11 ms·

People kept working, became healthier while on basic income: report (2020)

197 points by jszymborski 1y ago

ToucanLoucan 1y ago
Yeah how many of these have we had now? Literally every test and study about UBI comes back with similar data: it improves lives, reduces stress, and nobody becomes a drain on the system. It doesn’t matter. The people who oppose it aren’t looking at the data, they just don’t want "my tax dollars" going to support people struggling to get by.
- jagged-chisel 1y ago
  > … people struggling to get by. Rather, people who “didn’t earn it.”
  - interstice 1y ago
    Is this \s?
    - zzrrt 1y ago
      Probably portraying the attitude of the people complaining about "my tax dollars" as referenced in the preceding post.
    - throaway955 1y ago
      that's the attitude. "You need to work, even if it's at McDonalds!" "You can't ask other people to carry your weight!"
      - kbelder 1y ago
        You can certainly ask other people to carry your weight. The problem is when you start to force other people to.
  - ToucanLoucan 1y ago
    In a world with so much surplus, the fact that we still demand people earn a living under penalty of death is the most psychotic shit I've ever seen.
    - 76izutdgutdr 1y ago
      [flagged]
- reactordev 1y ago
  It’s funny because it’s such a small amount for those who oppose it. I mean, capital gains doesn’t kick in until $48,350 in the US and you can survive off of that if you needed to. The issue is pulling that consistently for an income requires a bit of capital the average American doesn’t have.
- SR2Z 1y ago
  We already have the EITC, which is frankly a better version of UBI (it incentivizes working more and literally goes up as you increase your earnings). Expand the EITC and tax capital gains as regular, inflation-adjusted income to pay for it and we've basically done it - a single Democratic administration could. In fact, during COVID, an increase to the child tax portion of the EITC reduced childhood poverty by _70%_ at a relatively low cost. Guess why we don't do that anymore? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earned_income_tax_credit#/media/File:Crs_eitc_2020.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earned_income_tax_credit#/medi... https://www.cbpp.org/research/poverty-and-inequality/expiration-of-pandemic-relief-led-to-record-increases-in-poverty https://www.cbpp.org/research/poverty-and-inequality/expirat... (US focused even though the article is Canada lol)
  - AnthonyMouse 1y ago
    A large EITC is trivially converted into a UBI. Otherwise-unemployed people pay each other a salary to do whatever they were each going to do anyway and then the salaries cancel but they both get the EITC. Attempts to prevent this largely don't work against people who want to do the scam and just find a different way to structure it, but tend to be used as an excuse to e.g. screw legitimate self-employed workers out of the credit. The only reason this doesn't happen at scale right now is that the existing EITC is smaller than the amount of payroll tax you'd pay by making a given amount of money, i.e. it's not a negative income tax at all. If you're going to make it larger than that you might as well make it a UBI.
- programjames 1y ago
  I think the issue is there are a lot of welfare programs that haven't seen the same success. If you subscribe to the "taxes are to solve public goods problems" model, then welfare that doesn't come back around to help you isn't taxation, it's theft! When people talk about UBI, they're wary it's just a relabelling of the same-old "steal from the rich, give to the poor" Robinhood scheme. I think the left has also really shot themselves in the foot by talking about UBI as "helping struggling people get by" or accusing opposers of being unempathetic (or, worst of all, "what would Jesus do?"). That's the wrong way of framing it (and this holds for most welfare initiatives too). People are always going to care about different things. Some really care that everyone has clean water, others a good education, others freedom of expression. Some care more about their families, while others apply equal empathy to every stranger, cow, and tree. When you forcibly take money from someone, and use it to fund your project, it comes from a place of very selective empathy. The proper way to fund your projects is to get everyone on board. Frame it so they see how it helps them achieve their goals, not just yours. (Now, I know I'm ignoring that some people are just incredibly selfish; more accurately, some people's hearts are bleeding out on the floor, some are calcified into stone, and most are somewhere in between. I'm ignoring this discrepancy because 1. even very selfish people can get on board with welfare (like primary/secondary education), as long as it's framed properly, and 2. if a system relies on self-sacrifice, it's too easy to hijack that sacrifice into someone else's pet project.) For example, with education, you can point out how much more economic activity is available when everyone knows how to read and write. I think the argument that actually worked, though, was "how can we avoid roving bands of teenagers in our city once we enact some child-labor laws?" (that's probably the reason highschool is compulsory, not just free to enroll in). For a universal basic income, you probably need to approach it from an entropy argument. The capitalist system tries to maximize GDP, but physical systems actually maximize the free energy (GDP - temperature * Theil index [entropy]). The capitalist system avoids this by artificially restricting free trade: for example, your boss makes a dollar, while you make a dime. There's fewer trades that could happen than if, say, you both made 55 cents (unless your boss is just reallly good at doing things with money). Or, more fundamental, your boss needs you much less than you need a salary. You have less freedom of movement than he has to remove you. A universal basic income fixes this entropy problem, which makes trades more frequent and the market more competitive. In the end, it can come around to help even a seflish centimillionaire.
- CoastalCoder 1y ago
  > MUH TAX DOLERS Please don't use regional accents as an epithet.
  - ToucanLoucan 1y ago
    [flagged]
    - tomhow 1y ago
      Please cut out swipes and fulmination like this in comments. It's clearly against the guidelines, and we've asked you before to avoid using HN for ideological battle. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- Aurornis 1y ago
  > and nobody becomes a drain on the system That’s a generous interpretation of the results. This was a short term pilot and over one quarter of respondents stopped working, despite knowing it was a temporary program.
  - luisfmh 1y ago
    Did you read the article? Because it says that about half of the ones that stopped working stopped working because they were going back to school. That doesn't seem like a drain on the system...
david-gpu 1y ago
We already have something that resembles a basic income in developed countries. It's called retirement pensions. And what we see there is that most people, as soon as they are eligible for their pension, they stop working. Sure, they may volunteer a few hours a month here and there, but their productivity plummets compared to the previous year when they didn't collect that pension. I don't blame them one bit -- it's exactly the same thing I did once I retired. So what happens as we lower the age at which they receive a pension? Different countries and companies have sometimes offered pensions to some of their senior workers to reduce their workforce -- the results were the same. Most people stop working as soon as they have a lifetime guaranteed income that allows them to afford life's essentials, even if they are in their forties. A pilot where the participants know or suspect that the money will soon stop flowing won't capture the real-world effect of this decades-long experiment that we call pensions. And if people don't work, or don't work nearly as much as they did before, then how is the system going to be sustained?
- stablgeniushatr 1y ago
  Except…people retire so they can stop working? Or they retire because they can no longer physically or mentally work.
- voxl 1y ago
  False equivalence. People stop working during retirement because it is the very cultural expectation to not work. There is no reason to believe this analogy you're attempting to make would transfer to something like a negative tax rate
  - mbrumlow 1y ago
