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Request For Research: Basic Income

blog.ycombinator.com

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Re: Request For Research: Basic Income

#921

Post by stanfordkid »

johndevor wrote: post #536
stanfordkid wrote: post #479

I am all for research into basic income -- and in fact a big believer. However I take a HUGE issue with reading too much into the viability of the system based upon research done on small sample sizes: "Our idea is to give a basic income to a group of people in the US for a 5 year period" There is emergent behavior that arises in the economy as a function of the number of people given a stipend or living wage. For pr…

How can it be possible to run an experiment on basic income when participants know it will end in five years? The knowledge of it ending will change their behavior and encourage them to remain working.

This is another great point!

Re: Request For Research: Basic Income

#922

Post by abawany »

pc86 wrote: post #913
abawany wrote: post #697

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not sure of your location (US, etc.) but I would imagine that you might be able to get unemployment benefits, which I hope would help tide you over financially at a minimal level while you focus on the next steps. Again, assuming US location: you might be able to use COBRA or a plan from healthcare.gov to help you continue the medications that you need. Regardless, I hope you are able to recover from this setbac…

Depending on the actual terms of the termination he may not be eligible for unemployment. Chronic lateness might be considered being fired for cause, which typically means you cannot claim UB.

Well, IANAL but given that he has a prescription for the situation that caused him to be late, I can see a case for unemployment. It should be worth filing.

Re: Request For Research: Basic Income

#923

Post by jeffbr13 »

Tsagadai wrote: post #723
petra wrote: post #559

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A thought experiment: What about building a new city in the middle of nowhere, with the sole goal of extremely reducing living costs , and designing the laws specifically for that ,including making housing costs extremely cheap?

No need for thought experiments, we have history. Company towns are good examples of this (see [Roxby Downs]( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roxby_Downs,_South_Australia) ) as are cult headquarters. An oil rig is another example, housing costs are usually free (covered by employment), living facilities are provided free of charge and costs are usually fixed through corporate oversight and union opposition to changes.…

The UK government built a bunch of "new towns" in England in the '50s and '60s, to take pressure off the housing situation in London at the time. The biggest is Milton Keynes, near Bletchley Park. It's a bit soulless in the same way as US suburbs, being built for the age of the car (roundabouts as far as the eye can see!), but it's 45 minutes from central London on the train, and was affordable for regular people to buy houses there. The new towns schemes seem largely successful 50 years later, and I can only imagine the reason we've not continued is because of the change in political taste for large infrastructure projects since then.

Re: Request For Research: Basic Income

#924

Post by Lawtonfogle »

derefr wrote: post #764
tptacek wrote: post #589

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was thinking about that, and about the story of Ferguson Missouri, where some huge portion of the (largely African American) population had arrest warrants over petty fines that had blossomed through late fees and default judgements into financial catastrophes levied by the (largely middle class white) municipal government, with the last few suggestions.

Instead of Universal Basic Income, how about Universal Basic Food Stamps? It feels like, rather than a basic income, we need two orthogonal currencies: one for necessities (food, rent, utilities) and one for niceities. Everyone would just have two numbers in their bank account, for each of the country's two official currencies. Basic income would be paid in one, while all income from trade in the economy would be in…

>It feels like, rather than a basic income, we need two orthogonal currencies: one for necessities (food, rent, utilities) and one for niceities.

There isn't really a difference here. Need vs. want isn't a binary classification, even though we treat it as one. It is a spectrum. Even worse, it is a spectrum where ever people with choice don't always make the choices of need. Take someone thirsty who is drinking soda. Enough so that they are lowering their life expectancy. They have a need for water, not soda. Soda is worse, comparable to slightly dirty water in how it impacts their life expectancy, but they choose it for other reasons.

It would be far easier to give people money and let them choose how to allocate it. If someone's immediate needs is a safer location to shelter in then they can decide what do they need less (maybe reduce their food budget to compensate). The only issue needing government involvement is with ensuring parents meet the needs of their children (but once again, needs isn't a distinct classification).

Re: Request For Research: Basic Income

#925

Post by scarmig »

IanCal wrote: post #885
scarmig wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Doesn't technically have a basic income" is doing a whole lot of work, here. The key component of it is that it doesn't phase out with higher income, which would otherwise cause a strong disincentive to work. How strong compared to no phase-out is a good question, but that's exactly what research like this is good for.

