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) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday March 11 2020, @02:08AM (25 children)
Those belong to martyb. Yes, technically I could edit it but it's not a Meta story about site-related stuff so it ain't my place.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Gaaark on Wednesday March 11 2020, @02:43AM (23 children)
Basically that's what I (could be) probably am facing: my son (moderately to severly autistic) does little for himself. I get up at 6 am, shower and get myself ready for work. Then I get him up, shower him if he needs it, and help him dress, get his breakfast ready. While he eats, I get his lunch ready unless I had time the night before. Then I'm heading off to work.
My wife isn't sleeping well anymore:her leukemia is affecting her badly, and is less than two weeks away from starting therapy. She gets up before I leave, showers, etc, then packs our sons bag, writes in his book for the School/day program staff about what he did so they can talk with him about it (like a show and tell thing). Brushes his teeth, puts on his deodorant, brushes his hair, washes his face....
She then gets him on the bus and she heads off to work.
When we get home, we make supper, talk with him about school, etc and watch TV with him (which means, we take turns cleaning, doing laundry, household etc while spending time 'together'.
Then bed.
Relatives help out as well when possible.
As soon as she starts her therapy, I'm going to be doing even more of that because she'll only be able to do so much.
UBI would be nice but is not happening: but SOMETHING would be nice so we(I) don't go insane!
All that and a full-time job makes Jack a dull ......and insane boy.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday March 11 2020, @02:55AM (10 children)
Pay someone to make your life easier. In this case that'd mean something like a highschool girl helping out for a few hours in the evening. That's money's sole purpose: to be easily exchanged for a reduction of misery. Not saying it won't mean tightening of belts but is eating beans and rice more or less of a misery than not getting to rest after work? Weigh up what's less important than a few hours of down time in the evening and make the changes.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday March 11 2020, @03:38AM (3 children)
Average cost to care for an Autistic child, meaningless, but I've seen numbers like $80K/yr thrown around.
We have 2, and due to my (sub $160K/yr) income we are ineligible for ANY benefits, I guess we're tightwads not spending $80K/yr on each of them since we also have a roof, food, cars, insurance, etc.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 11 2020, @04:27AM
Can't you guys form, like a retard circus with those kids? They can do Billy Joel cover on piano while you pull yourselves up by the bootstraps.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 11 2020, @06:25AM
That is an average. I saw similar data for autism and other disabled children. You'd might be surprised how high the outliers actually are, given that many people spend almost nothing in comparison bring down the average way down despite the skewness.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 11 2020, @05:57PM
i don't mean to make light of their condition, but vaccines are great, huh?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Common Joe on Wednesday March 11 2020, @05:32AM (3 children)
I know JoeMerchant (but not Gaaark) mentions his income later, but that's a hell of an assumption to make. Many people can barely afford food for their table. That includes some IT people. I have a friend who is in IT. He makes ok money, but he had an accident that will last him the rest of his life. He has/had good insurance and support, and his bills will be through the roof every year. He meets his deductable every year. And he must still pay a lot out of pocket because those "incidentals" are required for him to live and work.
Another poor assumption. High schoolers (girls or guys) are not always reliable and you even if you have a 100% success rate, you'd have to rotate through them every year or two. And, additionally, I doubt they will have the skills to handle someone who is autistic. Or work 5 - 7 evenings per week. Possibly including holidays. It almost sounds like not hiring someone would be easier. Being sick or having autistic kids are expensive -- both in time and in money.
You make a lot of insightful comments, but sometimes like right now... wow. Just no. At this point, I shouldn't be surprised when you make comments like this, but I'll learn eventually not to be surprised.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday March 11 2020, @02:32PM (1 child)
Maybe I read TMB's comment wrong. I read it as getting "a little help", not as "hire a caretaker". I can easily see having an older girl, or even a young woman, high school or college age, to help out for as little as an hour, or as much as 6 or 8 hours, maybe one evening per week, or as much as 7 days a week. It doesn't need to be a professional, at all. No real training required. Almost any girl in her teens can master relations with a slower child. The same girl can probably master helping to prepare dinner, and then doing the dishes. Maybe it would take three such persons - Betty can work Mondays and Thursdays, Trish would love to have a job on Wednesdays, and Sherry is available almost anytime, just let her know a day ahead.
Something like that would give you a lot of flexibility. One night, the hired girl cooks dinner and cleans up, and goes home. Next night, no girls. The third night, the hired girl plays with and/or keeps an eye on the child, leaving you free to tend to all the chores that have piled up.