    Maybe they can stop working because of cultural allowance. Who knows how many people should retire at 30 if the social norms allowed it. Think about it this way. If a 60 year old says “I’m retiring” most responses will be “aw good for you, you earned it”. But if a 23 year old says “I am retiring” I guarantee there will be many more negative responses and questions.
- Swizec 1y ago
tekla 1y ago
> He acknowledged the report's findings are only based on short-term effects but, given the project has been shut down, it's all they have. OK, yeah. They kept working because everyone expected that it would go away
hatthew 1y ago
I'm sure there is already much discussion about this, but I feel like basic income pilots will never show the true impact. Someone who knows they'll have guaranteed income for the rest of their life is more likely to stop working than someone who is told they will receive guaranteed income for a few years. Especially when this pilot is cancelled and now people won't trust that future ones will last even for the few years specified.
- 44520297 1y ago
  Sure, but let’s remember that “working” is not the end-all, be-all of human existence. Some will stop working and care for an aging parent. Some will stop working and raise children. Some will stop working and make art. We have the opportunity to maximize human flourishing. Let’s not mistake where we’ve been for where we’re going.
  - bluefirebrand 1y ago
    Many will simply stop working and simply rot We saw plenty of it during COVID, people were off work and had basic income and such taken care of. They chose to just sit and do nothing Some people started streaming or content creating or doing art at home or whatever Most people just rotted. They sat and watched shows and movies and goofed around online
    - pxc 1y ago
      Huh? Everyone I knew either worked during that time or was looking for work after getting laid off. (And the vast majority were still working.) > had basic income and such taken care of Huh? The COVID checks weren't that regular and didn't cover that much. You mean collecting unemployment, which also requires proving that you're looking for work?
    - zuminator 1y ago
      Assuming both people are obtaining the same level of enjoyment, why is goofing around online considered "rotting" compared with streaming and doing art at home? I'm not trying to knock hobbies, but I think being alive and content is its own reward, even if the person is lacking a résumé of daily achievements to rattle off at dinner parties.
t-writescode 1y ago
For those fortunate enough to have made absurd amounts of money, think of what you did when you had it. You kept making for whole different reasons. You kept making, kept doing. The only thing that stops is tolerance of actual garbage bosses, abusive companies and saying “yes” to decisions that require you to be immoral.
- bombcar 1y ago
  Well, 25% stopped apparently. Which is somewhat telling. If you gave me a $basicIncome raise I’d keep working; but I’d appreciate the cash. If you guaranteed $basicIncome for life I’d restructure my life around that, and likely FIRE.
  - t-writescode 1y ago
    What would you do in your retirement? Loaf? Volunteer? Make art? Two of those are “work”
    - atomicnumber3 1y ago
      He's do the only thing we're definitely here to do. Live.
    - appreciatorBus 1y ago
      There are plenty of ways to volunteer or do art that are indistinguishable from loafing. Even if you work hard at volunteering or art, if the result isn't useful to others, at some point we will start wondering who is going to grow food and do plumbing while everyone is volunteering & arting.
      - throaway955 1y ago
        presumably people who don't like volunteering and arting, and do like working with their hands on concrete problems that directly affect peoples lives
winstonewert 1y ago
Some thoughts: - It says that 3/4 of people kept working; to me, that seems like a big drop. - Data is based on a survey of people in the program; I distrust data from surveys on principle. - There seems to have been a reduction in the payment as they earned money, so its not really UBI as typically advocated.
- strken 1y ago
  > Lewchuk added that while some people did stop working, about half of them headed back to school in hopes of coming back to a better job. I believe previous UBI experiments have shown the same results: most people keep working, some people stop, but they usually have decent reasons. Education, extending parental leave, or being a caregiver aren't necessarily things we want to discourage if they result in a greater return.
  - qeternity 1y ago
    > if they result in a greater return. Greater return than what and to whom? We already have existing labor markets that are very capable of determining returns.
    - throaway955 1y ago
      those labour markets are in shambles atm for most people who aren't upper middle class
      - qeternity 1y ago
        In shambles compared to when? Quality of life is the highest it's ever been across socioeconomic strata. It's just our expectations outpace reality.
    - strken 1y ago
      > Greater return than what and to whom? Greater return for the government paying for a UBI, compared to not paying for a UBI. > We already have existing labor markets that are very capable of determining returns. I'm not sure I understand how "existing labour markets" are going to solve the three things I listed: education, caregiving, and parents taking time off to look after their kids. The issue of parents being absent is that it results in negative externalities: crime rate, an alienated society, low literacy rates. The existing labour market is great at placing parents into a job efficiently, but it has absolutely nothing to do with keeping their kids out of prison. Nor should it, really, because externalities are a government-level coordination problem. When it comes to education, the issue is again a coordination problem. Companies might do some training, but they generally prefer to foist the risk off onto employees, other companies, and governments by hiring people who are already educated. Again, this is a coordination problem, because any individual company that skips training and just hires educated workers directly will be more efficient, but those educated workers have to come from somewhere. I will concede that it's more efficient not to take care of the elderly. I question whether it is desirable, however.
chris_va 1y ago
I realize UBI has been a popular topic on HN, answer me this... UBI, if implemented, would move O($10T/year) around the economy. We've seen a lot of small scale studies, which basically boil down to giving people money == life improvements. However, I do not see how a small scale study could possibly answer the open macro questions, like inflationary collapse (e.g. increased velocity without direct economic output), even if the whole "will people work anymore" question is moot. Without answering those questions, it would be a USSR scale experiment, which is incredibly dangerous. Improving peoples lives would be great, but I cannot see how one could be an advocate for UBI without having solid answers to those questions.
- micromacrofoot 1y ago
  why not do it gradually by expanding regional pilot programs, you can't answer these questions without doing it
  - burnt-resistor 1y ago
    Another possibility is a negative tax issued every month that becomes effectively UBI. Also, if the IRS were to cut some of their absurd tax breaks for billionaires like the carried interest loophole, simplify things, calculate it for people, and withhold the most likely correct amount ahead of time, it would ease the unnecessary burden placed on people who aren't rich enough to have tax accountants. Corporations need to be taxed at around 75% too while we're at it to pay their fair share. The ratcheting of tax brackets should also be 90% of personal income for the 3 millionth dollar and over. Every billionaire is a policy failure and CEO:worker pay exceeding 1000x is crazy.
- theteapot 1y ago
  "inflationary collapse" seems contradictory. I think hyperinflation is a more correct term.
- strken 1y ago
  I see being an advocate for UBI as advocating for solid answers to those questions. I would also point out that there's a difference between a full UBI, a modest partial UBI, and the kind of "basic income" that's not universal and goes away at a rate of 50c on the dollar when you earn more, like in this study. You can't slowly roll out a full UBI, but that's definitely possible for a partial UBI or a means-tested cash payment. You can dial the amount down as far as you want and still study the impact.
mostertoaster 1y ago
If we could get rid of social security, Medicaid, food stamps, and all forms of welfare, and replace them all with a UBI equally given to every citizen, the trade off might make something as inherently idiotic as UBI worth it.
