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

[biscuitware.livejournal.com]

a perfectly valid point.

however. i work hard to earn my salary and whilst i'm all for lifting the bread line and tackling poverty i find it hard to beleive that anyone in this country would be prepared to "give" their salary away.

but then I'm baised - because i'm not on the poverty line

[andrewducker]

You already give your salary away. Unless you've found a way to avoid paying taxes...

[cangetmad.livejournal.com]

The principle is already established, though. We all "give away" some of our income for public services, including public services specifically provided to people other than us. This is just more of the same.

The benefit of citizen's income, the way I see it, is a sustainable society. Poverty creates ill-health, educational under-achievement, some crime, some social unrest. Do away with the ghettoisation of people who can't/ don't work in profitable occupations - and, crucially, the ghettoisation of their children - and you slash all of those problems in half, at least. Then take away the problem of people working overtime because their wages don't provide what they and their families need, and you have another massive increase in mental, physical and emotional health, plus another tranche of people with the time to make contributions to society in non-financial ways (volunteering, looking out for their neighbours, keeping in touch with family, taking evening classes, getting involved in politics, even).

There are other benefits, such as a flattening of the ridiculous gap in what housing people can afford, with people on lower incomes no longer forced to live in out-of-town housing schemes with no transport system.

So we've got a healthy, well-educated, sane and stable society. I'd pay over the odds for that.