> The key component of it is that it doesn't phase out with higher income I have never seen a version proposed where everyone receives more money after tax. I thought the key component was that there is no complex means testing (simply phased out through income tax).

The prototypical model would be a lump sum X, unconditionally granted to every adult citizen/resident on a regular basis, regardless of income.

Tax rates are kind of a perpendicular issue. If you view benefit phase-outs as a kind of implicit tax rate, this would make the tax code flatter (and more progressive, if you're counting benefit phase outs as a kind of implicit tax).

Re: Request For Research: Basic Income

#926

Post by Fargren »

bobby_9x wrote: post #34
samstave wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that number is misleading. I have a spouse and three children. Does that mean we all will get 10K/yr? I have had a different thought on this in the past; Every child born should have $10K put into an account in their name on the day they are born. It will gain interest and grow until they are 18, then they get the money. And as an adult after 21, they are taxed at some rate to pay back the initial 10K that will t…

What will stop people from having multiple kids, just to get the $10K/child windfall?

An increase in income is generally tied to having less children, not more. I read a study (which I can't find right now) that studied the effect of policies that gave income based on the amount of children, and there is no increase on the amount of children people have. Argentina, for instance, has a program called Asignación Universal Por Hijo that (roughly) pays you for each child you have, provided he goes to school.

Re: Request For Research: Basic Income

#927

Post by nathan_f77 »

johnchristopher wrote: post #157
thinkingkong wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have to clearly start differentiating between "work", and a "job". You can work hard at something which provides immense satisfaction and personal value (perhaps even value to others). But a job is strictly something you do in exchange for money. A job doesn't necessarily contribute to your self-worth. Meaningful work, does.

Way to miss the point. If you don't have a job, even if you have some kind of meaningful work or hobby on the side, your self-worth will still suffers from that.

How do you know that? That seems like an unfounded conclusion. For example, a lot of people here on Hacker News don't have a "job", but they're building startups and working on products. I wouldn't call that a job, in the sense that they're not performing work in exchange for money. It probably does have some effect on their self-worth, but I don't think it has anything to do with the lack of an employer. And to follow on from that point, someone can be retired and spend 8 hours on art, music, writing, or any other creative endeavor. I don't think those are the kinds of people who live shorter lives after retiring.

Re: Request For Research: Basic Income

#928

Post by usrusr »

jqm wrote: post #744
bcheung wrote: post #725

Thomas Paine wrote an excellent essay on this concept back in the day. It is worth reading: https://www.ssa.gov/history/paine4.html You might want to look into Georgism and Geolibertarianism as well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geolibertarianism The basic premise of all these is that land and natural resources can not be owned. If you want to use them you have to rent / buy rights to them. That rent goes into a bas…

I believe that is the solution to the problem and I'm not sure why others don't see it. Stop taxing labor. It's counterproductive. Tax what really does belong to everyone... the land and raw materials. This approach (in addition to more morally just in my estimation) would have the added benefit of built in environmentalism. There would be a financial incentive to do more with less, to conserve and to recycle.

I certainly see why the idea of putting the whole tax burden on land and raw materials could be appealing to people who are making software. It's difficult to make a compelling argument for change when one is so clearly on the winning side of it (which I dare to assume, given the HN demographic).

Re: Request For Research: Basic Income

#929

Post by andrefrancisco »

astrocat wrote: post #808
andrefrancisco wrote: post #423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's probably outside 18F's scope, as they are cost recoverable and must be hired by a federal agency. So getting that done would require convincing a federal agency to spend the money to hire 18F to build the platform. USDS could do it if it were a presidential priority, but while creating a one-time snapshot of that list would already be an incredibly huge task, actually keeping it updated would be very difficult…

Absolutely - it is certainly a HUGE undertaking. Though the value to the society/community/voters would be equally enormous it's unlikely we'll ever find the resources to have such a thing executed in a thorough, responsible (unbiased) manner. I suppose this is the part where I motivate myself to design and build it because nobody else will... Sidenote - high-five for the stuff going on at 18F :)

Thanks! It's an exciting place to be.

Re: Request For Research: Basic Income

#930

Post by namenotrequired »

lars wrote: post #219

This seems a little myopic. What distinguishes basic income from the welfare systems implemented in, say, northern Europe? Seems like there are many countries that have had basic income for decades. Couldn't you look to them and have most questions answered?

The difference is basic income is for everyone.
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