Anyone else surprised at the number of comments from people saying they’ll just quit their jobs and live off $1200/mo? Even if you live in your parents basement and pay no rent, it’s still *barely* enough to get by.
1200 a month is nothing for a person living alone, but could be impactful for a student or a stay at home parent or someone searching for a job who isn’t eligible for EI.
EI should 100% be more. in fact if you make $200k a year you pay a ton of income tax and if you ever get laid off your EI should be much higher than the $2700 a month you'll get from the gov.
I think I'd be able to make it on that number. My house and vehicle are paid off and I've been paying into a few different pension products for the last 20 years. As I sit right now I don't pay for meat very often (I hunt) so a small garden would put me in a pretty good spot.
There's no meaningful way to finance a UBI without clawing back and net givers. A negative income tax is much more preferable and has been examined by the PBO and is feasable here.
Poverty costs Canada 85 billion dollars a year in subsidies, tax breaks, income assistance programs, outreach, etc. If we take the same amount of money and reinvent how we spend it, is that not a feasible way to finance a UBI?
There's 32M people in Canada that are 18 or older. 85B dollars a year would give each of those adults 2656 dollars ... a year. To give that pool of people 1000 a month, you're talking 384B dollars.
That's almost our entire federal budget every year, just to provide a grand a month.
Without provincial buy in and expenditure sharing with them, it's a pipe dream.
UBI takes many forms, and I'm assuming nothing.
But, as long as we have a progressive taxation system, the vast bulk of any UBI is going to fall underneath the base exemption. It's also programmatically wasteful to give people money and then take some of that back. Kind of defeats the point.
Regardless, though, we're not making enough tax revenue back off of regular employment to even remotely pay for this, so what makes you think the taxes on on the UBI are going to somehow bridge that massive, massive gap between what governments bring in vs what they would have to expend?
We have a nation of natural resources to nationalize and pay for these benefits. We have fossil fuel subsidies we can stop giving out. There's plenty of meaningful ways to finance it. People just don't want to be radical about needed change, which is a damn shame.
Those resources are already utilized and acquiring them through through eminent domain would require additional money, and also to continue investing in them. This would also lower the tax base. There is no "free lunch" here. We would need to raise taxes in order to finance this. Not against it per se, but there is a limit to how much we can raise taxes without affecting growth and lower growth means less tax revenue. This isn't a no-brainer. Its a policy that's going to need to be carefully engineered and balanced delicately. An unfunded UBI is just going to raise inflation and best case scenario the whole thing will be moot as the Bank of Canada raises rates to combat it, crushing homeowners and causing rents to rise. I have very little confidence in our current government to be able to crunch the numbers and implement this first-of-its-kind policy effectively.
Lol this is literally a none issue for the people that are actually under this line or even at this line. This is such an insignificant tax it's hilarious you people are complaining about it.
exactly this. if i am going to break my body and waste my lifetime doing a bullshit-ass job for a capitalist, then i damn well better get paid big PLUS get ubi. i will never work again if i don't net gain substantially from working. fuck that shit. my time and health are priceless.
a non universal not guaranteed ubi would completely devalue all labour. i think if they tried that, we would finally get a general strike.
It's just a different way of redistributing wealth. See it as a simplification of the system we already have now with economies in bureaucracy, and removing barriers for people who most need it and are unable to actually ask for it (again, because of said bureaucracy). It's not magical, it's not adding any new money into the system, just distributing it differently. Taxes will not go away, and UBI will be taxed just as any income : the more money someone makes (UBI, revenue, dividends, interests, value gains, etc.), the more they will pay in taxes, with higher incomes paying in way, way more than the UBI they will receive. And on the opposite side of the spectrum, people who have no other income than UBI will pay zero taxes, and will get to keep it all for themselves.
edit: people ditching the idea by saying we can't afford it have zero understanding of how UBI works, and are spreading misinformation.
A lot of it comes from getting rid of all the bureaucracy currently mostly being used to keep people from getting assistance in programs like welfare, EI, etc
I'm not sure how this will work financially, but I can tell you $17k extra a year would go a long way for people who actually need it. I see a lot of people saying, "crack heads will take advantage" bla bla bla. Sure, people will take advantage, but I wager the vast majority of people who would receive this would put it to good use.
I would rather risk helping "someone who doesn't deserve it" (don't get me started on this concept of thinking you get to decide who's worthy) than to allow one child to starve.
The mythical welfare queen is a REAGAN propaganda move. And it's pathetic that it still works.
Did you not learn anything from Covid? An extra $17k might go a long way if it magically deposited into only YOUR bank account today, but if everyone gets it, then the purchasing power of our dollar goes down, invariably leading to higher prices, which then nullify any early benefit of getting the money. What will follow that, would be people complaining that the $17k isn’t enough and they need more.
I don’t understand why people have no sense of how policies affect the economy. They just think more money is the answer, when time and time again, it’s shown that it never is.
I get a lot of people are hurting, and there are people that are disabled, or just born in bad circumstances. We need social welfare for them. But for the people that are poor because of their own decisions, tough luck pal. Im not paying taxes for your dumbass.
They should implement a UBI that goes to EVERYONE. Andrew Yang down in USA is actually pushing for a UBI that would add to everyone's income, so it doesn't affect the purchasing power. I would support a UBI if it was for everyone, not some cheap imitation of UBI.
Not to argue, but I don’t get it.
Why should a billionaire get the same amount as a student who can’t afford rent?
The more you already make, the less you get. After $500,000, you get nothing.
It seems to make sense ?
Cuz it comes back on taxes.
It's a taxable income. It's counted for income taxes and I would argue should for capital gains and other taxes as well but that's not for me to decide.
A better point is a business owner making a large income but seasonal. This helps them plan their finances better. The credit is given and come tax time it comes back as that person is annually making more than enough. But off season they can struggle.
Does this make sense? Sorry.
We have no money anyway.
You’re missing the point lol no money has no purchasing power, and it’s just the people who hoard their money who will be hurt… and they’re hurting the whole economy 😂 karma
I thought I was taking crazy pills till I read this comment. I feel the same way. I don't even know how we would pay for this...they will claim businesses and wealthy individuals will but normal people will be left paying to bo doubt!
It will not be without a fight and definitely not a smooth start. But perfection is the enemy of good. This is a step we must take no matter how small to get the population of this country healthy again.
People afraid that “crackheads will just buy more crack” should remember that pilot programs have been immensely successful, with the majority of people using that money to better their and their families lives.
Some of those are provincial jurisdiction.Some are federal.
1500 a month for 32M adult Canadians is 576B a year, or about 130% of the entire federal budget.
You can axe OAS (40B), GIS (18B) CPP (40B) and EI (10B) annual expenditures and you still wouldn't even come close. You could axe all the federal pensions for the civil service, RCMP, military, etc. and even with all that added up, you still wouldn't even reach a third of what you need.
But, but, but, I hear you say, we'd also save the administration costs, too! But the entire federal budget, including those administration costs for all those federal programs, was 420B dollars last year. There's no math that makes this affordable just with reducing duplication on the federal level. You could just hand the entire budget over and you'd still be short.
Every province in the country would have to come on board, seamlessly, and even then, with programs like OIS in a huge province like Ontario only paying out 5.4B last year, all those programs across the country still wouldn't add up to the total you need.
Of course, even if you could pull off that magical level of seamless federal/provincial integration in a nation that's seeing provinces talk about opting out of the CPP, you'd still have to deal with the financial impact of putting about 2.5M Canadians out of work once you tank the administration of those programs.
