Robots and Income

[andrewducker]

All you people interested in a possible future of income, go and have a read of this.

In it the writer points out that increasing automation is basically going to create an unemployed class and that something is going to have to be done about this. He basically invents Citizen's Income, an idea I'm wholly in favour of. I sent him an email telling him that the idea had been invented numerous times before (with a few links) and some off the top of my head figures:

In my opinion, the best way to manage citizen's income is as a percentage of the median wage, and then tax _everyone_ at 50% of their wages (obviously you don't tax the citizen's income bit), simultaneously simplifying the taxation of individuals so that there are no fiddly exemptions.

Let's say that the median wage is $30,000 and citizen's income is set at 2/3 of that ($20,000).

if the person was earning nothing, then suddenly they're $20,000 better off.

If they were earning a low wage of $15,000, then they're now earning ($15,000/2 + $20,000 = )$27,500, a substantial rise.

A person on the median wage goes from $30,000 to $35,000.

A person on a high wage ($100,000) is now on $70,000.

And a person on a ridiculous wage ($1,000,000) is now on $520,000

All of these final figured should, of course, be compared to the current income _after tax_.

Of course, living in a country, as I do, with a 40% upper tax bracket, this seems perfectly reasonable to me. I'm not sure the average American is going to go for it, but it would certainly revolutionise the world - no more poor people, anywhere...

Comments

[kpollock.livejournal.com]

People (from research) seem to be sensitive to large income differences rather than absolute income. If everybody around you earns £10 a week (and you are all not starving) then everybody is happy (usually). If one guy earns £100 then you get resentement starting and people get dissatisfied with their £10 in a way they just don't when they can't see it.

JUST like the 'pretty people' thing.

The scheme that you describe goes some way to evening that out (at least at the lower levels).

When we were in Denmark/Sweden/Norway, Sean commented on how the trains/trams/buses were really noce and ran on time and the streets were clean and all that and wondered why. I said "three little words - 50 pecent tax". In fact I think it's actually higher than that. Seems to work though....

Even in Roskilde (denmark) for the festival it didn't get messy or violent or anything - folks just ought their crates of beer, sat on a roundabout and drank it. A man with a trolley came and colelcted all the empties seeral times a day (no doubt because there is hefty deposit).

[andrewducker]

I don't actually care much about income differentials. I mostly care about people not starving to death o nthe streets and a more rational, simple alternative to the current mess of a welfare system.

[kpollock.livejournal.com]

But you are not the average person, are you?

[cangetmad.livejournal.com]

I do tend to think that we underestimate people's ability to understand non-financial benefits. After all, clever people still become nurses and teachers, don't they? The majority of people in the UK work for non-profit-making enterprises (public and voluntary sector, and that's without including the social enterprise sector). People volunteer, care for others, do loads of things that belie the assumption that "the ordinary person" just wants cash.

That's not to say that andrewducker isn't special in many ways, too :)

[kpollock.livejournal.com]

I didn't intend to imply that 'the average person' just wants cash, but I can see how it might look like that. People can be very aware of income gaps even if they don't necessarily want to pay the price for reducing it in their own particular case.

There are always ongoing campians by teachers, nurses etc etc. for more pay, so it still must be a factor?