4 ms·

I think it's hard for these experiments to yield answers to important questions about basic income because of the fact that participants know it is an experimen

by _rpd 11y ago

I think it's hard for these experiments to yield answers to important questions about basic income because of the fact that participants know it is an experiment. With a 2 year length, people aren't going to adjust their long term plans regarding the expectation of how much they will have to work. The extra cash is just a windfall. Reaction to a long term political commitment will be different - once people trust that the basic income will "always be there." Similarly, some local landlords and businesses may raise prices to soak up the extra disposable income, but they know that their actions will be scrutinized and publicized. Is 2 years of marginal extra profit worth the loss of good will? Again, I think the answer is different once there is a long term political commitment. The answer to this last question is important, because it likely leads to the basic income being adjusted for price inflation, and then an inflationary spiral or price controls. To me, this is the central problem with basic income (I think the "motivation to work" issue is a red herring), and I don't see how basic income experiments can shed light on it.

Retric 11y ago
A huge benefit to BI in the long term is it allows people to move to cheaper areas. Subsidized housing on the other hand creates lot's of perverse incentives. So, ideally you don't want to adjust for regional cost of living. Remember, if a store in NYC can't find anyone willing to work at X$/hour they must raise wages and prices. This sends really important signals up and down the economy.
- ci5er 11y ago
  > A huge benefit to BI in the long term is it allows people to move to cheaper areas. And do what? Abide? One thing that people want to test is whether this would disincentivize work. People choosing to move to where there may well be no jobs sounds as if it is disincentivizing work.
  - gozur88 11y ago
    >And do what? Abide? Why not? Not everyone is ambitious. Heck, I doubt more than about 25% of any generation would work if they didn't have to. It's one thing to be pulling down $100+/hr in a rewarding job building the digital future, but if you're working a fry vat you're gonna quit the first time the boss pisses you off.
    - mbrock 11y ago
      Unless you want any money beyond a basic standard of living to save up for travel, furniture, drinks, or whatever you want. If there's a job with a better boss, the basic income will help you transition, though.
      - gozur88 11y ago
        Sure. I just think there are a whole lot of people who will be perfectly happy spending all day smoking pot and playing CoD. Assuming they eventually get tired of that lifestyle, it's still hard to imagine a 30 year old guy who's done his own thing for fifteen years actually getting up and going to work every day.
  - eli_gottlieb 11y ago
    Who says that there's no useful work to be done in jobless areas? "Jobless" just means there's no work in the area that makes a profit for a private capitalist.
    - ci5er 11y ago
      That's provisionally very interesting. Can you give me an example of what you are talking about?
      - _rpd 11y ago
        Wikipedia and open source software are often used as examples.
        ci5er 11y ago
        I realize that the thread of the conversation risks becoming a bit meander-ey through multiple authors, but if I follow the line of reasoning... So far, we seem to be positing that: with some sort of UBI, people can move to more remote or less costly locales and do things that aren't valuable enough to be paid for by evil capitalists, but are valuable enough for them to ... satisfy whatever psychological need they may have to tell themselves that they are useful or worthwhile human beings? Gosh, IDK, that's a thin stretch. I think that if society needs a UBI as a better (more effective and/or efficient) form of social safety net, we will need to convince people that it's OK if 25% or more of the entire adult population is really doing nothing more with their lives than consuming air/food/water and watching Jerry Springer. By which I mean - it might still be the best safety net scheme we can come up with to get us to/through an age of automation, but we'd best not try to sell it on the idea that it will lead to a flowering of the a new age of the human spirit or some such. Rather, it's just a social safety net that doesn't disincentivize any particular incremental unit of work at the margin. Policy-wise, that may be good enough to make it worthwhile.
        eli_gottlieb 11y ago
