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Basic income in Finland did not lead to finding work, researchers said

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Basic income in Finland did not lead to finding work, researchers said

#71

Post by gyaniv »

yasp wrote: post #53

Did they not have an identical cohort serving as a control to compare employment rates at the end of the trial?

The did. and the result showed that their employment chances were 'no more likely to do so than a control group of people who weren't given the money.'

What they didn't do (although some wanted them to), is also check the system on already employed people and checked if that changed their likelihood of staying in a bad job/finding a better job or anything like that.

Because that's the real idea behind basic income. not just giving it to the unemployed, but to everyone, with the hope that it would encourage people to find jobs better suited to them, and to allow people to take bigger risks.

Re: Basic income in Finland did not lead to finding work, researchers said

#72

Post by 2019ideas »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #17
Simulacra wrote: post #5

I think it's human nature to do a little as possible for the most reward. If someone is giving you money to literally do nothing, then you're likely going to do..nothing!

They didn't crawl under a rock. They socialized with their families, maybe played on a team, contributed to the Animal Shelter, who knows what-all. Its called a life, and work is not the goal of it.

> Its called a life, and work is not the goal of it.

This type of thinking needs to stop.

You don't get to enjoy our lavish society without contributing.

If you want food and a shack, you can already live this lifestyle for less than 5k/yr.

Hanging out with your family, playing sports, and helping animals will not keep an economy moving.

Re: Basic income in Finland did not lead to finding work, researchers said

#74

Post by 2019ideas »

devilshaircut wrote: post #39
mises wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you add any sources for this? I see several that support OP's position from a cursory search. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_least_effort https://medium.com/the-mission/dont-use-rewards-for-motivati... http://hepg.org/hel-home/issues/10_2/helarticle/the-case-aga...

In your own citation: "Rewards kill creativity. Some twenty studies have shown that people do inferior work when they are expecting to get a reward for doing it, as compared with people doing the same task without any expectation of a reward. That effect is most pronounced when creativity is involved in the task." Would this not suggest that people do their best work when they aren't doing it for the paycheck? In oth…

>given UBI, anything an individual may do would be his or her own prerogative and therefore represent higher quality output.

But having fun making art means little to an economy.

Having less fun designing a robot to pick potatoes will transform an economy.

Creativity is nice, but it doesn't directly correlate with additional value.

Re: Basic income in Finland did not lead to finding work, researchers said

#75

Post by drcode »

pastor_elm wrote: post #58

did they really have to study this? We have decades of welfare to analyze. UBI is dead in the water. Call it a negative tax rate instead.

It's tough... people feel like the US median standard of living has stagnated (the economic evidence is mixed on this subject) and therefore it is tempting to think there must be some shortcuts we can take to leverage our high GPD into a raised standard of living through direct cash transfers.

However, I personally feel that these ideas will lead to counterproductive results, that these sorts of transfers can lead to severe inflation and will lead to a higher unemployment rates, thereby dragging down the very GDP they are dependent on.

Unfortunately, both sides of this argument have little direct evidence to support their position... aside from tiny, partial studies such as the one in this article, which cannot give any meaningful insights into the complex macroeconomic effects of a larger UBI rollout, which will likely be singificant.

Everyone is at an impasse on this question.

Re: Basic income in Finland did not lead to finding work, researchers said

#76

Post by ThomPete »

It's a general misunderstanding that Basic Income is some sort of job program, it's not. It's a job replacement program for a society where there aren't enough jobs for everyone because technology have taken over most.

Basic Income should provide fundamental living cost support in a society that has no jobs so there is no "but" in there.

Edit: Keep in mind we already have Basic Income it's just conditional. UBI is different.

Re: Basic income in Finland did not lead to finding work, researchers said

#77

Post by 2019ideas »

matz1 wrote: post #68
2019ideas wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is bad economics. Jobs are literally necessary for our society to function. If everyone was jobless but 'happy', they wouldn't be happy when the food runs out. Or houses start to get old. Or iphones stop being built and websites are taken offline. Economics are more important than a single individuals happiness, its our survival. EDIT: Don't shoot the messenger. Fun ideas are not reality.

That would be solved by ai/automation, which they reason why basic income is needed in the first place.

>That would be solved by ai/automation

Lots of these topics have different outcomes when you start to assume sci-fi tech. I won't argue about what life should be like when we build fusion reactors or figure out nuclear 3D printing.

Re: Basic income in Finland did not lead to finding work, researchers said

#78

Post by zozbot123 »

acslater00 wrote: post #59

Surprising that paying people to not work didn't lead to more people working!

That's not what's surprising: if anyone was "paid not to work" in this experiment, it was the control group who stayed on traditional unemployment benefits - and yet they found jobs just as much as the UBI group did!

Re: Basic income in Finland did not lead to finding work, researchers said

#79

Post by cromulent »

timonoko wrote: post #3

TL;DR: They got the same unemployment money (~555€) as before, but it was called Basic Income. But they did not have to partake the quarterly motivation shit from jobless office anymore. Which made them indeed happier. Success!

No, the key difference was that you could also earn money from other work without losing the government money.

This means that you can take on part time jobs without freaking out that you will lose unemployment.

This also means (for local business owners) that you can hire people for part time / spec work without being concerned about long term effects. This is a big deal for small businesses.

Re: Basic income in Finland did not lead to finding work, researchers said

#80

Post by notStoicEnough »

acslater00 wrote: post #59

Surprising that paying people to not work didn't lead to more people working!

Er - I'm not a proponent of UBI, but there's an important, but subtle distinction here.

UBI is not "paying people not to work." That's more like typical unemployment - when people find jobs, the benefit goes away, creating a disincentive. With UBI, the benefit remains, (theoretically) encouraging risk taking.

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