Basic Income Pilot Project To Be Trial Tested In Ontario

[AngusThermopyle]

The Ontario Liberals have announced the trial of a basic guaranteed income in three Ontario Cities. Recipients will receive a guaranteed income of just under $17,000 a year for a single person. If they find employment they'll keep this income but it will be reduced by 50% of what they earn. Personally I have mixed feelings about this, it could theoretically be a good thing but in reality I think it will end in disaster. I also find it interesting that the timing of this project is pretty fortunate given an election next year and Wynne sporting record low levels of support (10% at last count). The optics would appear to show a cynical exercise in vote buying and nothing more. The three cities to receive this gift will be Hamilton, Lindsay and Thunder Bay.

 

http://www.torontosun.com/2017/04/24/three-ontario-cities-to-test-basic-income-pilot-project

[Boges]

This will only work if the government dismantles the poverty industry, which it probably won't do because that means less civil servants. 

If someone blows through this $17,000 and are still destitute and addicted to drugs, it it moral to let them live on the street with no further assistance now.  

Edited April 24, 2017 by Boges

[AngusThermopyle]

Just now, Boges said:

This will only work if the government dismantles the poverty industry, which it probably won't do because that means less civil servants. 

If someone blows through this $17,000 and are still destitute and addicted to drugs, it it moral to let them die on the street now? 

I wondered about that myself. Personally I do now, and have known people in the past who would just view this as a windfall. A way to buy more booze and drugs. Even thinking about it briefly I can see major pitfalls arising with this project. That doesn't even get to the meat of the subject, which will be cost. How much will this cost tax payers? Given the fact that Ontario is in dismal financial shape how will we afford this? Especially if it becomes full fledged across the entirety of Ontario.

[Boges]

I remember a Toronto Sun headline from years back saying that the City of Toronto could give every homeless person about $30,000 in cash for the amount of money they spend on poverty.

If a minimum salary actually meant that people couldn't make a living "helping" the poor off tax money, then it would save money. 

[eyeball]

I'd like to see a move towards paying volunteers for at least some of work they perform - which was valued at around $19 an hour last time I looked and worth some $50 billion dollars to the Canadian economy in 2014 according to this report.

I find it a little unconscionable that our economy and society imposes such a moral imperative on everyone to be productive members of society while also expecting and extolling the benefits of so much free unpaid labour from people. Paying volunteers or simply recognizing them as workers would present an opportunity to underemployed people and maybe help put some upward pressure on wages.

Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the effort and I was a volunteer myself for some 25 years before finally burning out from the workload.  The phone still rings on occasion from some committee or group hoping I'll come back to it.

Edited April 24, 2017 by eyeball

[taxme]

5 hours ago, AngusThermopyle said:

The Ontario Liberals have announced the trial of a basic guaranteed income in three Ontario Cities. Recipients will receive a guaranteed income of just under $17,000 a year for a single person. If they find employment they'll keep this income but it will be reduced by 50% of what they earn. Personally I have mixed feelings about this, it could theoretically be a good thing but in reality I think it will end in disaster. I also find it interesting that the timing of this project is pretty fortunate given an election next year and Wynne sporting record low levels of support (10% at last count). The optics would appear to show a cynical exercise in vote buying and nothing more. The three cities to receive this gift will be Hamilton, Lindsay and Thunder Bay.

 

http://www.torontosun.com/2017/04/24/three-ontario-cities-to-test-basic-income-pilot-project

Another boondoggle for the taxpayer's of Ontario if implemented. Anything that the liberals try to do always ends up in a disaster, and a waste of taxpayer's tax dollars. It never ends with those liberal or NDP fools. If only there were a law that says that any politician who waste taxpayer's tax dollars on stupid programs and agendas that have cost a lot of wasted tax dollars were around and they could be arrested for doing so, maybe then all the tax dollars that these phony politicians waste all the time will finally come to an end. 

It sounds like a perfect law to have on the books. Of course try to get a law passed like that in Canada? Good bloody luck, eh?  

[Ash74]

History dictates that this will be a failure. The Ontario Liberals are the masters of screwing up everything and costing more than estimated.

The Minister of Community and social Services did not even know how it was being paid for.

This should go well

 

http://www.torontosun.com/2017/04/24/wynne-gambling-on-re-election-with-lottery-for-laggards

[AngusThermopyle]

6 hours ago, Ash74 said:

History dictates that this will be a failure. The Ontario Liberals are the masters of screwing up everything and costing more than estimated.

The Minister of Community and social Services did not even know how it was being paid for.

