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I used to be a big proponent of UBI, I really believed it had the potential to solve a broad range of problems, but after the pandemic I have to say I think I w

I used to be a big proponent of UBI, I really believed it had the potential to solve a broad range of problems, but after the pandemic I have to say I think I was completely wrong, perhaps I projected my own "nature" on to other people. I think now that I am an outlier, and probably a lot of people who supported it are outliers as well, while a lot of people who opposed it are just regular people who understand just how lazy regular people are. I am still in shock at how many of my friends intentionally lost their (cushy, white collar, work 4 hours a day from home) jobs and went on unemployment, spent the summer watching sports, smoking weed, and playing games, how many people I knew did really shady stuff to get PPP money to fund luxury purchases, etc. (And all the while complaining about "the billionaires" and how unfair the system was.) I'll say at least that from where we are now we just had by far the greatest natural experiment we could ever hope for and UBI stands invalidated. Those who still want to push it have a much greater burden of proof, and I'm a bit nervous about UBI programs getting rolled out without proper validation and where that will take us.

baskethead 4y ago
I was exactly the same as you. Strong proponent of UBI and now I think there must be better solutions out there.
woodruffw 4y ago
A cash infusion and a couple of months of unemployment at a time when most people were afraid to leave their houses does not amount to a strong datapoint against (or for) UBI. Testing UBI's null hypothesis requires normal economic activity.
- that_happened_1 4y ago
- xyzzyz 4y ago
  There is always a new reason why the most recent incarnation of socialism just didn’t happen to work out as expected this time around.
  - woodruffw 4y ago
    UBI (in its contemporary form) is most famous for being a product of neoliberal economic and political theory, not socialist economics. The only state in the US that has anything resembling UBI is Alaska[1], and you'd be hard-pressed to characterize them as "socialist." [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Permanent_Fund https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Permanent_Fund
  - Kim_Bruning 4y ago
    Most of the world has some amount of socialism mixed in. Originally this was a strategy devised by Otto von Bismark, a Prussian conservative who thought providing concessions to workers might help keep the communists out of Germany. He succeeded. Over time, it turned out that social benefits can actually be quite effective for other reasons too. Today, many OECD countries are explicitly social-democratic. Some countries claim to not be socialist at all, but still do have some (possibly more limited) social programs (eg in education and health care).
    - cercatrova 4y ago
      > Most of the world has some amount of socialism mixed in. Why do people keep misusing the definition of socialism. Do workers own the means of production? If not, it's not socialism. Now I'm not a socialist but I'd like the words we use to have meaning so that we all know what we're collectively talking about. Social benefits and social democracy != socialism, people should just use that term instead.
      - hypertele-Xii 4y ago
        > Social benefits and social democracy != socialism For so many instances of the word "social", it's difficult to see how we can't just tack -ism at the end and be happy.
  - least 4y ago
    Richard Nixon was the closest a president has ever been to implementing UBI and one of the biggest proponents for UBI was Milton Friedman through the negative income tax.
- throw__away7391 4y ago
  I disagree. I mean this wasn't a perfect UBI experiment, but there are some core assumptions baked in to the arguments I used to make that are clearly flawed. In particular it was as close as you're ever going to get to being "universal". For obvious reasons, every other experiment I've ever seen made or proposed was not, and I think that's a pretty significant aspect to the idea.
  - woodruffw 4y ago
    The flaw isn't just in the fact that it wasn't universal (I didn't receive money, for example). It's also in the fact that most (nearly all?) of the people receiving money were receiving it in lieu of income, and in fact were disabled from obtaining income. Tack that onto a snarled global supply chain, and it's very difficult to pull meaningful outcomes from the noise: did people increase luxury and discretionary purchases just because they could, or were they influenced by an early glut of staple food purchases? Did people increase discretionary spending to entertain children and compensate for a lack of time spent outdoors and socializing? Did they purchase more expensive foodgoods for similar reasons? I am not a particular proponent of UBI. But I don't think we (meaning us laypeople on HN) are going to be able, from our vantage point, to draw a useful conclusion from the last 30 months' economic activity. It's simply too weird.
