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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

#191

I 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.

> Would fewer people in the workforce really be so bad? Yes. Someone needs to work to produce the goods and services they use, as well as fund their UBI. The more people who opt out of working, the harder everyone else must work to compensate. > What’s the carbon and water footprint of all of these goods we really don’t need but we bust our humps for anyway? People dropping out of the workforce doesn't reduce the dem…

> The more people who opt out of working, the harder everyone else must work to compensate.

For which the market should correct by increasing their compensation, thus incentivising people to return to working, no?

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

#193

This 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…

That is a pretty misleading assessment of the study:

> Overall, there was a slight reduction in the number employed during the pilot compared to the number employed prior to the pilot. Ten respondents moved from unemployment to employment while 32 moved from employment to unemployment. Of the participants who moved from employment to unemployment, 13 (40.6%) enrolled in full-time education during the pilot with the intention of re-entering the labour market later as more qualified workers.

The work disincentive seems well below 10%.

> If you consider multi-generational entrenchments of poverty as its own problem, worth serious merit, then the work disincentive could be a disaster.

The meta study you linked to shows a marked difference in the effect across genders. It seems pretty likely that a reduction in the labor force would caused by a significant factor by families where both parents work, and one has the ability to stay home with the kids. I don't see any data here talking about an increase in household where neither parent works. I suspect that any decrease that does exist, applies to single-parent households.

When you take this into account alongside the number of these the "work disincentived" that are people moving into full-time education programs, it doesn't seem obvious at all that here will be a negative effect on multi-generational poverty.

Finally, that article seems to lack a basic understanding of economics. A reduction in employment due to reductions in the job supply (such as during a recession) is in no way equivalent to a reduction in employment due to reductions in the labor supply. When you reduce the job supply, you reduce consumer income due to job loss / wage reductions, this compounds to further lower economic activity and thus leads to more reduction in the job supply. When you reduce labor supply through UBI, you don't see the same drop in consumer income, and wages should actually go up.

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

#194
post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UBI is barely tolerated by the left and progressives but only under the constraint that it doesn't replace any existing social welfare programs. Where can I read some of these articulated positions for myself? Any particular articles or writers that made a substantial impression on you with these positions that you'd recommend I read?

I imagine he's talking about the response to the Yang campaign, where liberals quite rightly derided his plan to replace all "entitlement" programs with the dramatically smaller $1000/mo UBI. If someone who has been a life-long libertarian looks like he's trying to drive a wedge into social welfare programs, that's probably what is happening.

>I imagine he's talking about the response to the Yang campaign,

This predates Yang. Yang like all libertarian-UBI advocates, typically side-steps this issue.

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

#195
post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'd be very surprised if it was only 20%. By my estimation many office jobs are 50% or more just being paid to sit at a desk.

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

#196

This 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.

Might it be worth considering that choosing to not work and choosing to contribute to society in other ways could, for some people and in some circumstances, be slightly different decisions?

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

#197
post #180
post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's because if you're in a relationship, you're considered a more valuable member of the society. Because it signals that someone has selected you to be around for a prolonged amount of time. Being single is more expensive in a big city.

It is punishing couples, not rewarding them. The amount given to two single people is $34,000. The amount given to two people in a relationship is $24,000.

Probably under the assumption that pooling resources and sharing a house means their expenses are NOT the same as two single people.

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

#198
post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Would fewer people in the workforce really be so bad? Yes. Someone needs to work to produce the goods and services they use, as well as fund their UBI. The more people who opt out of working, the harder everyone else must work to compensate. > What’s the carbon and water footprint of all of these goods we really don’t need but we bust our humps for anyway? People dropping out of the workforce doesn't reduce the dem…

Since we already have the productivity to grow and make all the necessities of life, why are we worried about maximizing degree to which we work for more luxury goods?

Because I don't want to live in an un-air-conditioned shack subsisting only on wheat and soy.

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

#199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. "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?

I don't follow that. HQ2 was about creation of new jobs and immigration of more people into the area.

For a fixed supply, higher rents are caused by a larger number of people demanding housing at the current prices. Higher wages only affect that by (a) causing immigration into the area, or (b) raising people out of poverty so that they can afford housing when they couldn't before.

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

#200
post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine he's talking about the response to the Yang campaign, where liberals quite rightly derided his plan to replace all "entitlement" programs with the dramatically smaller $1000/mo UBI. If someone who has been a life-long libertarian looks like he's trying to drive a wedge into social welfare programs, that's probably what is happening.

Was this just general derision in the form of "people on twitter" or had an economist somewhere made a cogent economic rebuttal? It's the latter I was interested and hoping someone could point me in the direction of. Not particularly interested in hearing what twitter person thinks about UBI-I'm rather ignorant to certain economic arguments about UBI myself, and am trying to address this, if that makes sense.

I doubt any serious economist could corral up enough spare tike to waste on a rebuttal of this idea. Not every idea rises to the level of serious discourse. The Yang UBI amount was much smaller than the amount paid by social welfare programs to the people who receive them. That's just arithmetic.
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