A Rural County's New Universal Basic Income Experiment - and the Case Against It (ksat.com) 354
Amid worries that technological advances may someday eliminate jobs, the Associated Press reports on a new experimental universal basic income program in upstate New York:
During the pilot program, funded by private donations, 100 county residents making less than $46,900 annually will get $500 a month for a year. The income threshold was based on 80% of the county's average median income, meaning it includes both the poor and a slice of the middle class — people who face financial stress but might not ordinarily qualify for government aid based on income.
For researchers, the pilot could give them a fuller picture of what happens when a range of people are sent payments that guarantee a basic living... Basic income programs elsewhere tend to focus on cities. In contrast, this upstate program stretches out over a mix of places: a city, small towns and remote areas many miles from bus lines and supermarkets. "Showing that this approach will work not just in urban areas, but for rural parts of the country — which we know is one of our big national problems — I think there's great opportunity there," said Ulster County Executive Patrick Ryan... Center for Guaranteed Income Research co-founder Stacia West, who is evaluating more than 20 such pilot programs, is interested in seeing how spending compares to cities like Stockton, California, where more that a third went for food. "Knowing what we know about barriers to employment, especially in rural areas, we may see more money going toward transportation than we've ever seen before in any other experiment," said West, also a professor at the University of Tennessee College of Social Work...
The end goal for a number of advocates is a universal basic income, or UBI, which would distribute cash payment programs for all adults... Critics of cash transfer programs worry about their effectiveness and cost compared to aid programs that target funds for food, shelter or for help raising children. Drake University economics professor Heath Henderson is concerned the programs miss needier people less likely to apply, including those without homes. While there are times people might benefit from a cash infusion, the money is unlikely to address the structural issues holding people back, like inadequate health care and schools, he said.
"If we keep thinking about remedying poverty in terms of just throwing cash at people, you're not thinking about the structures that kind of reproduce poverty in the first place and you're not really solving the problem at all," Henderson said.
For researchers, the pilot could give them a fuller picture of what happens when a range of people are sent payments that guarantee a basic living... Basic income programs elsewhere tend to focus on cities. In contrast, this upstate program stretches out over a mix of places: a city, small towns and remote areas many miles from bus lines and supermarkets. "Showing that this approach will work not just in urban areas, but for rural parts of the country — which we know is one of our big national problems — I think there's great opportunity there," said Ulster County Executive Patrick Ryan... Center for Guaranteed Income Research co-founder Stacia West, who is evaluating more than 20 such pilot programs, is interested in seeing how spending compares to cities like Stockton, California, where more that a third went for food. "Knowing what we know about barriers to employment, especially in rural areas, we may see more money going toward transportation than we've ever seen before in any other experiment," said West, also a professor at the University of Tennessee College of Social Work...
The end goal for a number of advocates is a universal basic income, or UBI, which would distribute cash payment programs for all adults... Critics of cash transfer programs worry about their effectiveness and cost compared to aid programs that target funds for food, shelter or for help raising children. Drake University economics professor Heath Henderson is concerned the programs miss needier people less likely to apply, including those without homes. While there are times people might benefit from a cash infusion, the money is unlikely to address the structural issues holding people back, like inadequate health care and schools, he said.
"If we keep thinking about remedying poverty in terms of just throwing cash at people, you're not thinking about the structures that kind of reproduce poverty in the first place and you're not really solving the problem at all," Henderson said.
The nationwide "experiment" (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The nationwide "experiment" (Score:5, Insightful)
The article quotes people who agree with you, like that Henderson guy. His argument against UBI is essentially that smart people like him know how to help these people better than can help themselves.
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive." - C. S. Lewis
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"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive." - C. S. Lewis
Have we truly devolved so far that "tyranny" is now defined as "not giving people free money and insisting the the able bodied should work?"
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None of the items, even if true, justify UBI.
Re: The nationwide "experiment" (Score:3, Informative)
Sounds like you might have been the problem. Unemployment under Trump was very, very low.