Of course, scheduling may be a bigger headache than some people can cope with. On the other hand, there are people who live for that kind of challenge.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Thursday March 12 2020, @03:33AM
If there's a nursing school in the area -- sometimes student nurses can get extra credit for being home volunteers/paid help. That's an incentive for them to be reliable, and turnover doesn't matter so long as the school maintains the program.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday March 12 2020, @03:35AM
Man, don't go getting butthurt with a load of assumptions on his behalf. I said evaluate his priorities and do what gains him the most relief from misery; and offered a suggestion. There is no possible way in which anyone can take that to be anything but helpful, so just stop.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Thursday March 12 2020, @12:09AM (1 child)
Jeez... sometimes you have the approximate insight of a rock. An opaque rock.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday March 12 2020, @03:37AM
Yeah, because hiring some kid to do the dishes, stir dinner, and do a load or two of laundry so you don't have to every evening would be unthinkable, insanely expensive, and wrong. Don't be any more of a jackass than you have to be, man.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday March 11 2020, @03:34AM (5 children)
We have two, 16 and 18, and we can't talk about school with either of them- it's just not in their range of working skills. On the other hand, they dress themselves and even will shower and use some soap with sufficient prompting. Wherever you are at, it could always be better - or worse.
I/we don't need UBI as long as I can still work, but after we're gone, a world with UBI would be a hell of a lot better for our kids than a world where somebody else has to run the benefits maze for them, and gets paid for doing it.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 11 2020, @04:29AM
You don't need UBI until you do. People don't need health insurance until they do. Where are you going with this?
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Thursday March 12 2020, @12:16AM (3 children)
By talk, I really mean 'talk': he has a couple real words, some words only we understand and then noises.
He can type on his laptop, but that's not handy for conversation, just homework.
We chat 'to' him and he mostly nods or shakes his head.
" Wherever you are at, it could always be better - or worse."
Yeah: some days you think "Holy damn, gimme a big fecking break!" (To be, uhhhh... polite) But then there are the days you realize he could have been sooooooooooooo much worse.
He was born 2.5 months early: another baby in the neo-natal unit did not demand feed (cry or anything showing it wanted to eat)... It just laid there like a living lump.
Hydro-cephalus was a SHOCKER my first time seeing it.
Yeah: we get by... because we have to. If he were harder to deal with, we would deal.
YEAH... could be worse: we have no life, but it's ours, lol.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday March 12 2020, @02:00AM (2 children)
Things I am grateful for:
Lack of seizures in our home.
Good sight, hearing, and a fair degree of understanding of speech - even if they're not conversationalists.
Some degree of self-care skills, one even takes dishes to the kitchen after dinner.
No problems walking / running / balance / etc. Although, at "special needs" conferences I am sometimes secretly envious of the caregivers of the wheelchair bound...
We, too, have no life, though in this "no life" we did take a 3 week Caribbean vacation - and didn't involve the local authorities until the day before we left, it was an 85% good time. A couple of years before that we took a 3 week driving tour of the Southwest, and only pissed the hotel beds 4 times. We have had a sailboat for over a year, gone on 20+ pleasure cruises to nowhere of 3-5 hours in duration, and the only time anyone has been in the water was when the oldest decided he wanted to jump in off the dock - in 55-F water, that never happened again. Only one grocery store has asked that we never come back...
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Thursday March 12 2020, @03:56AM (1 child)
Yup: 'Normal' people have ZERO idea.
One time my son was dead set on going to Toys R Us and tried running across traffic (look both ways? WTF does that mean?). She caught him, luckily, before he got very far. He went limp and laid down half on the sidewalk, half on the street.
She muscled/dragged him back to the car and proceeded to PUSH him with all she had back into the car.
She said she was lucky no one called the cops because she was sure it looked like an abduction,.
Got him in the car and then the shakes hit her.
'They' have NO clue.
Good luck to you and yours. "Could be worse!": the 3 most ironic words in the English language.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday March 12 2020, @12:49PM
Long story, but, our oldest liked to go for walks, like 4 hour walks, when he was ~8 years old. There was a small neighborhood a little too far to walk from home called "Apple Tree" that he would call out every, single, time, we drove past - repeat it like 4 times "Apple Tree! Apple Tree! Apple Tree! Apple Tree!" so, finally after about 6 months of this, I took him for a drive to Apple Tree, and we got out and walked - not much else to do in a suburban residential neighborhood with about 80 homes and nothing else... We walked around the whole thing in about 15 minutes, all civilized like, but then he didn't want to get back into the car - meltdown, throwdown, in front of the residents talking on their porch. So, I finally managed to wrestle him to the grass, put him up on my shoulders and carry him over to the residents to explain the situation... they seemed to understand, and he calmed down and got in the car with me, we drove home and "back to normal." 45 minutes later there's a LOUD knock on the front door, local cop asking if I have a blue car (it was in the closed garage), we cooperate - giving the cop free transit through our home to the garage to confirm, explain about the autism - he doesn't even see Conrad when he calls on his shoulder radio "Yep, this is them, it's o.k. tell everybody else they don't have to come." He was extremely cool about it all, I'm just glad we don't have anything in the "privacy" of our home that we don't mind showing to cops. Oh, and the "Apple Tree!" callouts did slow down quite a bit after that.