- Analemma_ 1y ago
  You can’t replace Medicaid with UBI unless you also change the entire health care system to be single-payer, because people will still have random medical problems which need a million dollars (or whatever) worth of treatment. For the rest of it I agree, but I think you’re overestimating how much we spend on all those programs— they don’t even come close to what a reasonable UBI would cost. UBI would require a huge change to how taxation/spending works no matter how it’s implemented.
  - mostertoaster 1y ago
    Honestly I think UBI would be awful. And what I really mean is take the sum amount of all welfare we spend today divide by the number of citizens and give every citizen that much. Would hardly be enough still. The only people who should be in favor of it though is the billionaire aristocrats. It would effectively take the entire middle class and make them serfs. It would be the quickest way to bring back a feudal type system with a few people at the top and everyone else pretty much poor. Sure they’d make sure we have enough to eat and clothe ourselves, but even the slave owners of old did that. Just look at the experiment in 2020-2021 where we gave everyone even more free money, the result we saw companies go from less than a trillion market cap to over three trillion while wages went up maybe 25%
nixpulvis 1y ago
Why not strengthen need based assistance? Why give everyone $X/mo when you could give just those who need it the money? Why not strengthen programs like SNAP or affordable housing programs? UBI solves the issue of changing requirements and confusing/embarrassing applications, but I'm not sure it's better overall.
- micromacrofoot 1y ago
  ubi is inherently cheaper because it's significantly simpler, means testing programs are expensive to operate and are often slow and needlessly bureaucratic
  - nixpulvis 1y ago
    I have serious trouble believing UBI provides enough to solve the poorest peoples problems without needlessly costing a huge amount funding well off peoples hobbies. You'll still need affordable housing, you'll still need food programs, etc. I don't see how you save on cutting those programs.
    - micromacrofoot 1y ago
      it would be nice if people had this same level of concern for the people already hoarding wealth, the guy buying more warhammer minis with ubi isn't the problem
  - verteu 1y ago
    Ballpark numbers: About 1/3 of Americans get government assistance, and typical administrative costs are 1-10% of the program. Making these benefits universal would require spending 200% more, and save at most 10% in overhead. Thus, optimistically, you'd be spending +190% more.
- doctorpangloss 1y ago
  one POV is that libertarians, who have a lot of beefs, are running the country right now, so what choice do you have? they keep winning elections. another POV is, libertarians have empathy, it's quixotic, so how can it be harnessed to achieve your goals?
MaysonL 1y ago
Why not guaranteed employment, not UBI. Subsidize minimum wage jobs that produce social good without being soul-crushing. (Raise the minimum wage while you’re at it).
- codebje 1y ago
  Guaranteed employment is tricky to get right. How do you provide minimum wage jobs that are not soul-crushing, without destroying the private sector soul-crushing minimum wage jobs? How do you even find productive jobs people would want to do (or at least find tolerable) that no-one in the private sector was willing to pay minimum wage to get done? How do you provide jobs to a wide range of contextual needs, from ages 16 to 65, office workers to labourers, physical and mental impairment, neurodivergence, ability to travel, etc? How do you fund the administrative burden of matching jobs to people? What do you do for the people who still cannot work for various reasons - total disability, caring for another, etc. You still need provide a wide gamut of social welfare programs for different needs and circumstances, with its concomitant bureaucratic cost and inefficiency - or let people starve, or give them "jobs" that have no productive output, just performative burdens. What's the actual upside of guaranteed employment programs over a UBI?
Aurornis 1y ago
This is a 2020 news article and should have the (2020) tag added. The study has also been picked apart for the methodology issues and the enormous amount of spin applied to the results. From what I recall, the link to the results didn’t lead to an academic paper, it led to something more like a pamphlet or advertisement with a lot of graphic design, dozens of pages, and lots of spin. Even this news article shows the amount of spin happening. Read this section and think about what it really means: > The report shows nearly three-quarters of respondents who were working when the pilot project began kept at it despite receiving basic income In other words: Over one quarter of people who received the checks stopped working, despite knowing that the program was temporary. This is actually a wild result when you think about it. Contrast this with the title that claims “people kept working” without qualifiers. The better studies have included a control group that gets a nominal payment but much less than the basic income checks. Something like $50 or $100 per month to fill out the same questionnaire. Giving a single group some checks for a short period of time without any control group doesn’t tell you much. The entire world of UBI studies is wild. Every time I read the actual data I come away with a completely different interpretation than the news articles and graphic design heavy reports that are produced by the UBI proponents.
- jszymborski 1y ago
  My bad, added the year to the title.
- protocolture 1y ago
  I tend to see: "New UBI study is designed to demonstrate that productivity will increase with payments" and then after the results are released. "UBI study confirms that participants were happier and healthier on a UBI"
- 9rx 1y ago
  > The entire world of UBI studies is wild. Are you counting this study in that world, given that it wasn't a UBI study? It was intended to be a continuation of the Manitoban study from the 1970s, which wasn't modelled as UBI either.
- JoshTriplett 1y ago
opo 1y ago
>The report shows nearly three-quarters of respondents who were working when the pilot project began kept at it despite receiving basic income. 1/4 of the people stopped working?? That is a huge effect, particularly since it was a short duration experiment. Unfortunately this is also seen in other experiments with basic income. The economist Noah Smith blogged about a large randomized basic income study done in the US where participants received about $1,000 a month for three years: >...Just $1000 a month made 2% of people stop working! That’s a very large negative effect. It contradicts the results of earlier studies showing little or no effect of unconditional cash benefits on employment. And worst of all, the basic income recipients didn’t seem to transfer to better jobs or go back to school — two of the most powerful arguments for basic income. Instead, people just sat around at home. https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/at-least-five-interesting-things-010 https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/at-least-five-interesting-thin...
- chneu 1y ago
  Don't forget to compare that to the number of people who exit the job market without UBI. Given the chance, many people will quit working. That isn't surprising. Acting like this is UBI's fault is kind of weird.
  - opo 1y ago
    > Acting like this is UBI's fault is kind of weird. As Noah Smith wrote: >...Now, increased leisure time isn’t zero benefit — obviously it’s nice to be able to sit around and do nothing and live off of government cash for a little while. But it represents a steep tradeoff — programs like this are already very expensive in fiscal terms, and if they make people work less, that only adds to the total economic cost. If leisure time is all we’re getting for all of that money and lost output, it’s highly questionable whether the intervention is worth it.
    - BriggyDwiggs42 1y ago
      Not to butt in, but 2% sounds like a good trade to me. You gotta think about every possible cumulative benefit everyone experiences by having 1k more a month. Imagine the lost stress, the increased nutrition, the increased education, the skills explored and practiced that couldn’t be before, etc. If the trade is that 2% of people sit around and economic output drops as much, why shouldn’t that be a net positive for society?
