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posted by martyb on Wednesday March 11 2020, @01:46AM   Printer-friendly
from the Having-UBI-would-afford-more-time-to-spend-supporting-SoylentNews dept.

The fine folks at the CBC bring us the following report:

Participants in Ontario's prematurely cancelled basic income pilot project were happier, healthier and continued working even though they were receiving money with no-strings attached.

That's according to a new report titled Southern Ontario's Basic Income Experience, which was compiled by researchers at McMaster and Ryerson University, in partnership with the Hamilton Roundtable for Poverty Reduction.

The report shows nearly three-quarters of respondents who were working when the pilot project began kept at it despite receiving basic income.

That finding appears to contradict the criticism some levelled at the project, saying it would sap people's motivation to stay in the workforce or seek employment.

That's an interesting way of looking at it. An alternative viewpoint could be that over a quarter of the people who were working before the UBI trial stopped working. Unclear are the benefits that resulted from their new spare time — such as providing support to an ailing family member.


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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 11 2020, @02:34AM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 11 2020, @02:34AM (#969434)

    All participants knew it was a pilot project. They knew it would end at some point. No wonder they kept their jobs.

    Statistics of how many keep working or quit their job would only be valid if the participants thought that, whatever their choice, they would keep getting basic income for the rest of their life.

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  • (Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 11 2020, @12:01PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 11 2020, @12:01PM (#969589)

    And what, pray tell, does this look like in families that are at the fourth or fifth generation of UBI-supported unemployment?

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday March 11 2020, @02:38PM

      by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday March 11 2020, @02:38PM (#969630) Journal

      I think that I can answer that. Most people in those families won't dream of looking for real work. They might go out and hustle a dollar here and there, but work? No way. Only a relatively small proportion of those people will be dissatisfied to the point of making major life changes, in an attempt to move up in the world.