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I'm actually amazed at how little basic income helps people. The study had a control group which only received $50/month in aid (vs treatment groups that got $1

I'm actually amazed at how little basic income helps people. The study had a control group which only received $50/month in aid (vs treatment groups that got $1000 a month or $6500 upfront and then $500 a month). The control group improved nearly as much as either of the treatment groups! In terms of housing, the $1000 a month group only improved by 6% more than the $50 group. That is to say, even if you just give people enough money every month to get an apartment with a roommate, only 6% will actually use it that way. In the actual report [0], they measure financial well-being, which improves across the board but does not differ between treatment and control. Surprisingly, measures of stress and anxiety actually increased for the treatment groups and decreased for controls. There were a few positives - the treatment groups were somewhat more likely to get jobs, and used fewer services. Obviously the organizers of the study want to promote its success, but I think most of what we see here is that homeless is a transient condition for some people, who find housing regardless of intervention. Mainly it's a demonstration that the extra $950 per month does surprisingly little in this population. [0]https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gqtOfZG2sSanWgUdzn-lx-pwSXZKabj-/view?pli=1 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gqtOfZG2sSanWgUdzn-lx-pwSXZ...

6510 3y ago
> I'm actually amazed at how little basic income helps people. There have been many trials and this is again and again the most stunning conclusion (I doubt this one is even a good example) It is kinda silly how obvious it is in hindsight: A person living on 1 dollar per day will leverage the hell out of 10 cents extra. ( https://basicincome.org/research-index/ https://basicincome.org/research-index/ )
kouru225 3y ago
I think you’re confused here. The $50 group (Group C) is the control group. That sum was chosen because it was assumed it wouldn’t actually meaningfully change their lives, and therefore we can use their response as a baseline for how to judge Group A and Group B. This would imply that universal basic income makes 20% of people feel like they’re doing better (placebo effect), and 6% of people actually do better.
LoganDark 3y ago
> the extra $950 per month does surprisingly little in this population. It makes sense - housing tends to cost just a bit more than that. Just two or three times more. It can often be better spent on things that matter more than housing, especially if one doesn't want to live with a roommate. I wouldn't think this way personally, I would want somewhere to live at the bare minimum. But homeless is an entire spectrum.
- em-bee 3y ago
  which shows that money alone does not solve the problem. better would be paid housing and extra money to buy food. and if housing is to expensive then the government needs to work on building more affordable housing. the city of vienna does that for example. according to one statistic i saw 60% of the population live in government supported housing.
- P_I_Staker 3y ago
  Could there be categories other than "pays rent or owns home" and "homelessness"?
  - LoganDark 3y ago
    How is money going to get them a free place if they didn't have one already, I wonder? Would that even be free?
enragedcacti 3y ago
> In terms of housing, the $1000 a month group only improved by 6% more than the $50 group. 6 percentage points more, not 6% more. Kind of a big difference. A 26% increase is 30% more than a 20% increase. Group B has a 75% increase in participants finding housing compared to the control group. > That is to say, even if you just give people enough money every month to get an apartment with a roommate, only 6% will actually use it that way. While that is statistically correct we don't know why it is only used that way 6% of the time. The greater increase in the lump sum group could indicate that the $1k/month group couldn't pay for application fees, deposits, or other upfront costs even if their supplemented income otherwise could sustain the monthly costs of housing.
- ProjectArcturis 3y ago
  >Kind of a big difference. A 26% increase is 30% more than a 20% increase Percentage point changes are the right measurement. If the treatment group rose by 1%, and the control group rose by 0.1%, would you be excited that the treatment group was 1000% higher improvement than control?
  - enragedcacti 3y ago
    > Percentage point changes are the right measurement. I'm not really contesting what the right measure is, I'm pointing out how substantially different the two are and that its important to be clear which one you're using.
P_I_Staker 3y ago
I have to say, I was interested in your analysis, it inspired me to read the article for once. It seems your conclusion is quite the opposite of the one in the article. You're free to draw your own conclusions, but often when you see this there's something being left out. As and aside, it's fascinating how effective the $50 is. It definitely does look like you get diminished returns quickly, though. (From TA) "staying in housing they rented or owned" I suspect there's something not being captured here. I'm wondering if there's somehow an option in between "staying in housing they rented or owned", and homelessness. Perhaps, they're managing to staying with friends and family for part of it. I could see there being some gray area here. The morality of intentionally staying homeless to save money could be debated in various scenarios. It's also ignoring a number of other dimensions of wellbeing that did improve only in the higher paid groups. Feeling safe where they slept, welcome in society, and maybe most importantly employment. It's only if you look really close at one metric, which has moral judgements attached to it, and maybe explainable by living arrangement other than pure homelessness (keep in mind the criteria "pays rent or owns house") that things look so pessimistic. Seems like the discourse on this topic is not permitted to involve the happiness, security, and likely long term outlook (due to being more employed, not just happy feelings). According to your analysis, we basically disregard the wellness of the homeless, and are only permitted to consider how it impacts us. This is not an unfair critique, you mention some of these things, but they're handwaved away. I think you got the mental health aspect wrong, but quite frankly the results are confusing and a little mixed. The article itself doesn't do it justice. It should be noted though that this is also trying to completely turn around someone's life, according to one metric for $6000 in 6-months. They know it's gonna end in 6-months. You can only do so much with this. I know you're using the term in the study, but this says nothing about universal basic income, or long term base assistances. Also, I can't help but note all participants mental health was shown as decreasing, which is just odd. I double checked and it looks like this is 6 months from enrolment, so this is right after getting booted from the program. This is not a shock. People with mental health problems have issues leaving programs THEY paid for.

