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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.
(Score: 2, Informative) by khallow on Wednesday March 11 2020, @12:43PM
Let's review. Among people they determined employment status for (see pg 28 for the chart), before and after, 112 people were employed and 77 unemployed before the study began. That changed to 99 employed and 90 unemployed, meaning an additional 13 people became unemployed (23.9% employed became unemployed and 18.2% unemployed became employed).
Currently, Canadian labor force [tradingeconomics.com] participation is estimated to be 65.5% in February, 2020. A similar proportional movement between employed and unemployed status would result in employment participation dropping to 56%. Canadian labor force participation hasn't been that low in over 40 years (through to 1976 on the linked graph, which was the lowest labor force participation at roughly 61.5%). The shifts don't sound like much from the study of the story, but if it happened to the whole of Canada as it did in the study, it would result in an increase in unemployment by roughly 25%.