When will we have a Basic Minimum Income?

[ohmman]

That's interesting, you may be right, are there any studied done in the US? I see a lot of differences between someone living in poverty in East Africa, and for example Detroit.

I've heard of the Uganda business plan initiative before, I think there was an exhibit about it in DC or something.... but that's slightly different than just giving money for nothing.

Also, this seems to be aimed at the very poor. What about the people on the cusp of poverty? The article itself states that it might not work. BMI would be universal (i.e. the top 1% as well as the bottom 1% would get it)

Overall, an interesting read, thanks.

I agree that the results may not generalize well to American communities, I only wanted to point out that it is a similar experiment that has real research behind it. And the results are counterintuitive, so our collective hand wringing could be misplaced.

I read one of the research reports done out of Princeton, and they did say that the payments had very little bleedover effect to the village at large. The results for the individual families were quite positive, but they made the same caveat that you did. It appears to be most effective in situations of abject poverty.

 

[McRat]

The information came from this website: California State Controller's Office: Controller's Data Websites Promote Government Transparency

It took quite awhile to find it. Good luck.

 

[Max*]

The information came from this website: California State Controller's Office: Controller's Data Websites Promote Government Transparency

It took quite awhile to find it. Good luck.

Now we're getting somewhere, though that's not a direct link to $93k.

"Government Compensation in California" links to the sites I linked before which state $63k.
"Government Financial Reports" links to something new, but it's for specific cities, not for all of CA. I can agree that specific cities have higher median government employee salaries than others, just like the cost of living is higher than other places. But that's not what you were arguing.

 

[ohmman]

Now we're getting somewhere, though that's not a direct link to $93k.

"Government Compensation in California" links to the sites I linked before which state $63k.
"Government Financial Reports" links to something new, but it's for specific cities, not for all of CA. I can agree that specific cities have higher median government employee salaries than others, just like the cost of living is higher than other places. But that's not what you were arguing.

From that site, the average city worker's wage in Norco is $20,349.

 

[McRat]

Whew. OK, as of January 2017, California State Controller's Office: State Employee Demographics says the average wages for the 225,899 state employees is:

$1,760,713,390 each month for 12 months=$93,531/yr per staffer, so it went up again

 

[McRat]

From that site, the average city worker's wage in Norco is $20,349.

Most are part-time and volunteers. Rural/Farm/Horse community. Not San Francisco. Our paths (sidewalks for you city-slickers) smell like manure, not wino urine like SF.

San Francisco is perhaps the worst example of civic engineering in North America. It makes Tijuana look organized. Go take pics of Toronto, Canada, then try again.

 

[Max*]

Whew. OK, as of January 2017, California State Controller's Office: State Employee Demographics says the average wages for the 225,899 state employees is:

$1,760,713,390 each month for 12 months=$93,531/yr per staffer, so it went up again

Thank you. I honestly do mean that, that's very informative.

I'm not sure what to make of these numbers compared to the other numbers on the CA website, but it's definitely something to think about.

 

[ohmman]

Most are part-time and volunteers. Rural/Farm/Horse community. Not San Francisco. Our paths (sidewalks for you city-slickers) smell like manure, not wino urine like SF.

San Francisco is perhaps the worst example of civic engineering in North America. It makes Tijuana look organized. Go take pics of Toronto, Canada, then try again.

I'm in the country, too. San Francisco makes me nervous.

 

[Max*]

Whew. OK, as of January 2017, California State Controller's Office: State Employee Demographics says the average wages for the 225,899 state employees is:

$1,760,713,390 each month for 12 months=$93,531/yr per staffer, so it went up again

OK, I have a better understanding of the math now. I'll leave my long run on comment here for others, as I don't think we'll agree on the final outcome, but I do give you credit for backing up your numbers.



The controllers office for employees gives just the aggregate numbers (sure, you did the average yourself of $93k). The problem with the average is that it includes all the heads of local governments who rake in $1M+/year. Which is why a median is usually better for things like this.


[I like to argue both sides ] If your counter argument is that the national average (not median) household salary according to the US Census is about $73k, so the CA average single person government employee is still higher.


Then it gets to the distribution of income of CA state employees vs. the US, is it the same? If so the average is valid. It's likely not, how much is that going to skew results? I don't have an answer, and neither do you. Also the US mean/median salaries includes people who live in poverty or below, which wouldn't be government employees. Or the top 0.00001%, which again, wouldn't be government employees.

