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Finnish basic income pilot improved wellbeing, study finds

theguardian.com

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Re: Finnish basic income pilot improved wellbeing, study finds

#111

Post by gustavo-fring »

nicbou wrote: post #107
gustavo-fring wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's not giving us the full story. Did he have health insurance (seems like he's in Germany, so yeah)? I made under $30k this past year and did not have health insurance. I promise you that I'd rather have that than try to live off $1k a month. If it sounds so great to you, I challenge you to live off that amount and see if it is as grand as he describes. I'm guessing he's making more than $1k. There are a lot of men…

I can gladly talk about financials. - I have health insurance. It's pretty far from free, and it's mandatory. I wrote a very detailed guide about how German health insurance works [1]. It's not comparable to the US system, and I want to write a separate guide to explain this more accurately. - My take-home is slightly above what a full time minimum wage worker would make. My expenses are around 1400€ a month. It coul…

Ok. Thank you for the input. Google-fu brings this cite from dw:

€1,500 ($1,700) per month gross for full-time workers, Germany has one of the highest minimum wages in the European Union.

So it seems you made about $20k. Obviously, this isn't much money, so props to you for that. It is about double what UBI could offer (at least in the US) in a country with one of the greatest social safety nets in the world.

Don't mean to castigate you nor be overly personal, but do feel like it is important to put into context.

Re: Finnish basic income pilot improved wellbeing, study finds

#112

Post by prewett »

nicbou wrote: post #101
zpeti wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You built a passive income business. You were living off your own entrepreneurship. You chose to live off your previous work, and not work as much. It was your achievement and you should be proud that you achieved it. In the back of your mind you also knew that you’re the one who did it and you could possibly do it again. This is not UBI and it’s certainly not the long term mental state of someone on UBI.

I got massively lucky. It's a personal project that grew bigger. If I could do it again, I'd already have another website up and running. I've been thinking about it, but I'm coming to terms with being a one-hit wonder. I get paid a living wage for very little work. The reasons are irrelevant. The most important aspect here is the outcome, which was quite similar to UBI. Give anyone the humble monthly income I'm give…

I'm sure most people would have fun if someone financed their vacation. The difference between your situation and basic income is that your income is because you are providing enough value to people that they pay you money, while basic income is other people paying you money (taxpayers) with no expectation of providing any value.

"I really enjoyed my vacation paid for by my automated business and therefore basic income will improve people's well-being" is not a good argument for UBI. Of course people will have a good time when someone else is paying for them. But how does society afford to do that?

Re: Finnish basic income pilot improved wellbeing, study finds

#113

Post by hpoe »

tehjoker wrote: post #99
SilasX wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have to be really careful about generalizing from "personally getting regular free money" to everyone getting it. Under a UBI, everyone , unconditionally[1], gets the free money. That has significantly different dynamics than you alone getting it. What happens to rents, for example? If everyone's income goes up, so does the rent. If everyone wanted to live in the same places, for the same reasons, and suddenly ha…

We could always make renting above cost of construction and maintenance illegal and have the state build public housing, but this is unpopular with landlords and aspiring landlords.

The worked out super well in the Soviet Bloc and with section 8 housing.

Re: Finnish basic income pilot improved wellbeing, study finds

#114

Post by sokoloff »

tehjoker wrote: post #99
SilasX wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have to be really careful about generalizing from "personally getting regular free money" to everyone getting it. Under a UBI, everyone , unconditionally[1], gets the free money. That has significantly different dynamics than you alone getting it. What happens to rents, for example? If everyone's income goes up, so does the rent. If everyone wanted to live in the same places, for the same reasons, and suddenly ha…

We could always make renting above cost of construction and maintenance illegal and have the state build public housing, but this is unpopular with landlords and aspiring landlords.

It's hardly surprising that people would object to what amounts to a public seizing of [the economic value of] their private property.

Re: Finnish basic income pilot improved wellbeing, study finds

#115

Post by marcosdumay »

radu_floricica wrote: post #106
marcosdumay wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard to get any conclusion from this article. There is this: > The researchers also noted a mild positive effect on employment > Freelancers and artists and entrepreneurs had more positive views on the effects of the basic income, which some felt had created opportunities for them to start businesses. And, of course, the often neglected (and that appears as a negative on the numbers): > Some found the guaranteed…

It's a negative result. What isn't there matters - in particular, no info on there being some form of monetary ROI. I don't have other sources at hand - just memories from when the study was published and there was quite a lot of discussion.

