6 ms·

Oh, this study was very useful, no matter how the guardian is trying to frame it. There was no clear indication that basic income encourages people to find jobs

Oh, this study was very useful, no matter how the guardian is trying to frame it. There was no clear indication that basic income encourages people to find jobs. You can scratch that one off the list. Other than that, there's absolutely nothing surprising. You give people a money and they feel better. That's like... not exactly new information. And yeah, it will change their choices somewhat, which again is no big find. There was a pretty big and important hypothesis that the study was trying to pin down: is UBI profitable? Do you give 500 EUR and get more back? The question is very reasonable and there was quite a bit of clamor for exactly this kind of pilot study to get details. Quite a few mechanisms could potentially get us there - for example people could focus on training for a better position. Or simply having more time to look for jobs they'd find better matches. And so on. And the answer is: there is no trace of that. Sure, we do need better studies, longer durations, higher amounts, more people. It's definitely something that's worth studying. But the gold standard so far, the linked study, found nothing in this direction. That's a big negative, and well worth noting - not hiding it into a bunch of "people feel better with more money" like this article is trying to do.

andrei_says_ 6y ago
In Utopia for Realists, a book full off UBI case studies, this question is addressed multiple times and yes, UBI is a money saver for governments.
6gvONxR4sf7o 6y ago
From an income redistribution standpoint giving $500 and mostly getting less back can make sense. If you give $500 to 10 people and get zero back, but one of those people earns a billion dollars per year, it could be still be fine. Either way, it's an important datapoint. It should be an intentional decision to do it as wealth redistribution if that's the way we want to go, rather than pretending it's something it isn't.
marcosdumay 6y ago
It's hard to get any conclusion from this article. There is this: > The researchers also noted a mild positive effect on employment > Freelancers and artists and entrepreneurs had more positive views on the effects of the basic income, which some felt had created opportunities for them to start businesses. And, of course, the often neglected (and that appears as a negative on the numbers): > Some found the guaranteed income increased the possibility for them to do things like providing informal care for their family or their neighbours But actually nothing of substance on either direction. Do you have a better article?
- radu_floricica 6y ago
  It's a negative result. What isn't there matters - in particular, no info on there being some form of monetary ROI. I don't have other sources at hand - just memories from when the study was published and there was quite a lot of discussion.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - marcosdumay 6y ago
    Hum... I've searched the study, and it looks like results are still scheduled to be published this year. Granted that it was a quick search, but I get no source for the claim that the result was negative. Besides, UBI being cheaper to administer than current social security, failure in finding any difference is a reason to adopt it, not to keep the status quo.
    - radu_floricica 6y ago
      UBI is definitely not cheaper that current social security. "To administer" maybe, but the total cost is probably orders of magnitude more, and doesn't even solve the problem: certain demographics will still need extra.
      - marcosdumay 6y ago
        > UBI is definitely not cheaper that current social security. If you count taxing a person to give the money back to the same person as a cost, it's certainly not.
fallingfrog 6y ago
If it improved people’s lives and had no obvious drawbacks, do we really need anything else to call it a success? Why is something only a success if it makes the stock market go up, or some capitalist richer? I cannot strongly stress enough how profoundly I do not care about either of those things. Making people’s lives better is an end unto itself.
- radu_floricica 6y ago
  I cannot strongly stress how amused and annoyed I am by you completely ignoring that this money has to come from somewhere. Goddamn kids. Of course giving people money makes them happy. Problem is that money represents resources, there's a limited amount of those going around, and printing money doesn't do anything except devalue the value of a dollar. It's a functional problem, not a distribution problem.
  - hellotomyrars 6y ago
    I cannot strongly stress how amused and annoyed I am by you defending the interests of people with more money than you and your entire family have ever made or ever will make. You're right. Our current system requires us to use money to represent limited resources and those resources are not infinite. Congratulations. However the idea here that some people just have to suffer and be catastrophically disadvantaged so that an (increasingly smaller and squeezed) middle class can enjoy the fruits of their hard labor as the money continues to concentrate at the top is absurd. Try thinking outside of the box for a moment. The current system is fundamentally broken but I guess as long as you've got yours it suits your needs.
    - radu_floricica 6y ago
      I was born in communist Romania. Thank you very much, but I had one socialist system in my life, I really don't want another. Every single one that humanity tried was either suboptimal, dystopian or straight up humanitarian catastrophe. But sure, I guess they weren't "real" socialism, so let's try and try and try again. sigh. Somebody in my country once said something like: "If you're not communist at 20, you have no heart. If you're still communist at 30, you have no brain". So I guess I should be more patient. But well... I am a bit irritated by people saying things with conviction while not knowing enough history to cross the road.
pdeuchler 6y ago
> There was no clear indication that basic income encourages people to find jobs. You can scratch that one off the list. You clearly didn't read the study or even the guardian article. There was clear evidence that basic income encourages people to find jobs in many cases, just not conclusively in every case (which no proponent of UBI argues). > There was a pretty big and important hypothesis that the study was trying to pin down: is UBI profitable? Do you give 500 EUR and get more back? That wasn't even close to the hypothesis that they were trying to disprove. You made this up off the top of your head. They were trying to develop a simpler, less bureaucratic welfare system that didn't have the pitfalls of the existing system while measuring dependent's wellbeing. > And the answer is: there is no trace of that. Again, not true. There was plenty of evidence that a UBI (as enacted in this study) could have positive economic effects, just not in every single case, and not conclusively. Pretty much the only conclusive result from this study was that the dependents had a better sense of well being on average from the control group. That's it. I have no idea where you got these made up factoids from, I cant find any kind of review or analysis that shares your opinions or statements.

andrei_says_ 6y ago

In Utopia for Realists, a book full off UBI case studies, this question is addressed multiple times and yes, UBI is a money saver for governments.

