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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

#71

Post by rayvd »

jimbokun wrote: post #55
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 ec…

Hence GP's comment about solving at the regulatory level. Housing is artificially supply constrained.

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

#72

Post by naravara »

jimbokun wrote: post #55
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 ec…

>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.

Why do you think healthcare is constrained? The same way housing supply is constrained by zoning regulations and stuff, healthcare supply is constrained by slow diffusion of IP, restrictive immigration policies, inadequate numbers of medical school and residency slots, and restrictive occupational licensing for day-to-day medical care.

It is possible to expand access to care to meet demand, but in the USA we have a system that prioritizes high fees for doctors and hospitals, high returns to student loan providers (medical school debt), and high returns to health insurance providers above access and supply.

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

#73

Post by Timpy »

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…

A lot of people rely on friends as non-monetary resources. If I get locked out of my car right now I'll call a family member to bring me a spare key. If my car is acting up I have a friend that will look at it for me. I do a lot of tech support in return, not necessarily in exchange for other services in a direct way. It's just being part of a community. At least in my world (midwest US) I cannot imagine moving to an unfamiliar area as a form of resource management. I think this probably gets more extreme the more your financial resources are strained.

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

#74

Post by beatgammit »

dahart wrote: post #18
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.

“Almost all survey respondents indicated that the pilot's cancellation forced them to place on hold or abandon certain life plans," reads the report.”

Well yeah, if someone says, "would ending this program cause you to change or cancel current plans?", I would say yes in the hopes that it would encourage the program to continue. Free money is nice.

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

#75

Post by sokoloff »

pietrovismara wrote: post #64
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…

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.

Tax settlement is done once per year. Monthly UBI both feels different and is practically different in terms of helping people have money throughout the year.

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

#76

Post by ceejayoz »

eru wrote: post #57
ceejayoz wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> If people wanted to save, why wouldn't they do so privately?

The "why" is complicated, but the "they generally don't" is not.

> Isn't a democracy supposed to reflect what the people want?

People wanted slavery, segregation, Jim Crow, etc. There aren't many pure democracies out there as pure mob rule isn't super awesome in the long run.

Alaska's dividend is particularly odd given they were proposing 40% budget cuts to the state university system recently in order to keep the fund payouts up.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-alaska-politics/deep-budg...

> Dunleavy, who took office in December and is an outspoken supporter of U.S. President Donald Trump, has called for major cuts in higher education, health care and other social programs as he pushes to sharply raise the annual oil revenue dividend that Alaska pays to nearly every state resident.

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

#77

Post by dahart »

I’m glad there are experiments like this actually happening for any amount of time. It would be great to see the experiment run it’s full course, but it’s maybe more surprising to me that it got funded, rather than that it got cancelled. Thinking about how contentious and political funding can be for things we know we need, like schools, it’s not very surprising that something expensive and not 100% required ends up on the chopping block.

What do you think it would realistically take to be able to fund UBI (or other experiments) without running the risk of being cancelled? How could it be set up so that next year’s political opponent doesn’t have the ability to axe a project to make themselves look good?

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

#78

Post by vzidex »

pkilgore wrote: post #15
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…

> most money is spent on housing and health care In Canada? Would not an increase in demand for such things lead to a corresponding increase in supply? Or is there something I don't know about supply restrictions in Canada?

Canadian here, the supply of housing depends on which part of the country you're talking about. As far as I've heard/seen the supply of housing is generally increasing with demand in most parts of the country - some of my relatives who live in a small town a couple of hours from Toronto were saying the town is getting its first block of apartments.

However, the moment you start looking at Toronto, Vancouver, and to some extent Montreal and Ottawa, the trend no longer holds. The populations of Torcouver are going up far faster than supply is able to increase, for a variety of reasons including the cost of building, regulations, NIMBYism, etc. The problem is further exacerbated by demand-side issues driving it up, such as speculation leading to housing sitting empty and illegal AirBNBs keeping units from being rented.

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

#79

Post by Ididntdothis »

_bxg1 wrote: post #27
Ididntdothis wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are already complaining about taxes too high and lazy welfare recipients. With UBI this would get even worse and I agree that most likely it would get voted out very quickly. If we can’t even get universal health care, robust social safety net or secure retirement going without political fights, forget UBI.

The argument for UBI in place of those other things is that it's extremely simple. Legislatively, bureaucratically, etc. Just give people more money to offset all of these systems that are too expensive. Simpler also means cheaper to implement. It does avoid dealing with the root problems in some sense, but it's certainly elegant.

“It does avoid dealing with the root problems in some sense, but it's certainly elegant.”

Yes it’s an avoidance of the real problems. Basically a nice looking pipe dream.

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

#80

Post by whatshisface »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #38
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…

> With basic income, we may just raise the cost of those things. The problem with this argument is that it proves too much. It's true of anything that causes the poor to have more money . Lower unemployment, higher wages, anything. Heck, it's true of lower healthcare costs, because people would have more money for housing, or vice versa. Housing costs and healthcare costs are problems, but they're independent problem…

>The problem with this argument is that it proves too much. It's true of anything that causes the poor to have more money.

Lower unemployment would be associated with a greater availability of goods and services, so that would get it out of the trap. Higher wages would also be associated with a supply increase if they came with increased productivity, but if you raised the minimum wage then prices of low-end products might actually go up. Of course, the typical supply and demand picture predicts both an increase in price and an increase in volume if the demand curve gets "richer," so you are not entirely off the mark, although your argument is not valid.

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