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Presidents rarely get to make actions that affect the economy during their own administration. When it does happen it is due to actions taken very early in a first term that show up late in a second term. The economy is a rhinocerous and the president just has a pointy stick, and congress has a second pointy stick, and they delicately try to get it to move out of the flower bed without getting it angry.
But the rule of the game is, the curernt president always takes credit for what is happening now if it i
Re:The nationwide "experiment" (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:If they were smart they would not be poor! (Score:5, Insightful)
On the other hand for the continuation of a species, the only thing that matters is reproduction. Evolution is all about who can pump out children versus who can't - either through a behavior or preference preventing it, or premature death doing so. How happy or pleasant your life was is irrelevant.
I'm not even going to put a negative spin on it like movies (eg, Idiocracy) do - from an evolutionary perspective a family that lives in squalor but produces 4-5 children was a success whilst a a couple that lived a life of luxury but had no offspring because they were "too expensive" failed - their genes were not passed on.
This is why I find it hilarious when all the millennials whine about children being "too expensive" or worse, not having children because "they don't want to subject them to this world". The standard of living now is far better than during 99% of human history. People were having children and persevering back when you weren't likely to see your 40th birthday and half of your children would die due to disease or predators before they could have children of their own. Back when rather than microaggressions you literally had to worry about the neighboring village murdering your entire settlement if they had a bad crop and needed yours.
Life isn't too hard, and children aren't too expensive - people today are simply self-centered.
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It's self-centered because you're only thinking about yourself rather than the propagation of your genetic material, which is literally what is required for the species to persist.
You're certainly free to do as you wish - it's just that those that believe and do as you do are from an evolutionary perspective a dead-end. If the the reason you came to that conclusion is genetic then your genes will die. If the reason for that is cultural then you will not have progeny to convey that mindset to.
Survival of t
Re:The nationwide "experiment" (Score:4, Insightful)
You can't make laws and regulations based on the few people who would abuse it. Otherwise we shouldn't let people out of their homes because they might murder people or get raped.
That's not how policy should work.
Re:The nationwide "experiment" (Score:4, Insightful)
> You can't make laws and regulations based on the few people who would abuse it.
Of course we do. There are laws against cannibalism, pedophilia, drunk driving, and serving alcohol or tobacco to minors. Failing to make an explicit law with explicit consequences leaves too much power in the hands of a judge who may favor friends or ethnic stereotypes.
Re:The nationwide "experiment" (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course we do. There are laws against cannibalism, pedophilia, drunk driving, and serving alcohol or tobacco to minors. Failing to make an explicit law with explicit consequences leaves too much power in the hands of a judge who may favor friends or ethnic stereotypes.
You just proved my point. Those are targeted laws, to the minority that hurt others, and restrict their actions to not harm others.
We shouldn't and generally don't make policy or laws that are to the determent of the majority in order to stop the minority from doing bad.
Meaning, saying "UBI could get abused" isn't an excuse to not have UBI, it's an excuse to make laws that forbid people from abusing it, because otherwise you'd be harming the majority to stop the few that would abuse it.
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I would only deal with the abuse if dealing with it was worth it. If you get X dollars of abuse every year but catching that costs you 10X then it is clearly not worth it. It makes you feel better but it is a giant waste of money.
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The US over-focuses on the potential for abuse, and as a result we often pay far more for goods and services purely to make sure that others can be prevented from getting them. For example, cable TV, electricity and water systems spend far more on control and billing than on actually providing the service being paid for. Or look at healthcare in the US - we pay 2x as much as any other country for healthcare, purely so that we can have a complex system in place to try to make sure that people don't get healt
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But another angle to think of...
Many of the more liberal ideals or policies, like UBI or the like, seems to be based upon the ideal that "most people
Re: The nationwide "experiment" (Score:5, Interesting)
Seems to me a similar argument was put forward vis a vis slavery - as in "we need slavery or the economy would collapse"
What the pearl-clutchers seem to not quite get is that the guy staying home and playing video games is still contributing to the economy. His UBI is buying food, rent , power, and video games. He almost certainly isn't *saving* any money, so 100% of that UBI goes back into the economy.
