do that for about 1/5 of the cost of a $1000/mo UBI. I used to walk by a homeless guy every morning on the way to work in Cambridge. It was terrible. He always had an empty bottle of something cheap next to him. He couldn't ask for help. He's the kind of person I see when I think about supporting the poor. What would $1000/mo give him, that homeless guy in Cambridge? Not much of anything. He's not going to catch a bus to Mississippi where $1000/mo is Middle Class (as much as the more corrupt politicians wish all the homeless would do, but that's another story). He's going to sleep on that sidewalk.
If someone walked up to him and said "we have an apartment for you. Don't worry about paperwork. Here's the key". Well THAT would do something.
Should definitely happen. Chronic homelessness is another one of those things where there are legitimate reasons it would benefit more from targeted support. It's not even a cost issue since doing this has been shown to reduce overall related government expense. Still, relative to the total population there are very few people in that situation, and the idea here is to transform how the majority of people are affected by financial pressures and alter the social contract for everyone.
Absolutely. Welfare consistently has over a 100% ROI. We all get richer. Our RICH even get richer. People needing to have someone "lesser" to look down their noses at have led us all to PAY to put people on the streets instead of feeding and sheltering them. We sacrifice so we can make people suffer.
We should be ashamed of ourselves. There's no real upside to anyone to let people suffer. Bootstraps are nothing but evil.
EDIT: Sorry walked away before finishing. As for the "very few people in that situation"... sure. But the problem is that everyone else in this economic region is in a similar boat. $12,000/yr is just not going to do anything for them.
And it's great for Mississippi, but there is a correlation between poverty and cost of living. The neediest people are those who live in areas like Boston. The least needy people are in areas like Mississippi. If we're going to throw around a $4T+ financial welfare initiative, shouldn't we make sure the neediest Americans aren't the least helped by it?
And yeah, that's tough when the financing is in "dollars". But if the financing is in "foods" or "rent" (like Section 8 in MA, but minus means-testing) then nobody can really complain that someone renting in Mississippi gets fewer dollars of benefit than someone renting in MA. They both get a (for example) decent 2-bedroom apartment fully covered wherever they want to live.
Well, again, I've been there my whole life and can say for sure that's not true.
You live in Boston or Manhattan independently on $12,000/yr?
The formal Poverty Line for Boston is $50,000/yr. More if you have dependents
I don't see how you can claim to live somewhere with $500/mo grocery bills and $2000/mo slum rent prices and think $1000/mo is better than having your rent and groceries covered, especially if you have to opt out of all welfare to get the $1000/mo.
You're saying, today, you would opt out of all future welfare for $1000/mo? And you live somewhere with a poverty line more than 5x that? Why?!? Most people I know on welfare get more than that already.
Did not realize your meaning was "geographic economic region", so no that isn't where I live, my mistake for making assumptions. I don't know if I can get behind what you're saying though, since the implication seems to be that everyone could have a no-strings, no restraints right to the basics of life on their own terms and at their own discretion, but that is trumped by the right to be living in one of the most expensive cities in the world, and a concentration of funds should be allocated there instead of spread out more and to more people. I get that it sucks to have to move away from the places and people you know, but it doesn't seem like a good tradeoff to me.
And I also want to respond to
Because there are clear reasons why a person might prefer to live in one place rather than another, and why people being stuck in Mississippi in a housing welfare scheme with some lock in would be getting screwed over compared to people lucky enough to have started off in Boston. And it isn't really possible with zero lock-in or barrier to entry either, because of the previously mentioned finite nature of housing availability vs demand.
Hmm... I think there's a few things to take apart.
First, the implication that "everyone could have a no-strings, no restraints right to the basics of life on their own terms"... That's not an implication. We even know what it would cost. And it's a lot less than a UBI would cost. But not if we decide to gut EVERY social program for a half-ass UBI.
And as to "living in the most expensive..." Most people don't move. One of the common things that come out of UBI discussions is that many UBI advocates are more than happy with forcing people to move 1000 miles away from their family. I am not.
But I also think you misunderstand what an "expensive city" is. Largely, regional pricing has to do with the value of the dollar. Poor people in New Bedford making $15/hr are still living the same life with the same buying power as someone in Mississippi making $7.25/hr. They're not there because of food, views, luxuries. They're there because their family has lived there for 50-100 years or more. Or, making a bit more, they might be there because they work a regional trade like fishing. I don't know of any big fisheries in Mississippi. You talked like living in an "one of the most expensive cities in the world" is a luxury, but instead it's the same as comparing Mississippi to San Miguel Island. It's basically just a currency exchange thing.
Speaking of that... Yes, we should be normalizing the value of a dollar across the country. It's wasteful that it's cheaper to live in a mansion in the desert with all your resources imported from abroad. But it serves society better to finance someone living in New York than make them move to somewhere like Arizona because it's cheaper. So we should be solving that problem, not passing yet another "tax break for the rich".
But let's look at "concentration of funds should be allocated there ". This is the big one to me. Who do you think is PROVIDING those funds? All of them? The same locations in question are "net taxed". We already contribute more than we receive by a large margin. You're suggesting we should make people move to net-receiver states for UBI, but look at what that means. It means a cash waterfall from the poor net-provider states to the non-poor net-receiver states. Do you really think anyone on the Left should be ok with the poorest people in the country paying for people in random non-poor states to live like kings? I don't think "ok, leave everything and everyone you know and move to a deeply racist state so you can live better" is reasonable.
Absolutely. But I will point to the desert states. The environmentalist in me is against rewarding people for living in locations with massive carbon requirements just because "my UBI will let me live rich". In fact, ANY mass-exodus and breaking-up of families is a con for UBI for me.
With all due respect, you seem to be confusing the current cost of living with some luxury. Other than the local government being shit, there's nothing wrong with Mississippi. And if my family weren't here, I'd be fine living there. I could sell my crappy house 3 hours from Boston and buy (checks zillow) an 8bd 5ba on 15 acres 1hr out of jackson and no longer have a mortgage because of the price difference. It's not that my area is rich, it's that the dollar is weaker. You talk like living in or around Boston is some kind of blessing, but the actual poor people in the US are STUCK here. And $1000/mo won't get them unstuck. And as a reminder, Massachusetts needs less federal funding because it takes care of its own, so the UBI would be paid for by the taxes of poor and middle-class people STUCK in states like Massachusetts.
I think you're accidentally arguing my side, now. If you can agree that the clear majority of poor people live in high-cost areas, and you are raising the point that people cannot move, then doesn't that end the discussion? All of your arguments I replied to above involved either "well they can just move" or some explanation that you think someone is luckier to be on food stamps in Boston (...than what? Since they're less likely to need food stamps in other states).
But something like national Section 8 would absolutely give more freedom and less barrier of entry than a UBI. And there's PLENTY of housing availability everywhere. Especially considering it would never turn into "everyone is moving to Boston at once". People don't want to move to Boston like that. But also (and I say this as a country boy), it uses less actual resources to support people in cities like Boston than in the country. That's just simple logistics.