Free Money Didn’t Help People Find Jobs, Finland Says • Hacker News Board

Re: Free Money Didn’t Help People Find Jobs, Finland Says

#81

Post by pixelbash » Wed, Feb 13, 2019, 7:35 PM UTC

zozbot123 wrote: post #48

perfunctory wrote: post #2

I find this title a good example of framing. From the article: "On the basis of an analysis of register data on an annual level, we can say that during the first year of the experiment the recipients of a basic income were no better or worse than the control group at finding employment in the open labor market" So you can say "free money didn't help people find jobs", or you could say "free money didn't discourage pe…

> So you can say "free money didn't help people find jobs", or you could say "free money didn't discourage people to seek jobs". The connotation is a bit different. Right. Most perceptibly, you could even frame it as "Disincentive effects from unemployment benefits may be lower than previously feared; switching to free money didn't make people seek more work."

Shouldn't that be (s/more/less/)?

Re: Free Money Didn’t Help People Find Jobs, Finland Says

#82

Post by KaiserPro » Wed, Feb 13, 2019, 8:04 PM UTC

pikzel wrote: post #45

KaiserPro wrote: post #29

no, but it makes people happy. Now, obviously that's a bit against the capitalist grain and all that, but think of it this way: the Luddite rebellion, and mass unrest happened in the UK because people's livelihoods were taken away. Either through automation, or enclosure. This left thousands upon thousands of people with little left to lose forced to crime in order to eat. This is expensive for wider society, you nee…

But as someone else has to pay for their free money, the perceived happiness needs to be quantified.

Look, I am very lucky to earn enough money to pay a boat load of tax.

I would gladly pay _more_ if it meant the following:

1) there are no riots

2) There are no slums

3) There are good provision for health and social care

4) there is low crime.

5) decent education

none of these wishes are altruistic. why? because all of these thing directly impact _my_ live and _my_ family

slums mean crime hotspots, means no go areas, means muggings. this translates to higher policing, courts and prison costs. it means higher insurance premiums, longer commutes. It pushes up house prices because certian areas are not worth living in. high rentals for everyone.

bad health and social care means less productive workforce, which means less taxes being paid, which means worse public services. (and more tax _i_ have to pay, or fork out for private services)

the choice is this:

cast the longterm unemployed out into the street and suffer the rise in crime, anger and dissent, or pay them a stipend to be happy, content and most of all _cheap_

Re: Free Money Didn’t Help People Find Jobs, Finland Says

#83

Post by zozbot123 » Wed, Feb 13, 2019, 11:31 PM UTC

pixelbash wrote: post #81

zozbot123 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So you can say "free money didn't help people find jobs", or you could say "free money didn't discourage people to seek jobs". The connotation is a bit different. Right. Most perceptibly, you could even frame it as "Disincentive effects from unemployment benefits may be lower than previously feared; switching to free money didn't make people seek more work."

Shouldn't that be (s/more/less/)?

No, the point is that it doesn't matter if you "pay people not to work" via unemployment benefits that are stopped when they start working again, or just give them a baseline subsidy no matter what - either way, they'll have the same amount of success seeking work. So yes, it's a bit of a failure for basic income, but a win for unemployment benefits.

Re: Free Money Didn’t Help People Find Jobs, Finland Says

#84

Post by askmike » Fri, Feb 15, 2019, 9:34 AM UTC

lm28469 wrote: post #62

askmike wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you're poor, sick or have no job than there is even people who'd argue for mercy killing you as not being strong enough for our good society. Where do you meet people who argue for that? I Have never heard that outside of (very) dystopian novels.

Homeless people and people living on social wellfare are seen as a pest pretty much everywhere in western societies. https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-containment-plan/ That's a top city in one of the most powerful / rich country in the world, you don't have to look very far to find other examples.

As someone from a small European country with huge social safety nets, this is quite insane to read.

But still, are people talking about mercy killing all of them? I might have to reclassify the meaning of dystopian, the books I read are only half as messed up as this..