Hum... I've searched the study, and it looks like results are still scheduled to be published this year. Granted that it was a quick search, but I get no source for the claim that the result was negative.

Besides, UBI being cheaper to administer than current social security, failure in finding any difference is a reason to adopt it, not to keep the status quo.

Re: Finnish basic income pilot improved wellbeing, study finds

#116

Post by hellotomyrars »

drdeadringer wrote: post #88
zpeti wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You built a passive income business. You were living off your own entrepreneurship. You chose to live off your previous work, and not work as much. It was your achievement and you should be proud that you achieved it. In the back of your mind you also knew that you’re the one who did it and you could possibly do it again. This is not UBI and it’s certainly not the long term mental state of someone on UBI.

> the long term mental state of someone on UBI What is? Some form or variation of learned helplessness? Something else?

Had the same thought.

Too bad we can't ask all the UBI recipients their long term mental state(Because there are none) so instead we'll have to go with this persons gut instinct.

Re: Finnish basic income pilot improved wellbeing, study finds

#117

Post by fallingfrog »

radu_floricica wrote: post #49
BitwiseFool wrote: post #4

The problem I have with studies like this one is that they only measure the effects of getting a stipend during a limited amount of time with a limited amount of people. It's not universal and it's not basic. From a non-scientific view point, of course giving people free money makes them feel better. But from an experimental perspective, they aren't getting the 'full package' of UBI. The participants aren't seeing in…

Oh, this study was very useful, no matter how the guardian is trying to frame it. There was no clear indication that basic income encourages people to find jobs. You can scratch that one off the list. Other than that, there's absolutely nothing surprising. You give people a money and they feel better. That's like... not exactly new information. And yeah, it will change their choices somewhat, which again is no big fi…

If it improved people’s lives and had no obvious drawbacks, do we really need anything else to call it a success? Why is something only a success if it makes the stock market go up, or some capitalist richer? I cannot strongly stress enough how profoundly I do not care about either of those things. Making people’s lives better is an end unto itself.

Re: Finnish basic income pilot improved wellbeing, study finds

#118

Post by toomuchtodo »

chillacy wrote: post #87
SilasX wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have to be really careful about generalizing from "personally getting regular free money" to everyone getting it. Under a UBI, everyone , unconditionally[1], gets the free money. That has significantly different dynamics than you alone getting it. What happens to rents, for example? If everyone's income goes up, so does the rent. If everyone wanted to live in the same places, for the same reasons, and suddenly ha…

I'm not saying that rent won't go up, but depending on the UBI scheme it probably won't go up 1:1. Rent goes up because there are more people looking for a limited resource in urban areas: if you want to work in the city you must live near the city. A UBI that isn't tied to location makes it easier for people to live elsewhere, which reduces demand.

On a smaller scale, we should see where older folks on Social Security live. They have a form of UBI and also usually don’t or can’t work.

Re: Finnish basic income pilot improved wellbeing, study finds

#119

Post by irishcoffee »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #89
irishcoffee wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely you realize that demand and volume for college has gone up in the US. Also, the US gives out unlimited "free" money to attend. (student loans) And "magically" the pice of college has in fact skyrocketed, or even "soaked up" the excess money.

Because colleges were in the 'money pipe', and could gatekeep. In a free market (which I guess colleges aren't) it would not work that way.

Would you have considered the pre-2007 housing market a part of the free market? Same exact thing happened there. "Free" money given out and the market figured out how to soak it up very quickly.

Re: Finnish basic income pilot improved wellbeing, study finds

#120

Post by pasiaj »

protonimitate wrote: post #30
pasiaj wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The basic income study included 2500 participants + the control group.

yep, but the conclusions were drawn based on interviews with only 81 of them: > The researchers, who conducted 81 in-depth interviews with participants in the scheme, concluded that...

Qualitative in-person interviews had 81 participants

The quantitative employment analysis was based on 2000 participants.

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