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

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

#411

Post by neves » Thu, Mar 05, 2020, 6:09 PM UTC

stuartaxelowen wrote: post #373

ChrisLomont wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

A stay at home parent education children "produces" anything?

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

#412

Post by theklub » Thu, Mar 05, 2020, 6:09 PM UTC

z3t4 wrote: post #338

luckylion wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

The litterally shitty job of manually cleaning toilets would be higher paid, as it should be.

Seems like that job will be taken over by robots sooner or later.

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

#413

Post by munk-a » Thu, Mar 05, 2020, 6:10 PM UTC

simiones wrote: post #342

luckylion wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> you need somebody to take away the garbage, pick the fruits and unclog the toilets So your plan is to make sure some people will die of starvation unless they accept to do these jobs? If no one is willing to do these critical jobs voluntarily, perhaps we should either pay them large amounts of money to convince someone to do them, or spread the work between more people - perhaps on a rotational basis.

If jobs are critical and unappealing, then we should pay large amounts of money for them to be done... Right now those critical and unappealing jobs are quite undervalued.

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

#414

Post by volkk » Thu, Mar 05, 2020, 6:11 PM UTC

throwaway894345 wrote: post #69

camelNotation wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are guaranteed income, you aren't bound to specific regions or locations. You can move to places with cheaper land and healthcare systems with less overcrowding. You can work less lucrative jobs in those locations and find customers for your work because everyone including the local residents of those rural areas, will have new money to spend. Local regions would see an influx in cash, allowing for small busin…

This might be a bug rather than a feature for a lot of people. Many people want humanity to concentrate in urban areas because it is better for the environment. Others complain about urbanites' tax dollars paying for rural roads (which is effectively the scenario you're describing, even if those tax dollars are labeled "UBI" and routed through rural citizens' bank accounts first). Still others see rural Americans as…

> Many people want humanity to concentrate in urban areas because it is better for the environment.

I'm interested in learning more about this. I've never heard of it, are there any sources proving that this is the case? If people spread out more, is that actually more harmful? I can imagine this is an extremely complicated topic

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

#415

Post by mordymoop » Thu, Mar 05, 2020, 6:12 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…

Would be good if they could somehow disentangle work from valuable work. Many (maybe most) hold down “bullshit jobs” that create no value and serve mainly as a kind of de facto socially subsidized welfare. The aim of UBI ought to be the elimination of worthless jobs.

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

#416

Post by denisw » Thu, Mar 05, 2020, 6:13 PM UTC

bluGill wrote: post #336

chickenpotpie wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dude, we are faaaaaaaaar from equal opportunity. One of the largest predictors of one's ability to accumulate wealth is still the wealth of their own parents. The U.S. is one of the countries with the highest link between parents' and a child's wealth.

Citation needed. I hear this often, but no hard evidence that isn't easy to show is false.

I recommend „Capital in the 21st Century“ by Thomas Pikkety, an economist who has deeply studied wealth and income equality using historical data spanning three centuries. This book has all the evidence you need.

https://www.amazon.com/-/de/dp/0674979850

Spoiler alert: income from wealth is on its way of becoming close to being as concentrated as it was in the 19th century (especially in the US), and the share of income from work in total national income is decreasing almost anywhere. So yes, increasingly you can only accrue significant wealth by already having significant wealth.

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

#417

Post by munk-a » Thu, Mar 05, 2020, 6:13 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…

And this is exactly why we have a 7 day work week with 20 hour work days and never retire, because the only measure of us as a people is how much money we produce. /s

Society doesn't become poorer, in fact UBI will probably lower stress and allow more creative thinking and longer life spans with lower medical costs. Even if it doesn't I'd just be happy to know that the people struggling at the bottom have to struggle a little less because, as a person in the middle, I'm happy to give a little bit of my income to someone who needs it more.

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

#418

Post by RegBarclay » Thu, Mar 05, 2020, 6:13 PM UTC

I'm not sure anything was proven about people continuing to work during a temporary basic income study. If the basic income provided is temporary as part of a study, why would I leave my job when I know I'm going to need the income from my job after the study is over?

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

#419

Post by virmundi » Thu, Mar 05, 2020, 6:13 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…

Why not require those who go on UBI and not work to give up the ability to reproduce while doing so? It’s not a perfect system but it would reduce the amount of population stuck in the entrenchment.

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

#420

Post by Griffinsauce » Thu, Mar 05, 2020, 6:13 PM UTC

CydeWeys wrote: post #405

Dansvidania wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It removes a shit load of misc. other benefits and all the bureaucracy needed to maintain them. That might not cancel out but it's not purely extra costs.