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I like the idea of freeing people to be able to quit and get a new job any time, where quitting today means a real threat of losing one's home, transportation,

I like the idea of freeing people to be able to quit and get a new job any time, where quitting today means a real threat of losing one's home, transportation, or ability to eat (never mind fueling the cycle of debt that keeps so many down). I think it would be a net benefit if people could tell oppressive employers to fuck off without fear. However, a welfare state is a real thing to be worried about. My sister works up in Alaska. Tribal members up there have exactly what UBI promises: a baseline check every month. This has not stirred people to innovation. It has led to a gluttony of drug and alcohol addition and a forgetting of the ways to live off the land. There are a few elders who would like to teach the young how to do so, but they are not interested. Nobody wants to do better and there is high resentment towards the federal government. I've seen it in other places. When you are outside the balance of exchange with someone (or some organization), resentment breeds. I can see UBI causing more resentment on both sides, the receivers and the payers. Economically, we would have to produce enough "extra" that a full, regular distribution of that wealth could continue to work with producers continuing to produce, and a growing collection of people who would lose all interest in contributing. We would have to have a way to deal with a dramatic rise in apathetic people. We would have to have a way to deal with producers just leaving the country. In The Expanse, Earth has a UBI like thing. The whole planet. You get subsistence living, and if you want to be a producer, you start by doing menial work for a period of time to prove you are willing to work hard. It is also sci-fi for a reason :). Again, I would love to free people from tyrannical employers and the fear and stress of not knowing what next month brings due to finances (I've lived that the majority of my life). I don't see how UBI can work.