abeppu 1y ago
I dunno this seems like a not great program and a not great study. > Its findings are the result of a 70-question, anonymous online survey made available to basic income recipients in Hamilton, Brantford and Brant County. A total of 217 former recipients participated, according to the report. > Forty in-depth interviews with participants were also completed in July 2019. > The project worked by recruiting low-income people and couples, offering them a fixed payment with no strings attached that worked out to approximately $17,000 for individuals and $24,000 for couples. Earlier it mentions the program had 4k participants. So 4k participants -> 217 survey respondents -> 40 interviews. We don't know to what degree there was a selection bias in who decided to respond or was available to interview. Not great in terms of the data the study generated. > Whatever income participants earned was deducted from their basic income at 50 per cent, meaning once someone hit $34,000 they wouldn't receive a payment anymore, Lewchuk explained while speaking with As It Happens. > Lewchuk added that while some people did stop working, about half of them headed back to school in hopes of coming back to a better job. And the program told people up front that it was temporary, and that the marginal benefit of their own work or income would be substantially reduced. If your earning power already wasn't great (which qualifies you for the program) and now your effective wage per hour worked is functionally reduced ... it's kinda shocking that most of them kept working! If the program wanted to keep people working, it wouldn't take away funds from them as they earn.
ropable 1y ago
There's a segment of the population who are vehemently against the idea of undeserving/lazy/the wrong people receiving any kind of welfare benefit, and the concept of UBI really, really triggers that segment. To the point where rational analysis goes straight out the window. I'm quite certain that all the same arguments were had about every kind of retirement or disability pension everywhere. Many of our societies are producing an enormous amount of resources surplus to our basic needs, often distributed very unevenly. Putting some of that surplus towards ensuring all members are at least housed and fed would not be a bad thing.
- deleted 1y ago
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- Manuel_D 1y ago
  Time-boxed UBI experiments don't represent how people would behave if they had the benefits for life. That's not throwing rational analysis out the window. If anything, trying to extrapolate the results of a UBI pilot that didn't last 3 years is playing fast and loose with rationality. Disabled people receive benefits because their ability to work is impeded by their disability and thus those programs don't have the same potential to disincentive work among the disabled population. Retirement benefits do diminish older people's labor participation rates. That's the intended purpose of retirement programs. Society agrees that at a certain age people should ideally be able to relax and not work if they don't want to. Why do people protest when countries raise their retirement age? Because people don't want to have to work in their 70s or late 60s. Some do (my dad kept consulting for the fun of it), but they're probably in the minority.
- somedude895 1y ago
  > ensuring all members are at least housed and fed would not be a bad thing. Not sure about your country, but normally those cases are covered by social security and welfare, it doesn't require helicopter money.
- chneu 1y ago
  You're talking about the "welfare queen" myth. The idea that given any sort of welfare, a large percentage of the population will exploit that welfare and quit being productive.
throaway955 1y ago
no duh
osigurdson 1y ago
The question is, what happened to the people who they took the money from or inflated away the value of their savings? The second question is, how much money was "lost in translation". UBI might be fine in a post scarcity world. Let's maybe think about it once governments eliminate all debt and have run surpluses for a decade.
joegibbs 1y ago
The problem with UBI is that not only does it give people an incentive to not work (as 25% of people in the study stopped working, even when they presume that the money would stop coming at some point) but, at a national level, it also requires a massive tax hike on the people who do work, which disincentivises work. It would have an inflationary effect on basic goods and services. If you're renting and everybody is getting an extra few thousand a month then landlords know that they can charge a bit more since everyone has that money. Same with staple foods. The cost savings don't make sense. An argument is that it will actually save money because the government will be able to abolish disability support and welfare, get rid of free healthcare, etc. But this ignores the fact that a lot of that stuff has unequal demand. You crash your car, your leg gets cut off, go to the hospital, they spend $100k on making sure you survive (specialised machines, a team of doctors and nurses, medicines, recovery and physiotherapy). How's that work under UBI if the government isn't paying for it anymore, who is? Or say you have a child with a disability, it's still going to cost more than the UBI. Also, regardless of the economic system - could be feudalism, communism, the bronze age palace economy - redistributing income away from producers towards people who don't work (or even work less) is going to have negative effects. There is lot more demand for garbagemen than there are people who really love being garbagemen and wouldn't mind the high taxes. Take a look at the UK: the percentage of the population that are pensioners keeps on rising and the government keeps giving them more money - it's gone from 2% in the 50s to more like 10% now - all money that could be spent on other things that could grow the economy.
- luisfmh 1y ago
  So not sure if you read this part > Lewchuk added that while some people did stop working, about half of them headed back to school in hopes of coming back to a better job. But they didn't just stop working, they went back to school
  - joegibbs 1y ago
    That's not that much better - 12.5% stopped working and didn't do anything at all. I think that would also massively increase if the money was guaranteed to keep coming in for the rest of their lives. And even if the percentage stayed flat it would be an economic disaster - an increase of 12.5% of the population unemployed would be worse, in the US, than peak COVID. Another 12.5% going off to school still gets them out of the workforce, and would worsen elite overproduction.
zoeey 1y ago
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whatever1 1y ago
The minute the asset owners sense more cash availability they will just hike the rent and housing prices. Congrats you just made inflation!
j_timberlake 1y ago
They haven't solved the biggest question: "Would landlords raise rents to take the UBI for themselves?" This study was always way too small for that. We'll probably only find out for sure the hard way.
- kbelder 1y ago
  We pretty much know the answer to that question. Everything universal... that everyone needs to purchase (rent, food, power, etc.) will raise in price to eat up the UBI. It will reach an equilibrium where, to make ends meet, you will need UBI and at least a minimum wage job. Any attempt to stop that from happening, such as price controls, raising UBI, etc., will cause shortages, abuse, or other issues. That's my prediction, at least.
  - j_timberlake 1y ago
    Yeah that's called Neoclassical economics, I don't doubt it's true. The question is whether the "shortages, abuse, or other issues" are worse than very-high unemployment scenarios in futures where the value of human labor has dipped below labor costs. It's probably going to get ugly no matter how the government tries to intervene, but it would be great if we knew ahead of time which interventions are better than others.
thimkerbell 1y ago
If this result is from 2020, there have been others since. With less rosy results, I think I recall.
burnt-resistor 1y ago
"Them thar's CoMmUnIsM" Can't have that because Murica despises people beneath them getting any support or help of any kind. That's why universal healthcare won't happen without an FDR 2.0. Mamdani is kind of like that but can't become POTUS. Maybe Ro Khanna and AOC, but too many America voters are hostile towards them because the corporate news and podcasters told them so. Ironically, the Trump stimulus checks provide fantastic and unexpected relief for millions.

