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> If my job requires menial labor or involves getting berated by customers (many retail jobs), personally I would absolutely not work. Maybe that's a good thin

> If my job requires menial labor or involves getting berated by customers (many retail jobs), personally I would absolutely not work. Maybe that's a good thing. It's insane how people in service industries are treated - like they're less than human. Shifting some power to them and giving the job a little more of an air of dignity or status would probably help a lot. And the pay would obviously go up. People would be willing to do the job if it means life or death, but not for minimum wage - and that's a good thing.

_-david-_ 5y ago
>And the pay would obviously go up. Maybe. Many jobs can be automated, but it was cheaper to just hire minimum wage people to do a job. If the pay required to find people got to be too high, automation would happen more rapidly.
- meatsauce 5y ago
  I wonder where people get this idea that you should be paid like a rockstar without knowing how to play the guitar.
  - jodrellblank 5y ago
    I wonder where people got this idea that UBI proponents are expecting everyone to be paid like rockstars.
  - andi999 5y ago
    That would bei URI, universal rockstar income.
    - chii 5y ago
      which, ironically, would be a pittance since most musicians are starving artists.
- wizzwizz4 5y ago
  Then roll on automation. Not even the Luddites had a problem with automation; just with the quality of the result and with who reaped the rewards.
  - ajuc 5y ago
    Automation is good. Automation in a capitalist society with unlimited IP laws results in dystopia.
    - wizzwizz4 5y ago
      Not necessarily. Society is made of people; some things can be automated in a non-capitalist way (e.g. free software) even by capitalists. Though, of course, we will have to struggle to avoid the dystopia.
    - worik 5y ago
      "a capitalist society" is not a binary attribute. There can be elements of capitalism and elements of "socialism". Private property can coexist with government supplied housing for instance. In the "capitalist" USA a lot of the military industrial complex lives off government handouts. Why not the people too? The cakes and cookies we should earn ourselves, the meat and potatoes (and housing) should be a right for every citizen
    - godelski 5y ago
      i.e. > just with the quality of the result and with who reaped the rewards. Maybe we should leave terms like capitalism and socialism out of the discussion because no one can agree on their meanings so they just become fighting words and their usefulness to the conversations are less than meaningless.
      - ajuc 5y ago
        That's why I specified unlimited IP laws. Basically who licences the robots and AIs - owns the world.
- y4mi 5y ago
  Sounds like a net positive if they're getting basic income and thus don't have to suffer through the abuse anymore
- ido 5y ago
  That's a good thing, right? What used to require a human toiling will then be made by a machine!
- Natsu 5y ago
  Speaking as someone who has worked in a factory, you couldn't pay me a six figure salary to go back. And most of the things were automated already, at least as much as reasonably could be.
  - yurishimo 5y ago
    I think that is more a testament to the lives we now live as Software Developers more than anything else. It's not uncommon to find anecdotes of others on HN talking about how they maybe work 2-3 hours a day and take home 150k+ a year. I started working my freshman year in high school in 2008 as a busboy at a local restaurant making $4.50/hr + tips from the servers working that night. I couldn't even drive yet so I pocketed most of that money and was grateful for the opportunity. (This ultimately allowed me to build my first PC and I allowed me to get into programming.) I moved from there to another local restaurant with a similar job title, but quickly moved up into working in the kitchen as a line cook. I think I made $8 or $9/hr when I got the "promotion". After graduation I wandered around some and eventually ended up as an asst. manager at a Burger King. Now, over a decade later, I can sometimes look back nostalgically at my time in food service, but I don't know that I would ever go back, for any amount of money. The things I am nostalgic for are structure, a defined start/end time, and being able to leave work at work. The pay was awful, the people were generally nice enough, but there's always a rude customer at some point or a manager with a power trip. I don't miss waking up at 5am to man the drive-thru, or going home after midnight smelling like grease. If I woke up tomorrow with no qualifications to write software, I would