5 years is an eternity in today's age, progression-wise. Hopefully results will be published as the trial progresses.
Basic Income Research Proposal
61–70 of 427 posts
Re: Basic Income Research Proposal
#62I would speculate that any end date on this scenario will invalidate results. What a person does if it is guaranteed a job for life vs 5 years is wildly different, as you'll need to make sure when those 5 years are up, you'll be ready to enter the job market again, etc. I believe the same will happen with basic income. If we want to study where people gravitate to more fulfilling jobs, feel happier and so on, you nee…
Idea: what if they could hide from the recipients how long the program will take, while guaranteeing they'll get two years advance warning? Then for the first three years we might get something more representative of behavior on indefinite BI.
I do realize that by this point this would be hard to hide.
Re: Basic Income Research Proposal
#631k people getting 1k a month for 5 years = $60 million. At the end of the day, an expensive group. Really impressed by the ambition here, and hope for great success for the project. Basic Income research will be vital in the future when it actually becomes a genuine piece of public policy. Although I have little faith it will be used effectively by politicians/decision makers.
I too am impressed by the scope of this effort.
I hope it provides some meaningful and insightful data either way, though I'm partial to a positive result from this effort.
Re: Basic Income Research Proposal
#64Just a bit of quick math[0]: ~323,000,000 total US population 77.2% over the age of 18 ~250,000,000 total over the age of 18 $12,000 per year per adult = $3,000,000,000,000 per year [0] - https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/PST045216
Not bad, especially since most of it would go straight back into the economy. People who need the money tend to spend it immediately.
I feel it would drive a great de-urbanization, as people try to move places where they could get the most for their UBI.
Re: Basic Income Research Proposal
#65Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't UBI operate on the premise that it's replacing many of the existing social programs? For example, unconditional money rather than food/housing assistance. If the participants of the study also get access to these things, doesn't that severely limit the usefulness of this study? Also, $1k/mo is pretty small. Are you just hoping to observe some behavioral changes at the margin with…
That's the end game, certainly, but having guaranteed income and additional programs doesn't hurt the experiment.
The idea is you can help pay for UBI by cutting the then-superfluous programs. But the benefit for people is in having the unconditional safety net, not in having access to only one program.
Re: Basic Income Research Proposal
#66I would speculate that any end date on this scenario will invalidate results. What a person does if it is guaranteed a job for life vs 5 years is wildly different, as you'll need to make sure when those 5 years are up, you'll be ready to enter the job market again, etc. I believe the same will happen with basic income. If we want to study where people gravitate to more fulfilling jobs, feel happier and so on, you nee…
I think you are right but for the wrong reasons.
The whole point about Basic Income (at least the unconditionally one) is that there are not going to be any jobs (or very few and only for highly talented people). And even if there are jobs it will always be worthwhile working (as long as it's unconditional)
So if you, like me, believe that's the case, the whole discussion about whether people want to take a job or not becomes moot. It doesn't matter if they would have, they can't.
A much more important discussion then becomes how we make it work financially.
Re: Basic Income Research Proposal
#6799pi recently released a podcast on the basic income research being done by the Finnish government & YCombinator:
http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-finnish-experiment...
Re: Basic Income Research Proposal
#68You know this might be speculative, but I feel like a basic income applied to a national allows that population to act more like an ant hive. In the sense that only 3% of the population is actually doing the real hard work, but this is a healthy paradigm, and is much better than forcing individuals who shouldn't be doing the work they currently are to pursue things they actually care about, such as taking care of lov…
A lot more video games will be played
Maybe more twitch streaming, or more elite gaming as a result? I find that whole economy rather strange but then I remember that a lot of "work" these days is just shuffling imaginary money around.
Re: Basic Income Research Proposal
#69I like the idea of basic income but I confess that my ideal of a basic income recipient is someone akin to the 19th-century amateur scientist subsisting on a private income whilst making original contributions to human knowledge, and, as a side effect, to society. Whereas the reality of people receiving free money might be somewhat different. There's the drip, drip welfare payments of just enough money to survive wit…
>Whereas the reality of people receiving free money might be somewhat different. There's the drip, drip welfare payments of just enough money to survive without being motivated to find a job.
That's why I always clarify that an essential piece of Basic Income is that it is unconditional. Whether you're on the bottom rung of society or the top, employed or unemployed, basic income should be the same amount.
When the choice to get a job changes from "Well I'd lose my benefits" to "Well my basic income is no longer enough, I'll work part time", then state welfare no longer becomes as much of a trap. It can finally make strides towards lifting people out of poverty.
Re: Basic Income Research Proposal
#70I would speculate that any end date on this scenario will invalidate results. What a person does if it is guaranteed a job for life vs 5 years is wildly different, as you'll need to make sure when those 5 years are up, you'll be ready to enter the job market again, etc. I believe the same will happen with basic income. If we want to study where people gravitate to more fulfilling jobs, feel happier and so on, you nee…
Seems like the most obvious conclusion is that labor for crappy jobs will become a lot more expensive. Basically any sector that relies upon cheaper labor, or is highly undesirable (think working on pipelines, coal mines, agriculture, sanitation, even low level medical care). And if it isn't based on wealth and only income, I can see a lot of professionals dropping out too once they've become comfortable.