I think he was 12 when he decided one night to dart away from the car in the grocery store parking lot, across 6 lanes of traffic without slowing (I _think_ he might have had an idea to look for cars, but when he's moving slower sometimes he does just wander out into traffic in front of moving cars...) across the street to use the bathroom in the Starbucks. That was the first time I decided: he's faster than me, I can't really catch him and there's no point in endangering myself while trying to. So, I just walked across and caught up with him a minute or two later. Luckily the younger one doesn't do much of these type things, but... he's the one who got himself banned from Trader Joe's...
Take care of yourselves first - if you want to keep helping your kids you can't do that if you're gone, or incapacitated. Reality is: it will happen eventually - I'm just hopeful that we'll reach some kind of "manageable" situation to hand off before we're dead.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday March 11 2020, @10:30AM (1 child)
Damn, Gaark, my heart goes out to you. That's tough sledding. I hope your wife's treatments yield positive results. Prayers for all of you.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Thursday March 12 2020, @12:19AM
Thanks: we deal... there's no other choice.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 11 2020, @04:52PM
I think there is a difference between UBI and services intended to help the legitimately disabled. What you may be arguing for is more services to help those that legitimately can't help themselves. I would argue that that's different than something like UBI where you are just giving people that can work money in exchange for nothing. I would say those are different conversations.
Slashdot had some good comments on this. Aside from the people that would have probably been working that quit working (which is bad) and the fact that this wouldn't scale to larger proportions (if everyone got UBI it would just be a wash in terms of how it helps everyone and how that gets adjusted when it comes to increases in the cost of living. Or I suppose you can say it's the equivalent of a tax cut for all which one may argue is good) there are some other useful comments.
"by inhuman_4 ( 1294516 ) on Thursday March 05, 2020 @07:41PM (#59801270)
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.
Contradict the criticism? More than 25% of employed people quit working when they start getting basic income. That sounds like a pretty clear cut confirmation to me! Worse the whole report is based on a self-reported online survey, and written by a pro-basic income advocacy group. No doubt an actual review based on hard data would be much less flattering. As would a study that includes the hard part of basic income: raising taxes to pay for it. Handing out free money or pumping it in to a local community is easy. Close the loop and let see how well the system can sustain itself.
...
"
https://news.slashdot.org/story/20/03/05/2024220/people-kept-working-became-healthier-while-on-basic-income-report [slashdot.org]
"by Jane Q. Public ( 1010737 ) on Thursday March 05, 2020 @08:03PM (#59801374)
See my other post further down the page.
Most attempts at UBI-like systems were with far more people, and lasted longer.
And they all failed. Because many people stopped working.
But you need time to really see that happening. People aren't going to change their ways overnight."
Another person notes
"by sabbede ( 2678435 ) on Friday March 06, 2020 @10:42AM (#59802974)
The survey had a lousy response rate. 217 out of about 4000. So, it was pretty much worthless."
and those that do fill out the surveys are probably less lazy, and benefited more, than those that didn't. So they aren't exactly a representative sample of everyone that participated in the study. The fact that so few people even filled out the survey says something about the majority of the people that participated. They received all this free money that someone else paid for and they aren't even grateful enough to, and they're too lazy to even, fill out a survey? Really? Ingrates. They don't deserve this money.
"by Oligonicella ( 659917 ) on Thursday March 05, 2020 @08:44PM (#59801474)
I know of one where many of the people who quit working took the opportunity to pursue further education which could give them a more promising career than the one they had before
Perhaps a cite would bolster your case. Would also be interesting to know if those people actually went out and *got* the new promising career."
It would be interesting to note what percentage of people that receive UBI spend it on education, get their degrees, and get a good job as a result. Because if my taxpayer money is going to go to this I want to know the results of where my money is going.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday March 11 2020, @05:39PM (1 child)
And if my wife got leukemia I would be driven bankrupt in addition to dealing with all the stuff you have to deal with.
I seem to recall you're in Canada. So I wonder, why do you consistently support the people in the US who prevent us from getting the same medical benefits you already enjoy?
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Thursday March 12 2020, @12:40AM
You have that wrong: I've been supporting Sanders for a few years now (or Warren).
Biden will be same-same and nothing will change.
With my son being in the neo-natal unit for 2.5 months and almost dying and now my wife with a hysterectomy and leukemia...I'd be very bankrupt. Maybe divorced. Could be dead.
Glad ......SO glad we live in Canada.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 11 2020, @05:53PM
https://naturalsociety.com/sulforaphane-broccoli-kills-cancer-cells/ [naturalsociety.com]
(Score: 2) by Lagg on Wednesday March 11 2020, @11:29PM
I found my password.
You sexy [soylentnews.org] little strawmen [soylentnews.org].
http://lagg.me [lagg.me] 🗿
(Score: 5, Insightful) by barbara hudson on Wednesday March 11 2020, @02:12AM (12 children)
Previous reports on this particular experiment (it's not the first one in Ontario, btw) found that there were far vewer hospital visits, saving the public health care system serious coin. Single parents could stay home to watch their kids, go back to school to finish their high school education, and, as you pointed out, help take care of other family members.