197 points by jszymborski 1y ago

Yeah how many of these have we had now? Literally every test and study about UBI comes back with similar data: it improves lives, reduces stress, and nobody becomes a drain on the system. It doesn’t matter. The people who oppose it aren’t looking at the data, they just don’t want "my tax dollars" going to support people struggling to get by.

jagged-chisel 1y ago
> … people struggling to get by. Rather, people who “didn’t earn it.”
- interstice 1y ago
  Is this \s?
  - zzrrt 1y ago
    Probably portraying the attitude of the people complaining about "my tax dollars" as referenced in the preceding post.
  - throaway955 1y ago
    that's the attitude. "You need to work, even if it's at McDonalds!" "You can't ask other people to carry your weight!"
    - kbelder 1y ago
      You can certainly ask other people to carry your weight. The problem is when you start to force other people to.
- ToucanLoucan 1y ago
  In a world with so much surplus, the fact that we still demand people earn a living under penalty of death is the most psychotic shit I've ever seen.
  - 76izutdgutdr 1y ago
    [flagged]
reactordev 1y ago
It’s funny because it’s such a small amount for those who oppose it. I mean, capital gains doesn’t kick in until $48,350 in the US and you can survive off of that if you needed to. The issue is pulling that consistently for an income requires a bit of capital the average American doesn’t have.
SR2Z 1y ago
We already have the EITC, which is frankly a better version of UBI (it incentivizes working more and literally goes up as you increase your earnings). Expand the EITC and tax capital gains as regular, inflation-adjusted income to pay for it and we've basically done it - a single Democratic administration could. In fact, during COVID, an increase to the child tax portion of the EITC reduced childhood poverty by _70%_ at a relatively low cost. Guess why we don't do that anymore? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earned_income_tax_credit#/media/File:Crs_eitc_2020.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earned_income_tax_credit#/medi... https://www.cbpp.org/research/poverty-and-inequality/expiration-of-pandemic-relief-led-to-record-increases-in-poverty https://www.cbpp.org/research/poverty-and-inequality/expirat... (US focused even though the article is Canada lol)
- AnthonyMouse 1y ago
  A large EITC is trivially converted into a UBI. Otherwise-unemployed people pay each other a salary to do whatever they were each going to do anyway and then the salaries cancel but they both get the EITC. Attempts to prevent this largely don't work against people who want to do the scam and just find a different way to structure it, but tend to be used as an excuse to e.g. screw legitimate self-employed workers out of the credit. The only reason this doesn't happen at scale right now is that the existing EITC is smaller than the amount of payroll tax you'd pay by making a given amount of money, i.e. it's not a negative income tax at all. If you're going to make it larger than that you might as well make it a UBI.
programjames 1y ago
I think the issue is there are a lot of welfare programs that haven't seen the same success. If you subscribe to the "taxes are to solve public goods problems" model, then welfare that doesn't come back around to help you isn't taxation, it's theft! When people talk about UBI, they're wary it's just a relabelling of the same-old "steal from the rich, give to the poor" Robinhood scheme. I think the left has also really shot themselves in the foot by talking about UBI as "helping struggling people get by" or accusing opposers of being unempathetic (or, worst of all, "what would Jesus do?"). That's the wrong way of framing it (and this holds for most welfare initiatives too). People are always going to care about different things. Some really care that everyone has clean water, others a good education, others freedom of expression. Some care more about their families, while others apply equal empathy to every stranger, cow, and tree. When you forcibly take money from someone, and use it to fund your project, it comes from a place of very selective empathy. The proper way to fund your projects is to get everyone on board. Frame it so they see how it helps them achieve their goals, not just yours. (Now, I know I'm ignoring that some people are just incredibly selfish; more accurately, some people's hearts are bleeding out on the floor, some are calcified into stone, and most are somewhere in between. I'm ignoring this discrepancy because 1. even very selfish people can get on board with welfare (like primary/secondary education), as long as it's framed properly, and 2. if a system relies on self-sacrifice, it's too easy to hijack that sacrifice into someone else's pet project.) For example, with education, you can point out how much more economic activity is available when everyone knows how to read and write. I think the argument that actually worked, though, was "how can we avoid roving bands of teenagers in our city once we enact some child-labor laws?" (that's probably the reason highschool is compulsory, not just free to enroll in). For a universal basic income, you probably need to approach it from an entropy argument. The capitalist system tries to maximize GDP, but physical systems actually maximize the free energy (GDP - temperature * Theil index [entropy]). The capitalist system avoids this by artificially restricting free trade: for example, your boss makes a dollar, while you make a dime. There's fewer trades that could happen than if, say, you both made 55 cents (unless your boss is just reallly good at doing things with money). Or, more fundamental, your boss needs you much less than you need a salary. You have less freedom of movement than he has to remove you. A universal basic income fixes this entropy problem, which makes trades more frequent and the market more competitive. In the end, it can come around to help even a seflish centimillionaire.
CoastalCoder 1y ago
> MUH TAX DOLERS Please don't use regional accents as an epithet.
- ToucanLoucan 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - tomhow 1y ago
    Please cut out swipes and fulmination like this in comments. It's clearly against the guidelines, and we've asked you before to avoid using HN for ideological battle. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Aurornis 1y ago
> and nobody becomes a drain on the system That’s a generous interpretation of the results. This was a short term pilot and over one quarter of respondents stopped working, despite knowing it was a temporary program.
- luisfmh 1y ago
  Did you read the article? Because it says that about half of the ones that stopped working stopped working because they were going back to school. That doesn't seem like a drain on the system...

david-gpu 1y ago

We already have something that resembles a basic income in developed countries. It's called retirement pensions. And what we see there is that most people, as soon as they are eligible for their pension, they stop working. Sure, they may volunteer a few hours a month here and there, but their productivity plummets compared to the previous year when they didn't collect that pension. I don't blame them one bit -- it's exactly the same thing I did once I retired. So what happens as we lower the age at which they receive a pension? Different countries and companies have sometimes offered pensions to some of their senior workers to reduce their workforce -- the results were the same. Most people stop working as soon as they have a lifetime guaranteed income that allows them to afford life's essentials, even if they are in their forties. A pilot where the participants know or suspect that the money will soon stop flowing won't capture the real-world effect of this decades-long experiment that we call pensions. And if people don't work, or don't work nearly as much as they did before, then how is the system going to be sustained?

stablgeniushatr 1y ago
Except…people retire so they can stop working? Or they retire because they can no longer physically or mentally work.
voxl 1y ago
False equivalence. People stop working during retirement because it is the very cultural expectation to not work. There is no reason to believe this analogy you're attempting to make would transfer to something like a negative tax rate
- mbrumlow 1y ago
  Maybe they can stop working because of cultural allowance. Who knows how many people should retire at 30 if the social norms allowed it. Think about it this way. If a 60 year old says “I’m retiring” most responses will be “aw good for you, you earned it”. But if a 23 year old says “I am retiring” I guarantee there will be many more negative responses and questions.
Swizec 1y ago

tekla 1y ago

> He acknowledged the report's findings are only based on short-term effects but, given the project has been shut down, it's all they have. OK, yeah. They kept working because everyone expected that it would go away

hatthew 1y ago

I'm sure there is already much discussion about this, but I feel like basic income pilots will never show the true impact. Someone who knows they'll have guaranteed income for the rest of their life is more likely to stop working than someone who is told they will receive guaranteed income for a few years. Especially when this pilot is cancelled and now people won't trust that future ones will last even for the few years specified.