sooner go into a back breaking trade than go back to retail. I think we will see automation really start to take over these retail spaces in 2022. In my city (Dallas), pretty much every single fast food restaurant has mobile ordering or a kiosk available. My local Kroger expanded their self checkout lines and after 10pm, there are no more manned checkouts open. I've frequently had to scan and bag a full cart of groceries using self checkout (which sucks). The past two years have opened up a lot of time for these giant corps to invest in R&D as the labor pool shrinks. Through the perfect storm of chip shortages and labor shortages, we haven't seen a large scale roll out, but I'm confident it's coming as soon as parts and installers are available.
    - 5y ago
- staticassertion 5y ago
  Good thing there would be UBI then?
- jjk166 5y ago
  If a job doesn't need doing, why waste a human's labor on it? Though that said, I remember not too long ago a lot of people saying "oh if minimum wage goes over $15 we'll just automate the jobs" and now the McDonalds by my house is offering $23/hr for entry level work and robots are nowhere to be seen.
  - _-david-_ 5y ago
    They are rolling out computer tellers all around my area. If they haven't done it in your area it is coming. There are a few companies working on automated meal makers and they are slowly being rolled out. It is just going a bit slow right now.
    - withinboredom 5y ago
      I love this in other countries. I don’t always speak the local language well enough but I can tap on pictures and wait for my number to come up.
    - JacobThreeThree 5y ago
      >It is just going a bit slow right now. Ahh yes, as the AI marketing department always says, we're 99% of the way there, it's just that the last 1% is the hardest! https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-08-17/waymo-s-self-driving-cars-are-99-of-the-way-there-the-last-1-is-the-hardest https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-08-17/waymo-s-s...
      - _-david-_ 5y ago
        I don't think the comparison to AI is apt since meal making robots do currently function and are in restaurants right now. It is literally just being rolled out slowly.
    - Ekaros 5y ago
      I love them. Still, it seems that even those that clearly are solved problem can be done badly. Recently KFC rolled out here. And their kiosk seem to miss the basic options to customize the meals. Like just removing things. Can't do that with meals... Have list of extra options of stuff possibly not even in the product... Actually they don't even tell anywhere what is in their burgers. But I digress. All other chains including the local one manage to have these options present... So in the end automation won't always solve everything immediately...
- wpietri 5y ago
  Done right, automation increases the value created per labor hour. Which makes both UBI and humane jobs even more achievable. I'm all for it.
lr4444lr 5y ago
Much as we might agree these workers overall have more money - from whatever source - it does not follow that the pay would go up for crap jobs. The pay need only be high enough above the post tax increase from the UBI baseline to fill the spots. Maybe it won't they populated by people who need to feed their family anymore, but perhaps by college grads who need to feed themselves because UBI is eaten up by their student loan repayment. All we can guarantee really is shifting the bracket of the likely talent pool's need for a few extra dollars. Humans aren't alike in the level of income above which they're no longer in desperation for a few extra bucks.
- worik 5y ago
  At low wages (effectively starvation wages in many cases) there is a huge incentive to show up for work. With a UBI there is less incentive due to hunger but those same wages look much more attractive. There is still an incentive to work. The money for the UBI does imply that profits go down, taxes go up (a mixture). But importantly those workers, previously on the edge of starvation, will start consuming services initiating a virtuous cycle. That is the theory. But a sensible housing policy (hello San Francisco) is very important or landlords will simply hover up all the surplus.
- StochasticSand 5y ago
  I mean, it's the law of diminishing marginal utility. Money earned on top of UBI would be worth less than money earned on top of nothing.
ozzythecat 5y ago
> Shifting some power to them and giving the job a little more of an air of dignity or status would probably help a lot. I agree, but is this feasible or wishful thinking? As a society, we’re decidedly split on whether we should wear masks or should or should not get vaccines, despite the science or despite whatever seems like a rational decision. (Admittedly I’m introducing my bias here). Would raising pay for retail workers or people acknowledging that we need to treat them with respect - would either of these actually lead to the right outcome? Or would it fuel another voice that vehemently sees these jobs as a stepping stone and not entitled to respect and dignity?