        I'd actually typed out an elaborate reply, but HN told me not to post that fast. The thing about both poor and rural locations is... they don't have the public funding or private companies for a lot of stuff we take for granted in rich urban cores. Stuff like: * Medical clinics * Firefighting * Policing * Maintenance on buildings * Broadband internet infrastructure * Plumbing and sewage infrastructure * Electrical infrastructure * Roads and bridges It's not so much that UBI would end up paying the rural poor to satisfy their psychological need to feel useful, as it would send them money they can spend on pressing material needs that the rest of society have decided don't deserve to be filled if it doesn't benefit "evil capitalists". I mean, come on, do you really want to object that rural electrification or sewage should starve for lack of funding? Because that's what's already happening with the lack of infrastructure funding in many places. Hell, there's a lot of rich urban areas which have let their basic infrastructure go to crap (looking at you, MBTA!) due to immature political slap-fights. If UBI means that people have money to spend, which they can pump through their local economy, which generates a little bit more tax revenue to improve crumbling infrastructure and address basic needs, then it's a good idea. (Sure, we could spend the same state money on direct infrastructure spending, but that would be industrial policy, and thus horrific, evil Communism.)
  - skybrian 11y ago
    There are other possibilities. Maybe they'd still work, but at a lower paying job than they'd be willing to take before. Or perhaps a couple might get by on one income. An income with no strings attached increases freedom. It's not easy to predict what people will do with it, but if you believe that people can generally make sensible choices, they're likely better off than before.
  - Retric 11y ago
    Some people scrape by making 12.50$ / hour in LA/NYC/etc. BI would enable them to have a higher standard of living making 7.50$/hour somewhere else. This creates upward wage pressure in LA, but some people still leave LA which is good for traffic, and rents etc. Instead, we subsidize housing in LA this creates a perverse downward wage pressure, distorts the housing market, etc. Further, when people move to low cost of living there brining this BI income which creates jobs in that area, increases property values etc. There are also hidden advantages. People get away with more crap in low population areas, because you have lower impact on other people.
- jsweojtj 11y ago
  I completely agree that regional adjustments should not be made. A single and uniform monetary amount should be given to all. Otherwise a runaway effect is bound to happen. The places people most want to live (say Hawaii), are more expensive-- if you get to live there AND get more $$ to do it, you will get more people there. Of course then, it gets even more expensive and so on.
scarmig 11y ago
It's still a worthwhile endeavor, though: an experiment doesn't have to answer all possible questions about a subject in order to provide value. Right now there are some huge basic unknowns about a basic income. For instance, one prediction is that everyone who receives a basic income will drop out of the working population (not a view I'm ascribing to you, to be clear, but not a straw man either--it's something I've seen explicitly stated here on HN and elsewhere). This experiment will give a rough estimate of the sign and magnitude of any disemployment effect: will it cause some people to drop out of the work force? Or everyone? Or will it cause people to join the workforce? Seeing how people react to basic incomes offered over different time spans is going to be important, but before the shape of that curve can be characterized (in what's ultimately an empirical question) we've got to get at least some basic information. Before Newton could come up with a solid theory about gravitation, he had access to plenty of information; but as far as a basic income goes, right now it's like we don't know whether gravity pushes or pulls. And your point about inflation is my biggest area of concern about the basic income as well, but focusing on second order price level effects when people are still in dispute about the basic first order effects is putting the cart before the horse.
- FreakyT 11y ago
  > This experiment will give a rough estimate of the sign and magnitude of any disemployment effect: will it cause some people to drop out of the work force? Or everyone? Or will it cause people to join the workforce? I think the parent's comment is mainly asserting that, because of its experimental nature, the experiment will not be able to actually answer that question. If participants do not drastically alter their work behavior like in previous basic income experiments such as MINCOME[1], that would not necessarily predict how people would act if given a promise of indefinite basic income. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MINCOME https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MINCOME
  - _rpd 11y ago
    Yes, exactly. Instead of "Economic Perturbations Caused By Basic Income," the experiment will study "Economic Perturbations Caused By Mass Local Windfalls." In my mind, the psychological, sociological and economic responses are very different, and the main result of the experiment will be that supporters and opponents will use different sets of assumptions to map the results to a genuine Basic Income scenario, yielding much heat and little light.
gozur88 11y ago
>Reaction to a long term political commitment will be different - once people trust that the basic income will "always be there." That might take a generation or two. I don't think I'd ever allow myself to be in a position of depending on an income stream that itself depended on the whims of legislators and their ability to budget. But I can see someone who grew up never knowing life without a basic income scheme might make the assumption he didn't have to worry about developing and maintaining a career.