44520297 1y ago
Sure, but let’s remember that “working” is not the end-all, be-all of human existence. Some will stop working and care for an aging parent. Some will stop working and raise children. Some will stop working and make art. We have the opportunity to maximize human flourishing. Let’s not mistake where we’ve been for where we’re going.
- bluefirebrand 1y ago
  Many will simply stop working and simply rot We saw plenty of it during COVID, people were off work and had basic income and such taken care of. They chose to just sit and do nothing Some people started streaming or content creating or doing art at home or whatever Most people just rotted. They sat and watched shows and movies and goofed around online
  - pxc 1y ago
    Huh? Everyone I knew either worked during that time or was looking for work after getting laid off. (And the vast majority were still working.) > had basic income and such taken care of Huh? The COVID checks weren't that regular and didn't cover that much. You mean collecting unemployment, which also requires proving that you're looking for work?
  - zuminator 1y ago
    Assuming both people are obtaining the same level of enjoyment, why is goofing around online considered "rotting" compared with streaming and doing art at home? I'm not trying to knock hobbies, but I think being alive and content is its own reward, even if the person is lacking a résumé of daily achievements to rattle off at dinner parties.

t-writescode 1y ago

For those fortunate enough to have made absurd amounts of money, think of what you did when you had it. You kept making for whole different reasons. You kept making, kept doing. The only thing that stops is tolerance of actual garbage bosses, abusive companies and saying “yes” to decisions that require you to be immoral.

bombcar 1y ago
Well, 25% stopped apparently. Which is somewhat telling. If you gave me a $basicIncome raise I’d keep working; but I’d appreciate the cash. If you guaranteed $basicIncome for life I’d restructure my life around that, and likely FIRE.
- t-writescode 1y ago
  What would you do in your retirement? Loaf? Volunteer? Make art? Two of those are “work”
  - atomicnumber3 1y ago
    He's do the only thing we're definitely here to do. Live.
  - appreciatorBus 1y ago
    There are plenty of ways to volunteer or do art that are indistinguishable from loafing. Even if you work hard at volunteering or art, if the result isn't useful to others, at some point we will start wondering who is going to grow food and do plumbing while everyone is volunteering & arting.
    - throaway955 1y ago
      presumably people who don't like volunteering and arting, and do like working with their hands on concrete problems that directly affect peoples lives

winstonewert 1y ago

Some thoughts: - It says that 3/4 of people kept working; to me, that seems like a big drop. - Data is based on a survey of people in the program; I distrust data from surveys on principle. - There seems to have been a reduction in the payment as they earned money, so its not really UBI as typically advocated.

strken 1y ago
> Lewchuk added that while some people did stop working, about half of them headed back to school in hopes of coming back to a better job. I believe previous UBI experiments have shown the same results: most people keep working, some people stop, but they usually have decent reasons. Education, extending parental leave, or being a caregiver aren't necessarily things we want to discourage if they result in a greater return.
- qeternity 1y ago
  > if they result in a greater return. Greater return than what and to whom? We already have existing labor markets that are very capable of determining returns.
  - throaway955 1y ago
    those labour markets are in shambles atm for most people who aren't upper middle class
    - qeternity 1y ago
      In shambles compared to when? Quality of life is the highest it's ever been across socioeconomic strata. It's just our expectations outpace reality.
  - strken 1y ago
    > Greater return than what and to whom? Greater return for the government paying for a UBI, compared to not paying for a UBI. > We already have existing labor markets that are very capable of determining returns. I'm not sure I understand how "existing labour markets" are going to solve the three things I listed: education, caregiving, and parents taking time off to look after their kids. The issue of parents being absent is that it results in negative externalities: crime rate, an alienated society, low literacy rates. The existing labour market is great at placing parents into a job efficiently, but it has absolutely nothing to do with keeping their kids out of prison. Nor should it, really, because externalities are a government-level coordination problem. When it comes to education, the issue is again a coordination problem. Companies might do some training, but they generally prefer to foist the risk off onto employees, other companies, and governments by hiring people who are already educated. Again, this is a coordination problem, because any individual company that skips training and just hires educated workers directly will be more efficient, but those educated workers have to come from somewhere. I will concede that it's more efficient not to take care of the elderly. I question whether it is desirable, however.

chris_va 1y ago

I realize UBI has been a popular topic on HN, answer me this... UBI, if implemented, would move O($10T/year) around the economy. We've seen a lot of small scale studies, which basically boil down to giving people money == life improvements. However, I do not see how a small scale study could possibly answer the open macro questions, like inflationary collapse (e.g. increased velocity without direct economic output), even if the whole "will people work anymore" question is moot. Without answering those questions, it would be a USSR scale experiment, which is incredibly dangerous. Improving peoples lives would be great, but I cannot see how one could be an advocate for UBI without having solid answers to those questions.

micromacrofoot 1y ago
why not do it gradually by expanding regional pilot programs, you can't answer these questions without doing it
- burnt-resistor 1y ago
  Another possibility is a negative tax issued every month that becomes effectively UBI. Also, if the IRS were to cut some of their absurd tax breaks for billionaires like the carried interest loophole, simplify things, calculate it for people, and withhold the most likely correct amount ahead of time, it would ease the unnecessary burden placed on people who aren't rich enough to have tax accountants. Corporations need to be taxed at around 75% too while we're at it to pay their fair share. The ratcheting of tax brackets should also be 90% of personal income for the 3 millionth dollar and over. Every billionaire is a policy failure and CEO:worker pay exceeding 1000x is crazy.
theteapot 1y ago
"inflationary collapse" seems contradictory. I think hyperinflation is a more correct term.
strken 1y ago
I see being an advocate for UBI as advocating for solid answers to those questions. I would also point out that there's a difference between a full UBI, a modest partial UBI, and the kind of "basic income" that's not universal and goes away at a rate of 50c on the dollar when you earn more, like in this study. You can't slowly roll out a full UBI, but that's definitely possible for a partial UBI or a means-tested cash payment. You can dial the amount down as far as you want and still study the impact.

mostertoaster 1y ago

If we could get rid of social security, Medicaid, food stamps, and all forms of welfare, and replace them all with a UBI equally given to every citizen, the trade off might make something as inherently idiotic as UBI worth it.