- thr0wawayf00 5y ago
  As you pointed out, it's not possible to achieve consensus on things like vaccines and masks, I don't think we should expect any differently in any sort of proposed change. There are always going to be opponents. If we always chose not to do something because it would be met with resistance, then nothing would happen ever. The US passing the civil rights act was met with vicious resistance as it was happening, should it not have happened because there were critics of the law? Ultimately, I think we do need to raise pay and facilitate a higher level of discourse in those kinds of environments., regardless of what detractors will say.
- parsimo2010 5y ago
  I think what it would do is balance the power a little toward an employee’s favor instead of a customer. Right now there are people that have no choice but to work these jobs. So a company can institute a “customer is always right” policy because it keeps the customer around and they really don’t have to consider their employees feelings- they are easily replaced. Customers only act like assholes because they can get away with it- abuse the clerk, the manager comes out, customer gets free stuff. But if there was a basic income there might be fewer people willing to put up with abusive customers. If a company has a hard time replacing employees then it might have to reconsider their policy to be more like “accommodate reasonable customers but abusive customers can be kicked out.” This would probably happen over time, not immediately after implementing a basic income but I think it’s a good thing. But I think the overall idea that companies would have to put a little more effort into their employee’s well being would be borne out if a country could commit to a basic income for long enough for the effects to shake out. This is good behavior that companies would be forced into, not because of morals like respects and dignity, but because a mass exodus of employees would eventually hurt profits more than keeping unreasonable customers around.
pkdpic 5y ago
Agreed, isnt this exactly whats been observed from pandemic financial aid? Increased pressure on employers to pay more and give workers a better work environment? Maybe someone has a better link to back that up but heres one at least. https://www.forbes.com/sites/bryanrobinson/2021/10/14/employers-in-a-pinch-as-workers-say-take-this-job-and-shove-it/?sh=182a77ce5b0d https://www.forbes.com/sites/bryanrobinson/2021/10/14/employ... Also isnt there some possibly-not-totally-fantasy narrative where at least some of these jobs become automated in response to workers not wanting them and its maybe a good thing?
- xapata 5y ago
  There were many anecdotes from employers complaining about unemployment benefits, but the systematic data collection gave mixed evidence. I concluded the impact varied across industries.
- mushufasa 5y ago
  ~50 years ago Keynes predicted by now no-one would have to work menial jobs because everything would be automated, freeing up people to work a few days a week and pursue creative endeavors. While we have automated things, we are nowhere close to that today. A lot of current menial jobs CAN be automated today, but the cost of labor is cheaper than designing and deploying automated solutions. Having higher cost of labor will incentivize more capital solutions to menial jobs (automation, substitutions), which will change societal patterns a lot (maybe you should expect a machine to take orders at every restaurant) but could certainly lead to a happier 'steady state' long term.
  - piva00 5y ago
    Bertrand Russell predicted the same in the 1920s.
    - mushufasa 5y ago
      Good correction. The Keynes essay I am thinking of is from the 1930s, which is almost 100 years ago now! It was probably inspired from Russell's thoughts.
kradroy 5y ago
On the other side of the coin, in my career I've had colleagues so bad that I would gladly pay them NOT to work. They created a toxic workplace and made everything worse. Unfortunately the majority of them would likely not take UBI (in two cases they were the owner/boss). However, if UBI kept just a portion of troublesome workers out of the workforce, then that would be beneficial as well.
- munk-a 5y ago
  UBI would likely help most in this case by giving employees the power to comfortably seek new work. Bad bosses survive mostly on apathetic employees that empower them to get away with being awful while looking productive because of their team. The more power you give to employees the faster people will jump ship from bad bosses to good ones - and the awful ones will have a harder time keeping their positions.
