The many attractions of Denmark include a generous safety net that provides unemployed workers 90% of their old salary up to 2 years. Parents receive up to 52 weeks of leave per child and daycare is heavily subsidized. Overall, working-age families receive more than three times as much aid, as a share of G.D.P., as their U.S. counterparts. Danes enjoy the world’s shortest work week and have the right to 5 weeks of paid vacation a year. College students not only have free tuition but get a stipend of over $900 a month.
...Speaking of “per capita” gun ownership rates in the US, it's true that Americans own more guns "per capita" than any other country but that stat is highly misleading, being based on number of guns divided by number of people. It doesn’t say anything about how many Americans actually own guns. As it turns out, gun ownership by household has actually been declining in the US for years.
A reliable, unconditional and generous BIG would probably encourage procrastination and discourage self-sacrifice in the service of long-term goals, especially in those for whom school and full-time work aren’t exactly enticing prospects. Live with mom or a bunch of roommates, work part-time in food service or take an occasional gig, and prolong adolescence a few more years – and before you know it, the ol’ brain is past its optimal age for learning and skill acquisition...
The idea of "too big to fail" is that certain corporations, especially banks, are so large and interconnected that the government would have to bail them out in the event of failure to avoid catastrophic ripple effects throughout the economy.
If I were president, we’d have a modest BIG, which would be paid for out of the existing federal budget, as follows: $150b – elimination of safety net programs (TANF, EITC, and SSI) $150b – state matching funds related to the above $ 70b – half of SSDI funds $ 25b – half of the HUD budget $ 25b – budget reductions in some remaining programs (e.g., Pell/SEOG grants) $ 25b – elimination of redundant programs (guided by US Gov. Accountability Office) $100b – unemployment compensation..
Savings are important for investments that create opportunities later (e.g., school, car, first/last/deposit for moving) and research has shown that people are more likely to save when they receive occasional lump sum payments than when they receive modest monthlies. Also, an important poverty-reducer is geographic mobility and savings makes it a lot easier to move. A BIG should not make it easier to live in low opportunity areas, and if doled out in bits every month, it might do that (at least for some people).
Here’s another advantages of the modest Basic Income Guarantee (BIG): child support could be electronically deducted from BIG directly, so less time and money would be spent chasing down fathers and at least some child support would be guaranteed. Automatic child support deductions would likely influence the dynamics of gender relations by making men a bit more cautious about casual sex.
The idea is that a modest BIG would eliminate severe poverty but not be so generous as to disincentivize work any more than the current safety net system does.
In the last post, I found $545 billion in federal and state budgets to pay for BIG, all by transferring existing funds. While most adults would receive a monthly BIG, most would also pay the entire BIG amount back in taxes – from the middle income quintile and up. I’m thinking people would have the option to have the government set aside their BIG payments – perhaps in interest-bearing accounts – to pay back in taxes or as a way to save for major expenditures.
The thing about monopolies is that they are mostly harmful when they are truly monopolies - that is, there is no real competition for the product/service they provide and the price of entry is steep for potential competitors. But what constitutes the competition is not always obvious. Take Greyhound. Greyhound could be considered a monopoly in some areas of the country, but only when competition is defined as other companies of the same kind, i.e., other bus companies. We know that’s absurd. Greyhound’s competitors are also other forms of transportation: cars, planes, trains.
BIG would be funded through the portion of government budgets devoted to safety net programs (about 11% of the federal budget, with states contributing matching funds). Let’s see if we can cobble together a decent BIG budget through the elimination of the programs that BIG would replace, plus selective reductions in other programs.
Short answer: no. There is no way a reasonable Basic Income Guarantee (BIG), be it $700 a month or $1500 a month, would eliminate poverty. For one thing, there will always be people who are bad with money, whose budgeting skills leave much to be desired - the net result being their checks run out before the basic necessities are provided for, even if they had even money to begin with.
...the size of the BIG can’t be determined by the expenses of a subset of the whole, or the temporary circumstances of given individuals. BIG should not be conceived as the exclusive remedy covering all contingencies.
What does it mean to eliminate poverty? Very generally, it means that everyone can afford some basic minimum of nutritious food, housing, clothing, healthcare, and transportation. Guaranteeing every adult a basic income (the Basic Income Guarantee, or BIG) may be one way to eliminate poverty.
Despite this impressive fall in poverty in US, there has been no corresponding increase in intergenerational mobility. This means there has been little social mobility between generations. So, although Americans are less poor than ever, their income ranking tends to be similar to that of their parents. For example, those in the lower quintiles more often than not had parents who were also in the lower quintiles.
Shortages are greatest in the skilled trades, both globally and in the US. Skilled trades includes jobs like Carpenters, Electricians, Plumbers, Steamfitters, Pipefitters, Machinists, Industrial Machinery Mechanics, and various kinds of Technicians.
This is about how to think about proposed Big Federal Fixes, such as the Basic Income Guarantee, the Paycheck Fairness Act, or free tuition for all public colleges. Questions to ask: What is the problem the proposal is intended to Fix? What is the extent and nature of the problem? How has the problem changed over time? What is the trend: is it improving, getting worse or staying the same? How fast is change happening? What factors may be changing the extent or nature of the problem? .
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In 2015 any California college or university that receives state financial aid must begin using a "yes means yes" approach toward sexual assault. That means both parties must give ongoing, affirmative consent during any sexual activity. Rather than using a "no means no" approach, the definition of consent under the new legislation requires "an affirmative, unambiguous and conscious decision" by each party to engage in sexual activity.
In 2014 a European court sided with a Spanish man attempting to have links to a negative story about him removed from the online search engine Google. Invoking a version of what's known as the "right to be forgotten," the European Union Court of Justice said that citizens have the right to ask that links be removed if they contain information that is "inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant." Should we have the same right to be forgotten in the US?
The Sixth Amendment establishes the right to a speedy and public trial; the right to trial by an impartial jury; the right to be informed of criminal charges; the right to confront witnesses; the right to compel witnesses to appear in court; and, the right to assistance of counsel.