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

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

#431

Post by claudiawerner » Thu, Mar 05, 2020, 6:21 PM UTC

Aunche wrote: post #409

danenania wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>People aren't so stupid that they'd do something that completely against their best interests.

The world is actually full of such examples. There's quite a bit of work done in psychology and sociology as to why this happens. Often, the move from, for example substinence farming to other jobs is a kind of throffer - and so it was, historically documented, in the 16th and 17th centuries in England, too with the move from rural cottage industry to wide-scale factory production.

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

#432

Post by minitoar » Thu, Mar 05, 2020, 6:22 PM UTC

free652 wrote: post #422

minitoar wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Where did you get that? UBI won't help people that get free housing in NYC UBI doesn't work with HCOL areas.

Where did you get the idea that all current social programs would continue unchanged if something as radical as UBI were introduced?

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

#433

Post by mola » Thu, Mar 05, 2020, 6:22 PM UTC

easytiger wrote: post #324

hooande wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yea sure. No one ever blew a fortune

It's rare. How you are born pretty much sets your future in stone. Those rags to riches stories and vice versa are the outliers

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

#434

Post by chillacy » Thu, Mar 05, 2020, 6:22 PM UTC

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #176

throwaway13337 wrote: post #5

The issue I see with basic income is that most money is spent on housing and health care. These two things are supply constrained so it's more of an auction for who can afford them. With basic income, we may just raise the cost of those things. This problem wouldn't appear in a study that distributed to only some individuals. We need to solve the regulatory or otherwise organizational problems of these things to prov…

This is a concern I have as well; if everyone has the same income, nobody has? I'm afraid it would just bump inflation by an X amount. If everyone's base income goes up by 10% due to basic income, wouldn't that just be offset by prices going up 10% because everyone can afford that 10% anyway? Plus, housing prices are already ridiculous and still climbing; it's at a point now where people need an income in addition to…

It depends if the market is demand-side or supply-side constrained. If everyone had more money and wanted a new TV, TV manufacturers would just spin up production to meet demand over time. If everyone needs a house and housing is restricted by zoning then the price will go up.

One reason basic income might sidestep the housing issue is that unlike city jobs, if a basic income is portable then it makes it easier to avoid living in the city, reducing competition for housing. That's also a good reason against making the basic income dependent on location (e.g. you get paid more in NYC than Reno), since that would just incentivize people to flock to cities.

Also if that seems hand wave-y to you, consider that in Alaska when the oil money goes out, stores usually have sales, lowering their prices to compete for customers.

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

#435

Post by saint_fiasco » Thu, Mar 05, 2020, 6:22 PM UTC

free652 wrote: post #422

minitoar wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Where did you get that? UBI won't help people that get free housing in NYC UBI doesn't work with HCOL areas.

Why would anyone sane want to live in NYC anyway, if UBI was a thing? People move to big cities with expensive housing because that's where the well paying jobs are.

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

#436

Post by 0x4477 » Thu, Mar 05, 2020, 6:23 PM UTC

lidHanteyk wrote: post #155

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #151

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…

So why don't managers and administrators work to produce things? They seem capable of labor, and they're paid extra, but they work less. Why? Edit: You downvoted me within a minute of my posting. I asked two questions. If you can't answer them, then it is because you fear their answers. So let's answer them! Managers and administrators don't produce things because they claim that their positions allow them to optimiz…

>So why don't managers and administrators work to produce things? They seem capable of labor, and they're paid extra, but they work less. Why?

Management and administration is a skill that not everyone possesses. There are such things as good and bad managers. Just because the work they do doesn't directly output a tangible product doesn't mean it's not valuable. Additionally, it's typically a position with more responsibility as well as accountability which tends to reflect in higher pay. That's not to say it's a perfect system but this is generally how it works.

As for working less, unless you mean they do less physical labour than the people they manage, they often work more. It's unfair to say managers work less because they do management tasks rather than the work their subordinates do. In virtually every job I've had, the more senior the manager, the more hours they worked. Retail especially.

>So let's answer them! Managers and administrators don't produce things because they claim that their positions allow them to optimize labor. Specifically, their bonus pay is based upon the idea that management and administration increases output proportional to their efficacy. It follows that we should measure the output of management practices, and compensate managers according to their actual impact.

They don't just claim their positions optimize labour, it actually does optimize it. I don't understand where this idea that managers are merely irrelevant middlemen who have no impact on the people they manage comes from. Companies seek profit and have no desire to pay people simply for existing, especially if they do not meaningfully contribute to the bottom line. Managers are hired exactly because they do affect the bottom line in a sufficiently meaningful way to justify their presence. And, as with almost any other job, a manager that fails to contribute will be replaced much like any other underperforming employee.

That isn't to say there isn't a thing as too many managers or levels of management or even bad managers that do not get fired, but to sweep them all aside as irrelevant is simply not a realistic interpretation.

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

#437

Post by clavalle » Thu, Mar 05, 2020, 6:23 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 work means less is produced

If we were all just moving rocks around, that statement might be true. But human productivity is a much richer equation than time work in == value produced.

Where would we be if we took that to its logical conclusion and put kids to work rather than send them to school? If we all worked 16 hour days?

Your model doesn't consider productivity/unit time, nor the case of win-lose bargaining in the case where the 'lose' party is at a disadvantage and bargaining to lose less rather than for gain.

Disincentivizing work (in the near term) can be a net positive over time if the person that turns away from that trade uses their unsold time to increase their overall productivity/unit time or if they use their enhanced alternative to a negotiated agreement to turn a negotiation that would have otherwise been a 'lose but lose a bit less' or 'tread water' situation into a gain for themselves.

My only question is whether the productivity and value gains from enhanced productivity/unit time and employee/employer negotiations where the employee always has a workable alternative to employment will be more than what is lost in the reallocation through taxes?

Considering how much the top has and how little it would take to move those still in desperate poverty to merely being poor, I'd be willing to bet the overall value creation would far outstrip the losses in taxes. But it's a fair question.

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

#438

Post by refurb » Thu, Mar 05, 2020, 6:24 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…

Ok, but work (productivity) is how you actually pay for UBI.

So by giving UBI, you are decreasing the resources that pay for it.

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

#439

Post by heavyset_go » Thu, Mar 05, 2020, 6:24 PM UTC

eanzenberg wrote: post #385

simiones wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

No one (in US or CA) is dying of starvation.

Having worked with them in the past, there are plenty that are one Meals on Wheels delivery away from being hungry and unable to buy food. Hunger rate in the US is 12%.

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

#440

Post by chillacy » Thu, Mar 05, 2020, 6:25 PM UTC

diffeomorphism wrote: post #293

throwaway13337 wrote: post #5

The issue I see with basic income is that most money is spent on housing and health care. These two things are supply constrained so it's more of an auction for who can afford them. With basic income, we may just raise the cost of those things. This problem wouldn't appear in a study that distributed to only some individuals. We need to solve the regulatory or otherwise organizational problems of these things to prov…

> With basic income, we may just raise the cost of those things. Why? Basic income does not just magically generate money out of thin air. Right now you earn $4000(salary) per month. With UBI you earn $3000(salary) + $1000 (UBI) per month. Why should any cost increase? "But then I would work less, since I can comfortably live on $1000 per month". Yeah, and why are you not doing that right now?

With basic income you make $4000 + $1000, which removes the discontinuities associated with means testing.

Whether increased taxes used to pay for the UBI end up eating up your UBI depends on the plan and how much you make/spend. Some UBI proposals are paid for with a wealth tax, others with a consumption tax, others by cutting most of the existing programs). They usually end up being redistributive in the grand scheme.