Analemma_ 1y ago
You can’t replace Medicaid with UBI unless you also change the entire health care system to be single-payer, because people will still have random medical problems which need a million dollars (or whatever) worth of treatment. For the rest of it I agree, but I think you’re overestimating how much we spend on all those programs— they don’t even come close to what a reasonable UBI would cost. UBI would require a huge change to how taxation/spending works no matter how it’s implemented.
- mostertoaster 1y ago
  Honestly I think UBI would be awful. And what I really mean is take the sum amount of all welfare we spend today divide by the number of citizens and give every citizen that much. Would hardly be enough still. The only people who should be in favor of it though is the billionaire aristocrats. It would effectively take the entire middle class and make them serfs. It would be the quickest way to bring back a feudal type system with a few people at the top and everyone else pretty much poor. Sure they’d make sure we have enough to eat and clothe ourselves, but even the slave owners of old did that. Just look at the experiment in 2020-2021 where we gave everyone even more free money, the result we saw companies go from less than a trillion market cap to over three trillion while wages went up maybe 25%

nixpulvis 1y ago

Why not strengthen need based assistance? Why give everyone $X/mo when you could give just those who need it the money? Why not strengthen programs like SNAP or affordable housing programs? UBI solves the issue of changing requirements and confusing/embarrassing applications, but I'm not sure it's better overall.

micromacrofoot 1y ago
ubi is inherently cheaper because it's significantly simpler, means testing programs are expensive to operate and are often slow and needlessly bureaucratic
- nixpulvis 1y ago
  I have serious trouble believing UBI provides enough to solve the poorest peoples problems without needlessly costing a huge amount funding well off peoples hobbies. You'll still need affordable housing, you'll still need food programs, etc. I don't see how you save on cutting those programs.
  - micromacrofoot 1y ago
    it would be nice if people had this same level of concern for the people already hoarding wealth, the guy buying more warhammer minis with ubi isn't the problem
- verteu 1y ago
  Ballpark numbers: About 1/3 of Americans get government assistance, and typical administrative costs are 1-10% of the program. Making these benefits universal would require spending 200% more, and save at most 10% in overhead. Thus, optimistically, you'd be spending +190% more.
doctorpangloss 1y ago
one POV is that libertarians, who have a lot of beefs, are running the country right now, so what choice do you have? they keep winning elections. another POV is, libertarians have empathy, it's quixotic, so how can it be harnessed to achieve your goals?

MaysonL 1y ago

Why not guaranteed employment, not UBI. Subsidize minimum wage jobs that produce social good without being soul-crushing. (Raise the minimum wage while you’re at it).

codebje 1y ago
Guaranteed employment is tricky to get right. How do you provide minimum wage jobs that are not soul-crushing, without destroying the private sector soul-crushing minimum wage jobs? How do you even find productive jobs people would want to do (or at least find tolerable) that no-one in the private sector was willing to pay minimum wage to get done? How do you provide jobs to a wide range of contextual needs, from ages 16 to 65, office workers to labourers, physical and mental impairment, neurodivergence, ability to travel, etc? How do you fund the administrative burden of matching jobs to people? What do you do for the people who still cannot work for various reasons - total disability, caring for another, etc. You still need provide a wide gamut of social welfare programs for different needs and circumstances, with its concomitant bureaucratic cost and inefficiency - or let people starve, or give them "jobs" that have no productive output, just performative burdens. What's the actual upside of guaranteed employment programs over a UBI?

Aurornis 1y ago

This is a 2020 news article and should have the (2020) tag added. The study has also been picked apart for the methodology issues and the enormous amount of spin applied to the results. From what I recall, the link to the results didn’t lead to an academic paper, it led to something more like a pamphlet or advertisement with a lot of graphic design, dozens of pages, and lots of spin. Even this news article shows the amount of spin happening. Read this section and think about what it really means: > The report shows nearly three-quarters of respondents who were working when the pilot project began kept at it despite receiving basic income In other words: Over one quarter of people who received the checks stopped working, despite knowing that the program was temporary. This is actually a wild result when you think about it. Contrast this with the title that claims “people kept working” without qualifiers. The better studies have included a control group that gets a nominal payment but much less than the basic income checks. Something like $50 or $100 per month to fill out the same questionnaire. Giving a single group some checks for a short period of time without any control group doesn’t tell you much. The entire world of UBI studies is wild. Every time I read the actual data I come away with a completely different interpretation than the news articles and graphic design heavy reports that are produced by the UBI proponents.

jszymborski 1y ago
My bad, added the year to the title.
protocolture 1y ago
I tend to see: "New UBI study is designed to demonstrate that productivity will increase with payments" and then after the results are released. "UBI study confirms that participants were happier and healthier on a UBI"
9rx 1y ago
> The entire world of UBI studies is wild. Are you counting this study in that world, given that it wasn't a UBI study? It was intended to be a continuation of the Manitoban study from the 1970s, which wasn't modelled as UBI either.
JoshTriplett 1y ago

opo 1y ago

>The report shows nearly three-quarters of respondents who were working when the pilot project began kept at it despite receiving basic income. 1/4 of the people stopped working?? That is a huge effect, particularly since it was a short duration experiment. Unfortunately this is also seen in other experiments with basic income. The economist Noah Smith blogged about a large randomized basic income study done in the US where participants received about $1,000 a month for three years: >...Just $1000 a month made 2% of people stop working! That’s a very large negative effect. It contradicts the results of earlier studies showing little or no effect of unconditional cash benefits on employment. And worst of all, the basic income recipients didn’t seem to transfer to better jobs or go back to school — two of the most powerful arguments for basic income. Instead, people just sat around at home. https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/at-least-five-interesting-things-010 https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/at-least-five-interesting-thin...

chneu 1y ago
Don't forget to compare that to the number of people who exit the job market without UBI. Given the chance, many people will quit working. That isn't surprising. Acting like this is UBI's fault is kind of weird.
- opo 1y ago
  > Acting like this is UBI's fault is kind of weird. As Noah Smith wrote: >...Now, increased leisure time isn’t zero benefit — obviously it’s nice to be able to sit around and do nothing and live off of government cash for a little while. But it represents a steep tradeoff — programs like this are already very expensive in fiscal terms, and if they make people work less, that only adds to the total economic cost. If leisure time is all we’re getting for all of that money and lost output, it’s highly questionable whether the intervention is worth it.
  - BriggyDwiggs42 1y ago
    Not to butt in, but 2% sounds like a good trade to me. You gotta think about every possible cumulative benefit everyone experiences by having 1k more a month. Imagine the lost stress, the increased nutrition, the increased education, the skills explored and practiced that couldn’t be before, etc. If the trade is that 2% of people sit around and economic output drops as much, why shouldn’t that be a net positive for society?