charlesju 7y ago
I completely understand where you're coming from, but perhaps you're looking at causation vs correlation. For example, there are many places in the world without a welfare state going through similar issues. The real question is whether that community would be better or exist at all without assistance.
e40 7y ago
Any time such a huge change is introduced into a complex system, it is extremely hard to see all the unintended consequences. I like the idea of UBI, too. Taking that leap worries me, though, we might be in for a worse time because of it.
- hanniabu 7y ago
  Doing nothing may cause an even worse situation.
  - vorpalhex 7y ago
    The human race has existed a long time without UBI.
    - brillas 7y ago
      just as it existed for centuries, millenia, without penicillin and without quinine. This isn’t an argument; a history of subsistence doesn’t mean we can’t think of ways to make it all better.
      - StreamBright 7y ago
        What is the downside of penicillin for the p50 user?
    - hanniabu 7y ago
      That's not relevant. The stance of UBI is centered mainly on automation with a side benefit of being able to afford risks and improving quality of life.
  - ThrowawayR2 7y ago
    > "Doing nothing may cause an even worse situation." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politician%27s_syllogism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politician%27s_syllogism Even if it were proven that doing nothing were guaranteed to cause a worse situation, which it isn't, of the myriad of things that could be done, there is no compelling evidence that UBI is the right thing to do.
skybrian 7y ago
The problem is comparing the situation in those places in Alaska to what we think it would like without those yearly checks. It seems like it might be worse? But hard to know. There are studies in other places that are more positive, but they probably aren't generalizable. A big difference with a program where eligibility is based on citizenship is you could take it with you anywhere in the nation and probably the world. People willing to move should benefit greatly from this but the long-term effects seem hard to predict.
- firethief 7y ago
  Yeah, there are some major confounding factors in Alaska. I know that at least in the case of my tribe, they didn't forget how to live off the land because the government was giving them money. The government started to consider their coast with their winter houses on it someone else's private property (and still does). The government started restricting their fishing once there was a cannery on the river. The government forced them to go to schools where they weren't allowed to speak their language or practice their culture. And yes, the government eventually started giving them money. But they forgot how to live off the land much earlier, when doing so became illegal. (The introduction of hard liquor predated all of that, and coincided with 1/3 the population dying of new diseases. Also not UBI-caused.)
  - sethammons 7y ago
    Thank you for your first hand account.
ianai 7y ago
You can’t draw wide ranging conclusions from that sort of UBI. They’re part of a nation that exists within another nation. They’re facing all sorts of pressures and incentives that would not be present for a US wide UBI. The need and requirement for a UBI is real. Private sector is simply never going to find a job for everyone who needs to survive. We offer no other way for people to survive. This isn’t a balance sheet calculation. It’s society saying “hey, we can’t just let our own people, as an individual of our society, have only one means of survival. That just creates too many pressures which lead to their suffering and exploitation.”
- paulddraper 7y ago
  > Private sector is simply never going to find a job for everyone who needs to survive. You're technically correct that unemployment will never be 0%. But it's been < 4% for almost all of 2019.
  - ianai 7y ago
    I should expand that the private economy simply isn’t going to provide everyone everything they need-including work but also things work can’t or doesn’t provide. Plenty of full time employees have substandard health care because their employer contracts with an option of that leaves them hanging. Some employers schedule people for exactly less than what would require them to provide benefits, too. They also count toward your balance sheet unemployment rate. The unemployment metric has wide criticisms that I don’t need to regurgitate. This is why I say these metrics don’t do justice to the inspection.
    - paulddraper 7y ago
      > substandard health care Yang proposes nationalized health insurance, outside UBI.
  - hbarka 7y ago
    Talking about the unemployment rate without mentioning the labor force participation rate is painting an incomplete picture.
leetcrew 7y ago
part of the idea of UBI is that it would replace current or future (hypothetical) welfare benefits. at least in theory, it seems better for people on both sides of the equation. for the "producers", it would replace a hodge-podge of inefficient and inscrutable welfare programs with a single number that can be adjusted up/down and easily understood. for those on "the dole", it would be a much more respectful way of providing aid. instead of getting funny money that can only be spent on certain items at the grocery store and having to apply for a tax credit at the end of the year, they just get $x every month to spend as they see fit. the complacency angle is worth considering, but when I see how much money we waste to (for example) manufacture at least one part of a spaceship in every single US state, I wonder if we wouldn't come out ahead by just paying most of the people for doing nothing and then manufacturing the parts where it actually makes sense. the main thing I fear is what it would do to rent. I don't understand enough about economics to know how much of a problem this is, but naively it seems like UBI would just shift rents upward in a tight housing market.
simonsarris 7y ago
Yeah, I think this is a commonly-dodged problem that is dodged precisely because the nature of UBI proponents selects for it. But it's a mistake to think one's personal motivators/use of free time/etc are true of everyone. You cannot extrapolate like that. > Just as you can find Silicon Valley techies who think Soylent is the only sustenance a person will ever need, intellectuals tend to think everyone could be as content as they would be living life in their heads or inventing their own destiny. Most people need to be doing something to feel satisfied and a potential UBI system addresses this need just as inadequately as disability checks do now. Cue drug epidemics. When I wrote this in 2017, the "intellectuals" I was thinking of was Sama specifically. https://medium.com/s/free-money/after-universal-basic-income-the-flood-217db9889c07 https://medium.com/s/free-money/after-universal-basic-income...
- ianai 7y ago
  Please don’t tie UBI to the failed war on drugs. Alcohol prohibition was ceased for the exact same reason the war on drugs should be ceased. Further, there are even outlawed substances which have anti-addiction affects that are part of the prohibition. It’s the definition of a bad idea insulating itself from better ideas. People need UBI because the purely survival backed capitalistic system harms society too greatly.
  - OnlineGladiator 7y ago
    He didn't say anything about the war on drugs, he said it would cause drug epidemics. Getting addicted to drugs has nothing to do with the US' moronic drug policy.
    - ianai 7y ago
      “Most people need to be doing something to feel satisfied and a potential UBI system addresses this need just as inadequately as disability checks do now. Cue drug epidemics.” That’s an emotional trigger with unsubstantiated link to the supposition. The emotional content is from the war on drugs. People turn to drugs because they’re in a tight spot without a seeming way out. Like how a cornered animal is most dangerous. Or physiology. People with a UBI will have the ability to engage in more activities that they find worthwhile but without direct, immediate financial consequences-such as artists and mathematicians.
Aloha 7y ago
