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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

#401

Post by Dansvidania »

free652 wrote: post #379
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.

I think what he meant was "we already have enough tax-funded government income for it, but it is squandered elsewhere".

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

#402

Post by munk-a »

luckylion wrote: post #234
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.

And maybe if those jobs are as unattractive as you imply they should come with higher pay checks. I work in software and love the work that I'm doing - if I was a janitor I'd be miserable and be paid less, so where is the incentive for anyone who can do something else to be a janitor... and the answer is, it isn't there.

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

#403

Post by Shacklz »

a0zU wrote: post #238
Kalium wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 popul…

> 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

With all due respect, but this opinion reeks of someone who actually has the ability to choose his own job, say no to exploitative employment-practices, all while actually getting payed decently.

Someone who has to work a shit job they hate for a salary that barely pays the bills because they simply have no other option might as well be miserable because of this situation. This endless slog they cannot escape, a treadmill they despise but have no other choice than to keep going.

And let's not kid ourselves - there are _a lot_ of people out there who are doing jobs they don't want to do, or at least wouldn't want to do for the kind of salary they receive.

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

#404

Post by csa »

hooande wrote: post #239
sabarn01 wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I’m guessing you don’t know many people who were born into wealth.

The skill that they must learn is how not to lose the money.

This skill is difficult to sustain over more than a generation or two — grandparent earns it, parent might keep it, child usually ends up destitute both in terms of financial capital and social capital.

If the “child” in this scenario is lucky, they have some social capital that will save them, and their branch of the family tree is at an inflection point.

Seeing a family self-destruct like this is tough to watch and surprisingly common within that class of people.

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

#405

Post by CydeWeys »

Dansvidania wrote: post #401
free652 wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think what he meant was "we already have enough tax-funded government income for it, but it is squandered elsewhere".

This is simply not true. Giving every person the oft-quoted $1k/month would cost over $4T/year, which is more than the entire current tax revenue of the United States. So we'd need to more than double tax revenue to continue doing everything we are now plus pay the UBI.

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

#406

Post by minitoar »

free652 wrote: post #379
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.

My understanding of UBI was it’s a replacement for many existing social programs.

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

#407

Post by munk-a »

megous wrote: post #325
loa_in_ wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But lack of personnel to do jobs would bump the wages due to demand and that would quickly find people ready to fill them in

Or it would kill the businesses operating at the margin of profitability.

Why do business deserve a level of welfare we're not affording to human beings. Let's feed, house, cloth, educate and provide health care for everyone - then we can start looking at saving unprofitable business.

The truth is, a lot of business ventures simply aren't profitable. It isn't profitable for me to start a business where I deliver whitecastle to remote areas by flying couriers there with the food - but it could be profitable if enough market changes occurred.

As these bloat businesses die off we'll see a shift in the market - either there will be a surplus of employees (that will drive down the cost of employment and enable more bloat businesses) or those employees will find other businesses to work at that can survive in the margins that exist.

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

#408

Post by neves »

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…

You must also consider the amount of shitty jobs going away. I'd refuse a work that had terrible conditions, since I wouldn't die of hunger anymore. The other working people would also have better job condition, so they would be freer to quit their job. Everybody improves, but the business that exists just based in brutal exploitation of their workers.

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

#409

Post by Aunche »

danenania wrote: post #396
Aunche wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 manufac…

Yeah, so now instead of barely getting by on subsistence farming, they barely get by working 16 hour shifts in dangerous conditions with no rights. While the workers may be mostly better off than they were before, they still have to spend almost all their time and energy on meeting the basic needs of survival. The people who benefitted by far the most from all that investment were the owners, executives, and sharehol…

People aren't so stupid that they'd do something that completely against their best interests. If you're a subsidence farmer and get sick, you have no means of making enough money to see a doctor. Historically, people didn't care about leisure until they accomplished stability.

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

#410

Post by munk-a »

wtdo wrote: post #328
loa_in_ wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But lack of personnel to do jobs would bump the wages due to demand and that would quickly find people ready to fill them in

And bumped wages means higher costs which are passed on to customers. The higher prices means having to raise UBI, and the only way to afford that is by increasing taxes, and so effective take home pay from those bumped wages isn't as high as everyone thought and now we're back to square one.

The first half of your statement is perfectly true, through implementing UBI we're raising the floor on income inequality so that the relative gap between the richest and poorest shrinks. But, we don't end up back at square one, we just haven't given as effective a UBI as we originally intended.
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