- ErikVandeWater 5y ago
  UBI would probably end up disproportionately filtering out non-troublesome workers. Non-troublesome workers are more rational than troublesome workers and would take a small reduction in pay in exchange for less headache. The troublesome workers that actually enjoy conflict would stay in the workforce because they can't find the same opportunities for conflict elsewhere.
dghughes 5y ago
I've also seen within the same organization how such people are treated. For example janitorial workers. At an old workplace of mine there were three shifts of at least two workers three during the day. Then they were cut to just one worker per day and evening no nights. One person frantically running from bathroom to bathroom not even getting to the other tasks that had to do like vacuuming. Then they cut their hours to part-time for all but two workers. At minimum wage it was barely livable on 40 hours per week. They also ask the night worker to come in the next day with less than a seven hour gap from the previous shift. Even at the punch clock they were scolded for punching in or out a mere 1 minute off from the time to work or end. I could tell when talking to the staff many of them felt defeated and this was the only job they could do. They just had to sit there and take it. Guaranteed income (GI) would at least buffer some of the anxiety. I could also see businesses knowing it existed would cut worker hours to part-time. But if part-time plus GI was enough then the worker has the power.
- godelski 5y ago
  > Guaranteed income (GI) would at least buffer some of the anxiety. I could also see businesses knowing it existed would cut worker hours to part-time. But if part-time plus GI was enough then the worker has the power. This is the biggest advantage I see, and shows why you wouldn't even need a living wage. You need a sufficient amount of money so that if a worker is being abused they can say "fuck it, I quit" and be able to live until they find another job. Being able to do that should prevent a fair amount of abuse in the first place.
  - manicdee 5y ago
    How can they afford to quit if they aren’t earning enough to live on in the first place? You have that luxury because of savings.
    - godelski 5y ago
      Even a small amount of income gives breathing room. That's the idea here. A full UBI would mean there's no chance of suffocating. I'm saying that we can dip our toes in first and we should still see effects. It isn't an all or nothing scenario as many put forward.
Fernicia 5y ago
So labour costs would go up, things get more expensive, and there are still no incentives to be civil because that cost is spread amongst all customers.
- rightbyte 5y ago
  Why would labour costs not go down? If the worker gets X from the state, they employer can pay them X less for status quo, which obviously was an amount of money that worked out earlier. I.e. the cost of living in cities is what prevent workers from undercutting each other in cities.
  - chii 5y ago
    If $X was enough to live (even if meagerly), then why would a worker put up with a new wage that is $X less than previously? The worker would only continue a "shitty" job, if they get a better deal than before. So it makes sense to conclude that wages would cost more to entice a worker if said worker was able to obtain a UBI. Jobs that would be popular and enjoyable, would be sought after - and those wages would drop.
surfmike 5y ago
I think this is an honest perspective, but it directly contradicts the article which is saying "basic income would not reduce people's willingness to work." Menial labor or being berated by customers rather clear-cut example, but most jobs have moderate amounts of unpleasantness, and given the choice many people would opt out of working altogether. There's a lot of unpleasant work that needs to be done to keep civilization going!
- danaris 5y ago
  There's a big difference between "I am willing to work, even though I can get enough money to survive without doing so" and "Under those conditions, I am still willing to work at a job that dehumanizes and degrades me constantly, for very little extra money."
dgb23 5y ago
In addition it would incentivize companies to actually invest into research and development instead of wasting money into dead-end financial schemes and bullshit jobs. Everyone wins.
908B64B197 5y ago
> Maybe that's a good thing. It's insane how people in service industries are treated - like they're less than human Wait until you hear about healthcare. Not sure how you would staff an hospital floor once UBI is introduced.