I look at UBI as a replacement for a part time minimum wage job, not for working. Meaning it ought to give you about 250 dollars a week. I also view it as a replacement for having minimum wage too - but no one will work for 2.00 and hour either. UBI will free throws labor force, and make it easier for labor to be more mobile and move to where the jobs are - the other key about UBI is everyone gets it, no matter if wealthy or poor.
- ThrowawayR2 7y ago
  > "...the other key about UBI is everyone gets it, no matter if wealthy or poor" Of course if you have anything above poverty level income, it gets snatched right back plus whole lot more though taxes to cover the other UBI recipients who don't. The "everybody gets UBI" rhetoric doesn't really fool anybody; money doesn't come out of thin air.
  - joshbetz 7y ago
    We wouldn’t need all the infrastructure to ensure only qualified people get welfare. I’ve heard this would make UBI cheaper than what we do now, considering that it would be essentially taxed away from rich people as you say.
    - tome 7y ago
      Do you have compelling examples on non-means-tested benefits remaining non-means-tested indefinitely? This doesn't seem to be what happens in the UK. Some government invariably either wants to reduce its expenditure or be seen to be "tough on scroungers" and the start means testing.
  - dannypgh 7y ago
    > money doesn't come out of thin air. It can, though. Money is created all the time by banks only having to keep a fraction of their deposits on reserve. You deposit $100, they lend out $80, then you have $100 (in the bank) and someone else has $80 in cash (and an obligation to repay). $180 exists in a real form when at the beginning only $100 existed. For the US Treasury, the rules are even stranger. Like a bank, they can write checks for whatever they want, as long as they do so in a manner consistent with the law (and laws can be changed). Unlike a bank, there can never be a "run" on the Treasury (no Treasury check can ever bounce for insufficient funds) because they can literally just print more money. It is entirely possible to just deficit spend your way to a UBI. Many economists would predict this to create inflationary pressure - and indeed it might - but predictable inflation, even at moderate amounts, is beneficial to those who those who carry debts. This can create incentives for investment (you don't want to sit on your money if it's losing value) which may result in actual wealth creation. Inflationary monetary policy effectively acts as a tax on those who hold currency, yes, but it's not a zero sum game. Plus people who receive these checks will spend it in the economy or deposit it with banks to create more of it. Economics is not well enough understood for there to be a consensus on what this would do in aggregate, and anyone who tells you otherwise is probably lying.
wufufufu 7y ago
"welfare state" is a weak criticism. You're talking about a population that historically faced oppression and displacement. Given the context, doesn't make sense that a monthly check is the cause of alcohol addiction.
- dannypgh 7y ago
  Yep, it's an American pastime to blame the poverty experienced by much of the indigenous population on the indigenous population. It makes people feel less guilty to be profiting from the status quo. Criticism of indigenous folks without first acknowledging the real issues of genocide and disposession is problematic at best, racist at worst.
  - astronautjones 7y ago
    > problematic at best, racist at worst any and every discussion related to class on HN
service_bus 7y ago
Everything you are saying about Native Americans is contradicted by every study that has been done so far. https://www.wired.com/story/free-money-the-surprising-effects-of-a-basic-income-supplied-by-government/ https://www.wired.com/story/free-money-the-surprising-effect... Yang also discusses this in his book. Please don't comment hyperbole if you're not able to support your thoughts with data.
- paulddraper 7y ago
  > if you're not able to support your thoughts with data Likewise. That article is a highly anecdotal puff piece, focusing on a few exceptional inspirational stories from a single tribe. I could find all sorts of non-UBI rags-to-riches stories too. AFAIK, despite no end of UBI pontification, no real study has even been done about existing native UBI (correct me please). What we do know is that Native Americans consistently have 25% lower median income [1], double the poverty rate [2] [3], and nearly double the unemployment rate [4] of the rest of the United States. Either UBI doesn't work, or it does work and without it Native Americans would be almost unbelievably terrible -- even compared to other historically oppressed groups (blacks, Irish, Japanese). [1] https://www.epi.org/blog/2016-acs-shows-stubbornly-high-native-american-poverty-and-different-degrees-of-economic-well-being-for-asian-ethnic-groups/ https://www.epi.org/blog/2016-acs-shows-stubbornly-high-nati... [2] https://theredroad.org/issues/native-american-poverty/ https://theredroad.org/issues/native-american-poverty/ [3] https://census.gov/library/stories/2018/09/poverty-rate-drops-third-consecutive-year-2017.html https://census.gov/library/stories/2018/09/poverty-rate-drop... [4] https://thinkprogress.org/the-unemployment-rate-for-native-americans-has-been-over-10-percent-for-five-years-8f9ef18f1f18/ https://thinkprogress.org/the-unemployment-rate-for-native-a...
  - mkolodny 7y ago
    The "free money" that Wired article [0] is about isn't for all Native Americans - it's only for the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. That tribe splits their casino's profit evenly. Their profit came out to about $12,000/person in 2016 (the same amount that Andrew Yang is proposing for Universal Basic Income [1]). There are other Native American owned casinos who give their tribe members payouts, but not all of them can. According to Partnership with Native Americans [2], fewer than 15% of Native American tribes operate prosperous casinos. [0] https://www.wired.com/story/free-money-the-surprising-effects-of-a-basic-income-supplied-by-government/ https://www.wired.com/story/free-money-the-surprising-effect... [1] https://www.yang2020.com/policies/the-freedom-dividend/ https://www.yang2020.com/policies/the-freedom-dividend/ [2] http://www.nativepartnership.org/site/PageServer?pagename=pwna_media_fundingfacts http://www.nativepartnership.org/site/PageServer?pagename=pw...
SquishyPanda23 7y ago
> My sister works up in Alaska. Tribal members up there have exactly what UBI promises: a baseline check every month.... This sounds like a lot of tribal areas that don't have UBI. Are you thinking of a specific study that establishes UBI as the cause of this behavior in this case, or are you guessing?
ahdeanz 7y ago
The term for what you’re talking about is typically referred to as an “income effect”. You could(and people do) make the same argument against the existing social safety net. You can already do no work and simply survive off this net. The threat of death probably wasn’t the big motivator for most people. I could imagine UBI feeling qualitatively the same way once implemented. You still have all the positive motivations for working in place, getting monetary compensation, social status, etc. We don’t really know because it’s never been tried but there’s legitimate reason to believe the positives could outweigh these effects.
kmonsen 7y ago
If we want to free people from tyrannical employers, isn’t free healthcare step one? Perhaps some sort of more available food stamps step two? I would agree with a lot of the criticism of government should not target too closely etc, but those two programs seems pretty well run compared to the free market alternatives. At least when they are allowed to.
- Ididntdothis 7y ago
  Agreed. Health care would be great first step. If we can’t pull that off I don’t have much hope for UBI.
- sethammons 7y ago
  I think healthcare is a great candidate for a step one.
- unlinked_dll 7y ago
