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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

#61

Post by jsonne »

sp332 wrote: post #50
new_realist wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why doesn’t that happen today?

Because moving to places with lower cost of living, to speak extremely broadly of course, means less income compared to cost of living, meaning a lower standard of living. But with a guaranteed income, a lower cost of living would always mean a benefit to standard of living.

This is true in theory but not in practice in my experience. I presently live in one of the bottom 5 states in terms of population density and there are multiple manufacturing plants that require no experience, are paying 60k+ for new hires, and are in extremely low COL areas. By the way, they can't find enough people to apply and are having to aggressively advertise to fill entry-level spots. I think the issue is more information asymmetry. If people knew the jobs existed and knew what they paid I'm sure at least some % would be willing to move, but no one discloses that out of that gate, unfortunately.

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

#62

Post by charlesu »

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #13
charlesu wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've noticed that a lot of people who are born rich still choose to work.

Yes, usually to stay rich.

You don't need to work to stay rich when you have a $25M trust fund.

There are plenty of people who were born rich who nonetheless go to work everyday. They are engineers, doctors, lawyers, consultants, bankers, inventors, teachers, professors, and business owners.

Having money doesn't discourage people from working. We won't run into a shortage of astronauts, teachers, or even police officers. But we may find it difficult to find people willing to work as a janitor for $8.00 an hour.

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

#63

Post by jshevek »

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.

I have lived in areas that were gentrifying. Everyone knew that rents were going up and would continue to go up, but few were willing to leave. People with small nest eggs preferred to blow it on higher rents than invest it in relocation. The general attitude I saw was 'I have a right to live here so I will, even if I can no longer afford it.'

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

#64

Post by pietrovismara »

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…

Wouldn't reducing/eliminating taxes have the same exact effect as an UBI? More money in people's pockets. By following your logic no form of welfare can work.

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

#65

Post by naravara »

camelNotation wrote: post #34
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…

If you are guaranteed income, you aren't bound to specific regions or locations. You can move to places with cheaper land and healthcare systems with less overcrowding. You can work less lucrative jobs in those locations and find customers for your work because everyone including the local residents of those rural areas, will have new money to spend. Local regions would see an influx in cash, allowing for small busin…

>If you are guaranteed income, you aren't bound to specific regions or locations.

Not disputing this, but there are some caveats that would need to be true for this hypothesis to hold. The main one being that people's reluctance to move comes down largely to career opportunities and moving expenses rather than access to amenities or proximity to family/community.

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

#66

Post by WilliamEdward »

EGreg wrote: post #53

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…

What's to stop UBI from eating into other welfare checks? Or what's stopping renters from simply raising rent 1000 dollars?

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

#67

Post by allannienhuis »

virgilp wrote: post #11
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…

But this is from Canada, don't they have universal healthcare?

universal more-or-less free _access_ to basic (generally good in my opinion) care. But that doesn't include dental or prescriptions (with some exceptions/subsidies), for most people. It's surprising to see them list it as a significant part of someone's budget though. Perhaps I'm not old and sick enough (yet!) to relate :).

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

#68

Post by pjc50 »

jimbokun wrote: post #47

> The project worked by recruiting low-income people and couples, offering them a fixed payment with no strings attached that worked out to approximately $17,000 for individuals and $24,000 for couples. Why discriminate so heavily against couples? It creates every incentive to lie about your relationship status. Or to avoid sharing a household altogether, creating greater economic inefficiencies and less built in soc…

Yeah, that's a means test and breahes the "universal" principle.

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

#69

Post by throwaway894345 »

camelNotation wrote: post #34
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…

If you are guaranteed income, you aren't bound to specific regions or locations. You can move to places with cheaper land and healthcare systems with less overcrowding. You can work less lucrative jobs in those locations and find customers for your work because everyone including the local residents of those rural areas, will have new money to spend. Local regions would see an influx in cash, allowing for small busin…

This might be a bug rather than a feature for a lot of people. Many people want humanity to concentrate in urban areas because it is better for the environment. Others complain about urbanites' tax dollars paying for rural roads (which is effectively the scenario you're describing, even if those tax dollars are labeled "UBI" and routed through rural citizens' bank accounts first). Still others see rural Americans as their political adversaries.

(Note that this is just an observation; not a value judgment)

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

#70

Post by sokoloff »

eru wrote: post #51
snarf21 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.)

If you intend to tax away all the advantages of providing additional housing supply, I’d expect smart landlords to not increase housing supply.
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