What he *isn't* doing is being a lazy, inefficient worker. He's not phoning it in on a manufacturing job, or a clerical job. He isn't making mistakes and lowering productivity. There is *value* in having that guy out of the workforce.
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Lol, you are so hyper-focused on unemployment you've missed everything else in the world. I don't know what cave you've been living in, but we've all been dealing with a little more than unemployment over the last few years. To pin anything at all on unemployment alone is ridiculous.
Seriously, don't play psychologist on the internet. It's not helpful for anyone, especially if you're a fucking moron.
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Re:The nationwide "experiment" (Score:4, Funny)
Maybe our society(economy) needs to collapse.
That's a real election winner. "Vote for me and our economy will collapse!" I can imagine a worse slogan, though. "Make America great again again!" The guy who came up with that one got fired.
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"Government cant do anything right! Vote for me and I'll prove it...
Re:The nationwide "experiment" (Score:4, Insightful)
Does every conceivable human accomplishment really need to happen as rapidly as possible?.
Do you think the human race is worth saving? If so, then yes - every conceivable human accomplishment needs to happen as rapidly as possible.
I can think of any number of solar-system or galactic scale events that could wipe Earth out for good. Every second that passes increases our odds that such an event can happen or has happened and will effect us.
Our only defence is improving our level of technology as fast as possible such that we can start to explore space, and make the species safer.
If the only planet we live on is Earth, eventually we are guaranteed to be wiped out, and then the entirety of human history will have been for naught.
The event which wipes out the planet may even have already happened, and could be heading towards us at light speed.
It could be days (in which case we're screwed), or it could be millennia (in which case we have a chance), but make no mistake, time is running out, and only building advanced tech as fast as possible will be able to save us.
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It could be days (in which case we're screwed), or it could be millennia (in which case we have a chance), but make no mistake, time is running out, and only building advanced tech as fast as possible will be able to save us.
Most people aren't employed in fields that directly lead to the creation of new advanced technology. Most peoples' fields of employment aren't even essential to the day-to-day operation of society, as Covid "lockdowns" in the USA demonstrated.
Whether humanity ever ultimately makes it off this rock onto some other habitable planet is not going to hinge on whether Jim-Bob mines coal vs him sitting at home on his ass, playing Minecraft.
Re:The nationwide "experiment" (Score:5, Insightful)
What we've been doing isn't a UBI - Universal means everyone gets it. If you means test it, then people are going to be disincentivized when it comes to working for more money. With a real UBI, everyone, from Bezos down, gets it. It just means more to some than others.
Not saying it's a great idea, just saying what we're doing ain't it.
Re: The nationwide "experiment" (Score:3)
Re:The nationwide "experiment" (Score:5, Insightful)
Slashdot formatting (Score:3)
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I'm always fascinated by this notion that automation is going to take all our jobs... and yet at the same time, there's so much work that 'we' as a society say we need to get done.
Doctors and nurses and teachers and police officers and engineers and trades people and old age care and Amazon warehouse workers all sit around saying how overworked they are. Don't get me wrong, we can always point to industries of all kids where we can see automation wrecking hundreds of thousands of jobs.
Let's not pretend we'r
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I actually worry far less about what the unemployed do under a UBI. In some hypothetical world even if the unemployed did the absolute worst thing and just used a UBI to smoke weed and play video games... meh... no sweat of my back. They weren't doing any productive work to begin with. From society as a whole, nothing has really changed. Hopefully we can get some positives like less crime and better healthcare outcomes.
I'd be cool with that if UBI meant we could drop government assisted programs. UBI will be used as free luxury money and the unemployed will still live off of food stamps, assisted housing, and government healthcare (hospitals.)
Unless we are eliminating most government assisted programs, UBI is just another way to encourage people to be lazy while consolidating even more dependence on the government.
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Yeah I love the people who claim that will happen. I'm like, really? So when a UBI recipient spends their money on drugs in the first couple days you'll be cool with their kids starving and them getting evicted? No? Didn't think so.