  It's not really the tyranny of bad employers that you want to target through government intervention in the labor market, but the curb the unintended consequences of the good ones, which is also why I don't think UBI is the right weapon to use. As wages have stagnated and been replaced through other incentives I kind of see ourselves entering a neo-feudalist society. We're not swearing oaths to our employers by any means, but we are being somewhat tied to the land, metaphorically. Healthcare is the lowest hanging fruit politically, but the unintended consequences of all non-monetary benefits should also be on the table. Like companies building or compensating for housing. Pet insurance. Company doctors/clinics. Child care. All things we want and appreciate, and great to see in a benefits package, and fantastic that companies want to help people with those problems, but it's a bit disconcerting in the long run for the labor market and society if you think about how these things can potentially trap individuals. And how when companies pay for things instead of individuals and pricing gets hidden/warped how the market changes.
- Reedx 7y ago
  Decoupling healthcare would be such a boon for small businesses. I don't understand why this point isn't made more often. It's frequently the difference between someone being able to start and have a viable business or not. Remove that overhead and I think we'd see a flurry of activity and exploration that wasn't previously possible.
chiefalchemist 7y ago
UBI is not a panacea. It does help move some key micro needles (i.e., employers needing to be more mindful of employees). On the other hand, at the macro level (read: federal) there is risk. That is, elected officials will mistakenly see it as a replacement for opportunity; as a cure of institutional injustice. The native Americans got screwed. Their culture and pride destroyed. Simply tossing money at them isn't enough. But that's what we've done. We shouldn't be surprised.
Reedx 7y ago
> I can see UBI causing more resentment on both sides, the receivers and the payers. But in this case (Yang's Freedom Dividend), everyone gets it. Doesn't that essentially solve the issue?
- ScottBurson 7y ago
  No, because high-income people still have to be net payers. Otherwise, where does the money come from?
  - lidHanteyk 7y ago
    It is not a problem if rich people resent having to pay money into the government in order to keep the system running. Rich people are only rich because the government maintains the monetary system. Being so rich that one resents the very government that establishes their riches is a feature, not a bug. Edit: As usual for rapid downvotes on polite posts, do downvoters care to explain themselves? Or is today a day for irrationally defending the rich?
    - aeternum 7y ago
      It is generally not the rich that resent it. The rich simply see taxes as a cost of doing business that they should attempt to minimize as they would any cost. If you look at welfare, those that resent it most are the people that are just over the threshold to receive it. They see themselves as significantly better than those on welfare who are lazy and gaming the system.
      - lidHanteyk 7y ago
        Okay, but we're talking about UBI, and in UBI systems, there aren't any people that are just barely over the threshold. I don't really see folks resenting welfare. I see a whole lot of folks who have probably never experienced welfare, though, and who are ready to judge those who do receive it. I don't consider this a reasonable line of thought, though, but rather an indicator of bigotry and poor empathy.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
FussyZeus 7y ago
> My sister works up in Alaska. Tribal members up there have exactly what UBI promises: a baseline check every month. This has not stirred people to innovation. It has led to a gluttony of drug and alcohol addition and a forgetting of the ways to live off the land. Perhaps an alternate explanation from "having guaranteed income makes people lazy, stupid, and drug addicts" might be "living in a place with little to do, few resources to use, and a natural environment that can be best described as 'often actively killing you' on good days"? And in general I find these takes offensive simply because, with specific respect to Native lands in various places, people are putting the same notions of what is considered "success" in the Capitalist West on completely different cultures. The notion of "work hard, build stuff, earn money, die wealthy" is very much a recent thing in human history, starting in the 1600's when corporations first became a thing. For millennia, the condition of existence was not centered solely around the accumulation of wealth; people lived, to live. They lived to grow and eat food, to experience other people and places, to stave off disease and to of course, pass on their genetic material. There is nothing inherently human about the accumulation of material wealth; we all seek security, of course, but we had security in relatively different amounts and methods for long, LONG before the existence of money. I'm not arguing of course to return to the caves; merely pointing out that the capitalist values of earning and hoarding vast fortunes are incredibly over-emphasized whenever success is discussed. Many, many people see money not as something to hoard or invest, but simply as a vehicle with which to live comfortably. They value it for it's ability to ensure them long lasting security but that's it, and if they could have that money without working, you're correct, they'd probably live very simple lifestyles; none of them going out to change the world, or invent some new thing, or solve problems. And I'm saying there is nothing wrong with that. We have approximately six hundred of every conceivable product, all begging to be purchased, all manufactured at ludicrous scale, a ton of which will end up in a landfill either unsold, or sold and forgotten within a couple of years. And to accomplish what? If you want to talk about how to really further the species, then I think we need newer, more interesting ideas than the next app, or the next gizmo, or the new format of television.
mc32 7y ago
Qatar should be a good case for long-term study: citizens are guaranteed state jobs, land grants and a free education.
- vinay427 7y ago
  No thank you. That's easy to do when 88% of the population are foreign workers, virtually none of whom have a path to citizenship, most of whom are rewarded with relatively low wages, and many of whom face exploitation by various means. It's a feudalistic system that doesn't focus on benefiting the people in Qatar, only the Qatari citizens. http://priyadsouza.com/population-of-qatar-by-nationality-in-2017/ http://priyadsouza.com/population-of-qatar-by-nationality-in...
  - mc32 7y ago
    Sure, but if it can't work in that society, how would it ever work in a more just society?
    - vinay427 7y ago
      1. Because every country's economy is not identical to Qatar's. Workers in many countries are more productive (in monetary value, for instance) compared to those in many other countries. Loosely, having workers that bring in more money would allow for needing fewer workers. 2. I don't have a strong opinion on UBI right now, but I don't see how Qatar's exploitative system somehow disqualifies UBI in general. Based on what you described, it doesn't even sound like a universal income: it's neither universal nor disposable income.
      - mc32 7y ago
        So it's too early to tell. But if it does work, then that means under some conditions it can work. If it cannot work, then, there is little hope as their system is kind of handicapped to have a better chance than most.
aaron695 7y ago
> This has not stirred people to innovation. Where does this strawperson come from? UBI has nothing to do with innovation. I also don't think it will stifle innovation. I don't understand why this word innovation is mixed with people on UBI. You do talk about the active drug industry that has sprung up around UBI, so there's innovation there. But I'm not understanding what the claim is. We are not bringing in UBI to help innovation for either people on it, which it obviously won't, or eco systems around it, which seems like would be a sum loss.
ryanmercer 7y ago
>This has not stirred people to innovation. It has led to a gluttony of drug and alcohol addition and a forgetting of the ways to live off the land. To be fair though, how much of that is due to the harsh winter conditions and long winter nights? A quick glance of the Google query "Alaska depressed winter" makes it look like it might be more of a weather/sun issue. Also >Alaska's alcohol mortality rate is three times the national average http://www.newsminer.com/news/akrecovery/alaska-still-wrestling-with-long-running-alcohol-problems/article_e7d27aec-2865-11e5-be1b-2b4217261eca.html http://www.newsminer.com/news/akrecovery/alaska-still-wrestl...

