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It's a general misunderstanding that Basic Income is some sort of job program, it's not. It's a job replacement program for a society where there aren't enough

• leereeves 8y ago
  > there aren't enough jobs for everyone because technology have taken over most. And yet the US has full employment. Could it be that Finland lacks jobs for some reason other than technology?
  • SirHound 8y ago
    Someone working an hour a week counts as employed.
    • blakejustblake 8y ago
      I wonder if the rise of gig-economy type work has dirtied the employment data pool? If you're out of work and looking for a employment, yet you're still scraping by a few bucks every week due to Uber or Lyft or something similar, and you're a part of a significant percentage of people doing the same then unemployment numbers probably aren't as pretty as some would like us to believe.
      • baronswindle 8y ago
        U6 unemployment numbers include workers who are employed part time but would prefer to be full time, and U6 is near all time lows.
        • lusmd 8y ago
          But labor force participation rates are still very, very low. If you'd like a job but don't have one, you don't get counted in any unemployment stats except the aggregate labor force participation.
          • bryondowd 8y ago
            This caught my attention so I looked for a source. Looks like this rate is the number of people who are Employed (60.7%) or have been actively seeking work in the last week (4%) out of the total population of people who are 16 years or older, not institutionalized, and not active military. The source I found doesn't break down the remaining 35.3% of the population much, except to pull out about 2% as marginally attached or discouraged. Basically, people who have given up looking for work. I tried figuring out the makeup of the remaining 33%, but without much luck. How many 16 and older students are out there not working because they are full time committed to schooling? Hard to figure out, because so many students have part time jobs or are at least actively looking for part time jobs. Then, how many people are retired by choice, versus retired because there's no more work for them? How many homemakers are staying home with kids because they can't earn enough to significantly exceed childcare expenses versus those who stay home because they don't need or want to work?
          • leereeves 8y ago
            Overall (all ages) labor force participation rates are low, but labor force participation among people 25-54 are very high. All ages LFPR are probably low because the Baby Boomers are retiring and Millenials are still in college. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS12300060 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS12300060
        • dragonwriter 8y ago
          So, an Uber drive that's in the app available for calls 35+ hours a week but gets few calls, are they part-time or full-time?
    • refurb 8y ago
      No, it doesn't count.
    • rhacker 8y ago
      Don't worry they are getting paid 80 cents an hour.
  • zafka 8y ago
    The US does not have full employment. The actual percentage of working age people who are employed is below peak levels. Also quite a few people are working part time.
    • LarryDarrell 8y ago
      Also, the unemployment rate communicates nothing about the dignity of a job. The 45 year old former factory worker who is now fighting for hours at a retail job counts as employed. He also counts as angry, depressed and ready to burn the system down.
    • leereeves 8y ago
      > The US does not have full employment. * Citation needed. Here's the Fed saying we are: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-fed-kaplan/feds-kaplan-u-s-economy-at-or-beyond-full-employment-idUSKCN1II2NQ https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-fed-kaplan/feds-kapla...
      • zafka 8y ago
        From a similar time frame: https://slate.com/business/2018/05/the-unemployment-rate-is-historically-low-and-meaningless.html https://slate.com/business/2018/05/the-unemployment-rate-is-... Just like the cost of living index, Politicians often use misleading techniques to calculate "employment rate"
        • leereeves 8y ago
          Alright then, let's look at this index that article proposes: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS12300060 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS12300060 At 79.9, it's not quite record high employment, but it's close.
  • deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  • ThomPete 8y ago
    That an entirely different discussion. My point is that saying "people are happy but jobless" is missing the point of UBI. UBI at this point is more an experimental pilot project to see what it does to people not to actually figure out how to pay for it which is another discussion also. What it's not a pilot project for is to see if people get jobs as it's a proposed solution for a jobsless future for most.
  • bryanrasmussen 8y ago
    right, this is why whenever I drive through any major metropolitan area in the U.S the only thing I ever see is people being gainfully employed. What, this U.S you're talking about - it really is Utopia.
  • benj111 8y ago
    The existence of Marie Condo would suggest we have too much stuff, as would the fact that we are using the earths resources faster than we can replenish them. Growth at the moment is predicated on buying ever more 'stuff', theres a limit to how long we can keep doing that. At the other end we get better at making ever more stuff with less labour. That widget factory that used to employ 1000 people 50 years ago, now employs 10 for the same output. Now from a stuff buying point of view that's good, your products are cheaper so people can buy more. But what happens at the extreme. 0 employees in a factory? If everyone does that there aren't any employees to buy the stuff you've made. Both of these trends are happening, both are unsustainable, sooner or later we are going to have to address them.