6510 3y ago

> I'm actually amazed at how little basic income helps people. There have been many trials and this is again and again the most stunning conclusion (I doubt this one is even a good example) It is kinda silly how obvious it is in hindsight: A person living on 1 dollar per day will leverage the hell out of 10 cents extra. ( https://basicincome.org/research-index/ https://basicincome.org/research-index/ )

kouru225 3y ago

I think you’re confused here. The $50 group (Group C) is the control group. That sum was chosen because it was assumed it wouldn’t actually meaningfully change their lives, and therefore we can use their response as a baseline for how to judge Group A and Group B. This would imply that universal basic income makes 20% of people feel like they’re doing better (placebo effect), and 6% of people actually do better.

LoganDark 3y ago

> the extra $950 per month does surprisingly little in this population. It makes sense - housing tends to cost just a bit more than that. Just two or three times more. It can often be better spent on things that matter more than housing, especially if one doesn't want to live with a roommate. I wouldn't think this way personally, I would want somewhere to live at the bare minimum. But homeless is an entire spectrum.

em-bee 3y ago
which shows that money alone does not solve the problem. better would be paid housing and extra money to buy food. and if housing is to expensive then the government needs to work on building more affordable housing. the city of vienna does that for example. according to one statistic i saw 60% of the population live in government supported housing.
P_I_Staker 3y ago
Could there be categories other than "pays rent or owns home" and "homelessness"?
- LoganDark 3y ago
  How is money going to get them a free place if they didn't have one already, I wonder? Would that even be free?

enragedcacti 3y ago

> In terms of housing, the $1000 a month group only improved by 6% more than the $50 group. 6 percentage points more, not 6% more. Kind of a big difference. A 26% increase is 30% more than a 20% increase. Group B has a 75% increase in participants finding housing compared to the control group. > That is to say, even if you just give people enough money every month to get an apartment with a roommate, only 6% will actually use it that way. While that is statistically correct we don't know why it is only used that way 6% of the time. The greater increase in the lump sum group could indicate that the $1k/month group couldn't pay for application fees, deposits, or other upfront costs even if their supplemented income otherwise could sustain the monthly costs of housing.

ProjectArcturis 3y ago
>Kind of a big difference. A 26% increase is 30% more than a 20% increase Percentage point changes are the right measurement. If the treatment group rose by 1%, and the control group rose by 0.1%, would you be excited that the treatment group was 1000% higher improvement than control?
- enragedcacti 3y ago
  > Percentage point changes are the right measurement. I'm not really contesting what the right measure is, I'm pointing out how substantially different the two are and that its important to be clear which one you're using.

P_I_Staker 3y ago

I have to say, I was interested in your analysis, it inspired me to read the article for once. It seems your conclusion is quite the opposite of the one in the article. You're free to draw your own conclusions, but often when you see this there's something being left out. As and aside, it's fascinating how effective the $50 is. It definitely does look like you get diminished returns quickly, though. (From TA) "staying in housing they rented or owned" I suspect there's something not being captured here. I'm wondering if there's somehow an option in between "staying in housing they rented or owned", and homelessness. Perhaps, they're managing to staying with friends and family for part of it. I could see there being some gray area here. The morality of intentionally staying homeless to save money could be debated in various scenarios. It's also ignoring a number of other dimensions of wellbeing that did improve only in the higher paid groups. Feeling safe where they slept, welcome in society, and maybe most importantly employment. It's only if you look really close at one metric, which has moral judgements attached to it, and maybe explainable by living arrangement other than pure homelessness (keep in mind the criteria "pays rent or owns house") that things look so pessimistic. Seems like the discourse on this topic is not permitted to involve the happiness, security, and likely long term outlook (due to being more employed, not just happy feelings). According to your analysis, we basically disregard the wellness of the homeless, and are only permitted to consider how it impacts us. This is not an unfair critique, you mention some of these things, but they're handwaved away. I think you got the mental health aspect wrong, but quite frankly the results are confusing and a little mixed. The article itself doesn't do it justice. It should be noted though that this is also trying to completely turn around someone's life, according to one metric for $6000 in 6-months. They know it's gonna end in 6-months. You can only do so much with this. I know you're using the term in the study, but this says nothing about universal basic income, or long term base assistances. Also, I can't help but note all participants mental health was shown as decreasing, which is just odd. I double checked and it looks like this is 6 months from enrolment, so this is right after getting booted from the program. This is not a shock. People with mental health problems have issues leaving programs THEY paid for.