by _rpd 11y ago

Retric 11y ago

A huge benefit to BI in the long term is it allows people to move to cheaper areas. Subsidized housing on the other hand creates lot's of perverse incentives. So, ideally you don't want to adjust for regional cost of living. Remember, if a store in NYC can't find anyone willing to work at X$/hour they must raise wages and prices. This sends really important signals up and down the economy.

ci5er 11y ago
> A huge benefit to BI in the long term is it allows people to move to cheaper areas. And do what? Abide? One thing that people want to test is whether this would disincentivize work. People choosing to move to where there may well be no jobs sounds as if it is disincentivizing work.
- gozur88 11y ago
  >And do what? Abide? Why not? Not everyone is ambitious. Heck, I doubt more than about 25% of any generation would work if they didn't have to. It's one thing to be pulling down $100+/hr in a rewarding job building the digital future, but if you're working a fry vat you're gonna quit the first time the boss pisses you off.
  - mbrock 11y ago
    Unless you want any money beyond a basic standard of living to save up for travel, furniture, drinks, or whatever you want. If there's a job with a better boss, the basic income will help you transition, though.
    - gozur88 11y ago
      Sure. I just think there are a whole lot of people who will be perfectly happy spending all day smoking pot and playing CoD. Assuming they eventually get tired of that lifestyle, it's still hard to imagine a 30 year old guy who's done his own thing for fifteen years actually getting up and going to work every day.
- eli_gottlieb 11y ago
  Who says that there's no useful work to be done in jobless areas? "Jobless" just means there's no work in the area that makes a profit for a private capitalist.
  - ci5er 11y ago
    That's provisionally very interesting. Can you give me an example of what you are talking about?
    - _rpd 11y ago
      Wikipedia and open source software are often used as examples.
      - ci5er 11y ago
        I realize that the thread of the conversation risks becoming a bit meander-ey through multiple authors, but if I follow the line of reasoning... So far, we seem to be positing that: with some sort of UBI, people can move to more remote or less costly locales and do things that aren't valuable enough to be paid for by evil capitalists, but are valuable enough for them to ... satisfy whatever psychological need they may have to tell themselves that they are useful or worthwhile human beings? Gosh, IDK, that's a thin stretch. I think that if society needs a UBI as a better (more effective and/or efficient) form of social safety net, we will need to convince people that it's OK if 25% or more of the entire adult population is really doing nothing more with their lives than consuming air/food/water and watching Jerry Springer. By which I mean - it might still be the best safety net scheme we can come up with to get us to/through an age of automation, but we'd best not try to sell it on the idea that it will lead to a flowering of the a new age of the human spirit or some such. Rather, it's just a social safety net that doesn't disincentivize any particular incremental unit of work at the margin. Policy-wise, that may be good enough to make it worthwhile.
        eli_gottlieb 11y ago
        I'd actually typed out an elaborate reply, but HN told me not to post that fast. The thing about both poor and rural locations is... they don't have the public funding or private companies for a lot of stuff we take for granted in rich urban cores. Stuff like: * Medical clinics * Firefighting * Policing * Maintenance on buildings * Broadband internet infrastructure * Plumbing and sewage infrastructure * Electrical infrastructure * Roads and bridges It's not so much that UBI would end up paying the rural poor to satisfy their psychological need to feel useful, as it would send them money they can spend on pressing material needs that the rest of society have decided don't deserve to be filled if it doesn't benefit "evil capitalists". I mean, come on, do you really want to object that rural electrification or sewage should starve for lack of funding? Because that's what's already happening with the lack of infrastructure funding in many places. Hell, there's a lot of rich urban areas which have let their basic infrastructure go to crap (looking at you, MBTA!) due to immature political slap-fights. If UBI means that people have money to spend, which they can pump through their local economy, which generates a little bit more tax revenue to improve crumbling infrastructure and address basic needs, then it's a good idea. (Sure, we could spend the same state money on direct infrastructure spending, but that would be industrial policy, and thus horrific, evil Communism.)
- skybrian 11y ago
  There are other possibilities. Maybe they'd still work, but at a lower paying job than they'd be willing to take before. Or perhaps a couple might get by on one income. An income with no strings attached increases freedom. It's not easy to predict what people will do with it, but if you believe that people can generally make sensible choices, they're likely better off than before.
- Retric 11y ago
  Some people scrape by making 12.50$ / hour in LA/NYC/etc. BI would enable them to have a higher standard of living making 7.50$/hour somewhere else. This creates upward wage pressure in LA, but some people still leave LA which is good for traffic, and rents etc. Instead, we subsidize housing in LA this creates a perverse downward wage pressure, distorts the housing market, etc. Further, when people move to low cost of living there brining this BI income which creates jobs in that area, increases property values etc. There are also hidden advantages. People get away with more crap in low population areas, because you have lower impact on other people.
jsweojtj 11y ago
I completely agree that regional adjustments should not be made. A single and uniform monetary amount should be given to all. Otherwise a runaway effect is bound to happen. The places people most want to live (say Hawaii), are more expensive-- if you get to live there AND get more $$ to do it, you will get more people there. Of course then, it gets even more expensive and so on.