6gvONxR4sf7o 6y ago

From an income redistribution standpoint giving $500 and mostly getting less back can make sense. If you give $500 to 10 people and get zero back, but one of those people earns a billion dollars per year, it could be still be fine. Either way, it's an important datapoint. It should be an intentional decision to do it as wealth redistribution if that's the way we want to go, rather than pretending it's something it isn't.

marcosdumay 6y ago

It's hard to get any conclusion from this article. There is this: > The researchers also noted a mild positive effect on employment > Freelancers and artists and entrepreneurs had more positive views on the effects of the basic income, which some felt had created opportunities for them to start businesses. And, of course, the often neglected (and that appears as a negative on the numbers): > Some found the guaranteed income increased the possibility for them to do things like providing informal care for their family or their neighbours But actually nothing of substance on either direction. Do you have a better article?

radu_floricica 6y ago
It's a negative result. What isn't there matters - in particular, no info on there being some form of monetary ROI. I don't have other sources at hand - just memories from when the study was published and there was quite a lot of discussion.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- marcosdumay 6y ago
  Hum... I've searched the study, and it looks like results are still scheduled to be published this year. Granted that it was a quick search, but I get no source for the claim that the result was negative. Besides, UBI being cheaper to administer than current social security, failure in finding any difference is a reason to adopt it, not to keep the status quo.
  - radu_floricica 6y ago
    UBI is definitely not cheaper that current social security. "To administer" maybe, but the total cost is probably orders of magnitude more, and doesn't even solve the problem: certain demographics will still need extra.
    - marcosdumay 6y ago
      > UBI is definitely not cheaper that current social security. If you count taxing a person to give the money back to the same person as a cost, it's certainly not.

fallingfrog 6y ago

If it improved people’s lives and had no obvious drawbacks, do we really need anything else to call it a success? Why is something only a success if it makes the stock market go up, or some capitalist richer? I cannot strongly stress enough how profoundly I do not care about either of those things. Making people’s lives better is an end unto itself.

radu_floricica 6y ago
I cannot strongly stress how amused and annoyed I am by you completely ignoring that this money has to come from somewhere. Goddamn kids. Of course giving people money makes them happy. Problem is that money represents resources, there's a limited amount of those going around, and printing money doesn't do anything except devalue the value of a dollar. It's a functional problem, not a distribution problem.
- hellotomyrars 6y ago
  I cannot strongly stress how amused and annoyed I am by you defending the interests of people with more money than you and your entire family have ever made or ever will make. You're right. Our current system requires us to use money to represent limited resources and those resources are not infinite. Congratulations. However the idea here that some people just have to suffer and be catastrophically disadvantaged so that an (increasingly smaller and squeezed) middle class can enjoy the fruits of their hard labor as the money continues to concentrate at the top is absurd. Try thinking outside of the box for a moment. The current system is fundamentally broken but I guess as long as you've got yours it suits your needs.
  - radu_floricica 6y ago
    I was born in communist Romania. Thank you very much, but I had one socialist system in my life, I really don't want another. Every single one that humanity tried was either suboptimal, dystopian or straight up humanitarian catastrophe. But sure, I guess they weren't "real" socialism, so let's try and try and try again. sigh. Somebody in my country once said something like: "If you're not communist at 20, you have no heart. If you're still communist at 30, you have no brain". So I guess I should be more patient. But well... I am a bit irritated by people saying things with conviction while not knowing enough history to cross the road.

pdeuchler 6y ago

> There was no clear indication that basic income encourages people to find jobs. You can scratch that one off the list. You clearly didn't read the study or even the guardian article. There was clear evidence that basic income encourages people to find jobs in many cases, just not conclusively in every case (which no proponent of UBI argues). > There was a pretty big and important hypothesis that the study was trying to pin down: is UBI profitable? Do you give 500 EUR and get more back? That wasn't even close to the hypothesis that they were trying to disprove. You made this up off the top of your head. They were trying to develop a simpler, less bureaucratic welfare system that didn't have the pitfalls of the existing system while measuring dependent's wellbeing. > And the answer is: there is no trace of that. Again, not true. There was plenty of evidence that a UBI (as enacted in this study) could have positive economic effects, just not in every single case, and not conclusively. Pretty much the only conclusive result from this study was that the dependents had a better sense of well being on average from the control group. That's it. I have no idea where you got these made up factoids from, I cant find any kind of review or analysis that shares your opinions or statements.