A UBI would be beneficial to said country

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Description

To keep things relative, let's use America as an example, with a $1000 payout to every adult (like Yang's plan).

We should mainly focus on how a UBI would impact the country in various factors, like the economic, political, and social sectors.

Talking about the realism of implementing a UBI is off-topic, unless specified otherwise.

I'm actually looking forward to this debate. Good luck!

Round 1

[~] https://www.debateart.com/debates/1587/a-ubi-would-be-beneficial-to-the-economy-and-the-society

11.28.2019 02:15AM

Pro

Hello Swagnarok and thanks for accepting. Sorry for the late reply, I'm awfully busy this week and I wrote this in a rush...

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A) OPENING

Outline

Round 1 - First Argument

Round 2 - Clash, and Second Argument

Round 3 - Clash, and Summary

Note - Some significant information related to this debate will be merged with clash

First Argument - Economic Impacts

How will implementing a UBI positively impact the economy?

Second Argument - Social Impacts

How will implementing a UBI positively impact the society?

Context

A UBI is a system put in place which gives every citizen $1000 per month, regardless of any standards. A UBI isn't actually a new concept. In fact, it dates back to the

16th century! However, the concept recently gained attention when 2020 presidential candidate Andrew Yang marketed his UBI plan as a so called "Freedom Dividend". And this debate is very similarly modeled after his plan...

Like stated earlier, we will be using America as the sandbox for this debate, just to keep everything consistent and relatable. Also, as previously agreed upon, we will be debating whether or not a UBI would be beneficial or not. We won't touch upon whether it's realistic to implement, or all that stuff (although that could be for another debate).

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B) ARGUMENT

Economic Impacts - How will implementing a UBI positively impact the economy?

Some recent studies have found that 25% of jobs in America are at risk to being lost. That correlates to the unemployment rate, which is already at around 3.6%, to rise even higher!

This also contributes to individual people's wealth.

When people don't have enough money, they tend to cut down on their spendings. Goods like clothing, food, and various accessories will be limited in purchase. This can lead to a sort of 'dry economy', where not much goods are being bought. And when little goods are being bought, stores won't make enough money. This can result in even more people being fired, and shops closing all over.

Money isn't being circulated.

However, that's where a UBI comes in! A UBI will help the economy as a whole by giving people some extra money for them to spend. This money will be circulated through the economy and renew it.

The economic benefits of this include [1]:

Economic growth

More money is being used and circulated
12% growth in the economy by 2025

More jobs and related benefits are created

More economic activity means than more jobs will be born [2]

An estimated 4.7 million jobs are to be created [3]

Increased bargaining power for workers

"More pay more say" - Thought provoking quote from Squid

Less Poverty

A UBI almost guarantees everyone will be above the poverty line
Families can have more support (a topic for round two)

And more!

As you can clearly see now, a UBI is a clear benefit to the economy.

And, all this data is backed up by numerous professional research papers [4].

Now you might be asking, "but this is all speculation!" How do we actually know that the predicted results might happen?

Well, surprisingly enough, versions of the UBI have actually been tested before! Follow my words...

Alaska's current UBI [5]
Namibian poverty support [6]
My People Fund program [7]
And even more!

All these tests and real world situations turned out great, and we can even learn from some of them to improve our sense of a UBI.

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C) CONCLUSION

In this round, I have talked about the major economic factors that would be benefited from a UBI.

In the next round, I will be clashing with my opponent, perhaps elaborating on my previous arguments, and presenting a new one.

Well, that is all from me now, and I wish you the best Swagnarok!

Thank you.

Links:

[~] https://basicincome.org/basic-income/history

[~] https://www.forbes.com/sites/amysterling/2019/06/15/automated-future/#46965d36779d

[1] https://www.yang2020.com/what-is-freedom-dividend-faq

[2] https://www.disnat.com/en/learning/expert-articles/marc-desnoyers/the-relationship-between-economic-growth-and-employment

[3] https://rooseveltinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Modeling-the-Macroeconomic-Effects-of-a-Universal-Basic-Income.pdf

[4] https://www.yang2020.com/additional-resources/

[5] https://iseralaska.org/static/legacy_publication_links/bien_xiii_ak_pfd_lessons.pdf

[6] https://www.carnegiecouncil.org/publications/archive/policy_innovations/briefings/000163

[7] https://news.utk.edu/2017/11/16/ut-releases-preliminary-findings-people-fund-evaluation/

12.01.2019 02:15AM

Con

Forfeited

Round 2

12.01.2019 02:53AM

Pro

Change of schedule

Extend Arguments

[2]. https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2019/02/weodata/weorept.aspx?pr.x=79&pr.y=12&sy=2016&ey=2021&scsm=1&ssd=1&sort=country&ds=.&br=1&c=111&s=NGDP_RPCH%2CNGDPD%2CPPPGDP%2CNGDPDPC%2CPPPPC%2CPCPIPCH&grp=0&a=

12.01.2019 09:39PM

Con

1. Cost

As of July 1, 2018, the US population stood at 327,000,000. [1] Of these, only around 22.4% were under the age of 18. [Ibid.] This leaves approximately 240,000,000 Americans over the age of 18.