scarmig 11y ago

It's still a worthwhile endeavor, though: an experiment doesn't have to answer all possible questions about a subject in order to provide value. Right now there are some huge basic unknowns about a basic income. For instance, one prediction is that everyone who receives a basic income will drop out of the working population (not a view I'm ascribing to you, to be clear, but not a straw man either--it's something I've seen explicitly stated here on HN and elsewhere). This experiment will give a rough estimate of the sign and magnitude of any disemployment effect: will it cause some people to drop out of the work force? Or everyone? Or will it cause people to join the workforce? Seeing how people react to basic incomes offered over different time spans is going to be important, but before the shape of that curve can be characterized (in what's ultimately an empirical question) we've got to get at least some basic information. Before Newton could come up with a solid theory about gravitation, he had access to plenty of information; but as far as a basic income goes, right now it's like we don't know whether gravity pushes or pulls. And your point about inflation is my biggest area of concern about the basic income as well, but focusing on second order price level effects when people are still in dispute about the basic first order effects is putting the cart before the horse.

FreakyT 11y ago
> This experiment will give a rough estimate of the sign and magnitude of any disemployment effect: will it cause some people to drop out of the work force? Or everyone? Or will it cause people to join the workforce? I think the parent's comment is mainly asserting that, because of its experimental nature, the experiment will not be able to actually answer that question. If participants do not drastically alter their work behavior like in previous basic income experiments such as MINCOME[1], that would not necessarily predict how people would act if given a promise of indefinite basic income. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MINCOME https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MINCOME
- _rpd 11y ago
  Yes, exactly. Instead of "Economic Perturbations Caused By Basic Income," the experiment will study "Economic Perturbations Caused By Mass Local Windfalls." In my mind, the psychological, sociological and economic responses are very different, and the main result of the experiment will be that supporters and opponents will use different sets of assumptions to map the results to a genuine Basic Income scenario, yielding much heat and little light.

gozur88 11y ago

>Reaction to a long term political commitment will be different - once people trust that the basic income will "always be there." That might take a generation or two. I don't think I'd ever allow myself to be in a position of depending on an income stream that itself depended on the whims of legislators and their ability to budget. But I can see someone who grew up never knowing life without a basic income scheme might make the assumption he didn't have to worry about developing and maintaining a career.