    - adastra22 4y ago
      You could have received money, if you quit your job.
      - woodruffw 4y ago
        Right. Which is among the reasons why it isn’t UBI, and is an adjacent factor for why it’s a poor proxy for UBI research.
        adastra22 4y ago
        Except so many people did do exactly that. UBI enthusiasts are saying people won’t quit their jobs etc. if it isn’t universal and forever. But they did.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
com2kid 4y ago
> I'll say at least that from where we are now we just had by far the greatest natural experiment we could ever hope for and UBI stands invalidated. What about the hoards of people who took the opportunity to stop working at soul crushing jobs and who went and learned a new skill that lead to an actual career? What about the armies of new artists and creators? The pandemic brought about a slew of new, successful, medium sized educational channels on YouTube. Restaurants can't find employees because a lot of their previous employees took a year or two off and improved themselves and are now making better money at better jobs. Did some people piss the money away? Sure. But the explosion of artists, creativity, and self improvement, says that the experiment was a success, and it was only a handful of payments.
- houstonn 4y ago
  What % of recipients was that?
  - com2kid 4y ago
    Some economists are going to need to do some research to determine that! Likewise, research is needed to determine under what circumstances people best benefit from UBI and UBI like programs. We already know that hope is one of the most important factors when it comes to the success of UBI programs. People who have hope for the future, who believe they can improve their lot in life, do great with UBI programs. They go to school, get new jobs, save to buy a house, they plan for the future. People without hope will spend money on short term indulgences.[1] One interesting thing is that UBI tends to increase hope, it gives people a stable foundation to fall back on while making improvements in their life. Think about how founders from wealthy families are willing to take risks to make money, until they find something that sticks. Having a real life financial cushion means people can pivot until they find something that works for them. UBI isn't going to be perfect, some people will leech off the system and do nothing. Some people just aren't motivated. But those people are likely already not doing anything with life, and paying someone enough $ to keep them housed and fed so they aren't living on the street or stealing food is a net financial savings for society anyway. [1] The most striking examples are people who grew up in neighborhoods that have extremely short life expectancies. If most everyone you know died before they got to 30, why would you ever save up money to buy a house on a 30 year mortgage? If someone's world view is that they are probably going to die in the next few years, of course they are going to spend all their money on indulgences, that is in fact a very rational thing to do! The solution is to show people an out, a way to escape that world view, yelling at people "you are wrong, open a savings account!" doesn't work, especially if friends and family are dying at a steady rate all around.
Guy2020 4y ago
Sounds like your friends are simply unmotivated to voluntarily work for a system they believe is corrupt. Laziness has always been a capitalist codeword for "noncompliant worker." Also, you have to look at the bigger picture here. We can't just put our blinders on and ignore the conditions of this natural UBI experiment, as you are putting it. There was no sense that with this UBI--it wasn't--they were going to be productive members of some socialist society. No, it was a moment where people felt like it was their turn to exploit a system that has been exploiting them since they were children. I agree with the sentiment that in this context, under the current conditions created by corporate capitalism, UBI would be a horrible idea. It would be better for the people in the long run if they --we--we're out in the streets than packed away in some small rat hole of an apartment, suckling on the corporate dole.
xphilter 4y ago
So none of those people would qualify for ubi. Sounds like they were grifters. Why punish poor people because your circle of friends lack an ethics?
- mjr00 4y ago
  > So none of those people would qualify for ubi. Not coming out for or against UBI, but... isn't that the whole point of universal basic income? That there's no means testing, and everyone qualifies, even grifters?
- caskstrength 4y ago
  "Qualify for UBI"? Do you know what "U" in "UBI" stands for?
dataflow 4y ago