Financial calculations by the opposition party (It was Doug Ford's Conservatives that cancelled the program) showed that, like the previous experiment, it paid for itself.
Same as cities have found it much cheaper to go with the "housing first" strategy of getting the homeless off the street and then tackling their other problems, because court time, police time, unpaid hospital bills, etc., costs more.
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday March 11 2020, @02:39AM (10 children)
And how did the accounting for the complete lack of contribution to society by said ~30% who decided to say "Thanks, dumbasses! I'm gonna watch Oprah and eat bon-bons on your dime!" get mathed up? Currency isn't a limited quantity method of transferring work but work itself most certainly is finite; how do you think CA would fare if it suddenly started producing over a quarter less work nationally? Pro-tip: that means over a quarter less Other People's Money you have to spread around to people you feel bad for.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 11 2020, @04:52AM (7 children)
You could probably easily make up that 30% from:
- chronically unemployed anyway
- no longer needed DSS employees
- less wasted time commuting due to traffic reductions
- improvements in efficiency due to only having motivated employees
- cutting out wasteful job-creation programs
You have some strange ideas about just how much slack there is in the system and indirect benefits. You could have half the workforce quit their jobs on UBI and if it resulted in less hospital visits, less spent on daycare, less on commuting, and more on people doing stuff for themselves, then there is a good chance that society would be better off overall.
That doesn't even take into account the social benefits of improved parenting, reduced stress, giving people the opportunity to attempt something without risking homelessness, and just the general social improvement of giving people the time to sit around and have philosophical discussions with friends.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 11 2020, @07:27AM
Gotta have those freeways jammed to "create jobs" for helicopter pilots. They in turn need bad weather to "create jobs" for those who'll cut corners for celebrity clients.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by crafoo on Wednesday March 11 2020, @09:19AM (4 children)
So you're advocating for removing women from the workforce and promoting 2-parent households? You can achieve that without UBI.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Wednesday March 11 2020, @05:51PM (3 children)
'eh, we do that already. It'd be nice, if the wife got UBI for doing what she's already doing.
Still, I'm uncertain the pros outweigh the cons when it comes to UBI.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 3, Interesting) by crafoo on Wednesday March 11 2020, @06:31PM (2 children)
I'm not opposed to UBI if we could make it work financially. I think it would be a better system than the current welfare system, which would certainly have to be dismantled to pay for part of it. And of course, if it was applied Universally (as in, the U in UBI). I just don't see a way to make it work without: A) printing more money (inflation, essentially the same as a tax), raising income tax (which wouldn't be all that ethical IMO), or raising capital gains tax (which is unworkable as it would crash the economy).
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Wednesday March 11 2020, @06:54PM
Which is why I'd probably still vote against UBI. Now, if we wanted to cut the defense budget by say 25%, then we might could get somewhere. Just don't pull it from something like NASA . . .
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 12 2020, @12:33AM
There's a tax you're forgetting. D) Property tax, and particularly tax on the value of land (not improvements). That is to say, Georgism. [wikipedia.org]
Georgism proper is an interesting idea I can't quite bring myself to endorse*, but there's no doubt a UBI program supported by a partial land-value tax is far better than a UBI program supported by income tax etc..
*It strikes me as asymptotically correct in urban areas, but rather problematic in rural areas. An acre of land in Manhattan is quite valuable ($5M is the figure I recall), and almost all of that value is precisely because it's an acre of land in Manhattan. It's not unreasonable to play the "you didn't build that" card and suggest that the community as a whole is both more deserving of the profits resulting from that value than some rent-seeking landlord, and that it can make better use of them (i.e. maintaining all the infrastructure that makes cramming 100+ people per acre even survivable).
But an acre of shitty farmland in the Midwest may be worth only a few thousand, and may gain that much more value (to its present owner) because it was part of great grandfather's homestead. And the grow-or-die dictate you get when you combine returns to scale with a full Georgist land-value tax, seems to all but guarantee you'll find yourself selling the family homestead to be rolled into a larger, more efficient operation with no connection to it (your choice is whether to go broke paying taxes trying to keep it, or accept reality and sell quick). That certainly is an economically efficient outcome, but I still find it morally troubling.
(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%.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by dry on Wednesday March 11 2020, @03:48PM
The figures I read were 28% of the employed and 24% of the unemployed went back to school of some type. There was a proportion that had abusive jobs quit.
The previous experiment in Dauphin Man. saw Mothers staying home with their kids instead of working and teenagers staying in school instead of going to work to help support the household.
(Score: 2) by Barenflimski on Wednesday March 11 2020, @09:23PM
If you actually read the report, only 9 people out of the 240 or so were not working when this ended. That summary fails to mention that about the same amount of people that weren't working when this started now have jobs. 40% of the people that quit working went on to school to better themselves for the rest of Canada.
Based on the study and how people restructured their lives, I'm not sure its proper to assume that those 9 people decided to quit working forever. It's possible that when this study ended they were transitioning between jobs, school, a sick relative or something else.