charlesju 7y ago

I completely understand where you're coming from, but perhaps you're looking at causation vs correlation. For example, there are many places in the world without a welfare state going through similar issues. The real question is whether that community would be better or exist at all without assistance.

e40 7y ago

Any time such a huge change is introduced into a complex system, it is extremely hard to see all the unintended consequences. I like the idea of UBI, too. Taking that leap worries me, though, we might be in for a worse time because of it.

hanniabu 7y ago
Doing nothing may cause an even worse situation.
- vorpalhex 7y ago
  The human race has existed a long time without UBI.
  - brillas 7y ago
    just as it existed for centuries, millenia, without penicillin and without quinine. This isn’t an argument; a history of subsistence doesn’t mean we can’t think of ways to make it all better.
    - StreamBright 7y ago
      What is the downside of penicillin for the p50 user?
  - hanniabu 7y ago
    That's not relevant. The stance of UBI is centered mainly on automation with a side benefit of being able to afford risks and improving quality of life.
- ThrowawayR2 7y ago
  > "Doing nothing may cause an even worse situation." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politician%27s_syllogism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politician%27s_syllogism Even if it were proven that doing nothing were guaranteed to cause a worse situation, which it isn't, of the myriad of things that could be done, there is no compelling evidence that UBI is the right thing to do.

skybrian 7y ago

The problem is comparing the situation in those places in Alaska to what we think it would like without those yearly checks. It seems like it might be worse? But hard to know. There are studies in other places that are more positive, but they probably aren't generalizable. A big difference with a program where eligibility is based on citizenship is you could take it with you anywhere in the nation and probably the world. People willing to move should benefit greatly from this but the long-term effects seem hard to predict.

firethief 7y ago
Yeah, there are some major confounding factors in Alaska. I know that at least in the case of my tribe, they didn't forget how to live off the land because the government was giving them money. The government started to consider their coast with their winter houses on it someone else's private property (and still does). The government started restricting their fishing once there was a cannery on the river. The government forced them to go to schools where they weren't allowed to speak their language or practice their culture. And yes, the government eventually started giving them money. But they forgot how to live off the land much earlier, when doing so became illegal. (The introduction of hard liquor predated all of that, and coincided with 1/3 the population dying of new diseases. Also not UBI-caused.)
- sethammons 7y ago
  Thank you for your first hand account.

ianai 7y ago

You can’t draw wide ranging conclusions from that sort of UBI. They’re part of a nation that exists within another nation. They’re facing all sorts of pressures and incentives that would not be present for a US wide UBI. The need and requirement for a UBI is real. Private sector is simply never going to find a job for everyone who needs to survive. We offer no other way for people to survive. This isn’t a balance sheet calculation. It’s society saying “hey, we can’t just let our own people, as an individual of our society, have only one means of survival. That just creates too many pressures which lead to their suffering and exploitation.”

paulddraper 7y ago
> Private sector is simply never going to find a job for everyone who needs to survive. You're technically correct that unemployment will never be 0%. But it's been < 4% for almost all of 2019.
- ianai 7y ago
  I should expand that the private economy simply isn’t going to provide everyone everything they need-including work but also things work can’t or doesn’t provide. Plenty of full time employees have substandard health care because their employer contracts with an option of that leaves them hanging. Some employers schedule people for exactly less than what would require them to provide benefits, too. They also count toward your balance sheet unemployment rate. The unemployment metric has wide criticisms that I don’t need to regurgitate. This is why I say these metrics don’t do justice to the inspection.
  - paulddraper 7y ago
    > substandard health care Yang proposes nationalized health insurance, outside UBI.
- hbarka 7y ago
  Talking about the unemployment rate without mentioning the labor force participation rate is painting an incomplete picture.

leetcrew 7y ago

part of the idea of UBI is that it would replace current or future (hypothetical) welfare benefits. at least in theory, it seems better for people on both sides of the equation. for the "producers", it would replace a hodge-podge of inefficient and inscrutable welfare programs with a single number that can be adjusted up/down and easily understood. for those on "the dole", it would be a much more respectful way of providing aid. instead of getting funny money that can only be spent on certain items at the grocery store and having to apply for a tax credit at the end of the year, they just get $x every month to spend as they see fit. the complacency angle is worth considering, but when I see how much money we waste to (for example) manufacture at least one part of a spaceship in every single US state, I wonder if we wouldn't come out ahead by just paying most of the people for doing nothing and then manufacturing the parts where it actually makes sense. the main thing I fear is what it would do to rent. I don't understand enough about economics to know how much of a problem this is, but naively it seems like UBI would just shift rents upward in a tight housing market.

