Bear with me: virtually no one in the United States actually starves, and only a very small number lack a roof over their head or other "necessities."
Your definition of necessities is, I believe, narrower than the BLS. Consumer goods is probably a better term in retrospect. When you redistribute wealth from savers to spenders (as a BI is purported to do), you are increasing demand for consumer goods.
No one is materially satisfied at the basic income level, which my gut says should be $10k-$12k...No one is materially satisfied at the basic income level...(At some point most people do value time over money, but that's well above the minimum income level.)
This is simply incorrect. Most Americans below the poverty line already choose time over money.
I don't propose that basic jobs necessarily involve real, economically valuable work. I expect basic jobs to cost the government money.
The point is that it's cheaper than a BI, for two reasons. First, only a small subset of the population will even take the basic job - perhaps 10-50 million people. The rest will find jobs in the market economy paying more than $7.25/hour. Second, you gain some economic output from them - a low skill worker might be worth only $3/hour, and you pay him $7.25, so the loss is $4.25/hour rather than $7.25/hour. This would actually save the government money in some cases if the basic job worker replaces a unionized government worker making $20/hour.
Incidentally, the Basic Job program has been tried. FDR did it. We got a national park system out of it, among other benefits.
Your definition of necessities is, I believe, narrower than the BLS. Consumer goods is probably a better term in retrospect. When you redistribute wealth from savers to spenders (as a BI is purported to do), you are increasing demand for consumer goods.
No one is materially satisfied at the basic income level, which my gut says should be $10k-$12k...No one is materially satisfied at the basic income level...(At some point most people do value time over money, but that's well above the minimum income level.)
This is simply incorrect. Most Americans below the poverty line already choose time over money.
http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpswp2011.pdf
I don't propose that basic jobs necessarily involve real, economically valuable work. I expect basic jobs to cost the government money.
The point is that it's cheaper than a BI, for two reasons. First, only a small subset of the population will even take the basic job - perhaps 10-50 million people. The rest will find jobs in the market economy paying more than $7.25/hour. Second, you gain some economic output from them - a low skill worker might be worth only $3/hour, and you pay him $7.25, so the loss is $4.25/hour rather than $7.25/hour. This would actually save the government money in some cases if the basic job worker replaces a unionized government worker making $20/hour.
Incidentally, the Basic Job program has been tried. FDR did it. We got a national park system out of it, among other benefits.