Lets suppose though that 9 people did decide to go on break for life, hole up and never help another human being. Should we discount that it significantly helped the other 231 people? Seems to me that we'd be throwing the baby out with the bathwater if we blindly made those assumptions.
It might be worth asking those 231 people that have better lives if they'd be happy to support the UBI for those 9 people if they were able to keep their own UBI, new education, better jobs and better economic situation.
Unfortunately the study did not come to any conclusions about whether or not this group was better off, the same, or a drag on the economy at the end.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by TrentDavey on Thursday March 12 2020, @11:32PM
The Doug Ford Conservatives had to cancel the BI experiment on the very likely chance it show good results. Then they would have to "give people money for doin' nuttin"
The Conservatives would have blown a gasket and .lost. .their. .minds. !
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 11 2020, @02:34AM (2 children)
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.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 11 2020, @12:01PM (1 child)
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
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.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday March 11 2020, @02:45AM (40 children)
That last one is the real story behind the rest- security: no fear of hunger, no fear of losing your place to live. Really, I view UBI as the modern extension of Montesquieu:
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 5, Offtopic) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday March 11 2020, @03:02AM (16 children)
Yeah, the problem is it doesn't work. See, money isn't worth a fixed value. It's valued by the amount of work done in your nation. If over a quarter of the workforce decide they'd just really rather not work if it's all the same to you, your money just decreased in value by over a quarter. Which means it takes an even larger percentage of your check to pay for all the things you want the government to spend money on, like roads, schools, healthcare, and subsidizing professional ass-sitters.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 11 2020, @03:22AM (8 children)
On this website, a point about basic economics on an economic topic such as UBI gets modded "Offtopic"!
This place is fucking hopeless.
(Score: 2, Troll) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday March 11 2020, @03:25AM (6 children)
That's part of why everyone gets mod points, to correct the revenge mods of the butthurt.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 11 2020, @07:01AM (3 children)
Ah, so that is why you run an army of sock puppets!
(Score: 5, Touché) by deimtee on Wednesday March 11 2020, @09:01AM (1 child)
I may disagree with his economic ideas, but you are just nuts. TMB runs the codebase, if he were inclined to cheat (and I don't think he is) he doesn't need sockpuppets. He could just put in a line:
If userid==18 Then MOD = +5 Fisherman;
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 3, Funny) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday March 12 2020, @03:29AM
Yup. Or write a script to insert bogus moderations from inactive users into the db to nuke any comment I don't like down to -1 by cid. Where's the fun in that though? I prefer to crush my enemies where everyone can see it. I mean, how am I supposed to enjoy listening to the lamentations of their women if they don't know to lament?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday March 12 2020, @03:22AM
Nope, only one person has ever sockpuppeted on SN. I wonder who that was...
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday March 11 2020, @03:25PM (1 child)
Wouldn't it be more efficient to cure the butthurt of the revenge mods?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday March 12 2020, @03:23AM
Can't be done.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 11 2020, @03:25AM
One bad m0d point = FUCKING HOPELESS.
Great economics there, chief.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday March 11 2020, @03:28AM (4 children)
TFA didn't make it easy to extract, but employment didn't drop by 25% - 25% of those previously employed did go unemployed on UBI, but 18.1% of those previously unemployed found employment. If you read some of the anecdotes, they're trolling the bottom of the barrel economically speaking, with something over 1/3 unemployed to start, and something like 1/2 of those employed, employed precariously.
I hate to be this way, but: the value of a nation's economy isn't going to change much if your hookers stop running escort services and start working from home, or vice versa. On the other hand, when little old ladies can afford to get themselves a Chez lounge when they need one for health reasons, that might actually have a measurable impact on overall healthcare costs. On yet another hand, when your dumpster divers of the workforce get themselves out of those jobs and into something worthwhile - that should be an overall boost to the economy, even if the Uber drivers wise up and stay home to watch Netflix and get stoned more often.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 4, Informative) by pTamok on Wednesday March 11 2020, @08:00AM (3 children)
This is not meant as a snarky comment, simply informative.
You may not realise it, but that is actually written as chaise longue: it is French, and means 'long chair [wikipedia.org]'.
Similarly, you might mean (benthic/bottom) trawling [wikipedia.org] rather than trolling [wikipedia.org] as a variation of the phrase 'scraping the bottom of the barrel [wiktionary.org]'.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday March 11 2020, @12:55PM
It looked wrong to me, but it's what the little old lady called it in her quote.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Wednesday March 11 2020, @07:11PM (1 child)
+5 grammar nazi (in a good non-snarky way).
(Score: 1) by pTamok on Wednesday March 11 2020, @08:14PM
Thank you.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by charon on Wednesday March 11 2020, @04:57AM
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 11 2020, @05:05AM
You are wrong. I mean in the literal sense. You could very well be saying that the earth is flat. There is nothing to argue here. Instead of snarky reply and patting yourself on the back, incorporate that knowledge with the rest of what you understand and come up with a retort.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by coolgopher on Wednesday March 11 2020, @03:39AM (17 children)
I'm still waiting for someone to work out how UBI in the long run does not simply raise the cost of everything proportionate to the UBI. No small-scale trial is likely to encounter it, but if you go full-hog then you'd better have a plan for when it (in my view) inevitably happens...
