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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-surprisin

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...
- sudosteph 7y ago
  The reservation system has created a uniquely imbalanced system for Native Americans where they often live on land that has neither abundant natural resources nor easy access to money from tourism, industry, or trading in general. In that respect, I think the best comparison would actually be to Americans in the parts of the Appalachians (though parts of the Appalachians have mining or tourism, some parts have neither and are very remote). Looking at a summary for some of that data, it's a very similar poverty rate in some parts, like Appalachian Kentucky[1] (25%) despite a relatively high rate of employment (compared to native Americans). I can't do a full breakdown from my phone, but I do wonder if there are other pieces of data about well-being that differ between working and non-working poor that are worth considering. Though it's also hard to quantify what role racism might play in limiting opportunity for Native Americans, which would compound on the issues of being generally isolated from economic opportunities. [1] https://fahe.org/appalachian-poverty/ https://fahe.org/appalachian-poverty/
  - paulddraper 7y ago
    Tourism/entertainment in fact is the primary source of the UBI.
    - sudosteph 7y ago
      So super similar economic conditions then. Enough tourism to create jobs and/or UBI in some parts, but not evenly distributed at all, especially for places that are already disadvantaged due to location. Per http://www.nativepartnership.org/site/PageServer?pagename=pwna_media_fundingfacts http://www.nativepartnership.org/site/PageServer?pagename=pw... > The National Indian Gaming Commission reports only 242 tribes in 28 states operate casinos (as of 2014). Of these 242, about 88 have less than $3 million in revenue, and 96 have $10-25 million in revenue (enough to give per capita payouts, depending on the needs of each tribe and federal approval). Research shows that casinos need to be within 50 miles of a metro area (with 10,000 or more residents) to be highly profitable such as the few mentioned here. In PWNA’s experience, the rural and remote casinos do not have enough traffic to generate large profits — they do create a few tribal jobs.
- jostylr 7y ago
  Here is a study: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X1830024X https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X1... Their chosen highlights: >Highlights >The Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend (PFD) has provided UBI averaging $6600 US (2015) dollars for a family of four since 1982. >The PFD reduced the number of rural Alaska Indigenous people in poverty during 2011–2015 by 22%, down from 46% in 2000. >The PFD reduced poverty among rural Alaska Indigenous seniors by more than 40%, to rates that are now relatively low. >Child poverty rates have been increasing; however, the PFD reduced 2011–2015 rural Alaska Native child poverty rates by 25%. >Errors in official statistics will cause them to understate the actual rise in poverty rates as future PFD amounts decline. Note that the PFD amounts are about a quarter of what Yang suggests (assuming two parents; number of children is irrelevant to his plan). The last line of the abstract is "Evidence has not appeared for commonly hypothesized potential adverse social and economic consequences of UBI." I personally would be curious to know more about what kind of UBI-ish payments have been made, in what amounts, how it varies from group to group, and what are the differences in outcome. I imagine that a lot has to do with the actual amounts received and if there are conditions for receiving it (such as staying on the reservation) and what kind of restrictions might be in place for building up infrastructure or doing other economic activities in addition to surrounding oppressive attitudes. There would be a lot of interesting stuff that could be looked into.
  - paulddraper 7y ago
    Interesting, thanks. The highlights are definitely select the best results; there are some less than great things in the body.
  - manfredo 7y ago
    This is not really that significant of a result, given that the measure of poverty they used is an income threshold. In other words, the study result found that supplementing income with direct cash payments reduced the percentage of people that fell below the poverty income threshold. Which is an obvious consequence of a uniform increase in people's income.
    - 7y ago
- Proven 7y ago
  No study is necessary to be able to conclude with absolute certainty that UBI is unworkable nonsense.

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...
sudosteph 7y ago
The reservation system has created a uniquely imbalanced system for Native Americans where they often live on land that has neither abundant natural resources nor easy access to money from tourism, industry, or trading in general. In that respect, I think the best comparison would actually be to Americans in the parts of the Appalachians (though parts of the Appalachians have mining or tourism, some parts have neither and are very remote). Looking at a summary for some of that data, it's a very similar poverty rate in some parts, like Appalachian Kentucky[1] (25%) despite a relatively high rate of employment (compared to native Americans). I can't do a full breakdown from my phone, but I do wonder if there are other pieces of data about well-being that differ between working and non-working poor that are worth considering. Though it's also hard to quantify what role racism might play in limiting opportunity for Native Americans, which would compound on the issues of being generally isolated from economic opportunities. [1] https://fahe.org/appalachian-poverty/ https://fahe.org/appalachian-poverty/
- paulddraper 7y ago
  Tourism/entertainment in fact is the primary source of the UBI.
  - sudosteph 7y ago
    So super similar economic conditions then. Enough tourism to create jobs and/or UBI in some parts, but not evenly distributed at all, especially for places that are already disadvantaged due to location. Per http://www.nativepartnership.org/site/PageServer?pagename=pwna_media_fundingfacts http://www.nativepartnership.org/site/PageServer?pagename=pw... > The National Indian Gaming Commission reports only 242 tribes in 28 states operate casinos (as of 2014). Of these 242, about 88 have less than $3 million in revenue, and 96 have $10-25 million in revenue (enough to give per capita payouts, depending on the needs of each tribe and federal approval). Research shows that casinos need to be within 50 miles of a metro area (with 10,000 or more residents) to be highly profitable such as the few mentioned here. In PWNA’s experience, the rural and remote casinos do not have enough traffic to generate large profits — they do create a few tribal jobs.
jostylr 7y ago
Here is a study: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X1830024X https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X1... Their chosen highlights: >Highlights >The Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend (PFD) has provided UBI averaging $6600 US (2015) dollars for a family of four since 1982. >The PFD reduced the number of rural Alaska Indigenous people in poverty during 2011–2015 by 22%, down from 46% in 2000. >The PFD reduced poverty among rural Alaska Indigenous seniors by more than 40%, to rates that are now relatively low. >Child poverty rates have been increasing; however, the PFD reduced 2011–2015 rural Alaska Native child poverty rates by 25%. >Errors in official statistics will cause them to understate the actual rise in poverty rates as future PFD amounts decline. Note that the PFD amounts are about a quarter of what Yang suggests (assuming two parents; number of children is irrelevant to his plan). The last line of the abstract is "Evidence has not appeared for commonly hypothesized potential adverse social and economic consequences of UBI." I personally would be curious to know more about what kind of UBI-ish payments have been made, in what amounts, how it varies from group to group, and what are the differences in outcome. I imagine that a lot has to do with the actual amounts received and if there are conditions for receiving it (such as staying on the reservation) and what kind of restrictions might be in place for building up infrastructure or doing other economic activities in addition to surrounding oppressive attitudes. There would be a lot of interesting stuff that could be looked into.
- paulddraper 7y ago
  Interesting, thanks. The highlights are definitely select the best results; there are some less than great things in the body.
- manfredo 7y ago
  This is not really that significant of a result, given that the measure of poverty they used is an income threshold. In other words, the study result found that supplementing income with direct cash payments reduced the percentage of people that fell below the poverty income threshold. Which is an obvious consequence of a uniform increase in people's income.
  - 7y ago
Proven 7y ago
No study is necessary to be able to conclude with absolute certainty that UBI is unworkable nonsense.