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People kept working, became healthier while on basic income: report

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Re: People kept working, became healthier while on basic income: report

#51

Post by eru »

snarf21 wrote: post #31
throwaway13337 wrote: post #5

The issue I see with basic income is that most money is spent on housing and health care. These two things are supply constrained so it's more of an auction for who can afford them. With basic income, we may just raise the cost of those things. This problem wouldn't appear in a study that distributed to only some individuals. We need to solve the regulatory or otherwise organizational problems of these things to prov…

You are right, this is under-discussed. Look at what happened to higher education with all the "free" money. We don't want slumlords just raising prices to capture this money. It could be that if you if you are in a program like this that the rent have to be regulated based on size and location. In my opinion, UBI can never really work, but there is no reason we can't reduce/eliminate taxes on the poor to increase th…

Land value tax would be the way to go. Regulating the rent would be about as useful and effective as existing rent control schemes..

With a land value tax, the rent would still go up, but the increase would mostly be recycled back into tax take. (And you can use that tax take to eg finance (part of) the UBI.)

Re: People kept working, became healthier while on basic income: report

#52

Post by dahart »

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #12

> The three-year, $150-million program Three year. Would you quit your job, and move somewhere cheaper if you knew the money will run out after three years, and you'll have a three year gap in your CV? Are there really no lottery winners winning lifetime monthly payouts to study? Because, if you gave me 5x average earnings for three years, I wouldn't quit my job. But if you guaranteed the money for the rest of my lif…

> Are there really no lottery winners winning lifetime monthly payouts to study?

There are a bunch, but that’s complicated and notoriously politicized because people with agendas spin the results. For example, there’s a famous and widely cited study of 35,000 lottery winners in Florida where the headlines say almost everyone spent all their winnings after 5 years, and that bankruptcy rates went up after 2 years. It’s misleading because the winners were $150k or less, you’d expect that to be gone after 5 years, and because backruptcy rates went down for the first two years, and then returned to normal.

Googling it right now, I’m actually seeing a lot of headlines like “85% of lottery winners kept their jobs” and “study finds lottery winners are happier”.

> if you gave me 5x average earnings for three years, I wouldn’t quit my job. But if you guaranteed the money for the rest of my life, I’d pursue different activities

I’m not sure why... 5x for me would be life-changing. That’s 15 years’ salary, or 12 years’ savings, without making lifestyle changes. I would absolutely use that money to re-evaluate and try some new things.

Re: People kept working, became healthier while on basic income: report

#53

Post by EGreg »

If you want to make UBI a reality, instead of just talking about it for 50 years, we have to do it from the bottom up.

I supported Yang, my company Qbix even built https://yang2020.app for him. But he didn’t get anywhere.

We have a project to build UBI from the bottom up, using cryptocurrencies for communities - including local townships and cities like Stockton. Local currencies already exist, including casino chips, disney dollars, berkshares, bristol pounds etc. This just puts them on a blockchain (actually, a new architecture we designed that’s far faster than blockchain).

If you are really interested, or want to get involved in some way to make it a reality, I suggest to do the following:

1. Visit https://intercoin.org/feature/ubi and fill out the form

2. Visit https://community.intercoin.org and participate

Or if you are a Javascript developer, contact me. My email is “greg” at that domain, intercoin.org

Re: People kept working, became healthier while on basic income: report

#54

Post by giarc »

jariel wrote: post #22

So most people 'kept working' but 25% quit, I think that kind of validates that a lot of people will quit, which is the concern. 25% is a lot. It'd be interesting to see numbers from those who were not employed, i.e. how many gained employment. The bits about 'having to drop future plans' isn't fair. Of course, people will have to adjust after losing a major source of income.

That popped out at me as well. I'd like to see the actual report because 25% of people stopping work is a big deal. However, it appears the response rate of the survey was only 217 of 4000 (5%) which isn't good. Typically when you have large population level studies like this, you have staff embedded in the town and would conduct telephone interviews with all participants. I wonder if the cancellation of the project meant they could only afford an online survey.