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I'm really glad that people like you aren't involved in research.
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What we've been doing isn't a UBI - Universal means everyone gets it. If you means test it ...
None of these researchers are implying that the eventual UBI would be means tested. They simply have limited funds and are targeting their test subjects because of the specific research questions they are trying to answer.
In this case they appear to be targeting the subset of the population that most critics of UBI are most worried about. No one is worried about someone making $100k a year quitting their job because they are getting $10k per year through UBI. But there are those who are worried someone maki
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Look at countries with generous welfare systems for a good example of that...
There was a tv show from the UK called "benefits street" a few years ago, it detailed people who weren't working and in some cases had never worked, and were living on handouts from the government.
What was telling about this, is that many of them were perfectly content to continue taking handouts and had no intention of getting a job. They also all seemed to smoke and/or drink (both expensive and heavily taxed habits in the uk) and
Re: The nationwide "experiment" (Score:4, Insightful)
You saw it on TV, did you?
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Re:The nationwide "experiment" (Score:5, Interesting)
1. You're deluding yourself if you think the UK is an example of a country with a generous welfare system. It's not Norway or Sweden, which actually are generous. And it's been run by Tories who run right of Thatcher on most issues since 2010, who've been hacking away at it like the incompetent malicious buffoons they are.
2. You've been (willingly) deluded by benefits porn TV if you think those shows are in any way representative of the typical experience of a benefits recipient. Lots of people love to tell themselves stories about moral hazard so they can sneer at the feckless poor -- I mean it's basically the raison d'etre of the Daily Mail, along with making women feel shit about themselves, actively targeting the mental health of people in the public eye and demonizing forriners -- but this stuff ain't where the UK is wasting money (and hoo boy is the UK wasting money).
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1. You're deluding yourself if you think the UK is an example of a country with a generous welfare system.
It isn't but it's a testament to the Kafkaesque insanity of the benefits system that it still manages to benefit trap people. Casual/short term work for example is harder, since you'll lose some or all of your universal credit if you start work, then when the job finishes it'll take a while to restart at which point good luck! Now you have to live with NO money until it does. It's often better to not t
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The UK does have a generous welfare system. It can be very byzantine - basically a result of politicians pandering, and it is generous. Is it the most generous in the world, probably not. But one has to remember that the UK does, for example, have a completely free at the point of use healthcare system (so have to remember that when comparing to other countries that might include healthcare costs in their welfare programs).
I think moral hazards are very misunderstood. I happen to believe and hope for a tru
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You're absolutely right that means testing -- especially with different programs -- is a serious problem. In the US, studies find that the effective marginal tax rate can exceed 100% [urban.org], even over fairly large changes (from just below the poverty line to 150% of it, in one state). This also happens to higher-income families in other situations [forbes.com].
Is it a reasonable assumption that "someone who doesn't want to work" will always and unconditionally maintain that desire? The usual argument over moral hazard in th
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I think we broadly agree but I don't understand the logic behind including healthcare in your view of the welfare system. Apart from anything, all Western European democracies offer healthcare that's free at the point of use, whether funded through tax or social insurance.
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The UK does have a generous welfare system.
Compared to many parts of Europe, no.
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for example, have a completely free at the point of use healthcare system (so have to remember that when comparing to other countries that might include healthcare costs in their welfare programs).
Those with a higher welfare system in Europe also allow healthcare to be free at the point of use for most or all recipients of welfare.
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It can result in ridiculously high effective marginal tax rates c70%+, which only people on the left would like, and only for the wealthy. While a person might consider keeping 30% of £1m they have earned to still be worthwhile, asking someone to work for £1000 and only keep £300 is really ridiculous, but welcome to our horribly byzantine tax and benefits system!
I would fully support a true UBI with a higher marginal tax rate for everyone e.g. 40% for everyone. That way, every person knows that they can keep 60p of every pound they earn. I would also get rid of all other benefits unless related to disability.