  • dragonwriter 8y ago
    > And yet the US has full employment. The US has “full employment” only under a definition of “full employment” that allows significant involuntary under- and un-employment to exist while still applying the label.
• rixrax 8y ago
  And while doing that, cut the bureaucracy and stigma of having to continuously apply for welfare, food stamps etc. Not that this would offsets the cost of basic income. If we picture a dystopian future where due to the rise of automation, increases in population, lack of education and ability, ~90% of people cannot realistically work in a productive jobs, I think it's a good time to experiment now what and how to keep all these people busy, preoccupied, and happy.
  • samnwa 8y ago
    Why not just optimize human output like China did and incentivize education in fields that provide large scale value to society (STEM primarily) so that children are likely to deliver commensurate value to society to their costs?
    • icebraining 8y ago
      In Finland there's no tuition and almost all students get financial aid: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Student_financial_aid_(Finland) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Student_financial_aid_(Finland...
    • benj111 8y ago
      That's kind of missing the point, if theres 90% unemployment, unless you arrange is so people are in education or retirement for all but circa 5 years of their life, most won't get a chance to use their skills, and no one will have money to buy the things they make anyway.
  • ThomPete 8y ago
    I don't picture a dystopian future. I picture a post-scarcity future. So I am all for these experiments but judging them based on whether people stay jobless is missing the point of UBI in such a fundamental way it's hard to understate that.
  • benj111 8y ago
    I always think of Star Trek. It isn't really explored in depth but there isn't money and people don't have to work, transporter rationing is alluded to though. I guess in a world where everything can be made in a replicator, 'employment' becomes untenable. You still need some way of rationing scarce resources, and allowing people to 'vote' for what they want more of though.
• Eridrus 8y ago
  Besides the job thing, there are a lot of UBI criticisms around the "dignity if work" and how UBI will make them unhappy, so I am glad this exists as a counterargument.
• Reedx 8y ago
  Has there been any exploration of a version of Basic Income in exchange for community service? There's a virtually endless amount of unskilled work that could be done to improve the environment and people's lives.
  • spilk 8y ago
    Sounds sort of like the New Deal "Civilian Conservation Corps" that built up many of the national park facilities we now enjoy in the USA.
  • icebraining 8y ago
    Paying people in exchange for work is called a job, not UBI.
    • snarf21 8y ago
      Kinda except you get to pick any "job" you want, work any amount of hours you want but still know you will get paid exactly the same amount. People might be happier reading to seniors 10 hours a week but not for minimum wage.
      • Wowfunhappy 8y ago
        So how do you determine want amount of community service is necessary? Does picking up one piece of trash off the sidewalk count as community service? As soon as you tie the payment to a certain type of task, you have to enforce a standard of time/quality.
  • Datenstrom 8y ago
    I think this is a great idea. I have also been pitching it in conversations with people who oppose UBI for years and it is generally very well received by them. Unfortunately I am unaware if this has actually been implemented anywhere.
    • mmmmmmmmm 8y ago
• cromulent 8y ago
  True. In addition, from an employer's perspective, it unlocks easy employment of people without massive commitment from either side. Can I do a few hours work for this guy without losing my unemployment? Yes. Can I employ this person for a few hours without having to pay them while on paternity leave to make sure their kid gets a good start to life? Yes.
  • dragonwriter 8y ago
    > Can I do a few hours work for this guy without losing my unemployment? UBI doesn't really make sense as a replacement for unemployment insurance, unless benefits are really high. If you replace UI with a poverty-support-level UBI, it makes unemployment a lot worse for anyone but the lowest-paid workers. UBI might reduce the perceived need for public funding of additional unemployment benefits in extended downturns (though if the be benefit level is poverty-support-level, probably not that much; that's more of a support for middle-income dislocation.)
    • cromulent 8y ago
      Yeah, your point is strongly supported by this experiment. The majority of the UBI recipient subjects switched to standard unemployment, which was of greater value.
      • ThomPete 8y ago
        Which is why ubi mostly make sense if there arent any jobs left not if there still is a substantial jobmarket.
    • elindbe2 8y ago
      UBI doesn't really make sense as a replacement to almost any traditional welfare programs for the simple reason that by limiting the money to only those who qualify for it, you can give more. Yet unfortunately UBI is often presented as an alternative that would supplant traditional welfare.