Re: People kept working, became healthier while on basic income: report

#55

Post by jimbokun »

throwaway13337 wrote: post #5

The issue I see with basic income is that most money is spent on housing and health care. These two things are supply constrained so it's more of an auction for who can afford them. With basic income, we may just raise the cost of those things. This problem wouldn't appear in a study that distributed to only some individuals. We need to solve the regulatory or otherwise organizational problems of these things to prov…

> These two things are supply constrained

Health care yes, housing, no. It's possible to build more housing to meet demand, or for people to move to balance supply/demand vs. prevailing wages. Or to have a smaller home or more room mates.

Housing is often constrained because of real estate owners controlling the political process and eliminating new construction to keep the value of their property high. Not due to economics.

Re: People kept working, became healthier while on basic income: report

#56

Post by KaoruAoiShiho »

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #12

> The three-year, $150-million program Three year. Would you quit your job, and move somewhere cheaper if you knew the money will run out after three years, and you'll have a three year gap in your CV? Are there really no lottery winners winning lifetime monthly payouts to study? Because, if you gave me 5x average earnings for three years, I wouldn't quit my job. But if you guaranteed the money for the rest of my lif…

What about guaranteed 1/4 average earnings for life? Would you still quit your job then? It's a rhetorical question the answer is obviously no, most people would still keep working just now have better negotiating power and flexibility.

Re: People kept working, became healthier while on basic income: report

#57

Post by eru »

ceejayoz wrote: post #46
snarf21 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is very true. Honestly asking: Is it working? I haven't seen lots of data on the topic. I also know the climate and endless day/night issues weigh into this too. I'm curious if academia sees this as a success or not.

It's a pretty dismal failure if you compare it to the alternative approach, which is saving the oil revenue for a rainy day. Norway has saved up $195,000 per citizen. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_Pension_Fund_of_Nor... (Alaska's dividend is also a pittance that likely doesn't even start to offset the higher cost of living there. "Basic income", it's not.)

If people wanted to save, why wouldn't they do so privately? (And if they don't want to save, why should the government force them? Isn't a democracy supposed to reflect what the people want?)

Btw, the Norwegian model is partial about avoiding 'Dutch disease'. That's why they invest the money abroad. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_disease

Re: People kept working, became healthier while on basic income: report

#58

Post by csunbird »

immawizard wrote: post #25
throwaway13337 wrote: post #5

The issue I see with basic income is that most money is spent on housing and health care. These two things are supply constrained so it's more of an auction for who can afford them. With basic income, we may just raise the cost of those things. This problem wouldn't appear in a study that distributed to only some individuals. We need to solve the regulatory or otherwise organizational problems of these things to prov…

I disagree on the housing point. With basic income, people who can’t afford housing in expensive areas would move to towns with cheap housing/land but less lucrative/efficient work. There’s no housing shortage in rural areas.

But there are infrastructure and opportunity shortage in those areas.

Re: People kept working, became healthier while on basic income: report

#59

Post by Diederich »

stevenwoo wrote: post #17
RegnisGnaw wrote: post #2

My issue, and I only have one, with these pilot projects for basic income is that its not realistic. The people in the project know that it will end at a fixed time, so their actions are different compared to what would happen in a BI/UBI system.

We already have a pilot project - the Alaska Permanent Fund, it's been running since 1976.

> Alaska Permanent Fund

About $133/month in 2019, which might offset the fundamental additional expenses associated with living in Alaska.

Re: People kept working, became healthier while on basic income: report

#60

Post by eru »

falcolas wrote: post #21
ajsnigrutin wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, usually to stay rich.

As self reported by many truly rich folks, money is not a motivating factor in their daily lives. If they want a good burger, they'll get one and not care if it's $1 or $1,000. Such an attitude would certainly apply to their reasons for working.

If you factor in the opportunity cost of a rich persons time, the cost of the burger itself matter proportionally less.
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