For purposes of simplicity I will not be factoring in the several million Americans imprisoned. Any UBI scheme would have to answer the question "Would they be receiving UBI too?". The most straightforward solution to this would be to deny it for all months in which the subject spent any time in jail or prison. Again, for the sake of ease I will assume that all American citizens in the appropriate age bracket will be receiving UBI every month of the year.

$1,000 x 12 =$12,000 per annum (year) for each eligible person. 240,000,000 x $12,000 = $2,880,000,000,000. Or, that is to say, 2.88 Trillion dollars. That would be the rough price tag of UBI every single year, not counting such things as administrative costs.

In comparison, the International Monetary Fund has estimated that total GDP in 2019 would stand at 21.4 Trillion. [2] What this means is that in order to pay for Universal Basic Income, the United States would have to spend equivalent to over 10% of its total GDP every year.

At this point, my opponent would likely step in and say "Aha but you're wrong! You see, UBI can replace many existing welfare programs!" And in fact this is true...but only to an extent.

In 2018, welfare spending by the federal government stood at $851.1 billion dollars. [3] Note that this doesn't count the services of the Department of Veterans Affairs, because, well, the general tendency is to think of the VA as just compensation to brave soldiers who put theirs lives on the line rather than as a government handout. In 2019 the White House requested $83 billion for the VA. [4] We can combine this to get a rough estimate of $900-950 billion spent on welfare annually.

Even if UBI completely replaced all of these programs (doubtful, especially in the case of the VA for reasons already stated), that would still leave an extra 1.9 Trillion dollars. The government would have to collect the money to pay for this somehow. If taxes weren't raised, then this would all become deficit spending.

In 2019 government outlays (expenditures) are projected to stand at 4.4 Trillion, while receipts (amount collected in taxes) will stand at 3.4 Trillion. [Ibid, page 121]

Whenever outlays are larger than receipts, the government borrows to pay the rest. This is called the deficit. The deficit describes how much debt the government is going to take on that year, which is added to the outstanding National Debt. In 2019, the deficit is projected to be almost 1 Trillion dollars; if you were to add the costs of an implemented UBI, you'd have a minimum deficit of 2.9 Trillion.

(Please note: Elderly people have a strong tendency to view Social Security as something that they've earned/invested rather than as welfare. If you deduct a retiree's UBI allowance from their Social Security payout, they'll perceive that the government is either robbing them of the money they earned/invested into the system or discriminating against them by denying them the same UBI younger people get. There are tens of millions of people over 65 in America, and they consistently turn out in large numbers come election day. If it's even hinted at that either party would try this, I absolutely guarantee you they'd lose in a landslide. That is to say, the elderly under this scheme would receive UBI on top of Social Security, whether you like it or not.)

At this point you have two options:

First, you can accept a 2.9 Trillion dollar deficit. This is clearly unsustainable, given that the US national debt is already larger than GDP, and that the deficit in this scenario would significantly outpace economic growth (see projected GDP growth rates in source 2).

How large is the national debt already? 23 Trillion dollars, as of the time of posting. [5]

Second, you raise taxes to such a degree as to keep the deficit manageably low. The fact that we have such a large deficit already suggests this isn't going to happen, because the political will is lacking.

In addition, tax rates affect investment, wages, and so on. There is a phenomenon called "Capital Flight" which can have devastating effects on any economy, and which is much more likely to happen when tax rates are oppressively high. All in all, talking about this would entail an entirely separate debate that I'm simply not ready to have, because I'm not an economist. Suffice to say, however, deciding that you're going to raise another 1.9 Trillion dollars in taxes every year would have drastic and far-reaching consequences.

With that having been said, I'm going to move on to my second point.

2. Price Inflation

Imagine the following scenario.

You own a supermarket. All of the sudden, your typical customer has $12,000 more dollars every year in disposable income. In addition, taxes on your business went up to pay for this. Way up.

So what do you do? You jack prices on everything. It's clear that they can afford it now, so they probably wouldn't care that much. Even with these price increases they still enjoy greater financial security than they did before UBI.