simonsarris 7y ago

Yeah, I think this is a commonly-dodged problem that is dodged precisely because the nature of UBI proponents selects for it. But it's a mistake to think one's personal motivators/use of free time/etc are true of everyone. You cannot extrapolate like that. > Just as you can find Silicon Valley techies who think Soylent is the only sustenance a person will ever need, intellectuals tend to think everyone could be as content as they would be living life in their heads or inventing their own destiny. Most people need to be doing something to feel satisfied and a potential UBI system addresses this need just as inadequately as disability checks do now. Cue drug epidemics. When I wrote this in 2017, the "intellectuals" I was thinking of was Sama specifically. https://medium.com/s/free-money/after-universal-basic-income-the-flood-217db9889c07 https://medium.com/s/free-money/after-universal-basic-income...

ianai 7y ago
Please don’t tie UBI to the failed war on drugs. Alcohol prohibition was ceased for the exact same reason the war on drugs should be ceased. Further, there are even outlawed substances which have anti-addiction affects that are part of the prohibition. It’s the definition of a bad idea insulating itself from better ideas. People need UBI because the purely survival backed capitalistic system harms society too greatly.
- OnlineGladiator 7y ago
  He didn't say anything about the war on drugs, he said it would cause drug epidemics. Getting addicted to drugs has nothing to do with the US' moronic drug policy.
  - ianai 7y ago
    “Most people need to be doing something to feel satisfied and a potential UBI system addresses this need just as inadequately as disability checks do now. Cue drug epidemics.” That’s an emotional trigger with unsubstantiated link to the supposition. The emotional content is from the war on drugs. People turn to drugs because they’re in a tight spot without a seeming way out. Like how a cornered animal is most dangerous. Or physiology. People with a UBI will have the ability to engage in more activities that they find worthwhile but without direct, immediate financial consequences-such as artists and mathematicians.

Aloha 7y ago

I look at UBI as a replacement for a part time minimum wage job, not for working. Meaning it ought to give you about 250 dollars a week. I also view it as a replacement for having minimum wage too - but no one will work for 2.00 and hour either. UBI will free throws labor force, and make it easier for labor to be more mobile and move to where the jobs are - the other key about UBI is everyone gets it, no matter if wealthy or poor.

ThrowawayR2 7y ago
> "...the other key about UBI is everyone gets it, no matter if wealthy or poor" Of course if you have anything above poverty level income, it gets snatched right back plus whole lot more though taxes to cover the other UBI recipients who don't. The "everybody gets UBI" rhetoric doesn't really fool anybody; money doesn't come out of thin air.
- joshbetz 7y ago
  We wouldn’t need all the infrastructure to ensure only qualified people get welfare. I’ve heard this would make UBI cheaper than what we do now, considering that it would be essentially taxed away from rich people as you say.
  - tome 7y ago
    Do you have compelling examples on non-means-tested benefits remaining non-means-tested indefinitely? This doesn't seem to be what happens in the UK. Some government invariably either wants to reduce its expenditure or be seen to be "tough on scroungers" and the start means testing.
- dannypgh 7y ago
  > money doesn't come out of thin air. It can, though. Money is created all the time by banks only having to keep a fraction of their deposits on reserve. You deposit $100, they lend out $80, then you have $100 (in the bank) and someone else has $80 in cash (and an obligation to repay). $180 exists in a real form when at the beginning only $100 existed. For the US Treasury, the rules are even stranger. Like a bank, they can write checks for whatever they want, as long as they do so in a manner consistent with the law (and laws can be changed). Unlike a bank, there can never be a "run" on the Treasury (no Treasury check can ever bounce for insufficient funds) because they can literally just print more money. It is entirely possible to just deficit spend your way to a UBI. Many economists would predict this to create inflationary pressure - and indeed it might - but predictable inflation, even at moderate amounts, is beneficial to those who those who carry debts. This can create incentives for investment (you don't want to sit on your money if it's losing value) which may result in actual wealth creation. Inflationary monetary policy effectively acts as a tax on those who hold currency, yes, but it's not a zero sum game. Plus people who receive these checks will spend it in the economy or deposit it with banks to create more of it. Economics is not well enough understood for there to be a consensus on what this would do in aggregate, and anyone who tells you otherwise is probably lying.

wufufufu 7y ago

"welfare state" is a weak criticism. You're talking about a population that historically faced oppression and displacement. Given the context, doesn't make sense that a monthly check is the cause of alcohol addiction.

dannypgh 7y ago
Yep, it's an American pastime to blame the poverty experienced by much of the indigenous population on the indigenous population. It makes people feel less guilty to be profiting from the status quo. Criticism of indigenous folks without first acknowledging the real issues of genocide and disposession is problematic at best, racist at worst.
- astronautjones 7y ago
  > problematic at best, racist at worst any and every discussion related to class on HN

service_bus 7y ago

Everything you are saying about Native Americans is contradicted by every study that has been done so far. https://www.wired.com/story/free-money-the-surprising-effects-of-a-basic-income-supplied-by-government/ https://www.wired.com/story/free-money-the-surprising-effect... Yang also discusses this in his book. Please don't comment hyperbole if you're not able to support your thoughts with data.