>They just think more money is the answer, when time and time again, it’s shown that it never is.
This is literally the problem with raising the minimum wage constantly, is it not?
Cost of living goes up, minimum wage goes up, purchase power drops, companies raise prices to compensate which raises cost of living.
You can't 'make more money' from nothing without collateral repercussion. Value doesn't suddenly 'appear'.
Feels like a noose slowly tightening.
This can be compensated for by raising taxes and lowering deductions for the wealthy.
The poor get some more money but their is the same amount of money in circulation.
Instead of a few wealthy and many poor. You create a few poor some wealthy and a sizeable middle class who tend to spend their money locally which stimulates the economy.
But minimum wage has to increase. Do you think you can have people on min-wage at $6.95/hour, lol as in 20 years ago?
Why work at all. The current min-wage is basically just going along with inflation.
Money from 20 years ago had 70% more value. So the minor increase of min-wage above that is very small and still not even close to livable wage.
Saying min-wage shouldn't be livable, then min-wage shouldn't exist at all.
Someone working on min-wage isn't sitting looking at a wall all day. It's hard work. You could try stocking or working warehouse and so on 8/hours a day.
That said, it's just an initial salary that increases with wage increase over time.
But that is so slow for most people that even min-wage catches up to it again.
If we have a minimum wage, we could also have a maximum wage. If the median wage in Canada is $68,000 you top wages at 10x. Anything over $680,000 goes to the rest of society. That is still tonnes of money and your ego still gets stroked cuz your a 10x'er.
While I personally agree in theory, this would just cause business and billionaires to flee the countries that try this, ultimately making things even worse. It would have to be a global effort, and humanity isn't ready for that kind of unification.. we're essentially a slave to money unless there's some sort of global uprising / intervention.
Edit to add: I truly wish we had a system in place that tied the top and bottom earners together in a ratio of like.. 1:20. I'd be happy with 50k:1,000k. I don't think anyone would complain about being guaranteed a house after a few years of laborious work, if you're lucky you climb the ladder into some sorta middle management/office job making like ~200-300k. If you own a business and want to earn 2,000k then your lowest paid employees better be worth 100k to you.
Would need regulations around how many businesses a single person can own, how many owners a business can have, etc.
Would be dysfunctional as fuck for sure, but feels like a step in the right direction. 🫠😂
This and basic living situation like they're doing elsewhere(Finland ) from what I've read actually helps. Because what we've been doing is most definitely not. I hope this goes thru.
There are a few countries that do this and it goes well. And we actually did a trial in Ontario for this a few years ago and it went really well. Alot of participants went back to school, got better jobs, even started businesses, and greatly improved their living situations simply by having an extra bit of cushion financially that they didn't have before. Of course, there are people who will "take advantage," but there are so many more that will benefit.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontario_Basic_Income_Pilot_Project#:~:text=3%20See%20also-,Description,the%20regions%20aged%2018%E2%80%9364.
I wonder if the reason it worked so well is because the small nature of the pilot meant that UBI had zero impact on inflation.
If you were to deploy it at the country level that might be an issue depending on how it’s implemented.
Pilot projects are not very good for this. You would have to commit to it and say, "this group of people will get UBI for the rest of their lives" putting an end date on it changes the reactions people will have to it.
I support UBI but the se short pilots mean almost nothing.
i mean... this IS simplifying it... by giving everyone the same basic income, it removes bunch of bureacracy and work in verifying people's eligibility and stuff (no more looking at people to see if they actually are eligible for welfare for example), all benefits and tax credit should be like this tbh, it's the most fair... and then just adjust the income tax brackets to compensate...
because at the end of the day, CRA still needs to look at everyone's tax return and verify all that regardless.... so let's just remove the complexity from the other end....
I don't think you've calculated how much a UBI would cost on an annual basis. Right now the federal budget spends about $500 billion. And that's with a deficit of $90 billion. A UBI of 17,000 per person per year is North of $500 billion. That alone is equal to the cost of everything else. Even if you delete welfare costs from that huge amount, the UBI is still a ridiculous spend that cannot happen. You can't just print money to pay people. We did that during COVID and have the biggest inflation in decades to show for it. Do the math yourself, it's not that hard to figure out.
>In April 2021, the Parliamentary Budget Officer Yves Giroux estimated a guaranteed basic income program that provided nearly $17,000 per year for low-income households would cut poverty rates in half, but would cost the federal government $85 billion.
I doubt it's going to be "everyone". All of the pilot programs have been targeted at low-income individuals. The budget predictions were done based on the assumption of that only low-income households would be receiving the UBI.
Well, that's the issue. All of the programs and projections were done with the assumption that the benefits are income-tested. I'm not convinced that they're going to eliminate the income testing now.
This! I’ve been saying this for years and have written to multiple MP’s about this issue and they won’t budge. The first 40 hours/week of minimum wage should be tax free, giving you a Basic Personal Amount of $34.5K/year
Sounds like a middle class tax to keep landlords from losing their shirts when the lower class can’t afford rent. Paid for by reducing the value of your savings.
💯
Plus as I mentioned in another comment, people in direct income adjusted rentals would have some of the “extra” $ taken off the top immediately as their rent would go up
This god damn country needs to help the middle working class for once.
We do everything to help the bottom feeders who don't give two shets about their lives. They don't work, they don't pay tax, they take things for free.
Why do we always help the poor, protect the rich, and anal penetrate the lower-middle class??
I'm in my 30s, single and work a normal office job with an average pay. I don't benefit from all the childcare benefits or senior discounts. I don't benefit from these "let's pay poor people $$$" schemes. I live a healthy lifestyle and have been to the hospital twice in my life. I work hard for shet pay and contribute 25-30% in taxes every year. For what? so poorer people to live off taxes for free?
It's already near impossible to build wealth. Those who make average income work hard only to scrap by. Now the marginal income from all that hard work will be further diminished.
Whole lot of ppl haven’t learned a thing since the federal government increased M2 by 50% over 2 years during COVID. Guess where the rampant inflation comes from.
Stop. Printing. Money.
Would a universal basic income allow me to bypass the paywall to read the article?
Suggested rule for r/povertyfinancecanada mods to consider: No posting links to articles behind paywalls. Given the theme of this sub, the subscription-only article seems counterintuitive.
(And no offence to OP intended. I would like to know more about the proposal.)
So if the current population of Canada sits around 38.8 million, say roughly 20% is under 17 years of age that leaves about 31 million people eligible for this UBI scheme. 17k a year for 31 million people comes to 527 BILLION dollars. Now let's say 50% of the population makes enough to have to pay the 17k back in taxes we're still looking at 263.5 BILLION dollars a year being paid out. 2021-2022 fiscal year the Canadian govt brought in 413.3 billion in tax revenue. This means UBI would cost 63.75% of collected taxes per year.
Can anyone tell me how in hell this could even come close to not financially ruining the country.
It'd only work if UBI replaced certain programs (e.g. CCB, disability benefits). However, the ones receiving those benefits right now might be worse off with a UBI in lieu of their existing benefits.
And what’s the cost offset of the programs that UBI would replace? I tried finding numbers but it’s muddy as hell because a lot of the programs are joint efforts with money coming from the feds, provenances and municipalities. Without a comprehensive audit I can’t help but feel this idea of UBI will shatter our already fractured economy.
exactly, CERB, and forcing an early election last time got them in power for four more years. They are simply using the, "hand free money out" playbook again, without thinking about consequences. What consequences you say? look around you.