The highest marginal rate for high earners in the UK is 47%, although you also start losing the personal allowance, so there's a narrow band where it is higher (56% IIRC). For those earning £1m a year the marginal rate is back to 47%. The tax someone earning £1m would be 11% of earnings for NI, £8000 to £45000 (roughly), 2% for £45000 to £1m, 20% income tax on £0 to £45000 (roughly), 40% on £45000 to £150,000, 45% on £150,000 to £1m. It
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If even 10% of people do that, an economy completely collapses
I would guess that at most it would have a 10% decrease in production. Maybe less because those people probably weren't producing much anyway.
The current rate is over 10% (Score:2)
In addition, you can figure that over 10% of the population isn't working anyways. Rounding, for back of napkin figuring.
Life expectancy: 80 years
Working period: 20-65, or 45 years
Right here, we have that only ~56% of the population CAN work. Even if we disregard children, that's only 75% of the population working once you take retirement into account. Sure, some people keep working past 65, but we also have disabled people, people in prison, stay at home parents, etc...
Realistically, somebody living wi
Re:The current rate is over 10% (Score:4, Insightful)
The question isn't whether workplace participation is currently above our below 90%, but what the marginal effect on workplace participation is. If we go from 55%(-ish) of people working to 45% or 50% working, depending on what the 10% is relative to, what does that do to the economy in even the medium term?
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Re:The current rate is over 10% (Score:4, Insightful)
Sure, but the comment I was replying to assumed that the 10% reduction in workers was from the entire population (alternately including or excluding children). My entire point wasn't that we were going from 100% of people working to 90% of people working, but that because we start with a much lower fraction of workers, losing 10% is a bigger deal.
For simpler math, take the case where 50% of people are working. If that goes to 40% of people working, each worker goes from having to support one other person to having to support 1.5 other people. If we consider a change of 10% of the current workers (50% to 45%), that means each worker must support 1.25 other people.
Those proportional changes get worse as the labor participation goes down,.which is why moral hazard is so important with UBIs. In the extreme case, if we changed from only taxing Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates to only taxing Bezos, he would have to support twice as many people so that we stop taxing just one person.
Re:The current rate is over 10% (Score:4, Insightful)
Sure, but the comment I was replying to assumed that the 10% reduction in workers was from the entire population (alternately including or excluding children). My entire point wasn't that we were going from 100% of people working to 90% of people working, but that because we start with a much lower fraction of workers, losing 10% is a bigger deal.
For simpler math, take the case where 50% of people are working. If that goes to 40% of people working, each worker goes from having to support one other person to having to support 1.5 other people. If we consider a change of 10% of the current workers (50% to 45%), that means each worker must support 1.25 other people.
Those proportional changes get worse as the labor participation goes down,.which is why moral hazard is so important with UBIs. In the extreme case, if we changed from only taxing Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates to only taxing Bezos, he would have to support twice as many people so that we stop taxing just one person.
OK, I see what you are saying now. I don't understand the premise, though, as you are suggesting that rather than 10% being discouraged from working the real figure would be 15%. Those who aren't working already aren't working, and many may not need to work, so that's not going to change.
In terms of workers supporting other workers you are assuming that only workers pay taxes, whereas taxes are levied on a variety of sources including companies and purchases. Since productivity per worker has increased massively, then it would seem to be possible to support more people.
The other thing is that if UBI also came with more flexibility, you might see people who are not currently in the labour market come into it. For example, at the moment if you lose welfare by working there is no incentive to do so. If you could actually increase your income by even 5 hours work a week you might be encouraged to do so.
200 years ago labour market participation was much higher, possibly over 100% of numbers of 16-65 year olds as 10 year olds were working too, and a lot of working class women did some paid work. Yet somehow we've managed to reduce to around 65-70% labour market participation and grow the economy. It suggests that labour market participation isn't the most vital factor.
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Hell, *I* am considered to be part of the so-called 'left/liberals/wh
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The simple fact of the matter regarding so-called 'Universal Basic Income' is that it would bankrupt the U.S. economy in the first year, and anyone with basic arithmetic can see this is true.
No it doesn't and your basic arithmetic is wrong which must be pretty embarrassing for you.
