People kept working, became healthier while on basic income: report • Hacker News Board

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

#231

Post by hirundo » Thu, Mar 05, 2020, 4:43 PM UTC

awakeasleep wrote: post #209

simonsarris wrote: post #88

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…

The end of slavery was also a huge disincentive to work

Is starvation really less of an incentive to work than being beaten?

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

#232

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet » Thu, Mar 05, 2020, 4:43 PM UTC

CivBase wrote: post #221

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

> For which the market should correct by increasing their compensation, thus incentivising people to return to working, no? Which drives up the cost of goods, resulting in an inflation that counteracts the UBI and gets us right back where we started.

Competition still exerts a downward force on prices, and as the cost of labor increases the cost of developing automation will become more and more attractive to replace it.

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

#233

Post by dleslie » Thu, Mar 05, 2020, 4:43 PM UTC

sabarn01 wrote: post #216

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #170

From my personal point of view, basic income SHOULD disincentivise work; it's a boost for society, health, well-being, children, etc. Because in the current economy, a lot of people have to work unreasonable hours, multiple jobs, and have all people in a family work to make ends meet, at the cost of personal health and well-being, personal time, having children at all or having more children, getting married and buyi…

People should fear being destitute its the natural human condition. Learning skills is the only way to make wealth.

We've built civilization around the notion that escaping the natural order of things is desirable.

I, for one, am happy to not be sleeping in shifts in order to stand guard against predation.

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

#234

Post by luckylion » Thu, Mar 05, 2020, 4:43 PM UTC

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #170

From my personal point of view, basic income SHOULD disincentivise work; it's a boost for society, health, well-being, children, etc. Because in the current economy, a lot of people have to work unreasonable hours, multiple jobs, and have all people in a family work to make ends meet, at the cost of personal health and well-being, personal time, having children at all or having more children, getting married and buyi…

> From my personal point of view, basic income SHOULD disincentivise work; it's a boost for society, health, well-being, children, etc.

Somebody has to do the work though, until robots do everything (and then declare war on us), you need somebody to take away the garbage, pick the fruits and unclog the toilets. Disincentivizing work doesn't make that go away, it just means you'll put that load on fewer shoulders.

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

#235

Post by mgolawala » Thu, Mar 05, 2020, 4:44 PM UTC

sabarn01 wrote: post #216

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #170

From my personal point of view, basic income SHOULD disincentivise work; it's a boost for society, health, well-being, children, etc. Because in the current economy, a lot of people have to work unreasonable hours, multiple jobs, and have all people in a family work to make ends meet, at the cost of personal health and well-being, personal time, having children at all or having more children, getting married and buyi…

People should fear being destitute its the natural human condition. Learning skills is the only way to make wealth.

Up until recently the natural human condition also involved going through the grief of losing at least one of your kids.

https://ourworldindata.org/parents-losing-their-child

The human condition evolves.

Having said that, while I am supportive of UBI, I share your concerns over its impact on society. We do not understand the all what the knock on effects of such a program are. How it would be used/misused and how it would reshape incentives. We definitely need to dip our toe in the water before considering jumping in.

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

#236

Post by Cobord » Thu, Mar 05, 2020, 4:44 PM UTC

ethanbond wrote: post #117

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #38

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?

By how much absolutely does rent go up vs how much the wage has risen? Are the people better off or not? Don't just say rising rents as a catch all. This is all the more case for UBI vs rising minimum wage because in UBI there aren't the unemployed falling through the cracks.

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

#237

Post by mfer » Thu, Mar 05, 2020, 4:44 PM UTC

simonsarris wrote: post #88

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…

I know and know of many people who don't want to work or contribute to society. Sitting at home and not contributing to society is kind of a goal. Some groups are negative to those who try to work or contribute. I know families who have passed that on from parents to children.

This isn't everyone but it is a segment. I don't see much talk about this.

The folks in this segment aren't bound to be on HN.

I point this out just as a piece of information. There are opportunities in that. Maybe not to make a bunch of money but to understand people and maybe help some.

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

#238

Post by a0zU » Thu, Mar 05, 2020, 4:45 PM UTC

Kalium wrote: post #196

crystaln wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

There are absolutely people who would contribute to society in other ways but there are also people who would not work, not contribute and, sit in their rooms all day not having the will to do anything but debate with strangers on internet forums(lol). In my opinion the problem with UBI is that it would take away the necessity for people to do something to survive and it would make a significant minority of the population miserable because they wouldn't have to do anything but consume.

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

#239

Post by hooande » Thu, Mar 05, 2020, 4:45 PM UTC

sabarn01 wrote: post #216

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #170

From my personal point of view, basic income SHOULD disincentivise work; it's a boost for society, health, well-being, children, etc. Because in the current economy, a lot of people have to work unreasonable hours, multiple jobs, and have all people in a family work to make ends meet, at the cost of personal health and well-being, personal time, having children at all or having more children, getting married and buyi…

People should fear being destitute its the natural human condition. Learning skills is the only way to make wealth.

No person who was born rich has to learn skills to avoid destitution. And poverty isn't the natural condition for humans any more than it is for cats, or any other animal.

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

#240

Post by macspoofing » Thu, Mar 05, 2020, 4:45 PM UTC

thomasfedb wrote: post #124

macspoofing wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Right now there are explicit subsidies for housing and healthcare. If they get replaced with a UBI in the same amount Good luck with that. UBI is barely tolerated by the left and progressives but only under the constraint that it doesn't replace any existing social welfare programs. The minute UBI advocates start pushing it as a replacement is the minute that progressives will squash it.

There are plenty of progressives who see UBI as a method of vastly simplifying social security by doing exactly this. One payment for all.

As an exercise, try and advocate for getting rid of Medicare for Seniors in return for increasing the pension payout rate (to whatever reasonable number of you choose). How do you think that will go ... and that's just one program. If you think you can get rid of food stamps and 10,000 other programs, you're dreaming.