_-david-_ 5y ago

>And the pay would obviously go up. Maybe. Many jobs can be automated, but it was cheaper to just hire minimum wage people to do a job. If the pay required to find people got to be too high, automation would happen more rapidly.

meatsauce 5y ago
I wonder where people get this idea that you should be paid like a rockstar without knowing how to play the guitar.
- jodrellblank 5y ago
  I wonder where people got this idea that UBI proponents are expecting everyone to be paid like rockstars.
- andi999 5y ago
  That would bei URI, universal rockstar income.
  - chii 5y ago
    which, ironically, would be a pittance since most musicians are starving artists.
wizzwizz4 5y ago
Then roll on automation. Not even the Luddites had a problem with automation; just with the quality of the result and with who reaped the rewards.
- ajuc 5y ago
  Automation is good. Automation in a capitalist society with unlimited IP laws results in dystopia.
  - wizzwizz4 5y ago
    Not necessarily. Society is made of people; some things can be automated in a non-capitalist way (e.g. free software) even by capitalists. Though, of course, we will have to struggle to avoid the dystopia.
  - worik 5y ago
    "a capitalist society" is not a binary attribute. There can be elements of capitalism and elements of "socialism". Private property can coexist with government supplied housing for instance. In the "capitalist" USA a lot of the military industrial complex lives off government handouts. Why not the people too? The cakes and cookies we should earn ourselves, the meat and potatoes (and housing) should be a right for every citizen
  - godelski 5y ago
    i.e. > just with the quality of the result and with who reaped the rewards. Maybe we should leave terms like capitalism and socialism out of the discussion because no one can agree on their meanings so they just become fighting words and their usefulness to the conversations are less than meaningless.
    - ajuc 5y ago
      That's why I specified unlimited IP laws. Basically who licences the robots and AIs - owns the world.
y4mi 5y ago
Sounds like a net positive if they're getting basic income and thus don't have to suffer through the abuse anymore
ido 5y ago
That's a good thing, right? What used to require a human toiling will then be made by a machine!
Natsu 5y ago
Speaking as someone who has worked in a factory, you couldn't pay me a six figure salary to go back. And most of the things were automated already, at least as much as reasonably could be.
- yurishimo 5y ago
  I think that is more a testament to the lives we now live as Software Developers more than anything else. It's not uncommon to find anecdotes of others on HN talking about how they maybe work 2-3 hours a day and take home 150k+ a year. I started working my freshman year in high school in 2008 as a busboy at a local restaurant making $4.50/hr + tips from the servers working that night. I couldn't even drive yet so I pocketed most of that money and was grateful for the opportunity. (This ultimately allowed me to build my first PC and I allowed me to get into programming.) I moved from there to another local restaurant with a similar job title, but quickly moved up into working in the kitchen as a line cook. I think I made $8 or $9/hr when I got the "promotion". After graduation I wandered around some and eventually ended up as an asst. manager at a Burger King. Now, over a decade later, I can sometimes look back nostalgically at my time in food service, but I don't know that I would ever go back, for any amount of money. The things I am nostalgic for are structure, a defined start/end time, and being able to leave work at work. The pay was awful, the people were generally nice enough, but there's always a rude customer at some point or a manager with a power trip. I don't miss waking up at 5am to man the drive-thru, or going home after midnight smelling like grease. If I woke up tomorrow with no qualifications to write software, I would sooner go into a back breaking trade than go back to retail. I think we will see automation really start to take over these retail spaces in 2022. In my city (Dallas), pretty much every single fast food restaurant has mobile ordering or a kiosk available. My local Kroger expanded their self checkout lines and after 10pm, there are no more manned checkouts open. I've frequently had to scan and bag a full cart of groceries using self checkout (which sucks). The past two years have opened up a lot of time for these giant corps to invest in R&D as the labor pool shrinks. Through the perfect storm of chip shortages and labor shortages, we haven't seen a large scale roll out, but I'm confident it's coming as soon as parts and installers are available.
  - 5y ago
staticassertion 5y ago
Good thing there would be UBI then?
jjk166 5y ago
If a job doesn't need doing, why waste a human's labor on it? Though that said, I remember not too long ago a lot of people saying "oh if minimum wage goes over $15 we'll just automate the jobs" and now the McDonalds by my house is offering $23/hr for entry level work and robots are nowhere to be seen.
- _-david-_ 5y ago
  They are rolling out computer tellers all around my area. If they haven't done it in your area it is coming. There are a few companies working on automated meal makers and they are slowly being rolled out. It is just going a bit slow right now.
  - withinboredom 5y ago
    I love this in other countries. I don’t always speak the local language well enough but I can tap on pictures and wait for my number to come up.
  - JacobThreeThree 5y ago
    >It is just going a bit slow right now. Ahh yes, as the AI marketing department always says, we're 99% of the way there, it's just that the last 1% is the hardest! https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-08-17/waymo-s-self-driving-cars-are-99-of-the-way-there-the-last-1-is-the-hardest https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-08-17/waymo-s-s...
    - _-david-_ 5y ago
      I don't think the comparison to AI is apt since meal making robots do currently function and are in restaurants right now. It is literally just being rolled out slowly.
  - Ekaros 5y ago
    I love them. Still, it seems that even those that clearly are solved problem can be done badly. Recently KFC rolled out here. And their kiosk seem to miss the basic options to customize the meals. Like just removing things. Can't do that with meals... Have list of extra options of stuff possibly not even in the product... Actually they don't even tell anywhere what is in their burgers. But I digress. All other chains including the local one manage to have these options present... So in the end automation won't always solve everything immediately...
wpietri 5y ago
Done right, automation increases the value created per labor hour. Which makes both UBI and humane jobs even more achievable. I'm all for it.

lr4444lr 5y ago

Much as we might agree these workers overall have more money - from whatever source - it does not follow that the pay would go up for crap jobs. The pay need only be high enough above the post tax increase from the UBI baseline to fill the spots. Maybe it won't they populated by people who need to feed their family anymore, but perhaps by college grads who need to feed themselves because UBI is eaten up by their student loan repayment. All we can guarantee really is shifting the bracket of the likely talent pool's need for a few extra dollars. Humans aren't alike in the level of income above which they're no longer in desperation for a few extra bucks.