UBI isn't taking the system we have now exactly as is and dumping a bunch of money on everyone's head.
You also raise taxes by a fair bit so for most people, and certainly those above some middling threshold, your net income doesn
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I know someone who is quite literally too lazy to work. THAT is his "disability."
Funny, I know someone so stupid that they pick a single anecdote and apply it to an entire society. But that's just being stupid. The real disability is that he announces that stupidity publicly to the world along with some bullshit made up about people not working because they got a pathetically small allowance.
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No, no and no.
A UBI must be a simple universal "right", or legal entitlement to all adults (and maybe a similar, but smaller entitlement for all minors, payable to their parents / guardians).
If landlords are a problem, it is only because government (responding NIMBYs and other entrenched interests) makes it difficult to increase the supply of housing to reduce the power of landlords. Given that more of us can now work remotely, landlords power should really be reduced even more if we allow people to build m
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Depends on:
a). how much wealth is actually generated by society
b). how well you can move it from point A to point B
Currency is an arbitrary measure of society's overall wealth. Especially fiat currency which can be printed in any amount. Yes, if the entire approach to UBI is to overprint currency and then send it to the plebs, you'll get inflation. The UBI wouldn't be a useful supplement to income in that scenario, much less its replacement. The general idea behind UBI (at least when it isn't helmed by
You can't just call it UBI because you want to... (Score:5, Insightful)
What they did, isn't Universal Basic Income, and as a result isn't a valid test for UBI...
Universal Basic Income is when EVERYONE, not just those below a certain income bracket, but EVERYONE gets a basic income that pays annually enough to keep them above the poverty line, regardless of any other income from a job or side-work or whatnot. It's also meant to happen in perpetuity. These short term targeted "experiments" miss many variable like how people will be able to depend on the money and plan long term for things like education, entrepreneurship or focusing on their health and well being to be able to return as a more productive member of society 2, 5 or 10 years in the future.
You can't just make any random experiment and call it Universal Basic Income, otherwise the 25 cents I gave away the other day would count as a UBI too.
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Missing the point. They are testing the effect of giving people $500/month to see if it is positive. If it is then it makes sense to move on to the next stage, if not then time to reconsider.
It doesn't have to be a perfect implementation of full UBI to give useful data, such as if the claim that it will make people simply give up working or reduce their hours is true or not.
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It doesn't have to be a perfect implementation of full UBI to give useful data
No, but it does have to be universal to be an implementation of UBI. Otherwise, it's selective BI, which we already have and already know improves outcomes. Therefore this trial is a jerkoff waste of time and money.
The bigger problem with this as a trial of UBI isn't the fact that it's not universal, it's that it's time-limited. This is the problem with all such tests to date. To really test the concept people need to know that it's going to be there for their entire life, with inflation adjustments to keep the income steady.
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Before you "invest" anything, you've got to establish a workable method by which to generate the cash necessary to operate the UBI in the first place.
Re:You can't just call it UBI because you want to. (Score:5, Interesting)
it also kind of implies that the only way to try UBI is to roll it out at scale with full commitment
It doesn't. Even for small scale experiments, you only need to get rid of the means testing. That's what all these fake-UBI experiments fail to do. They keep putting up limits as to who can get it, which completely misses the point. Get rid of the means testing, and maybe even reduce tax/rates burdens that people would have paid for current welfare systems.
Re:You can't just call it UBI because you want to. (Score:5, Insightful)
None of these experiments matches with what UBI actually proposes. Anything else is beside the point - that they are not testing UBI.
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I have no idea what you're trying to say, what your problem is. Stop speaking in riddles.
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That is the problem with all of the UBI trials. Guaranteed food, shelter, education and healthcare for life for you, all of your family and their decedents will result in much different outcome than $500 a month for 3 years, and only to a small subset of people.
The world will probably get to a point where we could feed, house and provide basic medical care to everyone for free, but by then the standard for poverty will rise - it will not be enough to get a basic apartment, basic food, school and medical. Th
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Theoretically if too many people drop out of work it would cause inflation which would reduce the value of their UBI.