paulddraper 7y ago
> if you're not able to support your thoughts with data Likewise. That article is a highly anecdotal puff piece, focusing on a few exceptional inspirational stories from a single tribe. I could find all sorts of non-UBI rags-to-riches stories too. AFAIK, despite no end of UBI pontification, no real study has even been done about existing native UBI (correct me please). What we do know is that Native Americans consistently have 25% lower median income [1], double the poverty rate [2] [3], and nearly double the unemployment rate [4] of the rest of the United States. Either UBI doesn't work, or it does work and without it Native Americans would be almost unbelievably terrible -- even compared to other historically oppressed groups (blacks, Irish, Japanese). [1] https://www.epi.org/blog/2016-acs-shows-stubbornly-high-native-american-poverty-and-different-degrees-of-economic-well-being-for-asian-ethnic-groups/ https://www.epi.org/blog/2016-acs-shows-stubbornly-high-nati... [2] https://theredroad.org/issues/native-american-poverty/ https://theredroad.org/issues/native-american-poverty/ [3] https://census.gov/library/stories/2018/09/poverty-rate-drops-third-consecutive-year-2017.html https://census.gov/library/stories/2018/09/poverty-rate-drop... [4] https://thinkprogress.org/the-unemployment-rate-for-native-americans-has-been-over-10-percent-for-five-years-8f9ef18f1f18/ https://thinkprogress.org/the-unemployment-rate-for-native-a...
- mkolodny 7y ago
  The "free money" that Wired article [0] is about isn't for all Native Americans - it's only for the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. That tribe splits their casino's profit evenly. Their profit came out to about $12,000/person in 2016 (the same amount that Andrew Yang is proposing for Universal Basic Income [1]). There are other Native American owned casinos who give their tribe members payouts, but not all of them can. According to Partnership with Native Americans [2], fewer than 15% of Native American tribes operate prosperous casinos. [0] https://www.wired.com/story/free-money-the-surprising-effects-of-a-basic-income-supplied-by-government/ https://www.wired.com/story/free-money-the-surprising-effect... [1] https://www.yang2020.com/policies/the-freedom-dividend/ https://www.yang2020.com/policies/the-freedom-dividend/ [2] http://www.nativepartnership.org/site/PageServer?pagename=pwna_media_fundingfacts http://www.nativepartnership.org/site/PageServer?pagename=pw...

SquishyPanda23 7y ago

> My sister works up in Alaska. Tribal members up there have exactly what UBI promises: a baseline check every month.... This sounds like a lot of tribal areas that don't have UBI. Are you thinking of a specific study that establishes UBI as the cause of this behavior in this case, or are you guessing?

ahdeanz 7y ago

The term for what you’re talking about is typically referred to as an “income effect”. You could(and people do) make the same argument against the existing social safety net. You can already do no work and simply survive off this net. The threat of death probably wasn’t the big motivator for most people. I could imagine UBI feeling qualitatively the same way once implemented. You still have all the positive motivations for working in place, getting monetary compensation, social status, etc. We don’t really know because it’s never been tried but there’s legitimate reason to believe the positives could outweigh these effects.

kmonsen 7y ago

If we want to free people from tyrannical employers, isn’t free healthcare step one? Perhaps some sort of more available food stamps step two? I would agree with a lot of the criticism of government should not target too closely etc, but those two programs seems pretty well run compared to the free market alternatives. At least when they are allowed to.

Ididntdothis 7y ago
Agreed. Health care would be great first step. If we can’t pull that off I don’t have much hope for UBI.
sethammons 7y ago
I think healthcare is a great candidate for a step one.
unlinked_dll 7y ago
It's not really the tyranny of bad employers that you want to target through government intervention in the labor market, but the curb the unintended consequences of the good ones, which is also why I don't think UBI is the right weapon to use. As wages have stagnated and been replaced through other incentives I kind of see ourselves entering a neo-feudalist society. We're not swearing oaths to our employers by any means, but we are being somewhat tied to the land, metaphorically. Healthcare is the lowest hanging fruit politically, but the unintended consequences of all non-monetary benefits should also be on the table. Like companies building or compensating for housing. Pet insurance. Company doctors/clinics. Child care. All things we want and appreciate, and great to see in a benefits package, and fantastic that companies want to help people with those problems, but it's a bit disconcerting in the long run for the labor market and society if you think about how these things can potentially trap individuals. And how when companies pay for things instead of individuals and pricing gets hidden/warped how the market changes.
Reedx 7y ago
Decoupling healthcare would be such a boon for small businesses. I don't understand why this point isn't made more often. It's frequently the difference between someone being able to start and have a viable business or not. Remove that overhead and I think we'd see a flurry of activity and exploration that wasn't previously possible.

chiefalchemist 7y ago

UBI is not a panacea. It does help move some key micro needles (i.e., employers needing to be more mindful of employees). On the other hand, at the macro level (read: federal) there is risk. That is, elected officials will mistakenly see it as a replacement for opportunity; as a cure of institutional injustice. The native Americans got screwed. Their culture and pride destroyed. Simply tossing money at them isn't enough. But that's what we've done. We shouldn't be surprised.

Reedx 7y ago

> I can see UBI causing more resentment on both sides, the receivers and the payers. But in this case (Yang's Freedom Dividend), everyone gets it. Doesn't that essentially solve the issue?

