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

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

#371

Post by AnthonyMouse » Thu, Mar 05, 2020, 5:36 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…

> All studies so far show a pretty consistent ~10% work disincentive. This is what all the detractors say when they say it disincentivizes work.

Most of these studies aren't done independent of existing means-tested government benefits. Then the UBI amount in itself is typically not enough to disqualify from eligibility for means-tested benefits, but a UBI plus a job would phase out nearly everything.

So you have on the one hand more subsidy living on the UBI plus existing government benefits than you would if the UBI would replace existing government benefits, and on the other hand still all the same disincentive to work of the existing system because taking a job results in the loss of government benefits, which results in a very high de facto tax rate and corresponding disincentive to work.

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

#372

Post by nradov » Thu, Mar 05, 2020, 5:36 PM UTC

calgoo wrote: post #284

nradov wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very few workplaces have 20% management. A few businesses have experimented with radically flattening the organization and cutting out management layers; this has generally not improved productivity or financial results.

True, but I think the question should be if the company is worse off without the baggage management, not if they are more productive or have better financial results.

The problem is that there is no scalable, reliable way to distinguish between "baggage" management and productive management in any large organization. Many have tried to solve that problem and no one has really succeeded. So cutting out management layers tends to indiscriminately eliminate the good with the bad. If you can figure out a better solution then you'll make a fortune as a management consultant.

Lower level employees often think they know which managers are baggage, and sometimes they're right, but often they're not seeing the whole picture. A manager who appears to be baggage from one perspective is sometimes performing crucial activities that are only visible from other perspectives. Management value added often can't be objectively measured but yet it exists all the same.

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

#373

Post by stuartaxelowen » Thu, Mar 05, 2020, 5:37 PM UTC

ChrisLomont wrote: post #364

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…

> basic income SHOULD disincentivise work; it's a boost for society, health, well-being, children, etc Less work means less is produced, so society as a whole becomes poorer. There's simply less goods. Less produced also shrinks the tax base, so tax rates must be raised to continue to pay for the basic income. Higher taxes would then dissuade more people from working, or leading them also to work less. Now there's mo…

Is care of a sick family member "produced" in the same sense?

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

#374

Post by Aunche » Thu, Mar 05, 2020, 5:37 PM UTC

danenania wrote: post #344

Aunche wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> millions of people lack the basic material resources needed to fulfill anything close to their potential There is a limited amount of capital in the world. Distributing it now might help those at home, but it does not help the billion people who still lack electricity. There simply is not enough capital in the world to build trillions of dollars worth of infrastructure for free. Investment is a much better vehicle…

"There is a limited amount of capital in the world." You've already lost me. This is provably false, as any programmer should know: if you sit down and code something useful today, you've just increased the amount of capital in the world. Out of thin air. A carpenter who buys a bunch of lumber and turns it into a thousand-dollar piece of furniture does the same. The more people can learn to add value to the world, an…

I mean that there isn't enough capital to distribute to everyone in the world, not that it's fixed forever. You can grow it. That's my point. It's better to increase capital than redistribute it.

> Investment distributes wealth primarily from the elite to the slightly-less elite.

If you've seen how China changed in the last couple decades, you'd see how this obviously isn't true. Basically all electronics are manufactured in a developing Asian country by the children of subsidence farmers.

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

#375

Post by AnthonyMouse » Thu, Mar 05, 2020, 5:38 PM UTC

ChrisLomont wrote: post #364

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…

> basic income SHOULD disincentivise work; it's a boost for society, health, well-being, children, etc Less work means less is produced, so society as a whole becomes poorer. There's simply less goods. Less produced also shrinks the tax base, so tax rates must be raised to continue to pay for the basic income. Higher taxes would then dissuade more people from working, or leading them also to work less. Now there's mo…

> Less produced also shrinks the tax base, so tax rates must be raised to continue to pay for the basic income. Higher taxes would then dissuade more people from working, or leading them also to work less. Now there's more people wanting basic income, so more needs raised......

This works the opposite of that. Everyone always gets the basic income, so there is no "more people wanting", but if the tax base was hypothetically reduced then less revenue would be generated to fund the UBI. At a lower UBI amount, more people would work. It's self-balancing.

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

#376

Post by Causality1 » Thu, Mar 05, 2020, 5:39 PM UTC

Shouldn't it be obvious that the people receiving money would become healthier and happier? The question is whether they become healthier and happier enough to offset the cost of making them that way. Are they the best use of that tax money? What's the lifetime return on investment?

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

#377

Post by ta1234567890 » Thu, Mar 05, 2020, 5:41 PM UTC

prepend wrote: post #340

xzel wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of work today is pretty much bullshit/meaningless; I mean look at 85% of the US insurance / medical billing professions are useless and only exist because there is manufactured bureaucracy. Bullshit Jobs is a great book looking into to this. Also UBI shouldn't be disincentivizing work, it should be allowing people to explore more fulfilling pursuits.

I don’t understand many jobs, but many I thought were bullshit, I changed my mind after learning more about them. I do know that asking people if their job is bullshit is not a good way to truly understand. It’s natural to hate many jobs, that’s why I’m paid to do them. I once shoveled horse stalls. I hated it. It was. Horseshit job. But if the job stopped existing, it would have negative impact. I think it will be c…

You mean there are tasks that need to be done, not jobs.

In the case of horse shit, for sure it is better if someone cleans it, but that someone can also be the person that trains or rides the horse.

There isn't an intrinsic need for a job that performs only that task.

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

#378

Post by multiplegeorges » Thu, Mar 05, 2020, 5:41 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…

And this is a very misleading summary of the results.

Here are some actual quote from the study:

> 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.

Almost half of people who stopped working did it in order to train for a better job. That's great!

> most of the respondents who were unemployed during the pilot reported experiencing health issues that made it difficult or impossible for them to work.

Receiving BI allowed sick people to not be forced into work to pay for a basic existence? That's great!

Take into account those two factors and almost no able bodied, employable person opted to not work.

Sounds like a success to me.

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

#379

Post by free652 » Thu, Mar 05, 2020, 5:41 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…

No, you wouldn't pay for basic income from your taxes. Where did you get that? It's an extra tax that you are currently not paying.

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

#380

Post by throw_away » Thu, Mar 05, 2020, 5:42 PM UTC

prepend wrote: post #340

xzel wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of work today is pretty much bullshit/meaningless; I mean look at 85% of the US insurance / medical billing professions are useless and only exist because there is manufactured bureaucracy. Bullshit Jobs is a great book looking into to this. Also UBI shouldn't be disincentivizing work, it should be allowing people to explore more fulfilling pursuits.

I don’t understand many jobs, but many I thought were bullshit, I changed my mind after learning more about them. I do know that asking people if their job is bullshit is not a good way to truly understand. It’s natural to hate many jobs, that’s why I’m paid to do them. I once shoveled horse stalls. I hated it. It was. Horseshit job. But if the job stopped existing, it would have negative impact. I think it will be c…

David Graeber talks about this in his book Bullshit Jobs, which has been discussed here previously. He makes the distinction that a bullshit job is one where both the employer and the employed must both pretend that the job is useful even though both of them know that it is not.

Under this definition, a lot of dirty or otherwise maligned jobs are still essential to society (including stall cleaning, depending on your perspective of how essential having horses is) and are thus not bullshit jobs, but a lot of others (rubber stampers, make workers, flunkies) are bullshit jobs.