Basically UBI is a negative tax rate for people below a certain threshold, the only downside is that power is held by politicians who would most likely use it to win votes. I think you almost need to tie it in with the interest rates as a non-political decision. As interest rates rise you should cut the UBI to encourage more people back to work and higher productivity, and as interest rate
Empowerment, not entitlement (Score:2, Interesting)
>"During the pilot program, funded by private donations, 100 county residents making less than $46,900 annually will get $500 a month for a year. [...] the pilot could give them a fuller picture of what happens when a range of people are sent payments that guarantee a basic living."
$500 a month doesn't guarantee them a basic living. And these are already people who have far from a poverty-level income, so it is not a "universal basic income experiment."
>"If we keep thinking about remedying poverty in
NOT UBI (Score:4, Informative)
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Yeah... I'm going to listen to actual scientists, thanks.
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Isn't this what you right-wingers have been saying about unemployment benefits for the past year? That people aren't working because they don't want to lose their benefits?
Ignoring for the moment how ridiculous that belief is, letting people keep the benefits after they return to work completely "takes away the incentive not to work" that you've been whining about.
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400 of apprx 175k (Score:4, Insightful)
Ubi isn't meant to address poverty (Score:3, Insightful)
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It's meant to address Mass job losses due to automation that are rapidly approaching. UBI is a solution to that problem.
No, it's not. UBI is wishful thinking based on some fantasy belief that human labor isn't subject to the same laws of supply and demand that applies to any other commodity. Take the so-called "labor shortage" as an example. There's no labor shortage, there's just a shortage of employers willing to pay the market rate for labor. Conversely, when the robots, drones, and self driving vehicles take our jobs [youtube.com], the problem will be that human labor in those fields is no longer price competitive in the marketpla
Re:Ubi isn't meant to address poverty (Score:4, Insightful)
The economy exists to support humanity, not the other way around. If economic activity broadly requires little to no input from human beings, then you let human beings toddle off and do something else with their lives. You don't reduce their numbers to fit the needs of the labor market as though they were pack horses!
Misleading headline (Score:4, Informative)
The headline refers to "the case against" UBI, but the story doesn't deliver on that promise, except in general and ideological concerns that are not supported by data. In fact, the only examples the article gives are of people whose lives are being made better.
If there is a "case against" UBI, it certainly is not demonstrated in any meaningful way in this article. Just one economics professor expressing vague doubts and who actually thinks the program should go even further.
Slate? (Score:2)
I thought this was a techie site. Or is is slowly become Slate, or some other general-population magazine?
Non-profits should be afraid of UBI (Score:2)
The non-profit sector makes tons of money "helping" the poor. If UBI is implemented many of them will suddenly be unemployed.
This will be an existential crisis for many non-profits. If just giving money to the poor is more effective than "social servicing" the poor, well, the social service providers will be...gone. That may actually be a good thing.
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No, the non-profit sector doesn't make "tons of money 'helping' the poor". You really don't understand the role of social services, do you? Here's a hint: It has nothing to do with shaming the poor for being poor.
A UBI can't replace things like adoption and foster placement or help adults with autism learn essential skills to allow them to work and lead independent lives. (There is a breadth here that I can't even begin to articulate.)
That's fine, because a UBI is intended to replace those things. It'
There are three components to UBI (Score:5, Insightful)
U - Universal
B - Basic
I - Income
It seems this is something a lot of "UBI experiments" and those reporting on them fail to grasp.
"I" is self-explanatory: you get paid some kind of regular monetary value.
"B" is less well understood it seems: "basic" means the income you're paid will pay for your "basic" expenses: shelter, utilities, food and beverage. The "basic" things we as humans need to survive. Right away this experiment torpedoes itself by only paying $500/month, far less than the "basic" income needed to cover these needs even in a very poor area.
"U" is also seemingly misunderstood somehow: "universal" means "everyone." Not just the poor. Not just women. Not just minorities. Everyone. Anything less betrays the whole idea.