This should go well

 

http://www.torontosun.com/2017/04/24/wynne-gambling-on-re-election-with-lottery-for-laggards

I didn't have time to read this before I left for work. Interesting, and it does answer some of the questions I had, but the big one "where will the money come from?" is still unanswered as they apparently don't know either. This will be a mess, a very costly one, of that I have no doubt. As I said earlier it appears to be nothing more than vote buying. One really interesting fact mentioned in the article is our debt. I was under the impression we were around 310 billion in debt, I didn't realize we'd already hit the 320 billion mark, but then again, what's 10 billion among friends?

[Boges]

The money is supposed to come from streamlining current benefit programs. 

[ZenOps]

So, you can give $50 million to 4,000 people OR you could do what the US does and give $53 million to Kanye.

At least with the US way, you get a few rap songs out of it.

[xpers3312]

On ‎4‎/‎24‎/‎2017 at 0:02 PM, AngusThermopyle said:

The Ontario Liberals have announced the trial of a basic guaranteed income in three Ontario Cities. Recipients will receive a guaranteed income of just under $17,000 a year for a single person. If they find employment they'll keep this income but it will be reduced by 50% of what they earn. Personally I have mixed feelings about this, it could theoretically be a good thing but in reality I think it will end in disaster. I also find it interesting that the timing of this project is pretty fortunate given an election next year and Wynne sporting record low levels of support (10% at last count). The optics would appear to show a cynical exercise in vote buying and nothing more. The three cities to receive this gift will be Hamilton, Lindsay and Thunder Bay.

 

http://www.torontosun.com/2017/04/24/three-ontario-cities-to-test-basic-income-pilot-project

 

There are a couple of things our government needs to realize before they do their research within what seems to be an election cycle.

1. There is existing research which suggests that in a household where parents are both working and busy or not even present, the children grow up having a hard time making a path for themselves.

2. There is existing Research which suggest that in households where, at the least, if one parent is working and the other stays home with the kids through their developmental years, those kids are more confident and have a better chance.

3. My opinion: Single people who are making under poverty level wages no matter what, still have a difficult time lifting themselves out of poverty for reason number 1. Much less forcing parents to both go out there and hustle a wage, destroying the family.

 

Possible Solution:

Provide Basic Income to ALL households with children, which have chosen to allow one to take care of the household and the other to pursue profitable work. This also allows the person staying home to afford to keep up to date and educated in the interim so that he/she doesn't hit the market at a vast disadvantage later.

Provide Basic income to ALL households with children with single parents who are out there pursuing work. this will help them pay for good child care.

The contrary alone is burning the work force out and resulting in child neglect and ABUSE.

 

My Grumpy Rant:

Instead of politicians looking at doing an experiment within ELECTION CYCLES. Why don't they look at a real long term solution!! <Insert old man fist shaking>

The research is already there. Do we need to draw an arrow, START HERE!! to secure the productive development of the future generation.

This is not a problem that can be fixed/studied in a few years. This is a 20year project.

I am personally tired of wondering what my kids will eat today. while both mom and dad are killing themselves working while everyone else is getting big government benefits.

When I was single I didn't have these issues. didn't matter to me at the time whether I lived in a car are ate garbage, literally. That is my point.

 

Edited April 25, 2017 by xpers3312

[AngusThermopyle]

On 4/25/2017 at 8:24 AM, Boges said:

The money is supposed to come from streamlining current benefit programs. 

Some more info on this plan. It appears that streamlining won't be enough to do it, if they ever actually intended to do so at all. In fact it will cost another 50 million a year. Given the Ontario Liberals track record it seems entirely possible this figure could be far higher than that. Of course this will also necesitate an increase in government employee's. The article doesn't state that but does any sane individual doubt it. Yay! Another Liberal boondoggle!

 

http://www.torontosun.com/2017/04/25/wynnes-plan-sounds-like-welfare

[cannuck]

I agree very much with the concept of GAI, as long as it totally replaces EI, welfare, child care, etc. programmes.  that would mean federal, not provincial,  I would need to see flat income tax, with GAI for EVERONE being the floor of basic personal exemption and no avoidance of tax on every dollar earned above that.

I also agree with those who point out the ON libs do not have the administrative ability to do this,

[eyeball]

One thing we need to do above all else is stop making the same mistake that was made in the approach to substance use - stop injecting so much morality into the reasons behind so many of the prescriptions, policies and criticisms that exist in conventional socio-economics.

BTW has anyone given any thought to how or what people will have to do to fulfill the prime moral imperative of economics - to pull your own weight - when robots are doing everything?  Do we just hit that wall at full speed and then figure it out?

