Studying a UBI pilot with an end date is not studying UBI at all: It is instead studying a misnamed temporary cash payment. By the nature of pilots, the cohort’

Studying a UBI pilot with an end date is not studying UBI at all: It is instead studying a misnamed temporary cash payment. By the nature of pilots, the cohort’s behavior cannot reliably change to depend on UBI’s long term existence. No study yet has guaranteed a cohort money forever, and even if it did it would be difficult for a pilot to study the long term effects, some of which may be generations out. What pilot can tell us answers to questions like: "What is it like for kids to grow up with parents who have never worked?"[1] Universal Basic Income projects also tend to fail hard at the Universal part. It’s hard to study how society would change if you are not piloting something that is intended to affect all of society. For the Finland study, the cohort doesn’t even scratch the "U", and somewhat contradicts itself: > During the experiment, a total of 2,000 unemployed persons between 25 and 58 years of age will receive a monthly payment of €560, unconditionally and without means testing. The experiment will run for two years. (quoting from: http://www.kela.fi/web/en/experimental-study-on-a-universal-basic-income http://www.kela.fi/web/en/experimental-study-on-a-universal-...) I've written my own long list of objections to UBI, here: https://medium.com/@simon.sarris/after-universal-basic-income-the-flood-217db9889c07 https://medium.com/@simon.sarris/after-universal-basic-incom... I think it's an important problem, but I'm totally flabbergasted at how much simplistic thinking the proponents are willing to gloss over. ~~~ [1] There answer is SSDI but don't look at it if you want to sleep at night. https://web.archive.org/web/20130420171159/http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2013/04/the_terrible_awful_truth_about_5.html https://web.archive.org/web/20130420171159/http://thelastpsy...