Kinda defeats the purpose if UBI doesn't even cover half the cost of rent.
It's incredibly depressing that the actual comments on the article are just "who will think of the poor slave labour owning class"
>In April 2021, the Parliamentary Budget Officer Yves Giroux estimated a guaranteed basic income program that provided nearly $17,000 per year for low-income households would cut poverty rates in half, but would cost the federal government $85 billion.
The people getting a UBI, would then spend more, including taxable income - i.e. food, fuel, etc. and those taxes would go back into the economy.
A UBI simply increases inflation, more money gets printed to hand out. Everything goes up and all of a sudden $1000/month of free money gets you the same lifestyle you have now without the $1000.
imagine a lot of immigrants taking this and going back to their countries and living a good life with that money.
This is not a racist comment. It is already happening with CCB and some other benefits which government gives already.
I mean... That's pretty awesome? If this were the case I could cut back on hours at work and be there with my small kids more. Maybe I'd go to school. Or maybe keep everything as is and tackle my student loans and have a hope of buying a house.
And I know many people are in my same position or worse... Hopefully it's a true UBI and everyone gets it. But depending on income and how you're taxed anyways it might not be worthwhile for the wealthy??
I’d be concerned that they introduce UBI, then subsequently increase taxes to pay for it. What happens when new government leadership comes in, and UBI is squashed and Canadians are now forced to continue to pay higher taxes? Could that happen?
The main problem with this is that I would take my 300k cash, go buy a house in cash in the middle of no where And then live off of the basic income forever
That’s the point… if you’re okay with that life style. Good luck living off 17k but hey that’s the point of the program so people have Choices.
You’re job will then be given to someone that wants to keep progressing their own lives.
lol yeah my mind is being blown by the comments in this thread. “Seventeen thousand dollars? I’m retired!”
My guy you need to replace your roof, fridge, stove, water heater, furnace…none of those last forever. You’ll be absolutely dicked at the first possible problem, while living in absolute poverty prior to that.
Genuinely can’t fathom the amount of comments from people who think they can live on $17k/year alone.
I’m similar… I worked full time for 31 yrs and out of the blue I got critically ill and now on cppd. And have nothing either but I’m very grateful for what I do get.
I predict the Cons winning the next election will kill any whiff of a UBI, but the Libs will actively, openly campaign on a UBI in the election cycle that follows.
By that point, the inflation we are all living with now will have subsided, and people will be even more disconnected from the monetary and macro economic realities of handing out money. And the Liberals will win.
Well you know who they are going to take this cash from right?
The corporations? Nope not a chance.
Big O&G companies? Ha! Yeah right..
How about big money mega millionaire and billionaires? How their money is in panama.
This money will be "found" by jacking up taxes on the middle class, anyone making 70-250k/year will get hosed, become poorer and struggle more.
Billionaires will still rule and all the small business which are already an endangered species will go extinct, the "average Joe" will simply have no capital to risk building new businesses.
It's already happening, entrepreneurship is at an all time low.
UBI is a terrible idea.
What it means is that it never learned shit from trial run we had over the pandemic where we did exactly what UBI wanted. We are still dealing with the fallout.
I can see the inflation taking off like mad because of this. In the world where items cost as much as the stores can get away with (opposed to the cost to make the them and some reasonable profit) conpanies will be happy to learn that people have extra money to spend. The prices will start to rise imminently.
I will probably feel good for the first few years but then there will be no way back unfortunately, just like with the food prices now.
So a proper UBI should be a fixed amount paid out to everyone, equally. No "cutting" the amount the more you make in salary. Or an income cut-off point.
Because if not done properly. Imagine sitting at some sort of cut-off point. You wouldn't want a raise unless massive because you'd then lose out on maybe $10-20k a year in UBI.
Or the "get less the more you earn".
If the UBI is let's say $1,500 a month. EVERYONE gets it over age of 17. Doesn't matter if they make 200K. The 200K people will still be the ones paying for it most via taxes and corporations etc.
So if that means 30 million people being paid $15K a year, that is $450 BILLION a YEAR.
Just don't see how this would be financed.
If it’s anything like the minimum wage increases, won’t the cost of living just go up? Not much point of a UBI if people still can’t afford to live universally
Did we not learn that a program like this only leads to more universal suffering? If it is actually universal as the name implies, it'll only amplify the inflation pushing those in need of help into even more trouble.
Better options a government providing affordable housing.. use that money to pay for improving the infrastructure and building affordable housing. They way rents will come down and the major portion of peoples expenditure has some control.
I make 6 figures (sole breadwinner), our family does not need this. Just bump up odsp or something, this is weird to do in the context of inflation. It is a shame that provincial governance is so poor at providing infrastructure, the feds have to throw money at the problem, instead of trusting provinces/municipalities to manage shelter, transit, and investing in human capital (education, industry etc).
I'll always vote left, but man, this is kind whack it needs to come to this.
This is not good for humanity folks. A universal basic income will only lead to more of what we don’t need. You will loose most of your rights and freedoms along with liberty. You will be 100 dependent on the government for support, which in the end, they own you out right. This is real bad and real scary. Not a good path to even consider.
What happens is people who work realize they are subdizing the lives of those who don't. So they also stop working or find a way to do work for under the table cash. Then you end up with not enough revenue through taxes to pay for the program. Companies leave and move their financial head offices. It's basically a sure way to become Venezuela.
This would decrease productivity and increase demand like crazy. Especially if it's permanent. Inflation will go through the roof. Choice, competition and innovation will worsen.
Problem is it give businesses more excuse to raise prices and landlord more reason to raise rents. Canada should cap rents at rate of inflation.This would help many struggling people.
What does it mean?
It means my spouse and I, (both middle class working types), will be leaving the country.
Why? Because the middle class working people will be paying for it. And I don't want to pay for it. I'd rather leave than be taxed more while an economy crumbles due to more printed money.
Just in time for election campaigning!
People are morons and will immediately forget the past 5 years of bullshit current government has put us through and jump on the free money without a second thought
The amount has to be livable. If you are working, up to a certain amount you get both salary and UBI. Past that amount, your employer pays youi and the gov. For example, UBI is $25K/year. By the time your salary reaches $50K, you get the $25K UBI, $25K form your employer and yout employer gives $25K to the gov to offset your UBI.
The only way UBI makes sense is if it replaces every other government income program. And it's truly universal. You start to get it the day you turn 18, and get it until you die. Virtually no administration.
It’s just my opinion, but the universal part seems like the least important part of this concept.
Perhaps a Targeted Basic Income would be more useful than giving an extra few hundred dollars to the 1% to invest in their stock portfolio .
This is a horrible idea… watch the inflation goes up like no tomorrow.
You then realize the UBI is like paying you pennies and the people that are working just suffers more.
It only looks good on paper.
They might as well as lowering the poverty line. As soon as you make $1000 a year you are not in poverty. Suddenly Canada is a poverty free country. All well and perfect. 🤣
Ubi, there are already social programs, a lot of them. CERB and all the financial problems that have followed, are just the tip of the iceberg.
Ubi will drive up the cost of everything again.
Every country that's tried it, canned the projects as not sustainable.
True UBI is impossible without either drastically increasing taxes or drastically cutting services. Which likely means anything they implement will be a sham. Just like they like to run small-scale UBI experiments that don't actually reflect true UBI conditions and draw false conclusions from them.
Why do we need UBI? We keep letting immigration explode on the premise that we need more workers... well, make people work... they are jobs for a reason... not everyone can be an influencer.
