Complete nonsense.
People kept working, became healthier while on basic income: report
181–190 of 809 posts
Re: People kept working, became healthier while on basic income: report
#182Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The problem with this argument is that it proves too much. It's true of anything that causes the poor to have more money. "The conclusion of this argument is deeply inconvenient, therefore the argument is wrong." It's actually true that rising wages result in higher rents. It's plainly obvious that this is the case - otherwise why would anyone care about rent explosion wherever Amazon decides to put HQ2?
> It's actually true that rising wages result in higher rents. It's true in places with a constrained housing supply, i.e. restrictive zoning. Which is common in urban areas. But what you have there is a zoning problem, not a UBI problem -- evidence being that it's also true of higher wages and lower unemployment etc. In unconstrained areas higher demand for housing causes more housing to be built, which prevents hou…
Those less restrictive areas are not always where people want to live. The people advocating for UBI are often not the same people that are OK with poor people being priced out of an area and moving into lower-cost areas.
I think it's more likely we'll see UBI proponents want to factor in a cost of living adjustment based on the place one lives, which will be a nightmare of political administration and unintended consequences.
Re: People kept working, became healthier while on basic income: report
#183This is very misleading reporting. First: All studies so far show a pretty consistent ~10% work disincentive. This is what all the detractors say when they say it disincentivizes work. So how about this one? From actually reading the study's conclusion: > Slightly less than one-fifth were employed before but unemployed during the pilot (17%) So even worse than what we've seen so far. 17% dropping out of the labor mar…
What are the demographics of those that dropped out of the work force? Didn't some UBI studies observe that while there are people that dropped out of the workforce, these people consisted of mothers that can now go back to child rearing or younger people that can now pursue an education?
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Re: People kept working, became healthier while on basic income: report
#184Earlier quoted context omitted.
Problem is the lack of colloquial objective definition of "poor". The US "poverty line" is at 80th percentile of world incomes. The US's vast welfare/entitlement system ensures few indeed net less than that line, shoring up their shortfall with trillions of $. What constitutes "poor" keeps shifting. There will always be a bottom 10%. There is ongoing increase to the standard of living, instilling a sense of "nobody s…
Why would we not want the baseline to improve over time? I genuinely do not understand the attitude that we should establish some extremely low bar like “is not currently at risk of starvation” and then never move the bar, but merely congratulating ourselves when more people pass that bar.
Because humans need an objective minimum to survive. Below that they face slow death. There's a difference between social norm vs existential need, and many people have a vested interest in conflating the two.
There has to be a baseline standard, amounting to triage, above which "your core needs are met, and you have a path to thrive on - up to you to do you now."
Maybe there's another moving standard of minimum standard of living, whereby people don't existentially need X but society at large agrees everyone should have X (or opportunity thereto).
Re: People kept working, became healthier while on basic income: report
#185I want UBI and a 30-32 hour work week, so I guess I’m proposing a 20% “disincentivization”. Would fewer people in the workforce really be so bad? What’s the carbon and water footprint of all of these goods we really don’t need but we bust our humps for anyway? At this point, more robots don’t mean more of the stuff we need. they mean more stuff we don't need.
You can already have a 30 hour work week if you want to do contract or part-time work, but for a full-time position you’d be competing with companies who still work 40-50 hour weeks so I don’t think there’s much practical opportunity here.
You're assuming the additional 10-20 hours is a meaningful competitive advantage. That's not a given.
Re: People kept working, became healthier while on basic income: report
#186I want UBI and a 30-32 hour work week, so I guess I’m proposing a 20% “disincentivization”. Would fewer people in the workforce really be so bad? What’s the carbon and water footprint of all of these goods we really don’t need but we bust our humps for anyway? At this point, more robots don’t mean more of the stuff we need. they mean more stuff we don't need.
To use different phrasing, what you're saying is that you want people to be poorer. Please understand that I don't mean this as a personal attack on you, your beliefs or philosophy. But from a different perspective, that really is what you're saying. Do you really want to say that? Perhaps a better alternative is: a good goal would be to allow people to have more while using less natural resources and polluting the e…
It's worth noting that more automation should also lead to shorter work weeks (or alternatively more unemployment). So the effect stays pretty much the same, the question is only if people keep the same compensation for fewer hours or if compensation per hour stays about the same.
Re: People kept working, became healthier while on basic income: report
#187This is very misleading reporting. First: All studies so far show a pretty consistent ~10% work disincentive. This is what all the detractors say when they say it disincentivizes work. So how about this one? From actually reading the study's conclusion: > Slightly less than one-fifth were employed before but unemployed during the pilot (17%) So even worse than what we've seen so far. 17% dropping out of the labor mar…
Part of the reason for ubi is that a lot of work is exploitative or underpaid. Ubi puts people in a negotiating position to not work and demand higher payment, or to not work and contribute to society in other ways.
Re: People kept working, became healthier while on basic income: report
#188Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.'
Not only that but people have an emotional investment; "This is my home", "All my family lives here", "It's all I've ever known", etc. Moving to someplace cheaper may not be an improvement overall. Financially maybe, but what's that worth if all your friends live across the state, or you can't just hop into a nearby pub (if that's your thing) like you used to, or you have to drive for an hour to get to work instead of a 15 minute bike ride?
Re: People kept working, became healthier while on basic income: report
#189[deleted]
Re: People kept working, became healthier while on basic income: report
#190I want UBI and a 30-32 hour work week, so I guess I’m proposing a 20% “disincentivization”. Would fewer people in the workforce really be so bad? What’s the carbon and water footprint of all of these goods we really don’t need but we bust our humps for anyway? At this point, more robots don’t mean more of the stuff we need. they mean more stuff we don't need.
I'd be willing to bet in most workplaces, about 20% of the workforce is dead weight - especially those in the management chain.
I wouldn't be surprised to learn that 20% of work time is spent on social media or other personal matters across all office workers.