> a lot of people who opposed it are just regular people who understand just how lazy regular people are I feel like your underlying assumption is that "if UBI leads people to leave their jobs, UBI has obviously failed", whereas it's literally the very goal of UBI to reduce (or even eliminate, in the case of "full" basic income) the need to hold a job just to have enough income to merely survive. You can argue that's a bad goal if you want, but expecting everyone to continue working despite receiving free money is kind of missing the entire point of handing out that money. Btw, just because people act a certain way in a short period of time (especially during a time that was so out of the ordinary) that doesn't mean they'd act the same way for ~half a century. Sure some fraction of them might, but lots of people would get bored and try new things. Having nothing to do for months or even a year or two can be fun and exciting for some, but that doesn't mean they'd love the idea of having nothing to do for the rest of their lives. People get bored, people want luxury, people want variety, people want fulfilment, people have kids to raise, etc.
- TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
  > it's literally the very goal of UBI to reduce (or even eliminate, in the case of "full" basic income) the need to hold a job just to have enough income to merely survive Without significantly raising taxes on the people who decide to continue to work, how can this be paid for? Genuine question.
  - dataflow 4y ago
    Why do you rule out raising taxes on people who do work? Does that lead to a logical impossibility of some sort?
    - californical 4y ago
      I mean, do you really have an incentive to work if 90% of the money is going to taxes which pay for the other people not working? Obviously not, that’s a terrible deal. And if it’s that hard to find employees, companies will just have to pay a LOT for labor, most of which still goes to taxes, but also causes prices to go up because the company’s costs are so high. Which causes COL to increase because all products have higher costs. Which means “basic” income needs increases, driving up costs, etc etc.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
cr4nberry 4y ago
If you gave the average person additional time or money, it's most likely that they'd piss it all away on some form of recreation > (And all the while complaining about "the billionaires" and how unfair the system was.) It is an unfair system. That's valid criticism. The solution isn't throwing money at people indiscriminately. We have a broken healthcare system. Why not fix that first? Why not fix the water supplies in places like Flint? Why not create and administer more national parks, or feed the people in this country who are starving? Why not give the money in a targeted way, to solve the poverty issues UBI advocates claim to address? If you give money with no strings attached, how do you know it won't be squandered? The problem is that the UBI advocates have the same mindset as the deadbeats, they'd rather take the money and burn it. They don't care about development, they'd rather buy votes. UBI is just nihilism politically manifested edit: there's two kinds of people who advocate for UBI: rich people who are completely out of touch with average joe, and regular people who want free money
- Kim_Bruning 4y ago
  What makes you say that? As an opposite view: If you look at Maslow's hierarchy of needs[1] , you'll see that there are a lot of rungs up the ladder past the bottom one. The average person doesn't need to know who Maslow is, they have the needs just the same. The bottom 1 or 2 rungs are the hardest to reach. If you help people up, they'll be able to climb the rest of the way themselves. Equality of opportunity and all that. Sure, some people choose to rot at the level they're at, but most people want to have ALL their needs met, and will keep climbing. This is borne out by UBI trials. People do in fact do slightly less commercial work, but instead of lazing around, they'll typically go to school, or take care of children. The overall short term loss of productivity is fairly low. Longer term we don't know for sure since we've never run long enough experiments. I'd predict that those people who went to school would be more productive in the work force later, and the children who got more time invested in them by their parents also do better later in life. You are absolutely right that the free-rider effect exists. But based on my own life experiences at least, I think the free riders would be outnumbered by the climbers by quite a margin. What's your experience here? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs
commandlinefan 4y ago
> how many of my friends intentionally lost their (cushy, white collar, work 4 hours a day from home) jobs and went on unemployment, spent the summer watching sports, smoking weed, and playing games I'm not being facetious here - isn't that entirely the point of UBI? That nobody works unless they genuinely want to work?