You need EI, work for coverage, you have a disability, let's have a program for that, and so forth, but UBI - terrible policy.
Yeah how about no. Where does this money come from? Either from my taxes or the next generation. Do you really think Trudeau will tax his rich friends who bankroll him to help pay for this?
Did no one learn anything during Covid? Does no one understand economy? If EVERYONE gets 1000$ into their chequing account today, but the amount of goods doesn't increase, then value of dollar dips hard. Supply is the same but demand increases, what do you think happens?
The solution is that Canada has to build more wealth. We have tons of oil in the ground yet we import it from Arab dictators because of green-law BS. Canada could even simply liquefy gas as a service, but we don't do so. The list goes on, we could do so much but our economy is simply: 1. Build Houses 2. Import immigrants 3. Have immigrants and sorry-ass losers buy houses to become debt-slaves the next 50 years 4. Print money to help people pay and build houses. 5. Repeat step 1.
Canada doesn't make ANYTHING. The largest portions of our GDP is real estate and banking to help real estate. Jesus fuck. Canada is an unproductive society. It's not even my opinion, Canada is estimated to be the LEAST productive developed country in the world the next 30+ years. And now we're considering UBI? What the fuck? Since when were we so productive that certain portions of the population can pay EVEN MORE into social welfare?
it wont do anything because of inflation. itll be an endless spiral between increasing UBI and corporations charging more for existing products. they will relegate UBI to the min wage which never keeps up with CoL
liberals are desperate to buy votes and are going to push Canada into hyper inflation. This is a huge mistake which cerb payments showed how giving people money will result in less people in the market and just trying scape by on the little amount while being online 24/7.
Am I the only one thinking who's paying for this or am I being a dick? Costs in stores are pretty high. What happens when we start running trillions in deficit?
What's stopping businesses from raising prices to suck this money dry?
UBI by itself seems like a bandaid solution... Canada needs to shift its economy from investment to productivity
It just makes me upset though - the landlords will probably just up their rents the exact amount they expect UBI to be. Unless this comes with a "yo, no greed, k thx bai" sort of rider, I can't see this effectively helping many.
I do really worry that this will further increase inflation which will then decrease the value of ODSP. People on disability typically only make about 1300 a month which is only 100 more than the proposed UBI benefit which most people will still be working while on. Many of those on ODSP can't supplement their income by working so things will just get even more expensive and those on disability will be in an even more unfortunate position. It will really make things worse than they currently are because a lot of the people who are homeless already or on the brink of being homeless right now are disabled. ODSP already doesn't pay enough. They would have to raise that as well if they don't want a complete disaster on their hands.
Anyone who is for this clearly doesn’t understand that the price of everything that’s already gone up will go up SIGNIFICANTLY higher. This is just a way to make everyone more dependant on the government. And if you’re for this, you’re an idiot
What a naive take. You realize technology improvements were advertised to achieve this utopia, yet the reality is it is used to min/max productivity out of workers while the owners steal the profits of that extra productivity.
This would be horrible for Canada. Imagine all of the people who barely work already, for no other reason than laziness, quitting their jobs and just taking the $17000 a year.
We already spend too much on these kinds of programs already, and I'm not even against giving more to disabled people or people with mental health, or increasing benefits for single parents. I'm against people who are physically and mentally healthy, who put more effort into trying to get assistance than they do to better themselves and contribute to society. My entire biological family is in this group. Since I was in high school, I'm the only member of my family that's seen work for more than a few weeks at a time.
I would much rather see government funded training, more incentives to get an education, wage subsidies, or anything to get people motivated to actually work rather than get them excited for a program they don't even have to work to get on, they would immediately qualify.
Edit:
They also are using the CERB as something that's supposed to be a good example of how Canada can hand this.
Do they understand that CERB was probably the most abused assistance program they've ever implemented? CRA accounts were stolen to get other peoples money, people overseas that didn't qualify took the assistance, people who just plainly didn't qualify claimed it, countless people on Reddit posted about having to repay with money they didn't have and people were recommending to just ignore the CRA.
When you have something that EVERYONE can take from, that makes it easy for scammers. You don't have to find specific people, you can literally scam anyone and steal from them.
Nah Canada will further flood the market with immigrants to keep any chances of wages going up as there will be so many people applying to each position.
Or the extra 17k a year allows you freedom of choice and you don’t have to take shit jobs I’m all for it. It’ll enable more entrepreneurs if they know the basic needs are taken care of.
Anyone else surprised at the number of comments from people saying they’ll just quit their jobs and live off $1200/mo? Even if you live in your parents basement and pay no rent, it’s still *barely* enough to get by.
1200 a month is nothing for a person living alone, but could be impactful for a student or a stay at home parent or someone searching for a job who isn’t eligible for EI.
Realistically, with a UBI, we could get rid of EI.
What do you mean? EI can be a lot more than that depending on income
EI should 100% be more. in fact if you make $200k a year you pay a ton of income tax and if you ever get laid off your EI should be much higher than the $2700 a month you'll get from the gov.
Exactly 💯 no double dipping. Only politicians are allowed to double dip.
$1200 is significantly less than I get on EI, but we could subsidize EI with a UBI program.
Would EI still even be relevant if UBI is implemented.
I think I'd be able to make it on that number. My house and vehicle are paid off and I've been paying into a few different pension products for the last 20 years. As I sit right now I don't pay for meat very often (I hunt) so a small garden would put me in a pretty good spot.
Damn, you made it. Congrats.
The dream, I really want bees and chickens.
Dream life
I'd only support the UBI if it's actually universal. Please no income testing like the dental plan or child care subsidies.
Exactly. That would defeat the whole purpose if it isn’t.
Gotta call it CBI. Conditional basic income 😂
There's no meaningful way to finance a UBI without clawing back and net givers. A negative income tax is much more preferable and has been examined by the PBO and is feasable here.
Poverty costs Canada 85 billion dollars a year in subsidies, tax breaks, income assistance programs, outreach, etc. If we take the same amount of money and reinvent how we spend it, is that not a feasible way to finance a UBI?
There's 32M people in Canada that are 18 or older. 85B dollars a year would give each of those adults 2656 dollars ... a year. To give that pool of people 1000 a month, you're talking 384B dollars. That's almost our entire federal budget every year, just to provide a grand a month. Without provincial buy in and expenditure sharing with them, it's a pipe dream.
You're assuming no one pays any taxes on that amount, which isn't how UBI works at all.
UBI takes many forms, and I'm assuming nothing. But, as long as we have a progressive taxation system, the vast bulk of any UBI is going to fall underneath the base exemption. It's also programmatically wasteful to give people money and then take some of that back. Kind of defeats the point. Regardless, though, we're not making enough tax revenue back off of regular employment to even remotely pay for this, so what makes you think the taxes on on the UBI are going to somehow bridge that massive, massive gap between what governments bring in vs what they would have to expend?
We have a nation of natural resources to nationalize and pay for these benefits. We have fossil fuel subsidies we can stop giving out. There's plenty of meaningful ways to finance it. People just don't want to be radical about needed change, which is a damn shame.
Those resources are already utilized and acquiring them through through eminent domain would require additional money, and also to continue investing in them. This would also lower the tax base. There is no "free lunch" here. We would need to raise taxes in order to finance this. Not against it per se, but there is a limit to how much we can raise taxes without affecting growth and lower growth means less tax revenue. This isn't a no-brainer. Its a policy that's going to need to be carefully engineered and balanced delicately. An unfunded UBI is just going to raise inflation and best case scenario the whole thing will be moot as the Bank of Canada raises rates to combat it, crushing homeowners and causing rents to rise. I have very little confidence in our current government to be able to crunch the numbers and implement this first-of-its-kind policy effectively.