And this would affect everything. Absolutely. Everything. There is no consumer market whose prices would not skyrocket in the aftermath of this. In the end, you would merely be subsidizing the likes of Wal-Mart.

What would the end result of this be? While people would still gain from UBI, the free money would not go as far as you might initially think. Relying on a cost-benefit analysis (the price of a 1.9 trillion dollar outlay increase vs. the benefit to the consumer who has more money), the balance would not be in favor of benefits.

3. Perverse Incentives

While in the future work may become obsolete altogether, at present the economy still relies on human labor.

However, there are millions upon millions of people who hold jobs out of necessity, because the alternative to working is living on the streets.

But what if all of these people got a paycheck of $12,000 a year? Something that they would receive regardless of whether they worked or not. There would be stigma attached to them receiving UBI because everybody else would. In this case, you could have groups of, say, 2 or 3 slackers who get together, pool their UBI money, pay rent on a cheap place, and live off of that without having to work another day of their lives.

Without these people, the economy would possibly contract, making the above-mentioned deficit problem even worse.

4. Alaska

My opponent cited Alaska as a model for the US to emulate. The problem with this is, the economy of Alaska does not mirror that of the US. As his own source admitted, Alaska is an extraction based economy. The oil can be extracted and sold by anyone, and this will happen whatever the tax rate is. The US proper, on the other hand, is a wealth creation economy. High taxes stifle this process.

Sources:

[1]. https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/PST045218

[3]. https://www.lexingtonlaw.com/blog/finance/welfare-statistics.html

[4]. https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/budget-fy2019.pdf

[5] https://www.usdebtclock.org/

Round 3

12.04.2019 09:39PM

Pro

Forfeited

12.05.2019 04:15AM

Con

Both me and my opponent ended up forfeiting at critical moments during this debate. We can just chalk it up to one giant bust.

Anyways, I will summarize as following:

Implementing UBI would cost inordinately huge sums of money, even by the standards of the world's first/second largest economy, the United States. Even if many existing welfare programs were eliminated to compensate, some significant increase either in deficit spending or in tax revenue collected would still be required. The United States has a severe debt problem (and also one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world) and implementing UBI would only make this worse. In exchange for bearing these costs, each adult citizen would reach approximately $12,000 a year. However, because of the rampant price inflation that would almost surely follow much of these financial gains to individuals would be disappointingly lackluster. Many individuals would have unprecedented opportunity to completely drop out of the workforce, and this in turn would depress the economy.

And that concludes this debate. Thank you all for reading.

12.05.2019 09:45PM

#30

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@Barney

Implying pre-fiat cant generate benefits and harms. If you look at benefits and harms in a strictly utilitarian sense then yes, since util is necessarily post fiat. But there are definitely good ways of generating pre-fiat offense

12.05.2019 09:15PM

#29

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@Zaradi

Yeah, the example I've given fails to generate offense, hence why I dismiss it as rubbish when I see it. Pure Pre-Fiat might be another name for it, to signify the lack of anything else (such as benefits and harms, which arguments should focus on).

12.05.2019 09:02PM

#28

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@Barney

That's not really mean what I mean by internal premise, at least not in the way you're articulating it. Take my capitalism example with UBIs. If you're advocating for UBIs, it rests on the presumption that as a society we want more cap. If cap is actually a bad thing, why would we want something that brings more cap? In short, I may not have been clear in my explanation. The internal premise you're targeting needs to be one that is a negative premise to hold i.e. cap is good when you argue that it's really bad. That's how kritiks generate offense.

12.05.2019 08:31PM

#27

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@Zaradi

The internal premise being challenged is that it could happen at all.

I wouldn't call it a standard rebuttal, because it basically ignores all the contentions.

12.05.2019 07:08PM

#26

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@Barney

Your argument wouldn't be a kritik, though. No internal premises are being challenged, and no alternative is presented. It'd be a standard rebuttal.

As for the example, outside of it just being a bad argument, I'm not sure there's a technical name for it.

12.05.2019 06:49PM

#25

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@Zaradi

Solvency Kritik would be a decent name for it, but I'm thinking of going with something about depression.

I do believe in legit attacks on arguments for solvency issues, but some are unwarranted. Like many arguments, there's a fine line to walk.

>>His argument doesn't lead to the world he wants to make, so it's pointless to go down that path. Sound right?
Very similar, but not quite. More like /That world will never happen anyway, so we shouldn't strive for it./ Easy examples: Women will never have the right to vote anyway, so this court shouldn't even listen to the arguments in favor of it.

12.05.2019 06:36PM

#24

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@Barney

I mean, it's certainly doable to run kritiks that have post-fiat impacts. I don't personally like them because they're boring, but they work.