[Bonam]

24 minutes ago, eyeball said:

BTW has anyone given any thought to how or what people will have to do to fulfill the prime moral imperative of economics - to pull your own weight - when robots are doing everything? 

There will always be things to do. Humans won't be replaced by technology but will be augmented by it, increasing productivity. A factory might only need 1 guy instead of 100, and that guy will be programming robots instead of swinging a hammer. But there will be 100 factories where there used to only be 1 because we'll want 100x more stuff than we used to. 

The problem isn't that there won't be more demand for people to do work... but rather that the skills of the existing population won't match the demands of the new kinds of jobs that will exist. Hammers swingers don't necessarily have the skills to program robots nor can they necessarily gain such skills if they are already most of the way through their careers. 

[eyeball]

2 hours ago, Bonam said:

There will always be things to do. Humans won't be replaced by technology but will be augmented by it, increasing productivity. A factory might only need 1 guy instead of 100, and that guy will be programming robots instead of swinging a hammer. But there will be 100 factories where there used to only be 1 because we'll want 100x more stuff than we used to. 

Sounds a little far-fetched but...I guess we'll probably need a few more planets for all this stuff everyone's beavering away at.

 

[AngusThermopyle]

3 hours ago, eyeball said:

One thing we need to do above all else is stop making the same mistake that was made in the approach to substance use - stop injecting so much morality into the reasons behind so many of the prescriptions, policies and criticisms that exist in conventional socio-economics.

BTW has anyone given any thought to how or what people will have to do to fulfill the prime moral imperative of economics - to pull your own weight - when robots are doing everything?  Do we just hit that wall at full speed and then figure it out?

Okay, so I hear this humans replaced with robots thing quite a bit. The fact is that robots can do some jobs, improve efficiency, but they still can't replace humans. To try to do so would be extremely cost prohibitive. Where I'm working now we make parts for Honda, GM, Chev, Tesla, etc. We downsized our milling department, not because of robots but because of model and design changes. Since then I've moved to the weld department, the line I'm on consists of three weld cells where we make Civic rear subframes. It takes 23 separate parts to make a subframe and three people to work the cells. You need humans to load each cell, one person loads cell 5 then another loads cells 10 and 15. Humans are required to load these weld jigs for a number of reasons, among them diagnosing and correcting faults and errors that occur frequently. Once loaded robot welders weld the child parts into incomplete sub sections. Once welded handler robots move these sub parts from the first cell to the jig in the next which is loaded prior to the part move. Finally at the end of the line the subframe emerges where an inspector/reworker both inspects and reworks the bad welds the robots have made. Every part made has bad welds that need to be corrected, not everyone can be a reworker and it takes time to train them, even longer for them to become good. So as you can see, even in a plant that makes extensive use of robots humans are still essential. In fact we're desperate for people, we just can't get enough for our requirements. In fact, if you guys know anyone who's looking for a good paying job with benefits, send em our way. we always need more people.

[Michael Hardner]

9 hours ago, AngusThermopyle said:

Okay, so I hear this humans replaced with robots thing quite a bit. The fact is that robots can do some jobs, improve efficiency, but they still can't replace humans.  

You have a point, but not in manufacturing and repetitive manual labour.  Those jobs will erode down to nothing eventually.  Driving jobs will also start to erode.  

The world will start to value what humans can do, and what robots can't: to be human.  Personal care, human interaction can't be replaced.  There will always be a person to greet you at a restaurant - the automat failed.

What this means is a giant shift, and transitory unemployment.  The basic income can be part of that shift but not in a vacuum as we still compete for labour on a world market.

[eyeball]

That gap will be a brutal time as the individual and ideological competition to justify ones existence in the economy heats up. Psychological issues surrounding self-esteem, i.e. depression, will sky-rocket.

In Canada, especially BC we will likely also be faced with political issues surrounding resource jobs as native people press for priority access on the basis of court rulings, see their fishing rights for example.

[Bonam]

18 minutes ago, eyeball said:

That gap will be a brutal time as the individual and ideological competition to justify ones existence in the economy heats up. Psychological issues surrounding self-esteem, i.e. depression, will sky-rocket.

The weak will perish. 

[Michael Hardner]

1 hour ago, Bonam said:

The weak will perish. 

They will sit at home and make $20K.

[eyeball]

8 hours ago, Bonam said:

The weak will perish. 

One can already see how centuries of demarcating a moral line between those who do and don't or can and can't carry their own weight will likely persist throughout much of the worst of the shift away from the prime imperative.  I suspect one of the things that will become most unbearable will be the snottiness and haughtiness of those with an occupation.

The weak will probably bury them in the end..or just before it.