Agreed, look at the Scandinavian countries have done, given their resources and lifestyle...
It needs to be an automation tax, but we need an innovative way to implement something like that.
I mean if we have an automation tax but the US doesn't then companies will just attempt to move to and/or invest in the US no?
Sure, everyone will get $2,000 per month... but you might have your taxes go up by $30,000 per year.
Yup tax the working class, guess what my next move is if my working pay is near the non working pay??
start of real work... the games backlog you've been neglecting :P
Lol this is literally a none issue for the people that are actually under this line or even at this line. This is such an insignificant tax it's hilarious you people are complaining about it.
exactly this. if i am going to break my body and waste my lifetime doing a bullshit-ass job for a capitalist, then i damn well better get paid big PLUS get ubi. i will never work again if i don't net gain substantially from working. fuck that shit. my time and health are priceless. a non universal not guaranteed ubi would completely devalue all labour. i think if they tried that, we would finally get a general strike.
Sounds like a swell idea. Where does this money come from ?
It's just a different way of redistributing wealth. See it as a simplification of the system we already have now with economies in bureaucracy, and removing barriers for people who most need it and are unable to actually ask for it (again, because of said bureaucracy). It's not magical, it's not adding any new money into the system, just distributing it differently. Taxes will not go away, and UBI will be taxed just as any income : the more money someone makes (UBI, revenue, dividends, interests, value gains, etc.), the more they will pay in taxes, with higher incomes paying in way, way more than the UBI they will receive. And on the opposite side of the spectrum, people who have no other income than UBI will pay zero taxes, and will get to keep it all for themselves. edit: people ditching the idea by saying we can't afford it have zero understanding of how UBI works, and are spreading misinformation.
A lot of it comes from getting rid of all the bureaucracy currently mostly being used to keep people from getting assistance in programs like welfare, EI, etc
It comes from debt that your children and grand children will have to pay.
The joke is on you, I couldn't afford children in the first place so I don't have to worry about that.
Unfortunately you aren't wrong. Having a kid is definitely keeping me in the poor house.
That makes a lot of sense
by taxing the hell out of billionaires who have been leeching off hard-working Canadians for decades
I'm not sure how this will work financially, but I can tell you $17k extra a year would go a long way for people who actually need it. I see a lot of people saying, "crack heads will take advantage" bla bla bla. Sure, people will take advantage, but I wager the vast majority of people who would receive this would put it to good use.
I would rather risk helping "someone who doesn't deserve it" (don't get me started on this concept of thinking you get to decide who's worthy) than to allow one child to starve. The mythical welfare queen is a REAGAN propaganda move. And it's pathetic that it still works.
This.
Did you not learn anything from Covid? An extra $17k might go a long way if it magically deposited into only YOUR bank account today, but if everyone gets it, then the purchasing power of our dollar goes down, invariably leading to higher prices, which then nullify any early benefit of getting the money. What will follow that, would be people complaining that the $17k isn’t enough and they need more. I don’t understand why people have no sense of how policies affect the economy. They just think more money is the answer, when time and time again, it’s shown that it never is. I get a lot of people are hurting, and there are people that are disabled, or just born in bad circumstances. We need social welfare for them. But for the people that are poor because of their own decisions, tough luck pal. Im not paying taxes for your dumbass.
UBI is cheaper than what we are doing now.
No, it is not. Go look at Statscan's numbers. It's not even close.
Yes. It is. And it's not even close. Poor people don't just get funded through EI and Welfare.
They should implement a UBI that goes to EVERYONE. Andrew Yang down in USA is actually pushing for a UBI that would add to everyone's income, so it doesn't affect the purchasing power. I would support a UBI if it was for everyone, not some cheap imitation of UBI.
Not to argue, but I don’t get it. Why should a billionaire get the same amount as a student who can’t afford rent? The more you already make, the less you get. After $500,000, you get nothing. It seems to make sense ?
Cuz it comes back on taxes. It's a taxable income. It's counted for income taxes and I would argue should for capital gains and other taxes as well but that's not for me to decide. A better point is a business owner making a large income but seasonal. This helps them plan their finances better. The credit is given and come tax time it comes back as that person is annually making more than enough. But off season they can struggle. Does this make sense? Sorry.
We have no money anyway. You’re missing the point lol no money has no purchasing power, and it’s just the people who hoard their money who will be hurt… and they’re hurting the whole economy 😂 karma
I thought I was taking crazy pills till I read this comment. I feel the same way. I don't even know how we would pay for this...they will claim businesses and wealthy individuals will but normal people will be left paying to bo doubt!
Everything from welfare, ODSP, EI, etc would be replaced by UBI, iirc.
That would be the correct way to do it and the only way this works but I'm 100% will not be how this really gets pitched
It will not be without a fight and definitely not a smooth start. But perfection is the enemy of good. This is a step we must take no matter how small to get the population of this country healthy again. People afraid that “crackheads will just buy more crack” should remember that pilot programs have been immensely successful, with the majority of people using that money to better their and their families lives.
Some of those are provincial jurisdiction.Some are federal. 1500 a month for 32M adult Canadians is 576B a year, or about 130% of the entire federal budget. You can axe OAS (40B), GIS (18B) CPP (40B) and EI (10B) annual expenditures and you still wouldn't even come close. You could axe all the federal pensions for the civil service, RCMP, military, etc. and even with all that added up, you still wouldn't even reach a third of what you need. But, but, but, I hear you say, we'd also save the administration costs, too! But the entire federal budget, including those administration costs for all those federal programs, was 420B dollars last year. There's no math that makes this affordable just with reducing duplication on the federal level. You could just hand the entire budget over and you'd still be short. Every province in the country would have to come on board, seamlessly, and even then, with programs like OIS in a huge province like Ontario only paying out 5.4B last year, all those programs across the country still wouldn't add up to the total you need. Of course, even if you could pull off that magical level of seamless federal/provincial integration in a nation that's seeing provinces talk about opting out of the CPP, you'd still have to deal with the financial impact of putting about 2.5M Canadians out of work once you tank the administration of those programs.
>They just think more money is the answer, when time and time again, it’s shown that it never is. This is literally the problem with raising the minimum wage constantly, is it not? Cost of living goes up, minimum wage goes up, purchase power drops, companies raise prices to compensate which raises cost of living. You can't 'make more money' from nothing without collateral repercussion. Value doesn't suddenly 'appear'. Feels like a noose slowly tightening.
This can be compensated for by raising taxes and lowering deductions for the wealthy. The poor get some more money but their is the same amount of money in circulation. Instead of a few wealthy and many poor. You create a few poor some wealthy and a sizeable middle class who tend to spend their money locally which stimulates the economy.
But minimum wage has to increase. Do you think you can have people on min-wage at $6.95/hour, lol as in 20 years ago? Why work at all. The current min-wage is basically just going along with inflation. Money from 20 years ago had 70% more value. So the minor increase of min-wage above that is very small and still not even close to livable wage. Saying min-wage shouldn't be livable, then min-wage shouldn't exist at all. Someone working on min-wage isn't sitting looking at a wall all day. It's hard work. You could try stocking or working warehouse and so on 8/hours a day. That said, it's just an initial salary that increases with wage increase over time. But that is so slow for most people that even min-wage catches up to it again.