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 11 2020, @05:01AM (2 children)
Agree.
It feels like UBI is an abstract solution to practical problems. What is THE PROBLEM? Let's fix that.
(Score: 2) by legont on Wednesday March 11 2020, @04:27PM
The problem is that ROBOTS ARE HERE.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 11 2020, @06:02PM
it's just a con to get people completely dependent on government. no strings...for now.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Myfyr on Wednesday March 11 2020, @08:01AM (9 children)
IANAE, but here's my understanding:
It shouldn't raise the cost of most basic living expenses, because the free market still exists. There shouldn't be any general inflation, assuming it's not paid for by printing money, because the money supply in the economy hasn't increased. It's just redistribution (dirty word, I know). Anything not supply limited, and not in a monopoly or illegal price-fixing situation, should maintain whatever price competition has already set. The price of bread isn't going up, because any supplier who increases their price is going to be driven out of business by competition from all the cheaper suppliers. As I understand it, Econ 101; Demand for necessities isn't going up (people aren't going to suddenly eat more bread because they have more money), supply isn't going down, so the price should be stable.
I'm very much not an economist, so I have no idea what happens to the price of luxuries. Demand likely increases, but the extra demand should promote growth in those sectors, increasing supply etc. No clue where everything balances out to. I assume that, again, no increase in the money supply means no overall inflation, but I can't speak with any authority.
The main wrinkle in all this, as I see it, is housing. Land is supply limited, and bad government policy can easily cause that to result in housing being supply limited. Past experience shows that, at least under the current policy environment in Australia, when you give people money for housing, you just get inflation in the housing market. And housing is a big percentage of most people's expenses. So, although I'm a big fan of a UBI, I'm a bit wary of how the current housing market situation could prevent things working optimally. OTOH, that housing situation desperately needs fixing in most western economies, so maybe we should do that.
Actually, for the USA and it's utterly dysfunctional healthcare system, healthcare costs are also likely a major problem (no effective competition here). That definitely falls under the category of "REALLY need to fix that regardless."
There is some risk that if the percentage of people dropping out of the workforce is higher than expected under a full UBI, and the resulting productivity increases don't at least compensate for the decreased workforce, the economy would suffer. But that is a different problem to the original question,
I suspect, and more relevantly many economists suspect, that everything would be better than fine under a UBI. The productivity benefits, not to mention the happiness and moral benefits, likely outweigh the costs. Possibly by a significant margin. But it's very difficult to attach any certainty to that theory, even after small scale experiments like the one under discussion, so I doubt that any government is going to be brave enough to put it to the test.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by coolgopher on Wednesday March 11 2020, @08:26AM
The thing is, the free market doesn't guarantee that the prices reach some sort of floor. Rather, the free market converges on the ceiling - pulling out as much profit as the market can bear. And on the whole, we're greedy assholes (our at least we let the greedy assholes run the show).
Don't get me wrong, I'd quite enjoy a working UBI, but I just don't see it ever being viable. At least not under our current societal structures.
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Wednesday March 11 2020, @09:14AM (3 children)
I don't think a UBI would raise house prices in the city. It is never going to be enough to buy a suburban house with. It might even drop them by getting some people to stay in the bush, reducing the rental market. Most of the kids I knew left our town to get jobs in the cities.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Jay on Wednesday March 11 2020, @08:21PM (2 children)
It's quite likely to revitalize small towns. A large percent of them are slowly dying out, all across america. The one I grew up in is on it's last generation or two before it's gone for good.
The problem is that as we've consolidated manufacturing (largely overseas) and started to have giant mega-monopolies for everything, there's just nothing bringing money into these towns. My grandfather used to work at a machine shop in town, and they sent the parts all up and down the Eastern seaboard. I forget what they made, but something fairly specialized. That place has been out of business for years now, and as soon as it went out of business a large amount of the money flowing into the town stopped.
Agriculture, manufacturing, and mining used to drive the economies of a lot of towns, even small ones. Now that's just not the case anymore. There are a lot of towns where all the buildings are falling down, because nobody has the money for maintenance. Same goes for the infrastructure. The kids move to the cities to actually have a life, and the parents live there until they die, with the town crumbling around them.
A lot of small towns just circulate what little money they have. You get a bit more, you go buy some construction supplies to finish part of your house. Now the hardware store made a bit more profit, so they decide to repave the parking lot. They pay the local guy to come do it, and he's now got a big customer that he didn't have before. He takes his couple hundred bucks and goes and buys a new fishing rod from the bait shop. And the bait shop guy, since he had a big ticket sale, takes the family out to eat at the local diner, and gives the waitress a good tip. She decides to get her hair done the next day with the money.