abeppu 1y ago

I dunno this seems like a not great program and a not great study. > Its findings are the result of a 70-question, anonymous online survey made available to basic income recipients in Hamilton, Brantford and Brant County. A total of 217 former recipients participated, according to the report. > Forty in-depth interviews with participants were also completed in July 2019. > The project worked by recruiting low-income people and couples, offering them a fixed payment with no strings attached that worked out to approximately $17,000 for individuals and $24,000 for couples. Earlier it mentions the program had 4k participants. So 4k participants -> 217 survey respondents -> 40 interviews. We don't know to what degree there was a selection bias in who decided to respond or was available to interview. Not great in terms of the data the study generated. > Whatever income participants earned was deducted from their basic income at 50 per cent, meaning once someone hit $34,000 they wouldn't receive a payment anymore, Lewchuk explained while speaking with As It Happens. > Lewchuk added that while some people did stop working, about half of them headed back to school in hopes of coming back to a better job. And the program told people up front that it was temporary, and that the marginal benefit of their own work or income would be substantially reduced. If your earning power already wasn't great (which qualifies you for the program) and now your effective wage per hour worked is functionally reduced ... it's kinda shocking that most of them kept working! If the program wanted to keep people working, it wouldn't take away funds from them as they earn.

ropable 1y ago

There's a segment of the population who are vehemently against the idea of undeserving/lazy/the wrong people receiving any kind of welfare benefit, and the concept of UBI really, really triggers that segment. To the point where rational analysis goes straight out the window. I'm quite certain that all the same arguments were had about every kind of retirement or disability pension everywhere. Many of our societies are producing an enormous amount of resources surplus to our basic needs, often distributed very unevenly. Putting some of that surplus towards ensuring all members are at least housed and fed would not be a bad thing.

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
Manuel_D 1y ago
Time-boxed UBI experiments don't represent how people would behave if they had the benefits for life. That's not throwing rational analysis out the window. If anything, trying to extrapolate the results of a UBI pilot that didn't last 3 years is playing fast and loose with rationality. Disabled people receive benefits because their ability to work is impeded by their disability and thus those programs don't have the same potential to disincentive work among the disabled population. Retirement benefits do diminish older people's labor participation rates. That's the intended purpose of retirement programs. Society agrees that at a certain age people should ideally be able to relax and not work if they don't want to. Why do people protest when countries raise their retirement age? Because people don't want to have to work in their 70s or late 60s. Some do (my dad kept consulting for the fun of it), but they're probably in the minority.
somedude895 1y ago
> ensuring all members are at least housed and fed would not be a bad thing. Not sure about your country, but normally those cases are covered by social security and welfare, it doesn't require helicopter money.
chneu 1y ago
You're talking about the "welfare queen" myth. The idea that given any sort of welfare, a large percentage of the population will exploit that welfare and quit being productive.

throaway955 1y ago

no duh

osigurdson 1y ago

The question is, what happened to the people who they took the money from or inflated away the value of their savings? The second question is, how much money was "lost in translation". UBI might be fine in a post scarcity world. Let's maybe think about it once governments eliminate all debt and have run surpluses for a decade.

joegibbs 1y ago

The problem with UBI is that not only does it give people an incentive to not work (as 25% of people in the study stopped working, even when they presume that the money would stop coming at some point) but, at a national level, it also requires a massive tax hike on the people who do work, which disincentivises work. It would have an inflationary effect on basic goods and services. If you're renting and everybody is getting an extra few thousand a month then landlords know that they can charge a bit more since everyone has that money. Same with staple foods. The cost savings don't make sense. An argument is that it will actually save money because the government will be able to abolish disability support and welfare, get rid of free healthcare, etc. But this ignores the fact that a lot of that stuff has unequal demand. You crash your car, your leg gets cut off, go to the hospital, they spend $100k on making sure you survive (specialised machines, a team of doctors and nurses, medicines, recovery and physiotherapy). How's that work under UBI if the government isn't paying for it anymore, who is? Or say you have a child with a disability, it's still going to cost more than the UBI. Also, regardless of the economic system - could be feudalism, communism, the bronze age palace economy - redistributing income away from producers towards people who don't work (or even work less) is going to have negative effects. There is lot more demand for garbagemen than there are people who really love being garbagemen and wouldn't mind the high taxes. Take a look at the UK: the percentage of the population that are pensioners keeps on rising and the government keeps giving them more money - it's gone from 2% in the 50s to more like 10% now - all money that could be spent on other things that could grow the economy.

luisfmh 1y ago
So not sure if you read this part > Lewchuk added that while some people did stop working, about half of them headed back to school in hopes of coming back to a better job. But they didn't just stop working, they went back to school
- joegibbs 1y ago
  That's not that much better - 12.5% stopped working and didn't do anything at all. I think that would also massively increase if the money was guaranteed to keep coming in for the rest of their lives. And even if the percentage stayed flat it would be an economic disaster - an increase of 12.5% of the population unemployed would be worse, in the US, than peak COVID. Another 12.5% going off to school still gets them out of the workforce, and would worsen elite overproduction.

zoeey 1y ago

[dead]

whatever1 1y ago

The minute the asset owners sense more cash availability they will just hike the rent and housing prices. Congrats you just made inflation!

j_timberlake 1y ago

They haven't solved the biggest question: "Would landlords raise rents to take the UBI for themselves?" This study was always way too small for that. We'll probably only find out for sure the hard way.

kbelder 1y ago
We pretty much know the answer to that question. Everything universal... that everyone needs to purchase (rent, food, power, etc.) will raise in price to eat up the UBI. It will reach an equilibrium where, to make ends meet, you will need UBI and at least a minimum wage job. Any attempt to stop that from happening, such as price controls, raising UBI, etc., will cause shortages, abuse, or other issues. That's my prediction, at least.
- j_timberlake 1y ago
  Yeah that's called Neoclassical economics, I don't doubt it's true. The question is whether the "shortages, abuse, or other issues" are worse than very-high unemployment scenarios in futures where the value of human labor has dipped below labor costs. It's probably going to get ugly no matter how the government tries to intervene, but it would be great if we knew ahead of time which interventions are better than others.

thimkerbell 1y ago

If this result is from 2020, there have been others since. With less rosy results, I think I recall.

burnt-resistor 1y ago

"Them thar's CoMmUnIsM" Can't have that because Murica despises people beneath them getting any support or help of any kind. That's why universal healthcare won't happen without an FDR 2.0. Mamdani is kind of like that but can't become POTUS. Maybe Ro Khanna and AOC, but too many America voters are hostile towards them because the corporate news and podcasters told them so. Ironically, the Trump stimulus checks provide fantastic and unexpected relief for millions.