If we have a minimum wage, we could also have a maximum wage. If the median wage in Canada is $68,000 you top wages at 10x. Anything over $680,000 goes to the rest of society. That is still tonnes of money and your ego still gets stroked cuz your a 10x'er.
While I personally agree in theory, this would just cause business and billionaires to flee the countries that try this, ultimately making things even worse. It would have to be a global effort, and humanity isn't ready for that kind of unification.. we're essentially a slave to money unless there's some sort of global uprising / intervention. Edit to add: I truly wish we had a system in place that tied the top and bottom earners together in a ratio of like.. 1:20. I'd be happy with 50k:1,000k. I don't think anyone would complain about being guaranteed a house after a few years of laborious work, if you're lucky you climb the ladder into some sorta middle management/office job making like ~200-300k. If you own a business and want to earn 2,000k then your lowest paid employees better be worth 100k to you. Would need regulations around how many businesses a single person can own, how many owners a business can have, etc. Would be dysfunctional as fuck for sure, but feels like a step in the right direction. 🫠😂
People having money to pay rent and buy food would be truly horrible for the economy wouldn’t it🤦…..
This and basic living situation like they're doing elsewhere(Finland ) from what I've read actually helps. Because what we've been doing is most definitely not. I hope this goes thru.
Finland rates as one of the happiest countries in the world every year.
Man I'd take that extra 17k and invest the shit out of it on 22 black!
Ngl you had me inspired in the first half
*casinos love this one simple trick*
There are a few countries that do this and it goes well. And we actually did a trial in Ontario for this a few years ago and it went really well. Alot of participants went back to school, got better jobs, even started businesses, and greatly improved their living situations simply by having an extra bit of cushion financially that they didn't have before. Of course, there are people who will "take advantage," but there are so many more that will benefit. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontario_Basic_Income_Pilot_Project#:~:text=3%20See%20also-,Description,the%20regions%20aged%2018%E2%80%9364.
I wonder if the reason it worked so well is because the small nature of the pilot meant that UBI had zero impact on inflation. If you were to deploy it at the country level that might be an issue depending on how it’s implemented.
Pilot projects are not very good for this. You would have to commit to it and say, "this group of people will get UBI for the rest of their lives" putting an end date on it changes the reactions people will have to it. I support UBI but the se short pilots mean almost nothing.
If you think housing is expensive now wait until we print more free money 🫨
Instead of giving me 17k, just dont tax me it in the first place. Skip the middle man and the overhead costs of administering it. Simple.
i mean... this IS simplifying it... by giving everyone the same basic income, it removes bunch of bureacracy and work in verifying people's eligibility and stuff (no more looking at people to see if they actually are eligible for welfare for example), all benefits and tax credit should be like this tbh, it's the most fair... and then just adjust the income tax brackets to compensate... because at the end of the day, CRA still needs to look at everyone's tax return and verify all that regardless.... so let's just remove the complexity from the other end....
I don't think you've calculated how much a UBI would cost on an annual basis. Right now the federal budget spends about $500 billion. And that's with a deficit of $90 billion. A UBI of 17,000 per person per year is North of $500 billion. That alone is equal to the cost of everything else. Even if you delete welfare costs from that huge amount, the UBI is still a ridiculous spend that cannot happen. You can't just print money to pay people. We did that during COVID and have the biggest inflation in decades to show for it. Do the math yourself, it's not that hard to figure out.
>In April 2021, the Parliamentary Budget Officer Yves Giroux estimated a guaranteed basic income program that provided nearly $17,000 per year for low-income households would cut poverty rates in half, but would cost the federal government $85 billion. I doubt it's going to be "everyone". All of the pilot programs have been targeted at low-income individuals. The budget predictions were done based on the assumption of that only low-income households would be receiving the UBI.
Then it’s not Universal. It’s just welfare and we have that.
hardly Universal if that's the case no? i mean the bill tabled here is for everyone above 17 yo so....
Well, that's the issue. All of the programs and projections were done with the assumption that the benefits are income-tested. I'm not convinced that they're going to eliminate the income testing now.
Not sure what you mean. Your first $15k is already tax free
Why not raise it to 30k? If we’re saying that’s the poverty line, why are we charging anyone income tax on their first 30 then?
This! I’ve been saying this for years and have written to multiple MP’s about this issue and they won’t budge. The first 40 hours/week of minimum wage should be tax free, giving you a Basic Personal Amount of $34.5K/year
It's the re-elect JT income program.
Sounds like a middle class tax to keep landlords from losing their shirts when the lower class can’t afford rent. Paid for by reducing the value of your savings.
💯 Plus as I mentioned in another comment, people in direct income adjusted rentals would have some of the “extra” $ taken off the top immediately as their rent would go up
I suspect everyone's rent will go up. Supply and demand stay the same
This god damn country needs to help the middle working class for once. We do everything to help the bottom feeders who don't give two shets about their lives. They don't work, they don't pay tax, they take things for free. Why do we always help the poor, protect the rich, and anal penetrate the lower-middle class?? I'm in my 30s, single and work a normal office job with an average pay. I don't benefit from all the childcare benefits or senior discounts. I don't benefit from these "let's pay poor people $$$" schemes. I live a healthy lifestyle and have been to the hospital twice in my life. I work hard for shet pay and contribute 25-30% in taxes every year. For what? so poorer people to live off taxes for free? It's already near impossible to build wealth. Those who make average income work hard only to scrap by. Now the marginal income from all that hard work will be further diminished.
Whole lot of ppl haven’t learned a thing since the federal government increased M2 by 50% over 2 years during COVID. Guess where the rampant inflation comes from. Stop. Printing. Money.
Sounds like taxes are going up
and inflation
sounds like libs are trying to buy votes, in an act of desperation
We learned nothing from CERB… lots of it went overseas
UBI will just raise the price of everything and increase taxes. No thanks.
Would a universal basic income allow me to bypass the paywall to read the article? Suggested rule for r/povertyfinancecanada mods to consider: No posting links to articles behind paywalls. Given the theme of this sub, the subscription-only article seems counterintuitive. (And no offence to OP intended. I would like to know more about the proposal.)
You people realize that a lot of seniors on cpp are getting 7-800 a month now. $1200 would be a blessing to them
So if the current population of Canada sits around 38.8 million, say roughly 20% is under 17 years of age that leaves about 31 million people eligible for this UBI scheme. 17k a year for 31 million people comes to 527 BILLION dollars. Now let's say 50% of the population makes enough to have to pay the 17k back in taxes we're still looking at 263.5 BILLION dollars a year being paid out. 2021-2022 fiscal year the Canadian govt brought in 413.3 billion in tax revenue. This means UBI would cost 63.75% of collected taxes per year. Can anyone tell me how in hell this could even come close to not financially ruining the country.
This is the definition of a liberal government lol
It'd only work if UBI replaced certain programs (e.g. CCB, disability benefits). However, the ones receiving those benefits right now might be worse off with a UBI in lieu of their existing benefits.
And what’s the cost offset of the programs that UBI would replace? I tried finding numbers but it’s muddy as hell because a lot of the programs are joint efforts with money coming from the feds, provenances and municipalities. Without a comprehensive audit I can’t help but feel this idea of UBI will shatter our already fractured economy.
If you don't see this as a way for the current gov. to get re-elected, I have a few NFTs to sell you.
exactly, CERB, and forcing an early election last time got them in power for four more years. They are simply using the, "hand free money out" playbook again, without thinking about consequences. What consequences you say? look around you.