      • 8y ago
• Wowfunhappy 8y ago
  I'm not sure I'd call it a "general misunderstanding", because people seem to have very different thoughts on what UBI is or should be for. I generally align with your view, but I'm not convinced our definition is more "correct" than others. It would be nice to get the terminology straightened out.
• dragonwriter 8y ago
  It's neither (at least, exclusively) a jobs program nor a jobs replacement program, but it has elements of both; it makes more work available (when replacing minimum wages as a floor-setting system), improves capacity for labor market realignment via retraining, and better addresses the needs of those who, even with that, cannot find adequate work.
  • ThomPete 8y ago
    I think that's the wrong premise. UBI is based on the assumption there will be no jobs because no one can deliver better value than technology rather than just a small job market. We already have the other Conditional Basic Income which is probably optimal as long as there is a solid jobmarket.
    • dragonwriter 8y ago
      > UBI is based on the assumption there will be no jobs No, it is not. UBI, under a variety of names, is an idea much older than, and not at all dependent on, the idea of a situation where there are no jobs.
• jrs95 8y ago
  We shouldn't just accept a future of joblessness. It's a terrible waste of human capital. Rather than simply paying people to be unemployed, we should find work for them to do that benefits society in some way. To an extent we need to be investing more in our people, especially in the U.S., but there are also things we could do like large scale infrastructure projects that could help fill the gap for people that don't have the knowledge/skill for many of the jobs that can't be automated.
  • keymone 8y ago
    > we should find work for them to do that benefits society in some way introduce basic income and people will make themselves useful.
    • jrs95 8y ago
      There is little to no evidence to support this claim. Whereas what I'm talking about was done after the great depression and developed a lot of infrastructure, especially in rural America, that wouldn't have existed otherwise.
      • keymone 8y ago
        how many of those who have enough money to never work again, never work again? you severely underestimate the psychological desire to be useful and live a fulfilling life. the evidence is there - it's ideological convictions that prevent you from seeing and accepting it.
• dahfizz 8y ago
  > It's a general misunderstanding that Basic Income is some sort of job program, it's not. The problem is that I've heard many proponents of UBI sell it as exactly that, a way for people to get better jobs. And I can't really blame them, framing UBI as a way to make unemployment more comfortable is not going to be very successfully politically.
  • notahacker 8y ago
    > framing UBI as a way to make unemployment more comfortable is not going to be very successfully politically. Not least because in developed countries alternative redistribution systems exist to make unemployment more comfortable (much more comfortable than UBI, potentially, since fewer people will be net recipients), but on the assumption that people will actually take a job if offered it. Arguing it's worth redistributing funds from those who need or want to work to those who prefer leisure is a much harder sell...
• throwaway427 8y ago
  How does one contend with inflation when money is free? Is the idea that goods are produced so cheaply that the basic living costs are stable?
  • Wowfunhappy 8y ago
    In my mind, yes! We would implement basic income to offset the number of jobs lost to automation. Because robots don't need to be paid, the cost of goods would decrease in a more-or-less proportional amount to the number of jobs lost.
• WheelsAtLarge 8y ago
  The misunderstanding is that UBI in the first world is some kind of benevolent gift to the unemployed. UBI is the government's and elite's way of making sure people don't revolt against them because they have no way to support themselves. The big fail is that the proposed way of giving it is the no "strings attached" method. A total waste of resources. If people get so lost, that they can't provide for themselves; how is money going to solve the situation? It can't and it won't. A societal characteristic is that their will always be levels. People that are taken care of are always at the lower level. UBI will only keep people at the lower rungs of society. If UBI is ever going to be a reality it needs to come with guidance that helps people get out of the hole they are in. The idea of a future with no jobs is silly. It will only come to be if that's what we make it. A job can be anything. I go out and I see ads for a local Palm reader. A BS job if there was ever any. But yet, it's been a business for at least 20 yrs. Don't tell me that people can't be creative and create jobs but without any force or guidance to help people out of the problem there will never be a solution. I will go as far as saying that a future with a widespread no strings attached UBI will cause a future with no jobs.
• paulddraper 8y ago
  Andrew Yang (pro-UBI candidate for U.S. President) lists as the first benefit of UBI: > UBI encourages people to find work. Many current welfare programs take away benefits when recipients find work, sometimes leaving them financially worse off than before they were employed. UBI is for all adults, regardless of employment status, so recipients are free to seek additional income, which most everyone does. Not increasing employment contradicts this claimed benefit. https://www.yang2020.com/blog/ubi_faqs/benefits-universal-basic-income/ https://www.yang2020.com/blog/ubi_faqs/benefits-universal-ba...