In addition the state controllers office apparently doesn't have every state department report income to them. It's not required. So it doesn't encompass the true mean salary, just whatever subset is reported to them (would it change the outcome? maybe)


At first glance the $93k number is appalling, I completely understand your outrage. But digging a little deeper, it's not what the "typical" state employee would be paid.



This site has pretty good graphs of the true numbers, Los Angeles County, CA public employee salaries (2014) (you can change counties, I just looked at LA, which has a typical salary distribution) and San Francisco (which is paid pretty high) San Francisco, CA public employee salaries (2014). It also gives you statewide (the gray line) and as you can see the majority of people make about $50k. If I had the actual data, I'd run a median, but I can't find a way to export it.


And this whole convo got sidetracked, because I assumed you were bashing federal employees not CA state employees.

Back to discussions about the BMI.

 

[Max*]

Numbers don't lie, but you can use statistics to manipulate the results to skew people whichever way you're leaning.

 

[McRat]

I'm in the country, too. San Francisco makes me nervous.

Any city that contracted IHOP for their city freeways is certainly worthy of a nervous attitude.

(for those in Rio Linda, IHOP = International House Of Pancakes, the designers of the SF freeways)

Bay Area Freeway Collapse

 

[tomas]

I'll trade. You give the 'median' family income for California State employees per their household paycheck amounts and see if it's comparable.

An example, a rookie state policeman starts at $75k here and goes up 5% a year to $95k. This does not include bonuses, incentives, or overtime.

A rookie US Army policeman starts at $18k.

Please show sources.

 

[ohmman]

Please show sources.

Salary and Benefits - Officer

@McRat looks to be pretty close. Starts at $74,700 and peaks at $92,640.

 

[Max*]

Please show sources.

He's right, it is ~$75k, but that's state police. Local police in CA are paid less, I found the source linked below (also above by ohmman)

But again, your numbers are skewed, but at least they're right this time. So don't pull strawmen argument.

State police in CA:
Salary and Benefits - Officer

Non-state police, starts a lot lower
http://www1.salary.com/CA/police-officer-salary.html

 

[kort677]

He's right, it is ~$75k, but that's state police. Local police in CA are paid less, I found the source linked below (also above by ohmman)

you guys are looking at base salaries, now dig deeper go and look for how the base salaries get inflated.

 

[ohmman]

FWIW, I wouldn't do the job for $95k.

 

[Max*]

you guys are looking at base salaries, now dig deeper go and look for how the base salaries get inflated.

I understand that they get bonuses and benefits. Would you do the job for $75k? What about $95k/year? $150k/year? $250k/year?

If the state police thought they could get away by paying a newbie $45k/year, don't you think they would? Why put up more money than they need to, in order to get someone hired?
It's supply and demand. If they are being overwhelmed by qualified candidates, I bet they'd lower the salary. If they were being underwhelmed they'd have to raise the starting salary. $95k must have met their equilibrium point.

Now if you have evidence that the above paragraph is not the case, and the CA state police are overpaid because the hippies in CA (no offence to half the people in this thread) decided they need to pay their officers much more than a living salary, please post, and I may chance my mind.

 

[kort677]

I understand that they get bonuses and benefits.

the idea that government employees receiving bonuses is ludicrous. while you might not consider that line of work, many others would.

 

[Max*]

the idea that government employees receiving bonuses is ludicrous. while you might not consider that line of work, many others would.

Why is it ludicrous? (again, I'm basing this of my knowledge of federal government, not local government)

For someone in the higher GS ranks, their yearly bonus might be in the $1k-$3k category. How is that ludicrous?

Why wouldn't you want to thank your best service employees with a small token of appreciation?


What is ludicrous, is that after a year of service (end of probation period), it's nearly impossible to fire federal employees. And many managers prefer to just keep the ones who do nothing on board, because it's easier than going through TONS of red tape to TRY to fire them. You might fail, even after going through the red tape.

That's ludicrous. The bonuses? I don't see it as ludicrous. [unless state employees get 10x+ that?]

 

[tomas]

FWIW, I wouldn't do the job for $95k.

Really. Do we want to complain about police salaries? Are firemen next? My daughter's life saved by them. 4 firemen injured in the effort.