3 ms·

Did they not have an identical cohort serving as a control to compare employment rates at the end of the trial?

by yasp 8y ago

java-man 8y ago
no they did not.
- contrast 8y ago
  Yes they did, according to the article: “Mr Simanainen says that while some individuals found work, they were no more likely to do so than a control group of people who weren't given the money.” Note this means the headline is the opposite of the truth. And the quote is not to be found in the article. It’s how the author/editor chose to interpret a single individual’s statement, despite the overall finding being very different.
- fuckyah 8y ago
  wrong
- java-man 8y ago
  quote: Included in the random sampling were all individuals between ages 25 and 58 whom Kela paid labour market subsidy or basic unemployment allowance in November 2016 for some other reason than a temporary layoff. Random sampling means that all who satisfied the requirements for inclusion in the experiment had an equal probability of being selected into the study population. so the group who received the subsidy was already skewed by a previous selection process. I don't see any mention of a control group in the experiment web site: [0] https://www.kela.fi/web/en/basic-income-objectives-and-implementation https://www.kela.fi/web/en/basic-income-objectives-and-imple...
gyaniv 8y ago
The did. and the result showed that their employment chances were 'no more likely to do so than a control group of people who weren't given the money.' What they didn't do (although some wanted them to), is also check the system on already employed people and checked if that changed their likelihood of staying in a bad job/finding a better job or anything like that. Because that's the real idea behind basic income. not just giving it to the unemployed, but to everyone, with the hope that it would encourage people to find jobs better suited to them, and to allow people to take bigger risks.
- jerf 8y ago
  Increasingly I feel like all my philosophical problems with UBI are irrelevant in the face of the fact that apparently UBI is too expensive to even do a proper small-scale trial. If we can't afford that, we even moreso can't afford simply leaping to full scale. (And one thing these trial do seem to show is that giving it out, and then removing it, is at least modestly disruptive.)
  - awakeasleep 8y ago
    I think most people struggle to understand how plastic money is in the context of a government that runs its own presses. Everything is affordable in that situation. In a smaller country, if you do nothing else to manage it, it increases inflation. In a 'reserver currency' country that inflation is spread out across the globe. And that isn't even addressing things like how the USA could reinstitute the wealth and income taxes of the 40's, or charge market (rather than fire sale) rates for national resources (drilling on fed land, grazing on fed land), airwaves, or alter how we grant monopolies (patents) and many other untapped flows of public wealth to private entities.
  - manicdee 8y ago
    The Finland trial replaced existing unemployment insurance with a no-conditions payment of about the same value. No extra expense, in fact it would have been cheaper to administer since there was no compliance paperwork to process and police.
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    > UBI is too expensive to even do a proper small-scale trial. UBI isn't too expensive to do small-scale trial, it's entire theory of operation (and the key criticisms raised, like the inflation-spiral one) is too dependent on universality and coordination with other policy changes to do a meaningful small-scale trial, as you can neither validate the claimed benefits nor refute the claimed drawbacks that way. You can do a gradual ramp of benefits trial, but not a limited sample of population in an otherwise open environment with pre-existing policies generally applicable.

Did they not have an identical cohort serving as a control to compare employment rates at the end of the trial?

by yasp 8y ago

Did they not have an identical cohort serving as a control to compare employment rates at the end of the trial?

java-man 8y ago

no they did not.

contrast 8y ago
Yes they did, according to the article: “Mr Simanainen says that while some individuals found work, they were no more likely to do so than a control group of people who weren't given the money.” Note this means the headline is the opposite of the truth. And the quote is not to be found in the article. It’s how the author/editor chose to interpret a single individual’s statement, despite the overall finding being very different.
fuckyah 8y ago
wrong
java-man 8y ago
quote: Included in the random sampling were all individuals between ages 25 and 58 whom Kela paid labour market subsidy or basic unemployment allowance in November 2016 for some other reason than a temporary layoff. Random sampling means that all who satisfied the requirements for inclusion in the experiment had an equal probability of being selected into the study population. so the group who received the subsidy was already skewed by a previous selection process. I don't see any mention of a control group in the experiment web site: [0] https://www.kela.fi/web/en/basic-income-objectives-and-implementation https://www.kela.fi/web/en/basic-income-objectives-and-imple...

gyaniv 8y ago

The did. and the result showed that their employment chances were 'no more likely to do so than a control group of people who weren't given the money.' What they didn't do (although some wanted them to), is also check the system on already employed people and checked if that changed their likelihood of staying in a bad job/finding a better job or anything like that. Because that's the real idea behind basic income. not just giving it to the unemployed, but to everyone, with the hope that it would encourage people to find jobs better suited to them, and to allow people to take bigger risks.

jerf 8y ago
Increasingly I feel like all my philosophical problems with UBI are irrelevant in the face of the fact that apparently UBI is too expensive to even do a proper small-scale trial. If we can't afford that, we even moreso can't afford simply leaping to full scale. (And one thing these trial do seem to show is that giving it out, and then removing it, is at least modestly disruptive.)
- awakeasleep 8y ago
  I think most people struggle to understand how plastic money is in the context of a government that runs its own presses. Everything is affordable in that situation. In a smaller country, if you do nothing else to manage it, it increases inflation. In a 'reserver currency' country that inflation is spread out across the globe. And that isn't even addressing things like how the USA could reinstitute the wealth and income taxes of the 40's, or charge market (rather than fire sale) rates for national resources (drilling on fed land, grazing on fed land), airwaves, or alter how we grant monopolies (patents) and many other untapped flows of public wealth to private entities.
- manicdee 8y ago
  The Finland trial replaced existing unemployment insurance with a no-conditions payment of about the same value. No extra expense, in fact it would have been cheaper to administer since there was no compliance paperwork to process and police.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > UBI is too expensive to even do a proper small-scale trial. UBI isn't too expensive to do small-scale trial, it's entire theory of operation (and the key criticisms raised, like the inflation-spiral one) is too dependent on universality and coordination with other policy changes to do a meaningful small-scale trial, as you can neither validate the claimed benefits nor refute the claimed drawbacks that way. You can do a gradual ramp of benefits trial, but not a limited sample of population in an otherwise open environment with pre-existing policies generally applicable.