worik 5y ago
At low wages (effectively starvation wages in many cases) there is a huge incentive to show up for work. With a UBI there is less incentive due to hunger but those same wages look much more attractive. There is still an incentive to work. The money for the UBI does imply that profits go down, taxes go up (a mixture). But importantly those workers, previously on the edge of starvation, will start consuming services initiating a virtuous cycle. That is the theory. But a sensible housing policy (hello San Francisco) is very important or landlords will simply hover up all the surplus.
StochasticSand 5y ago
I mean, it's the law of diminishing marginal utility. Money earned on top of UBI would be worth less than money earned on top of nothing.

ozzythecat 5y ago

> Shifting some power to them and giving the job a little more of an air of dignity or status would probably help a lot. I agree, but is this feasible or wishful thinking? As a society, we’re decidedly split on whether we should wear masks or should or should not get vaccines, despite the science or despite whatever seems like a rational decision. (Admittedly I’m introducing my bias here). Would raising pay for retail workers or people acknowledging that we need to treat them with respect - would either of these actually lead to the right outcome? Or would it fuel another voice that vehemently sees these jobs as a stepping stone and not entitled to respect and dignity?

thr0wawayf00 5y ago
As you pointed out, it's not possible to achieve consensus on things like vaccines and masks, I don't think we should expect any differently in any sort of proposed change. There are always going to be opponents. If we always chose not to do something because it would be met with resistance, then nothing would happen ever. The US passing the civil rights act was met with vicious resistance as it was happening, should it not have happened because there were critics of the law? Ultimately, I think we do need to raise pay and facilitate a higher level of discourse in those kinds of environments., regardless of what detractors will say.
parsimo2010 5y ago
I think what it would do is balance the power a little toward an employee’s favor instead of a customer. Right now there are people that have no choice but to work these jobs. So a company can institute a “customer is always right” policy because it keeps the customer around and they really don’t have to consider their employees feelings- they are easily replaced. Customers only act like assholes because they can get away with it- abuse the clerk, the manager comes out, customer gets free stuff. But if there was a basic income there might be fewer people willing to put up with abusive customers. If a company has a hard time replacing employees then it might have to reconsider their policy to be more like “accommodate reasonable customers but abusive customers can be kicked out.” This would probably happen over time, not immediately after implementing a basic income but I think it’s a good thing. But I think the overall idea that companies would have to put a little more effort into their employee’s well being would be borne out if a country could commit to a basic income for long enough for the effects to shake out. This is good behavior that companies would be forced into, not because of morals like respects and dignity, but because a mass exodus of employees would eventually hurt profits more than keeping unreasonable customers around.

pkdpic 5y ago

Agreed, isnt this exactly whats been observed from pandemic financial aid? Increased pressure on employers to pay more and give workers a better work environment? Maybe someone has a better link to back that up but heres one at least. https://www.forbes.com/sites/bryanrobinson/2021/10/14/employers-in-a-pinch-as-workers-say-take-this-job-and-shove-it/?sh=182a77ce5b0d https://www.forbes.com/sites/bryanrobinson/2021/10/14/employ... Also isnt there some possibly-not-totally-fantasy narrative where at least some of these jobs become automated in response to workers not wanting them and its maybe a good thing?

xapata 5y ago
There were many anecdotes from employers complaining about unemployment benefits, but the systematic data collection gave mixed evidence. I concluded the impact varied across industries.
mushufasa 5y ago
~50 years ago Keynes predicted by now no-one would have to work menial jobs because everything would be automated, freeing up people to work a few days a week and pursue creative endeavors. While we have automated things, we are nowhere close to that today. A lot of current menial jobs CAN be automated today, but the cost of labor is cheaper than designing and deploying automated solutions. Having higher cost of labor will incentivize more capital solutions to menial jobs (automation, substitutions), which will change societal patterns a lot (maybe you should expect a machine to take orders at every restaurant) but could certainly lead to a happier 'steady state' long term.
- piva00 5y ago
  Bertrand Russell predicted the same in the 1920s.
  - mushufasa 5y ago
    Good correction. The Keynes essay I am thinking of is from the 1930s, which is almost 100 years ago now! It was probably inspired from Russell's thoughts.