baskethead 4y ago

I was exactly the same as you. Strong proponent of UBI and now I think there must be better solutions out there.

woodruffw 4y ago

A cash infusion and a couple of months of unemployment at a time when most people were afraid to leave their houses does not amount to a strong datapoint against (or for) UBI. Testing UBI's null hypothesis requires normal economic activity.

that_happened_1 4y ago
xyzzyz 4y ago
There is always a new reason why the most recent incarnation of socialism just didn’t happen to work out as expected this time around.
- woodruffw 4y ago
  UBI (in its contemporary form) is most famous for being a product of neoliberal economic and political theory, not socialist economics. The only state in the US that has anything resembling UBI is Alaska[1], and you'd be hard-pressed to characterize them as "socialist." [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Permanent_Fund https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Permanent_Fund
- Kim_Bruning 4y ago
  Most of the world has some amount of socialism mixed in. Originally this was a strategy devised by Otto von Bismark, a Prussian conservative who thought providing concessions to workers might help keep the communists out of Germany. He succeeded. Over time, it turned out that social benefits can actually be quite effective for other reasons too. Today, many OECD countries are explicitly social-democratic. Some countries claim to not be socialist at all, but still do have some (possibly more limited) social programs (eg in education and health care).
  - cercatrova 4y ago
    > Most of the world has some amount of socialism mixed in. Why do people keep misusing the definition of socialism. Do workers own the means of production? If not, it's not socialism. Now I'm not a socialist but I'd like the words we use to have meaning so that we all know what we're collectively talking about. Social benefits and social democracy != socialism, people should just use that term instead.
    - hypertele-Xii 4y ago
      > Social benefits and social democracy != socialism For so many instances of the word "social", it's difficult to see how we can't just tack -ism at the end and be happy.
- least 4y ago
  Richard Nixon was the closest a president has ever been to implementing UBI and one of the biggest proponents for UBI was Milton Friedman through the negative income tax.
throw__away7391 4y ago
I disagree. I mean this wasn't a perfect UBI experiment, but there are some core assumptions baked in to the arguments I used to make that are clearly flawed. In particular it was as close as you're ever going to get to being "universal". For obvious reasons, every other experiment I've ever seen made or proposed was not, and I think that's a pretty significant aspect to the idea.
- woodruffw 4y ago
  The flaw isn't just in the fact that it wasn't universal (I didn't receive money, for example). It's also in the fact that most (nearly all?) of the people receiving money were receiving it in lieu of income, and in fact were disabled from obtaining income. Tack that onto a snarled global supply chain, and it's very difficult to pull meaningful outcomes from the noise: did people increase luxury and discretionary purchases just because they could, or were they influenced by an early glut of staple food purchases? Did people increase discretionary spending to entertain children and compensate for a lack of time spent outdoors and socializing? Did they purchase more expensive foodgoods for similar reasons? I am not a particular proponent of UBI. But I don't think we (meaning us laypeople on HN) are going to be able, from our vantage point, to draw a useful conclusion from the last 30 months' economic activity. It's simply too weird.
  - adastra22 4y ago
    You could have received money, if you quit your job.
    - woodruffw 4y ago
      Right. Which is among the reasons why it isn’t UBI, and is an adjacent factor for why it’s a poor proxy for UBI research.
      - adastra22 4y ago
        Except so many people did do exactly that. UBI enthusiasts are saying people won’t quit their jobs etc. if it isn’t universal and forever. But they did.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

com2kid 4y ago

> I'll say at least that from where we are now we just had by far the greatest natural experiment we could ever hope for and UBI stands invalidated. What about the hoards of people who took the opportunity to stop working at soul crushing jobs and who went and learned a new skill that lead to an actual career? What about the armies of new artists and creators? The pandemic brought about a slew of new, successful, medium sized educational channels on YouTube. Restaurants can't find employees because a lot of their previous employees took a year or two off and improved themselves and are now making better money at better jobs. Did some people piss the money away? Sure. But the explosion of artists, creativity, and self improvement, says that the experiment was a success, and it was only a handful of payments.

houstonn 4y ago
What % of recipients was that?
- com2kid 4y ago
  Some economists are going to need to do some research to determine that! Likewise, research is needed to determine under what circumstances people best benefit from UBI and UBI like programs. We already know that hope is one of the most important factors when it comes to the success of UBI programs. People who have hope for the future, who believe they can improve their lot in life, do great with UBI programs. They go to school, get new jobs, save to buy a house, they plan for the future. People without hope will spend money on short term indulgences.[1] One interesting thing is that UBI tends to increase hope, it gives people a stable foundation to fall back on while making improvements in their life. Think about how founders from wealthy families are willing to take risks to make money, until they find something that sticks. Having a real life financial cushion means people can pivot until they find something that works for them. UBI isn't going to be perfect, some people will leech off the system and do nothing. Some people just aren't motivated. But those people are likely already not doing anything with life, and paying someone enough $ to keep them housed and fed so they aren't living on the street or stealing food is a net financial savings for society anyway. [1] The most striking examples are people who grew up in neighborhoods that have extremely short life expectancies. If most everyone you know died before they got to 30, why would you ever save up money to buy a house on a 30 year mortgage? If someone's world view is that they are probably going to die in the next few years, of course they are going to spend all their money on indulgences, that is in fact a very rational thing to do! The solution is to show people an out, a way to escape that world view, yelling at people "you are wrong, open a savings account!" doesn't work, especially if friends and family are dying at a steady rate all around.