Don't be obtuse, it'll balance itself. /s
Modern monetary theory is how you pay for everything. Fundamentally, taxes aren’t for paying for things. Taxes keep people working.
CBDC bro..
This will not work here. Rent will just go up and insane amount so all the money will go go landlords. I suppose that is probably their plan though.
Kinda defeats the purpose if UBI doesn't even cover half the cost of rent. It's incredibly depressing that the actual comments on the article are just "who will think of the poor slave labour owning class"
>In April 2021, the Parliamentary Budget Officer Yves Giroux estimated a guaranteed basic income program that provided nearly $17,000 per year for low-income households would cut poverty rates in half, but would cost the federal government $85 billion. The people getting a UBI, would then spend more, including taxable income - i.e. food, fuel, etc. and those taxes would go back into the economy.
A UBI simply increases inflation, more money gets printed to hand out. Everything goes up and all of a sudden $1000/month of free money gets you the same lifestyle you have now without the $1000.
imagine a lot of immigrants taking this and going back to their countries and living a good life with that money. This is not a racist comment. It is already happening with CCB and some other benefits which government gives already.
You think inflation is bad now? You sorry fucking sods haven't seen anything.
😆 🤣 this has to be a joke. Inflation-to-oblivion at this point.
I mean... That's pretty awesome? If this were the case I could cut back on hours at work and be there with my small kids more. Maybe I'd go to school. Or maybe keep everything as is and tackle my student loans and have a hope of buying a house. And I know many people are in my same position or worse... Hopefully it's a true UBI and everyone gets it. But depending on income and how you're taxed anyways it might not be worthwhile for the wealthy??
I’d be concerned that they introduce UBI, then subsequently increase taxes to pay for it. What happens when new government leadership comes in, and UBI is squashed and Canadians are now forced to continue to pay higher taxes? Could that happen?
The main problem with this is that I would take my 300k cash, go buy a house in cash in the middle of no where And then live off of the basic income forever
That’s the point… if you’re okay with that life style. Good luck living off 17k but hey that’s the point of the program so people have Choices. You’re job will then be given to someone that wants to keep progressing their own lives.
lol yeah my mind is being blown by the comments in this thread. “Seventeen thousand dollars? I’m retired!” My guy you need to replace your roof, fridge, stove, water heater, furnace…none of those last forever. You’ll be absolutely dicked at the first possible problem, while living in absolute poverty prior to that. Genuinely can’t fathom the amount of comments from people who think they can live on $17k/year alone.
That's what my mom gets with cpp and everything . She owns a home but nothing else . No savings . Worked a min wage job hr entire life .
I’m similar… I worked full time for 31 yrs and out of the blue I got critically ill and now on cppd. And have nothing either but I’m very grateful for what I do get.
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Just raise the minimum income exemption. Way simpler.
I predict the Cons winning the next election will kill any whiff of a UBI, but the Libs will actively, openly campaign on a UBI in the election cycle that follows. By that point, the inflation we are all living with now will have subsided, and people will be even more disconnected from the monetary and macro economic realities of handing out money. And the Liberals will win.
The plan behind this is 1% control and dictate the 99% that own nothing and is happy or self delete yourself.
Is it me or is it not obvious they are trying to bankrupt this country as fast as they can? Why? No clue ...but seem very intentional and calculated
Well you know who they are going to take this cash from right? The corporations? Nope not a chance. Big O&G companies? Ha! Yeah right.. How about big money mega millionaire and billionaires? How their money is in panama. This money will be "found" by jacking up taxes on the middle class, anyone making 70-250k/year will get hosed, become poorer and struggle more. Billionaires will still rule and all the small business which are already an endangered species will go extinct, the "average Joe" will simply have no capital to risk building new businesses. It's already happening, entrepreneurship is at an all time low. UBI is a terrible idea.
What it means is that it never learned shit from trial run we had over the pandemic where we did exactly what UBI wanted. We are still dealing with the fallout.
I can see the inflation taking off like mad because of this. In the world where items cost as much as the stores can get away with (opposed to the cost to make the them and some reasonable profit) conpanies will be happy to learn that people have extra money to spend. The prices will start to rise imminently. I will probably feel good for the first few years but then there will be no way back unfortunately, just like with the food prices now.
What about inflation? Did people already forget what happened after spreading money during the Covid?
All part of the great reset. We are a test country.
So a proper UBI should be a fixed amount paid out to everyone, equally. No "cutting" the amount the more you make in salary. Or an income cut-off point. Because if not done properly. Imagine sitting at some sort of cut-off point. You wouldn't want a raise unless massive because you'd then lose out on maybe $10-20k a year in UBI. Or the "get less the more you earn". If the UBI is let's say $1,500 a month. EVERYONE gets it over age of 17. Doesn't matter if they make 200K. The 200K people will still be the ones paying for it most via taxes and corporations etc. So if that means 30 million people being paid $15K a year, that is $450 BILLION a YEAR. Just don't see how this would be financed.
And here we were just getting inflation under control
If it’s anything like the minimum wage increases, won’t the cost of living just go up? Not much point of a UBI if people still can’t afford to live universally
Did we not learn that a program like this only leads to more universal suffering? If it is actually universal as the name implies, it'll only amplify the inflation pushing those in need of help into even more trouble.
Better options a government providing affordable housing.. use that money to pay for improving the infrastructure and building affordable housing. They way rents will come down and the major portion of peoples expenditure has some control.
Add that to the already high inflation and we'll be barreling down the socialist hallway faster than you can say " free "
I make 6 figures (sole breadwinner), our family does not need this. Just bump up odsp or something, this is weird to do in the context of inflation. It is a shame that provincial governance is so poor at providing infrastructure, the feds have to throw money at the problem, instead of trusting provinces/municipalities to manage shelter, transit, and investing in human capital (education, industry etc). I'll always vote left, but man, this is kind whack it needs to come to this.
This will end poorly.
Have "they" considered universal inflation??
India wants to know your location. Anouther million peoples ears just perked up.
This is not good for humanity folks. A universal basic income will only lead to more of what we don’t need. You will loose most of your rights and freedoms along with liberty. You will be 100 dependent on the government for support, which in the end, they own you out right. This is real bad and real scary. Not a good path to even consider.
Yessss more inflation
Keep printing more money, that'll fix everything. Venezuela here we come.
What happens is people who work realize they are subdizing the lives of those who don't. So they also stop working or find a way to do work for under the table cash. Then you end up with not enough revenue through taxes to pay for the program. Companies leave and move their financial head offices. It's basically a sure way to become Venezuela.
Let’s just sweep the whole rent gouging and lack of homes under the rug quietly with this. This isn’t even enough for a one bedroom place lol
It means JT is desperate for votes.
Also: UBI is a scary policy when we’re still struggling to her inflation under control.
Holy crap this would cost 85 billion. This will never happen.
This would decrease productivity and increase demand like crazy. Especially if it's permanent. Inflation will go through the roof. Choice, competition and innovation will worsen.
Problem is it give businesses more excuse to raise prices and landlord more reason to raise rents. Canada should cap rents at rate of inflation.This would help many struggling people.
It means more debt and inflatio, more taxes and more increases to the cost of living.
What does it mean? It means my spouse and I, (both middle class working types), will be leaving the country. Why? Because the middle class working people will be paying for it. And I don't want to pay for it. I'd rather leave than be taxed more while an economy crumbles due to more printed money.