This sort of local monetary circulation is really an economic boost, and it's something you don't see as clearly when looking at larger towns and cities. If you injected a steady UBI into these small towns, it's going to likely have more of an impact than in large cities. Most of the people living in my hometown aren't going to take their UBI and go get a new iPhone, thus shipping the money off somewhere else. They're going to fix their truck or roof, and that keeps a lot more of those dollars local. A thousand people making a thousand dollars a month is a million dollars a month coming into a little town. That would make a huge impact.
(Score: 2) by coolgopher on Thursday March 12 2020, @01:53AM (1 child)
Okay, I can see that working for a little while, but in the long run? I still expect the inflationary pressures to return the situation to the current status quo.
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Thursday March 12 2020, @06:50AM
Inflation is due to increase in the money supply. Simplistically, money is backed by the assets of the state. Print more and you are dividing a set wealth by a larger number of dollars. The wealth doesn't change, the dollar gets smaller.
There are many economists who think that a small steady inflation is a good thing, but mostly it boils down to a redistributive effect of reducing the value of debt and held cash, and encouraging investment rather than wealth hoarding.
As long as the money supply isn't simply printed to fund it a UBI is not in itself inflationary. It is redistributive.
Personally I think the initial effects of a UBI would be fiscally fairly neutral, but it would have huge social, cultural, and environmental benefits. Those benefits would flow on to have very positive secondary effects.
Pushing to extremes, do you want to live in a society where a few trillionaires own everything and everyone else is in a brutal, wasteful, struggle for survival, a la Soylent Green(the movie) or one where people are free to contribute in whatever way they want, a la Star Trek?
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Gaaark on Wednesday March 11 2020, @11:09AM (1 child)
"The price of bread isn't going up, because any supplier who increases their price is going to be driven out of business by competition from all the cheaper suppliers."
That works in a Capitalist economy: what we have today is a sort of Neo-capitalism...you buy up all your competition (which the government allows because you've bought them) so there are really only 3 big suppliers. You then collude (which the government allows because...) to keep the price profitable for all 3.
Capitalism means INCREASED competition: today, the big 3-ish buy up their competition to fix prices/reduce services/reduce labour/keep salaries-hourly-rates low which the government supports with food stamps, etc.
I support Capitalism...which we do not have today.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 03 2020, @03:09PM
But the price of bread is going up, both per loaf and per weight.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday March 11 2020, @01:07PM (1 child)
Unless all the cheaper suppliers go out of business because they're supplying below cost. The huge missing aspect here is cost. Just like employers can't demand and get free labor, so buyers of bread can't demand and get free bread.
Why would there be productivity increases? I sense a lot of unquestioned assumptions here.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Myfyr on Wednesday March 11 2020, @04:52PM
The cheaper suppliers aren't dropping their prices in this scenario, they just aren't increasing them, so the only reason they'd be supplying below cost would be if the costs increase. Since market competition applies to the inputs as well, I see no inherent reason why costs would necessarily increase (again, assuming a semi-functional free market which, as others have pointed out, may be an invalid assumption).
The possible exception here, which you may be alluding to, is potential labor cost increases due to decreased labor supply. Which is the point under discussion in TFA, and one of the main unanswered questions for the workability of a UBI; what, exactly, would be the impact of a UBI on labor supply? And nobody really knows. The Ontario pilot provides some, but not much, data on that point. Something concrete for the economists to argue about, at least.
It is my understanding that there is substantial evidence that a happier and/or less stressed workforce is more productive, which makes sense to me. Prolonged stress has definitely been shown to impair cognitive performance. I don't have any evidence to hand though, so while that assumption is not unquestioned, it is unsupported, at least here.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday March 11 2020, @01:27PM
For sure, free money means some things will be getting more expensive. No way in hell landlords will charge less than what people have in their pockets for rent.
On the other hand, right now we have a big divide between people who can pay and those who can't - so, you're looking at $800 down and $400 per month for a shitty apartment, vs $40 per night ($1200 per month) for a shitty hotel room, vs homeless shelters that are free if you're lucky enough to get one before the beds run out. With UBI (particularly UBI that's paid out in micro-increments like $0.025 per minute) I'd predict the rise of a new class of low cost housing in the range of $10 per night - it would look a lot like the homeless shelters do today, but would be supported by the users of the system's UBI rather than grants, donations, etc. With $1000 per month UBI every person "on the street" would be able to pay that $0.025 per minute, or about $10 for 8 hours. And, if they choose to work at the shelter, the shelter can afford to pay them for that work from the reliable per bed income...
Inflation is nothing new, and pumping an extra $1000 per month per head into the economy at the bottom end while taking it away across the scale isn't going to make it run away. I have always thought of UBI as a payroll tax, say it pays $1000 per month to everyone - always, but... when make any money above UBI, you pay a flat tax of - whatever keeps overall income taxes level with today's rates, just say 33%. So, by the time you're making $3000 per month above UBI, you're just paying back your UBI, but effectively keeping 100% of your income - another way of stating it would be people below $3000 per month income pay (receive) a negative income tax. By $6000 per month, your effective tax rate would be 1/2 of the tax rate - pretty close to today's average income tax.