Guy2020 4y ago

Sounds like your friends are simply unmotivated to voluntarily work for a system they believe is corrupt. Laziness has always been a capitalist codeword for "noncompliant worker." Also, you have to look at the bigger picture here. We can't just put our blinders on and ignore the conditions of this natural UBI experiment, as you are putting it. There was no sense that with this UBI--it wasn't--they were going to be productive members of some socialist society. No, it was a moment where people felt like it was their turn to exploit a system that has been exploiting them since they were children. I agree with the sentiment that in this context, under the current conditions created by corporate capitalism, UBI would be a horrible idea. It would be better for the people in the long run if they --we--we're out in the streets than packed away in some small rat hole of an apartment, suckling on the corporate dole.

xphilter 4y ago

So none of those people would qualify for ubi. Sounds like they were grifters. Why punish poor people because your circle of friends lack an ethics?

mjr00 4y ago
> So none of those people would qualify for ubi. Not coming out for or against UBI, but... isn't that the whole point of universal basic income? That there's no means testing, and everyone qualifies, even grifters?
caskstrength 4y ago
"Qualify for UBI"? Do you know what "U" in "UBI" stands for?

dataflow 4y ago

> a lot of people who opposed it are just regular people who understand just how lazy regular people are I feel like your underlying assumption is that "if UBI leads people to leave their jobs, UBI has obviously failed", whereas it's literally the very goal of UBI to reduce (or even eliminate, in the case of "full" basic income) the need to hold a job just to have enough income to merely survive. You can argue that's a bad goal if you want, but expecting everyone to continue working despite receiving free money is kind of missing the entire point of handing out that money. Btw, just because people act a certain way in a short period of time (especially during a time that was so out of the ordinary) that doesn't mean they'd act the same way for ~half a century. Sure some fraction of them might, but lots of people would get bored and try new things. Having nothing to do for months or even a year or two can be fun and exciting for some, but that doesn't mean they'd love the idea of having nothing to do for the rest of their lives. People get bored, people want luxury, people want variety, people want fulfilment, people have kids to raise, etc.

TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
> it's literally the very goal of UBI to reduce (or even eliminate, in the case of "full" basic income) the need to hold a job just to have enough income to merely survive Without significantly raising taxes on the people who decide to continue to work, how can this be paid for? Genuine question.
- dataflow 4y ago
  Why do you rule out raising taxes on people who do work? Does that lead to a logical impossibility of some sort?
  - californical 4y ago
    I mean, do you really have an incentive to work if 90% of the money is going to taxes which pay for the other people not working? Obviously not, that’s a terrible deal. And if it’s that hard to find employees, companies will just have to pay a LOT for labor, most of which still goes to taxes, but also causes prices to go up because the company’s costs are so high. Which causes COL to increase because all products have higher costs. Which means “basic” income needs increases, driving up costs, etc etc.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

cr4nberry 4y ago

If you gave the average person additional time or money, it's most likely that they'd piss it all away on some form of recreation > (And all the while complaining about "the billionaires" and how unfair the system was.) It is an unfair system. That's valid criticism. The solution isn't throwing money at people indiscriminately. We have a broken healthcare system. Why not fix that first? Why not fix the water supplies in places like Flint? Why not create and administer more national parks, or feed the people in this country who are starving? Why not give the money in a targeted way, to solve the poverty issues UBI advocates claim to address? If you give money with no strings attached, how do you know it won't be squandered? The problem is that the UBI advocates have the same mindset as the deadbeats, they'd rather take the money and burn it. They don't care about development, they'd rather buy votes. UBI is just nihilism politically manifested edit: there's two kinds of people who advocate for UBI: rich people who are completely out of touch with average joe, and regular people who want free money

Kim_Bruning 4y ago
What makes you say that? As an opposite view: If you look at Maslow's hierarchy of needs[1] , you'll see that there are a lot of rungs up the ladder past the bottom one. The average person doesn't need to know who Maslow is, they have the needs just the same. The bottom 1 or 2 rungs are the hardest to reach. If you help people up, they'll be able to climb the rest of the way themselves. Equality of opportunity and all that. Sure, some people choose to rot at the level they're at, but most people want to have ALL their needs met, and will keep climbing. This is borne out by UBI trials. People do in fact do slightly less commercial work, but instead of lazing around, they'll typically go to school, or take care of children. The overall short term loss of productivity is fairly low. Longer term we don't know for sure since we've never run long enough experiments. I'd predict that those people who went to school would be more productive in the work force later, and the children who got more time invested in them by their parents also do better later in life. You are absolutely right that the free-rider effect exists. But based on my own life experiences at least, I think the free riders would be outnumbered by the climbers by quite a margin. What's your experience here? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs

commandlinefan 4y ago

> how many of my friends intentionally lost their (cushy, white collar, work 4 hours a day from home) jobs and went on unemployment, spent the summer watching sports, smoking weed, and playing games I'm not being facetious here - isn't that entirely the point of UBI? That nobody works unless they genuinely want to work?