The Colossal Mistake Made About Basic Income
By: Shelly Fagan
Tags: Unemployment, Elections, Jobs, Basic Income, Money

Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash

Don’t believe that only low-skilled, low-paying jobs will be automated.

Technological unemployment is coming for you. It is coming for everyone.

We would be wise to address the problem now when we have the luxury of time. While basic income may not solve the issue entirely, it would establish a framework to support displaced workers and allow them to develop the new skills required in the future.

We would do well to transition into a new system before the old one implodes and a Universal Basic Income (UBI) is a good start.

Artificial intelligence is in use all around us, and yet we still debate the failed proposal that the poor should bootstrap themselves into better circumstances. This call often comes from those not experiencing a lack of decent-paying work — not yet, at least. We ignore the reality that many of the jobs available to lower-skilled workers are quickly disappearing.

The ability for children to earn more than their parents has dropped over 40 percent since the 1940s, according to Harvard researchers. We fail to acknowledge this reality.

A New Class System

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As fewer jobs require humans to do them, employers are paying less to workers they do need. We are quickly moving to a new class system without so much as a whimper from labor or passing interest from politicians. Overworked, stressed, sick, and lacking hope, it is no wonder that few are championing this effort to establishing an alternative to technological unemployment.

Despite 41 million people living below the US poverty line, comprising 13 percent of the population, assistance programs are being demonized by the political right. It is a time-honored tradition among conservatives. They argue that regardless of one’s life situation, upbringing or intelligence, anyone can manage a full-time job and a college education.

“…people have a cognitive bias to assume that a person’s actions depend on what ‘kind’ of person that person is rather than on the social and environmental forces that influence the person. Saul McLeod

The middle class has been shuffled into the “Precariat”, the emerging social group defined by instability, an existence without security. It is a fitting portmanteau of precarious and proletariat.

As it now exists, the hierarchy is the Elites and Plutocrats at the top. Below them are is a class of the Salariat. These white-collar workers, and a demographic which is shrinking. Below them is the group known as the Precariat.

This is a new reality, yet few are discussing the realities of such a class system. Salariat, Elites, and Plutocrats argue they are doing fine, so it must be a moral failing — a character flaw — which makes some people poor. But as more and more Salariats move into the Precariat, the issue will be forced to the forefront.

Even the elites will not be immune to technological unemployment. It is a matter of time before it eats its way up to them.

[G]rowth of high-skill, high-wage occupations (those associated with abstract work) decelerated markedly in the 2000s, with no relative growth in the top two deciles of the occupational skill distribution during 1999 through 2007, and only a modest recovery between 2007 and 2012. David H. Autor

Basic Income Will Become the Issue Now or in a Dystopian Future

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Sheer numbers of struggling workers are going to drive the narrative. We can ignore it, or address it before it becomes a crisis. Some feel the future is already here.

To business, wages and benefits are simply overhead to be reduced or eliminated. They will not lead the discussion because they excel in such an environment. They have access to a growing pool of knowledgeable, trained — and often desperate — workers to fill positions.

According to Forbes, 29% of workers or 58 million people have an “alternate work arrangement” as their primary job.

Workers no longer compete for jobs. They fight among themselves for the opportunity to earn wages in a perverse system where employment has become a giffen good. The job market is becoming polarized.

The rise of untenable gig work like Uber, Lyft, Fiverr, Flexjobs and dozens more dangle the mere possibility of earning money while in reality often paying well below the federal minimum wage.

And this is legal.

Basic Income is More Than a Political Issue

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Opponents of a basic income rise from the extreme concentration of wealth in America. This inequality morphed into a concentration of power in our legal and political systems. Those who are benefiting from this disparity exploit workers and the poor for their own gain.

The system is corrupt where the ones tasked with oversight are those who are becoming enriched.

How can workers expect the members of Congress controlling some $2.43 billion — 20 percent more wealth than their predecessors — to address this inequality?

While we have the opportunity to change this through a grassroots political movement, real progress requires voters to acknowledge the reality of their situation. The Precariat must resist the avalanche of propaganda that tells them how the economy is thriving.

We Don’t Even Know the Effects

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Those in a position of power are so apathetic about this issue, we don’t have a grasp on the consequences of technological unemployment. Few are studying the long term effects of the issue.

Although there are indeed existing useful frameworks for examining the impact of computers on the occupational employment composition, they seem inadequate in explaining the impact of technological trends going beyond the computerization of routine tasks. The Future of Unemployment, Oxford

We either address this now, or we do so when more than 60 million Americans do not have jobs and the rest are living below the poverty line.

According to our estimates around 47 percent of total US employment is in the high risk category. We refer to these as jobs at risk –i.e. jobs we expect could be automated relatively soon, perhaps over the next decade or two. The Future of Unemployment, Oxford

While business ignores the problem, we are killing off the consumers. People are not disinterested in participating in the market, they have simply given up any hope of doing so.

Frightening, technological unemployment will target service occupation where most of the job growth has occurred. Other at-risk jobs include transportation and logistics, office and administrative support, and production occupations.

What survives? Jobs that require creativity and social intelligence — the very skills not supported by the job market today.

The only viable solution we have now is Basic Income. While it will not altogether solve the problem, it will help us transition into a more workable system.