"UBI" - taken together - means everybody in a sample is given the same amount of money in the same interval that at a minimum is able to cover their basic needs. This experiment passes "I", but it does not pass "U" or "B", so I'm not exactly sure what if anything we are actually supposed to take from it in terms of relevance to how properly implemented UBI impacts individuals in a community.
How can this study get any valid data? (Score:2)
I can't see where any kind of UBI experiment at the moment could gather any data that would be valid longer term - things like the job market and unemployment payments are still quite warped from Covid.
For example this study might find a result that people in this program were unlikely to go find jobs. But that's true of lots of people currently not in this program, so a finding like that would be invalid.
Re: (Score:2)
Ken, you're not even remotely qualified to make a claim like that.
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You keep saying that, but you won't justify your statement.
At all.
The case against it? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Why is that claim correct? Poverty is generally defined as having an income below $X, per some period of time, based on family size/composition (adults vs children) and maybe area. If a UBI program provides more income than that, why doesn't it solve poverty?
Editor (Score:2)
Okay, I like that you know how to use em dash, that's a wonderful piece of punctuation equipment, but holy Grod—stop with the ellipses. A period is fine. There is no need to misuse this poor (and IMHO overused) punctuation so much where it is not needed. You are wasting dots!
This has been a—soon to be downvoted off-topic—public service announcement.
P.S. Check your MoS. Most either stipulate em dash (—) with no space or hyphen (-) with space around it. Very few stipulate a long em das
Doing it nationally (Score:2)
To some extent, I think the federal $300/wk supplemental unemployment payout is providing a partial experiment in UBI.
What will UBI subsidize? (Score:2)
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They didn't "observe" anything, they copy/pasted the same tired debunked nonsense they post in *every* UBI article.
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As other have observed, programs like this have nothing to do with UBI.
They didn't "observe" anything, they copy/pasted the same tired debunked nonsense they post in *every* UBI article.
Consider the term: Universal Basic Income. This program is not universal, neither in the people receiving it, nor in the time dimension. It's a very restricted group, specifically selected according to various criteria. It's only for a limited time. It also doesn't provide a basic income, which is defined as "enough to live from". $500/month, especially if you are a family, is not enough to meaningfully change your life.
The program may provide interesting data. It just won't provide any data on the concep
Why not universal basic education and employment? (Score:2)
Why not universal basic education and employment instead of universal basic income? You get paid basic income level as long as you:
a. go to school, and you're progressing, i.e. attending and passing the courses towards an approved degree which will give you job opportunities above basic income level. Your education is free too, while you are progressing. If you are not passing, you can repeat free education part time while exercising option b below.
b. you work for the government 40hrs a week, where the gove
Bread and circuses and meme evolution (Score:2)
and the Case Against It
Because your heart beats doesn't mean others should pick you up and carry you?
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People have been thinking about the structures that reproduce poverty for over a century. They're well understood.
That's overselling our understanding.
Nobody's done one thing to change them.
That's 100% false for so many reasons that you could reasonably say it's 200% false.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Thank you for your baseless opinion. I will give it all the attention it deserves. (flushing sound)
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Of course, flushing knowledge is how you ended up in your position in the first place.
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I'd hardly call it a drag on the economy. You stimulate an economy most effectively from the bottom.
A UBI or a guaranteed unemployment ought to be a huge boost. There is absolutely no reason to think that a UBI would end entrepreneurship. On the contrary, with a sufficient safety net, more people could take the risks necessary to start their own business!
Oh, and taxes aren't a drag on business. See, businesses pay taxes on profits, not revenues. High taxes incentivize businesses to expand and
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Governments already try and control our choices through taxes and stipends, but as long as people end up with cash in hand, that control is limited. So we end up with tax on booze to get us to drink less, and food stamps to make sure we don't spend that income supplement on undesirable purchases. But other than that we can still make our own choices according to our personal needs.
But what if al
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
They will have you arrested and jailed if you fail to pay. That might involve a gun being shoved in your face if you resist arrest.
Otherwise? Not typically. The aforementioned gun is probably metaphorical.