As for your example, it seems more like an indict to the argument's solvency rather than a kriticism. His argument doesn't lead to the world he wants to make, so it's pointless to go down that path. Sound right?

12.05.2019 06:20PM

#23

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@Zaradi

My understanding of the terms is most are post-fiat, focusing on perceived damages from letting people get away with whatever. /What kind of world would we live in, if we allowed people to promote capitalism?/

When I refer to a pre-fiat kritik, I used an example that that world will never come about anyway, so we shouldn't even try. Granted, I'm open to better name suggestions.

12.05.2019 01:10PM

#22

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@Barney

@DynamicSquid

Not sure what pre-fiat in this instance is supposed to mean since pretty much every k operates pre-fiat

12.05.2019 01:07PM

#21

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@Barney

@DynamicSquid

Not quite what a pre-fiat kritik is. Kritiks in general are arguments that question certain premises and assumptions made in either your opponent's case or the resolution in general. For example, a kritikal argument I could make as Con would be to say that capitalism is #theworstthingever, and thus we should reject UBIs as an instance of promoting cap.

12.05.2019 04:21AM

#20

(Just now I did make passing mention of our country's high corporate tax rate, simply because there would've been a "hole" in the flow of the argument summary otherwise. Overall it was a fairly minor addition and I didn't link to a source so it was pretty much just me either making an opinionated assertion or pointing out something that's already general knowledge. In addition, adding that did not provide evidence to my earlier claim that a high/higher tax rate is bad for the economy, opting instead to merely say that there exists a high tax rate.)

12.05.2019 12:37AM

#19

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@Barney

Gotcha. Thanks!

12.05.2019 12:37AM

#18

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@PoliceSheep

Ah, shoot. Completely forgot about this.

Please don't forfeit, but try to like summarize your speech with no new information to make it fair.

Thanks for considering.

And really sorry!

12.04.2019 11:15PM

#17

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@DynamicSquid

I missed your previous question. A pre-fiat kritik is to basically side step the arguments by saying they would never happen. Like I say we should fix that bridge because of x y and z, and you answer with it'll never get fixed so all talk about how much better it would be if fixed is irrelevant.

12.04.2019 11:11PM

#16

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@Swagnarok

@DynamicSquid

If you both consent, my suggestion is to redo this debate with copy/pasted arguments from the current one (then have this one deleted). You could of course fix typos, and change the remaining number of rounds (could even make it a single round) and/or time to post arguments if you're inclined.

12.04.2019 10:44PM

#15

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@DynamicSquid

How should I proceed? Should I forfeit this round to make it fair?

12.01.2019 09:43PM

#14

I actually heard an anecdote from my PoliSci professor once claiming that in Mexico, at the beginning of each month people's food stamps (or whatever equivalent to such they get over there) come in, and on that same day the prices on corn tortillas, a dietary staple, go through the roof, because all the stores know they can get away with doing it since their customers just got a big fat check from the government.
Unfortunately I couldn't find anything on this online.

12.01.2019 09:41PM

#13

*There would be no stigma attached

12.01.2019 09:40PM

#12

Aaaand that was all I had room to post.

12.01.2019 03:06AM

#11

I'm so sorry. I literally forgot about the debate over the course of Thanksgiving weekend. I'll be sure to post an argument soon.

12.01.2019 02:50AM

#10

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@Barney

"pre-flat kritik"

What's that?

12.01.2019 02:36AM

"Talking about the realism of implementing a UBI is off-topic"
That would be a pre-fiat Kritik, which are indeed off topic to these hypotheticals.

11.27.2019 04:21AM

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@Swagnarok

Yup, exactly!

Oh, btw expect my argument to be sometime around tmr afternoon...

11.26.2019 03:18AM

While you did establish the rough parameters of this debate, some clarification is in order.

"Talking about the realism of implementing UBI" means, say, arguing that Congress would never pass UBI into effect. We'll be assuming here that it could be passed and implemented.
Obviously I will be debating you on whether UBI would have good or bad effects. Otherwise there'd be no point.

11.26.2019 03:14AM

@DynamicSquid I'm about to accept this debate. If someone else has already called dibs, then I suppose you can debate them too. It wouldn't be plagiarism for you to use the same opening arguments both times.
I haven't debated in a while and forcing myself to exercise that intellectual muscle just a tad will be good for me.

MisterChris

11.26.2019 01:33AM

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@DynamicSquid

If you can extend argument times to 1 week I will take this.

Username

11.23.2019 03:03AM

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@DynamicSquid

Okay thanks. Ill PM you with regards to this