Guaranteed minimum income, robots taking human jobs and financing early retirement

Guaranteed minimum income (GMI) also called minimum income, is a system of social welfare provision that guarantees that all citizens or families have an income sufficient to live on, provided they meet certain conditions. Eligibility is typically determined by citizenship, a means test and either availability for the labour market or a willingness to perform community services. The primary goal of a guaranteed minimum income is to combat poverty. If citizenship is the only requirement, the system turns into a universal basic income.

Guaranteed minimum income is usually a repackaging of communism. Attempts to create communism or strong socialism have had failed implementations.

There has long been concerns that technological change will cause unemployment. However there is an expectation that greater than human AI (or superior to human robotics) would be developed which would then be feared to cause a final complete unemployment for all people.

This develop would then be used as a justification for universal basic income.

The world has $223 trillion in global wealth. So let us look at confiscating and redistributing all wealth.

Equal distribution of all of the worlds wealth would give each person $31,000 in assets.
If people were able to get 5% return would provide people with $1550 per person per year. Normally you need to only take about 2% of assets in order to leave some growth in the principle and to overcome inflation. This would leave $600 per person per year. This does not seem to be enough.

North America is in the best shape with about $150,000 of assets per person. Using the 2% drawdown would provide $3000 per person per year.

If we took a step back and just made all agricultural production and redistributed real estate and wiped away personal debt. This would involve a redistribution of perhaps 10-30% of each national economy.

People would have virtually free food and housing. There could also be some level of provided energy and other goods.

It would seem to work out better to use the hypothetical advanced robotic production that makes people unemployed and provide a level of universal basic goods and services for directly providing people with

* food to eat
* housing
* medical care
* transportation
* energy
* education

This could be done in the most efficient way possible with new massive online open source education used to provide education.

Robotics systems could produce massive greenhouses and robotic chefs could efficiently provide super high quality food.

If we are made unemployed by super productive robots then an abundance could easily be provided for every person. Then it would be a matter of people trying to figure out how to fulfill themselves by doing things beyond basic needs.

Countries by Unemployment rate

Wikipedia has a list of unemployment rates by country

Note- Greece and Spain have 27% unemployment.

Youth unemployment is 58% in Greece and 55% in Spain.

Underemployment and discouraged workers who are not looking for work can add about 5-20% to the unemployed numbers (usually about 5-8%).

The US has different unemployment measures (the official number is the U3)

Gallup has an undermployment survey

Normal elements of minimum income

A system of guaranteed minimum income can consist of several elements, most notably:

* a minimum wage, either set by law or resulting from negotiations of employers or their organizations with trade unions;
* a calculation of the social minimum, usually below the minimum wage;
* a safety net, to help citizens or families without sufficient financial means survive at the social minimum. This may be a transfer or, in some cases, a loan, and is generally conditional to availability for work, performance of community services, some kind of social contract, or commitment to a reintegration trajectory;
* child support by the state;
* Student loan and grants;
* state pension for the elderly.

Food Stamps

Food stamps are used by about 47 million people in the USA in 2012. Amounts paid to program beneficiaries rose from $28.6 billion in 2005 to $74.6 billion in 2012. As of September 2012, 47.7 million Americans were receiving on average $134.29 per month in food assistance.

If you liked this article, please give it a quick review on ycombinator or StumbleUpon. Thanks