As presented through out this thread, the basic income proposal *is* supposed to be enough to live in. It is supposed to replace all forms of welfare, which means it has to be enough for a person unable to work to live on. 10K won't do that. She'd either have a warm and dry place but no food or able to buy food but no where to live.

@Draugnar:

"But that only applies for discretionary buying and only if the discretionary object is one most people consider semi-essential and all manufacturers/sellers raise their prices equally. For instance, high-end TVs would apply in your example, but a basic clock radio to get up in the morning wouldn't. It is a discretionary purchase but an essential one and odds are everyone would be raising it if the tax on the manufacturers was across the board equal. So everyone in the market for a clock radio would be paying the tax and the tax wouldn't take anyone out of the market. The big screen TV, however, might find fewer buyers having taken people out of the market deciding they could live with a lower end one or what they already have."

Clock radio's aren't only sold by the top 1% though, are they? We were talking about taxing based on income, right? That means people with less income can compete with their clock radio's better, correct?

Furthermore, I buy a clock radio on my own discretion. If the cost of the clock is bigger than being late to work occassionally or working later, I don't buy the clock...

Draugnar: I still disagree, but for the sake of argument, how much K would you suggest?

I think that the point is that everybody gets the same base income from the government, the only difference is tax. If it's 10K or 20K matters little for me. As long as not working doesn't become a way to get rich fast. Then again, if you can pull that off with the costs and everything involved, which seems unlike to me, it is fine by me.

@Steephie - Who do you think *makes* clock radios? Corporations whose CEOs are in the top .1% (not just 1%). It's not about the seller but the manufacturer. If the CEO is suddenly taxed more, he is going to want a bigger salary and the board will give it to him if he is a successful CEO. That salary gets passed on to the consumer.

As far as the living wage/basic wage: That varies depending on where you live in the US. 20K will get you a heat and water furnished efficiency apartment and give you food money in Cinci, but not in NYC or LA.

There was a study done in the '70s in Canada on something similar to basic income. They gave the households of Dauphin, Manitoba the equivalent of about C$18K per year [citation needed]. It's called MINCOME. Here's the Wikipedia link.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mincome

And I bet in Calgary or Vancouver or Montreal, that number would be slightly different.

*shrug* Sure, but it'd be around that number, so you could probably set a national average and avoid administration costs by just giving the same to everyone.

Well, then we'd have to set it for the worst case scenario because the US has a cost of living index that varies from a fraction to as high as 3 I think. It's a multiplier of the average. Cincinnati is right around 1 (1.1 or so). Manhattan is like a 3.

But, if we set a number and then distributed based on the multiplier, that could work.

Sure. To be honest, I don't think the practical concerns of implementation--while important--are particularly contentious. What I take away from MINCOME is that a universal basic income is feasible, and we'd likely see very little disincentive to work.

@Draugnar, that might be your definition of a free market,
feel free to nominate two actual, real free markets, even by your definition

2 Putin & Damian, who adore the illusion that the US minimum wage is sufficient

I'd like to see you provide an actual budget
to meet the basic living costs for two persons with two children where both work
minimum wage jobs & include private health insurance.

why are tips & gratuities SO IMPORTANT to workers on minimum wage, why do Walmart employees on minimum wage need assistance via charities and "food stamps" ???

according to you two clowns these minimum wage workers should be on easy street if they could just budget a bit smarter, so why the needfor tips & gratuities, & welfare for Walmart employees ? Perhaps the way to make money at Walmart is to be a shareholder, not an employee

@Major - No, that is my business class' definition of a free market. That is the definition accepted throughout the world as a free market. Just because *you* have some fucked up mind set as to what defines a free market doesn't mean your view matches reality.

And there is no free market in the world. There are many "fair markets", but no free markets.

There are no free markets in the world, because, luckily, there is no government powerful enough to enforce it.

Free perfectly competitive markets that is. In the absence of perfect competition, free markets are much more desirable.