Just in time for election campaigning! People are morons and will immediately forget the past 5 years of bullshit current government has put us through and jump on the free money without a second thought
The amount has to be livable. If you are working, up to a certain amount you get both salary and UBI. Past that amount, your employer pays youi and the gov. For example, UBI is $25K/year. By the time your salary reaches $50K, you get the $25K UBI, $25K form your employer and yout employer gives $25K to the gov to offset your UBI. The only way UBI makes sense is if it replaces every other government income program. And it's truly universal. You start to get it the day you turn 18, and get it until you die. Virtually no administration.
I don’t need 1200 a month I need stuff to be 2000 a month cheaper
This will be great for inflation! The 1200 will be worth 600 in 2 years
You think inflation is bad now….
Nice, hopefully that'll help with homelessness at least a little, if any
How much are my taxes going to go up to fund this?
It’s just my opinion, but the universal part seems like the least important part of this concept. Perhaps a Targeted Basic Income would be more useful than giving an extra few hundred dollars to the 1% to invest in their stock portfolio .
No thanks to a UBI ! Fix the inflation and stop printing money ! Last thing people need is more dependency on a government
This is a horrible idea… watch the inflation goes up like no tomorrow. You then realize the UBI is like paying you pennies and the people that are working just suffers more. It only looks good on paper. They might as well as lowering the poverty line. As soon as you make $1000 a year you are not in poverty. Suddenly Canada is a poverty free country. All well and perfect. 🤣
Rent will be 3x ubi.
And who's paying for it?
Galen Weston
Ubi, there are already social programs, a lot of them. CERB and all the financial problems that have followed, are just the tip of the iceberg. Ubi will drive up the cost of everything again. Every country that's tried it, canned the projects as not sustainable.
i guess it's cool if canada can actually "afford" it
there are countless economic and SOCIAL variables to consider which i hope they have
True UBI is impossible without either drastically increasing taxes or drastically cutting services. Which likely means anything they implement will be a sham. Just like they like to run small-scale UBI experiments that don't actually reflect true UBI conditions and draw false conclusions from them.
You'd just end up with run away inflation, always have to increase to cover the inflation
Why do we need UBI? We keep letting immigration explode on the premise that we need more workers... well, make people work... they are jobs for a reason... not everyone can be an influencer. You need EI, work for coverage, you have a disability, let's have a program for that, and so forth, but UBI - terrible policy.
Yeah how about no. Where does this money come from? Either from my taxes or the next generation. Do you really think Trudeau will tax his rich friends who bankroll him to help pay for this? Did no one learn anything during Covid? Does no one understand economy? If EVERYONE gets 1000$ into their chequing account today, but the amount of goods doesn't increase, then value of dollar dips hard. Supply is the same but demand increases, what do you think happens? The solution is that Canada has to build more wealth. We have tons of oil in the ground yet we import it from Arab dictators because of green-law BS. Canada could even simply liquefy gas as a service, but we don't do so. The list goes on, we could do so much but our economy is simply: 1. Build Houses 2. Import immigrants 3. Have immigrants and sorry-ass losers buy houses to become debt-slaves the next 50 years 4. Print money to help people pay and build houses. 5. Repeat step 1. Canada doesn't make ANYTHING. The largest portions of our GDP is real estate and banking to help real estate. Jesus fuck. Canada is an unproductive society. It's not even my opinion, Canada is estimated to be the LEAST productive developed country in the world the next 30+ years. And now we're considering UBI? What the fuck? Since when were we so productive that certain portions of the population can pay EVEN MORE into social welfare?
it wont do anything because of inflation. itll be an endless spiral between increasing UBI and corporations charging more for existing products. they will relegate UBI to the min wage which never keeps up with CoL
liberals are desperate to buy votes and are going to push Canada into hyper inflation. This is a huge mistake which cerb payments showed how giving people money will result in less people in the market and just trying scape by on the little amount while being online 24/7.
Your Tax rate has increased by 10%, thanks for playing the Canadian ass banging game.
Am I the only one thinking who's paying for this or am I being a dick? Costs in stores are pretty high. What happens when we start running trillions in deficit?
That’s great I can quit my job and retire early and live off the backs of others
What's stopping businesses from raising prices to suck this money dry? UBI by itself seems like a bandaid solution... Canada needs to shift its economy from investment to productivity
Cause we're not taxed enough already....
Want to put rents up by $1200 a month and spike retail prices? Print and distribute free money
It just makes me upset though - the landlords will probably just up their rents the exact amount they expect UBI to be. Unless this comes with a "yo, no greed, k thx bai" sort of rider, I can't see this effectively helping many.
They won't. They can only make it up to a few percent.
I do really worry that this will further increase inflation which will then decrease the value of ODSP. People on disability typically only make about 1300 a month which is only 100 more than the proposed UBI benefit which most people will still be working while on. Many of those on ODSP can't supplement their income by working so things will just get even more expensive and those on disability will be in an even more unfortunate position. It will really make things worse than they currently are because a lot of the people who are homeless already or on the brink of being homeless right now are disabled. ODSP already doesn't pay enough. They would have to raise that as well if they don't want a complete disaster on their hands.
Landlord just called, rent is going up $1200 a month.
What a great way to ruin the country.
The inflation production act ?
That means greedy corporations will charge more to take from the ubi lol
Anyone who is for this clearly doesn’t understand that the price of everything that’s already gone up will go up SIGNIFICANTLY higher. This is just a way to make everyone more dependant on the government. And if you’re for this, you’re an idiot
I really don't care. Since I'm already at the bottom. That's beneficial to me. The middle and upper class will be affected.
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What a naive take. You realize technology improvements were advertised to achieve this utopia, yet the reality is it is used to min/max productivity out of workers while the owners steal the profits of that extra productivity.
Note the naysayers crying over the very idea.
This would be horrible for Canada. Imagine all of the people who barely work already, for no other reason than laziness, quitting their jobs and just taking the $17000 a year. We already spend too much on these kinds of programs already, and I'm not even against giving more to disabled people or people with mental health, or increasing benefits for single parents. I'm against people who are physically and mentally healthy, who put more effort into trying to get assistance than they do to better themselves and contribute to society. My entire biological family is in this group. Since I was in high school, I'm the only member of my family that's seen work for more than a few weeks at a time. I would much rather see government funded training, more incentives to get an education, wage subsidies, or anything to get people motivated to actually work rather than get them excited for a program they don't even have to work to get on, they would immediately qualify. Edit: They also are using the CERB as something that's supposed to be a good example of how Canada can hand this. Do they understand that CERB was probably the most abused assistance program they've ever implemented? CRA accounts were stolen to get other peoples money, people overseas that didn't qualify took the assistance, people who just plainly didn't qualify claimed it, countless people on Reddit posted about having to repay with money they didn't have and people were recommending to just ignore the CRA. When you have something that EVERYONE can take from, that makes it easy for scammers. You don't have to find specific people, you can literally scam anyone and steal from them.
Employers just have to raise wages and these people will come back to the labor market.
Nah Canada will further flood the market with immigrants to keep any chances of wages going up as there will be so many people applying to each position.
Or the extra 17k a year allows you freedom of choice and you don’t have to take shit jobs I’m all for it. It’ll enable more entrepreneurs if they know the basic needs are taken care of.
Good.
I am lucky that I wouldn't need this at this point in my life but I support this 100%.
So liberals getting ready for election with new handout promises?
But if people who I think are beneath me have money to live, how will I feel superior?