Biden rejects universal basic income idea popular in Silicon Valley

[Jose Garcia]

Source: The Hill

Former Vice President Joe Biden is criticizing the universal basic income idea that is gaining traction in Silicon Valley, and is arguing instead that the U.S. needs to "build a future that puts work first."

"Our children and grandchildren deserve the promise we've had: the skills to get ahead, the chance to earn a paycheck, and a steady job that rewards hard work," Biden wrote in a blog post for the Biden Institute at the University of Delaware.

Some prominent voices in the technology industry, such as Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Salesforce CEO Mark Benioff, have recently championed the idea of a universal basic income. Supporters of the idea have argued that a guaranteed income from the government could help people in light of concerns about job losses due to technological advances.

But Biden said that there's a "better way forward" and that policymakers should prioritize work.

Read more: http://thehill.com/policy/finance/351186-biden-rejects-universal-basic-income-idea-popular-in-silicon-valley

[harun]

1. All depends what your definition of work is.

We will have universal basic incomes of some variety in 10-20 years. Once the robots and AI start clearing out the people employed in the service sectors they will have to.

They should have part time online jobs available from the government too. Things like helping NASA, exploration, etc.

All this needs to change.

[JI7]

2. But he needs to consider reality of new tech and type of jobs available

None of this means they shouldn't be educated. But what happens when tech makes jobs they were educated and trained for unnecessary or need a lot less people ?

[meadowlander]

11. +1

A recent report to Congress indicated that if you make less than $20 an hour now there is an 83% chance that your job will be replaced by a machine in the next 50 years. That's 62% of the American workforce or 98 million people. The likelihood of us needing 98 million more software engineers, doctors and marketing managers in the next 50 years seems pretty slim. And that's assuming that those 98 million people have the potential ability to do those jobs at all.

And even if you make $40 an hour now, there is still a 31% chance that your job will become redundant in your lifetime.

So we can either finally accept the reality that increases in productivity mean that actually we don't need that many people working, that we don't need everyone working so many hours a week, and that even people who aren't working deserve to be able to live with dignity, or we close our eyes on the massive human suffering that will be caused by enormous unemployment rates while the lucky few continue to kill themselves and neglect their families chasing 80 hour work weeks.

[Gothmog]

3. I am hoping that Uncle Joe runs in 2020

[still_one]

8. I am not a Joe Biden fan, but I suspect he will try to make a run in 2020 if he is able

[LudwigPastorius]

13. I don't think a 77-year-old could be elected President.

...no matter how mentally sharp and energetic he, or she, is.

Maybe that's unfair, but I just don't see it.

[TexasBushwhacker]

16. I don't either, and at 60, I'm not exactly a millenial. N/t

[VMA131Marine]

4. I love Joe Biden, but he is behind the curve on this one

There's no such thing as lifetime employment with a single employer anymore or even a single career in one area of specialty. A basic income would give people the resources to relocate to where jobs are and re-educate themselves for new career options.

[Blue_Adept]

6. But not even that though

There'll always be new careers but it's going to hit a point where they're increasingly specialized and harder to get to without a real length of understanding. And a lot of careers that are out there now that people in their 40's are retraining for will be gone in ten years or less.

And even the jobs that we used to consider simple manual labor jobs that would always be around are going to disappear.

As we've seen with climate change, humans - and Americans in particular - are not great at adapting or planning ahead. The desire for things to be as they always were with new perks is all we want. But it doesn't work that way.

[Blue_Adept]

5. And kids should just pay for college with a summer job

I love Joe and he's spot on with a lot of things, but there will always be a disconnect - especially as you get older - in having a hard time in seeing why things aren't' always going to be like they were or have been during your life.

Younger generations are seeing these sweeping changes every generation now in a bigger way, and more often, and are (hopefully) adapting to it and thinking differently because of it.

[tymorial]

9. Agreed

Joe comes from a time when one could work the summer to pay tuition and work study could actually out a dent in tuition and supplies. Work study today is a joke.

[still_one]

7. What Biden is saying is creating enough available jobs is the answer, not a universal

basic income.


The question is what happens to those folks who are not eligible for Social Security and are unable to work for one reason or another?

There are a lot of issues involved with a universal basic income.

Would a universal basic income replace social security?

Who would pay for it? Most likely it would be through increased taxes.

How would you determine what the universal basic income is? The cost of living in California or New York is a lot higher than in Mississippi and Alabama.

Bottom line, in this environment there is no way a universal basic income can pass today

[Voltaire2]

14. yes well the problem is that the world is moving in the opposite direction

technological change is destroying jobs now, not creating them. Society is going to have to re-think what work is and how people engage in the economy. One way to smooth out the transition is a basic income. While the cost seems daunting, when the numbers are actually run it turns out that it costs far less then the nominal annual bill as there is a feedback loop where the output into the economy from the BI increases tax revenue back to the government. It is a giant permanent economic stimulus, kind of like the way our huge annual defense budget is also a permanent economic stimulus, only far more egalitarian.

Regional costs of living differences balance out over time. The details would have to be worked out of course, but neither funding nor regional COL are show stoppers.

[meadowlander]

10. It doesn't have to be one or the other.

Universal basic income would provide the means to live in dignity while training to get the skills for a new job. And we should be focused on meaningful work interspersed with periods of self-reflection and upskilling for the next job, which isn't really possibly when you're homeless or all of your energy is spent worrying about where your next meal is coming from.

In China the government pays people to crawl around in the parks on their hands and knees cutting the grass with scissors instead of using a lawnmower because "work for people is more important that doing things the most efficient way". I don't think we want to be a society that creates useless, soul crushing meaningless work just for the sake of making sure everyone has the "dignity" of punching a timecard every day.

They're already piloting universal basic income in parts of Canada and Finland, so let's see how it goes for them before writing the idea off.

[JaneQPublic]

12. Not a new idea. McGovern promised $1,000 basic income in 1972.

They called it "a "demogrant" program that would replace the personal income tax exemption with a $1,000 tax credit as a minimum-income floor for every citizen in America,[17] to replace the welfare bureaucracy and complicated maze of existing public-assistance programs."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_McGovern_presidential_campaign,_1972

[brooklynite]

15. How'd that work out?