Yang's proposal was to implement a VAT, which puts the burden on consumers - don't like taxes? don't buy anything, and a similar argument applies: those who buy less than the UBI level of newly taxed goods would benefit, while those who purchase more than that amount would be funding the system. I think this is a more politically palatable idea, but I question how it would go over in states that already have almost 10% sales tax.
There's a terrible political reality of: if the implementation is to be successful, it probably needs to roll out fast so it can't be squashed in the inevitable political backlash before it shows benefits, but... a fast rollout will have the biggest shocks to the economy - economically it would be much smoother to progressively ramp it up over 10 years or so.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday March 11 2020, @02:48PM (2 children)
BINGO!!! We have a winner! We have seen the same thing with welfare, of course. The more money Uncle Sam spends to ensure that everyone can afford a gallon of milk every day, the more expensive the milk gets. If Uncle spent no money buying groceries on all his illegitimate children, the price of commodities would drop. Drop a lot. And, while those prices were dropping, average working class families could improve the quality of their live, and have more money to spend, thereby creating more jobs.
Welfare tends to stagnate the economy, and society. UBI is just another welfare scheme.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Thursday March 12 2020, @03:51AM (1 child)
The positive side of UBI would happen IF it replaced the entire gov't-welfare industry/bureaucracy. Of course, then you'd have a couple million useless people out of work, but, tradeoffs...
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 12 2020, @06:54AM
They could take the jobs of everyone who drops out of the workforce to live on the UBI. I think bureacrats are currently paid more than a UBI, so that is a net win.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday March 11 2020, @03:41AM (4 children)
Not even wrong. OTOH, his idea of separation of powers (as revealed in the sacred Wikipedia texts [wikipedia.org]), which implicitly accepts that we have good reason to be afraid of another, has a far better fit with reality.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday March 11 2020, @01:30PM (3 children)
But, is that fear necessary for a good quality of life?
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday March 11 2020, @01:51PM (2 children)
Of course it is. Gullibility has a high cost when it comes to governance.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday March 11 2020, @05:01PM (1 child)
Careful how you read the Baron de Montesquieu, context and tone is important.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday March 13 2020, @12:03AM
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Captival on Wednesday March 11 2020, @03:18AM (2 children)
Of course the people getting free shit reported that they were happy about it. Ask the middle class people whose taxes increased it to cover it, the outcome won't look quite as rosy. Yang came in last. Nobody voted for him. Not even gimme-dat Democrats wanted the putz. Just because you dress up Communism in fancy new clothes, you're only fooling the young and dumb. The rest of us still recognize you.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 11 2020, @11:50PM (1 child)
You wouldn't recognize communism if your co-workers built it right in front of you.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 12 2020, @12:06AM
Death is a preferable alternative to communism.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 11 2020, @03:25AM (3 children)
The other name for UBI (in the States) is "Welfare for Everybody."
You don't want the entire country on welfare? Why not?
(Score: 5, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 11 2020, @05:10AM (2 children)
Would it help if you thought of it as dividends to the stake holders?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 11 2020, @08:29AM
The proletariat cannot be allowed to be share holders. This isn't communist Russia.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday March 11 2020, @01:53PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 11 2020, @10:31AM (3 children)
TMB, for the love of god.
If the most fractional part of the highest earners of this country paid the taxes as laid in the spirit of the law this shit would be a non-issue in short order. Personally I haven't the slightest clue what to do with that kind of extra money because I fear if i put it away with intent to live as long as you I'd be like... Old and stuff.
But I respect your opinion and will consider it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 11 2020, @10:52AM (2 children)
Also your guys' editorializing turns me on something fierce. Legit can't tell which of you is making commentary, trying to be objective, or what. You glorious shriveled raisins. It's too bad there's a chance you'll never see these posts because I don't have karma boost and my flash drive is allll the way over there and I wiped out firefox's creds on this machine.
Also, maybe I'd just save the income for a while and send you guys an offer for a years worth of funding in exchange for serenading me on camera. That is called funding the arts sirs and I believe it would get me fame in Canada in short order. Not only would I be funding the liberal arts, I would be making an investment in the possibility for Canadian citizenship should the day ever arise that I need to bail this bitch. slaps America's butt
(Score: 2) by Booga1 on Wednesday March 11 2020, @11:43PM (1 child)
Your posts are seen. Some of us read the AC, negative scored posts, etc...
Sometimes you gotta do that to make sure that you don't miss a gem buried where it can't shine.
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Thursday March 12 2020, @06:59AM
It takes some fiddling with the bonuses, but the only posts I don't see are those modded spam. (Plus 1 to everything, browse at 0.) I think it occasionally catches someone with karma so negative they post at -1 unmodded, but it's pretty rare and no great loss anyway.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.