kradroy 5y ago

On the other side of the coin, in my career I've had colleagues so bad that I would gladly pay them NOT to work. They created a toxic workplace and made everything worse. Unfortunately the majority of them would likely not take UBI (in two cases they were the owner/boss). However, if UBI kept just a portion of troublesome workers out of the workforce, then that would be beneficial as well.

munk-a 5y ago
UBI would likely help most in this case by giving employees the power to comfortably seek new work. Bad bosses survive mostly on apathetic employees that empower them to get away with being awful while looking productive because of their team. The more power you give to employees the faster people will jump ship from bad bosses to good ones - and the awful ones will have a harder time keeping their positions.
ErikVandeWater 5y ago
UBI would probably end up disproportionately filtering out non-troublesome workers. Non-troublesome workers are more rational than troublesome workers and would take a small reduction in pay in exchange for less headache. The troublesome workers that actually enjoy conflict would stay in the workforce because they can't find the same opportunities for conflict elsewhere.

dghughes 5y ago

I've also seen within the same organization how such people are treated. For example janitorial workers. At an old workplace of mine there were three shifts of at least two workers three during the day. Then they were cut to just one worker per day and evening no nights. One person frantically running from bathroom to bathroom not even getting to the other tasks that had to do like vacuuming. Then they cut their hours to part-time for all but two workers. At minimum wage it was barely livable on 40 hours per week. They also ask the night worker to come in the next day with less than a seven hour gap from the previous shift. Even at the punch clock they were scolded for punching in or out a mere 1 minute off from the time to work or end. I could tell when talking to the staff many of them felt defeated and this was the only job they could do. They just had to sit there and take it. Guaranteed income (GI) would at least buffer some of the anxiety. I could also see businesses knowing it existed would cut worker hours to part-time. But if part-time plus GI was enough then the worker has the power.

godelski 5y ago
> Guaranteed income (GI) would at least buffer some of the anxiety. I could also see businesses knowing it existed would cut worker hours to part-time. But if part-time plus GI was enough then the worker has the power. This is the biggest advantage I see, and shows why you wouldn't even need a living wage. You need a sufficient amount of money so that if a worker is being abused they can say "fuck it, I quit" and be able to live until they find another job. Being able to do that should prevent a fair amount of abuse in the first place.
- manicdee 5y ago
  How can they afford to quit if they aren’t earning enough to live on in the first place? You have that luxury because of savings.
  - godelski 5y ago
    Even a small amount of income gives breathing room. That's the idea here. A full UBI would mean there's no chance of suffocating. I'm saying that we can dip our toes in first and we should still see effects. It isn't an all or nothing scenario as many put forward.

Fernicia 5y ago

So labour costs would go up, things get more expensive, and there are still no incentives to be civil because that cost is spread amongst all customers.

rightbyte 5y ago
Why would labour costs not go down? If the worker gets X from the state, they employer can pay them X less for status quo, which obviously was an amount of money that worked out earlier. I.e. the cost of living in cities is what prevent workers from undercutting each other in cities.
- chii 5y ago
  If $X was enough to live (even if meagerly), then why would a worker put up with a new wage that is $X less than previously? The worker would only continue a "shitty" job, if they get a better deal than before. So it makes sense to conclude that wages would cost more to entice a worker if said worker was able to obtain a UBI. Jobs that would be popular and enjoyable, would be sought after - and those wages would drop.

surfmike 5y ago

I think this is an honest perspective, but it directly contradicts the article which is saying "basic income would not reduce people's willingness to work." Menial labor or being berated by customers rather clear-cut example, but most jobs have moderate amounts of unpleasantness, and given the choice many people would opt out of working altogether. There's a lot of unpleasant work that needs to be done to keep civilization going!

danaris 5y ago
There's a big difference between "I am willing to work, even though I can get enough money to survive without doing so" and "Under those conditions, I am still willing to work at a job that dehumanizes and degrades me constantly, for very little extra money."

dgb23 5y ago

In addition it would incentivize companies to actually invest into research and development instead of wasting money into dead-end financial schemes and bullshit jobs. Everyone wins.

908B64B197 5y ago

> Maybe that's a good thing. It's insane how people in service industries are treated - like they're less than human Wait until you hear about healthcare. Not sure how you would staff an hospital floor once UBI is introduced.