Ontario’s Bold Basic Income Experiment Creates High Expectations – May 08, 2018

You can read this article in full for yourself by click the link below:
https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2018/05/05/ontarios-basic-income-experiment-pilot-project_a_23425399/
Isn’t it great when you can spend other people’s money and write about the results as early as 1 year into the experiment. Personally I don’t have much of a problem with Basic Income, where I take issue is how it’s structured. this is where I’m bothered by it.

For three years, single participants will receive $16,989 annually and couples will receive $24,027. People making other income will see this amount reduced by 50 cents for every dollar earned. Participants with disabilities are eligible for another $6,000 per year.

Currently this program is incentivising people to be single, it’s also going to have to explain in concrete terms what it means to be a “Participant with a disability” the problem with running these entitlement experiments as pilots are that the participants themselves and how they’re qualified. If this Ontario Basic Income Experiment becomes the norm what’s going to happen first and foremost are people are going to do what governments like to complain about businesses. People will find loopholes to get more money or to beat the system.

There are already 2 loopholes in this Ontario Basic Income pilot that will be exploited if it ever becomes a reality. The first loophole is the loophole incentivising people to be single, a couple or to have children, the other loophole is disabilities. I’m all for the Ontario Basic Income but don’t incentivise any group and disabilities, if you’re going to incentivise people with disabilities, those disabilities should be physical disabilities only. You see this again is where things get ugly because what disability should be entitled to more than the other. That portion of this project bothers me a whole lot.

I’ve always been for a basic income, however I also believe that minimum wages should be eliminated to achieve it. If there exists a government regulation mechanism called minimum wages there will always be an excuse for unemployment. When there’s no minimum wages, there’s no excuse for being unemployed because essentially a person can do any job or start any business. What this would me is that it’s the fault of the free market why a person is underperforming. The creation of minimum wages prevents jobs from existing altogether and it also puts blame on the government for unemployment because the government is essentially saying that every person in their Province is entitled to a specified amount of money per hour.

That said the business owner has to make sure that for the day his/her sales must exceed the pay of the employee, whether or not the employee was productive or not. This doesn’t even include other expenses the employer must pay. Yes, I also didn’t include regulations employers must abide by to protect workers. It’s these hurdles why the expectations for a solution to the state of welfare are even needed. So with that said I understand the pilot, I simply disagree with the application, there should be no reason or reasons to incentivise people to be single, be a couple or have children. The problem with welfare today are the incentives, there are too many. I actually think a basic income would be ideal in an economy with no minimum wages.

Based on what I’ve read, the program whether a success or failure on the piloting stage will be an epic failure if put into practice. There are just too many loopholes, that I can already see that will be exploited if it’s ever implemented all over Ontario.

Interesting times ahead.