ScottBurson 7y ago
No, because high-income people still have to be net payers. Otherwise, where does the money come from?
- lidHanteyk 7y ago
  It is not a problem if rich people resent having to pay money into the government in order to keep the system running. Rich people are only rich because the government maintains the monetary system. Being so rich that one resents the very government that establishes their riches is a feature, not a bug. Edit: As usual for rapid downvotes on polite posts, do downvoters care to explain themselves? Or is today a day for irrationally defending the rich?
  - aeternum 7y ago
    It is generally not the rich that resent it. The rich simply see taxes as a cost of doing business that they should attempt to minimize as they would any cost. If you look at welfare, those that resent it most are the people that are just over the threshold to receive it. They see themselves as significantly better than those on welfare who are lazy and gaming the system.
    - lidHanteyk 7y ago
      Okay, but we're talking about UBI, and in UBI systems, there aren't any people that are just barely over the threshold. I don't really see folks resenting welfare. I see a whole lot of folks who have probably never experienced welfare, though, and who are ready to judge those who do receive it. I don't consider this a reasonable line of thought, though, but rather an indicator of bigotry and poor empathy.

deleted 7y ago

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FussyZeus 7y ago

> My sister works up in Alaska. Tribal members up there have exactly what UBI promises: a baseline check every month. This has not stirred people to innovation. It has led to a gluttony of drug and alcohol addition and a forgetting of the ways to live off the land. Perhaps an alternate explanation from "having guaranteed income makes people lazy, stupid, and drug addicts" might be "living in a place with little to do, few resources to use, and a natural environment that can be best described as 'often actively killing you' on good days"? And in general I find these takes offensive simply because, with specific respect to Native lands in various places, people are putting the same notions of what is considered "success" in the Capitalist West on completely different cultures. The notion of "work hard, build stuff, earn money, die wealthy" is very much a recent thing in human history, starting in the 1600's when corporations first became a thing. For millennia, the condition of existence was not centered solely around the accumulation of wealth; people lived, to live. They lived to grow and eat food, to experience other people and places, to stave off disease and to of course, pass on their genetic material. There is nothing inherently human about the accumulation of material wealth; we all seek security, of course, but we had security in relatively different amounts and methods for long, LONG before the existence of money. I'm not arguing of course to return to the caves; merely pointing out that the capitalist values of earning and hoarding vast fortunes are incredibly over-emphasized whenever success is discussed. Many, many people see money not as something to hoard or invest, but simply as a vehicle with which to live comfortably. They value it for it's ability to ensure them long lasting security but that's it, and if they could have that money without working, you're correct, they'd probably live very simple lifestyles; none of them going out to change the world, or invent some new thing, or solve problems. And I'm saying there is nothing wrong with that. We have approximately six hundred of every conceivable product, all begging to be purchased, all manufactured at ludicrous scale, a ton of which will end up in a landfill either unsold, or sold and forgotten within a couple of years. And to accomplish what? If you want to talk about how to really further the species, then I think we need newer, more interesting ideas than the next app, or the next gizmo, or the new format of television.

mc32 7y ago

Qatar should be a good case for long-term study: citizens are guaranteed state jobs, land grants and a free education.

vinay427 7y ago
No thank you. That's easy to do when 88% of the population are foreign workers, virtually none of whom have a path to citizenship, most of whom are rewarded with relatively low wages, and many of whom face exploitation by various means. It's a feudalistic system that doesn't focus on benefiting the people in Qatar, only the Qatari citizens. http://priyadsouza.com/population-of-qatar-by-nationality-in-2017/ http://priyadsouza.com/population-of-qatar-by-nationality-in...
- mc32 7y ago
  Sure, but if it can't work in that society, how would it ever work in a more just society?
  - vinay427 7y ago
    1. Because every country's economy is not identical to Qatar's. Workers in many countries are more productive (in monetary value, for instance) compared to those in many other countries. Loosely, having workers that bring in more money would allow for needing fewer workers. 2. I don't have a strong opinion on UBI right now, but I don't see how Qatar's exploitative system somehow disqualifies UBI in general. Based on what you described, it doesn't even sound like a universal income: it's neither universal nor disposable income.
    - mc32 7y ago
      So it's too early to tell. But if it does work, then that means under some conditions it can work. If it cannot work, then, there is little hope as their system is kind of handicapped to have a better chance than most.

aaron695 7y ago

> This has not stirred people to innovation. Where does this strawperson come from? UBI has nothing to do with innovation. I also don't think it will stifle innovation. I don't understand why this word innovation is mixed with people on UBI. You do talk about the active drug industry that has sprung up around UBI, so there's innovation there. But I'm not understanding what the claim is. We are not bringing in UBI to help innovation for either people on it, which it obviously won't, or eco systems around it, which seems like would be a sum loss.

ryanmercer 7y ago

>This has not stirred people to innovation. It has led to a gluttony of drug and alcohol addition and a forgetting of the ways to live off the land. To be fair though, how much of that is due to the harsh winter conditions and long winter nights? A quick glance of the Google query "Alaska depressed winter" makes it look like it might be more of a weather/sun issue. Also >Alaska's alcohol mortality rate is three times the national average http://www.newsminer.com/news/akrecovery/alaska-still-wrestling-with-long-running-alcohol-problems/article_e7d27aec-2865-11e5-be1b-2b4217261eca.html http://www.newsminer.com/news/akrecovery/alaska-still-wrestl...