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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

#121

Post by EGreg »

logjammin wrote: post #75
gustavo-fring wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You didn't have UBI, you had a well-paying job. The main UBI proposals for the US target $1k per month and that target means a budget of about 3 trillion per year and does not take into account health insurance. I don't know about you, but living off $1k a month where I live (and it's a relatively cheap area) isn't feasible. Either you get roommates or you are going to end up in the cheapest most out of the way apart…

You make good points, but you may be missing why OP's comment is getting the upvotes it's getting, or at least why I'd wager it is: he describes the kind of contentment that most of us can't even imagine possessing without winning the lottery, and he described having that contentment with surprisingly (to him/her) modest means. I can't speak for anyone else, but this is why I upvoted it. Hell, I can think of at least…

If you want an entire lifestyle blog about this, read http://mrmoneymustache.com/

Anyone here a fan?

Re: Finnish basic income pilot improved wellbeing, study finds

#122

Post by radu_floricica »

marcosdumay wrote: post #115
radu_floricica wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

UBI is definitely not cheaper that current social security. "To administer" maybe, but the total cost is probably orders of magnitude more, and doesn't even solve the problem: certain demographics will still need extra.

Re: Finnish basic income pilot improved wellbeing, study finds

#123

Post by jusssi »

SilasX wrote: post #84
nicbou wrote: post #51

Last year, I had something that was very close to basic income (income-generating website that doesn't require active babysitting). I knew a life without work would be amazing, but I never expected it to be this great. I had much more time and energy to enjoy life. There was never a rush to do anything. I woke up when I wasn't tired. I could read in bed for an hour if it felt right. Sometimes I'd just walk 3-5 kilome…

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…

If there's tax progression, everyone's net income does not go up. That UBI money has to come from somewhere, and it comes from taxes. To fund the UBI, taxes will need to increase.

So at some threshold level of income, flicking the UBI switch doesn't affect your net income. You get a same size of increase to your tax bill as you gain from the UBI benefit.

Below the threshold you get a net increase, above it you get net decrease. Opinions differ on where that threshold would settle at (because with UBI the state could shut down some other benefits that are currently funded with tax money).

Re: Finnish basic income pilot improved wellbeing, study finds

#124

Post by pyramid07 »

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…

It's true. The incentive problem remains unanswered! Among others.

Re: Finnish basic income pilot improved wellbeing, study finds

#125

Post by radu_floricica »

fallingfrog wrote: post #117
radu_floricica wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 .

I cannot strongly stress how amused and annoyed I am by you completely ignoring that this money has to come from somewhere. Goddamn kids.

Of course giving people money makes them happy. Problem is that money represents resources, there's a limited amount of those going around, and printing money doesn't do anything except devalue the value of a dollar.

It's a functional problem, not a distribution problem.

Re: Finnish basic income pilot improved wellbeing, study finds

#126

Post by uDontKnowMe »

DonaldFisk wrote: post #28
BitwiseFool wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that's fair. But experimentally I would like to see the effects measured for a whole town, a city, or even a county.

This was done, as the Mincome experiment, in Dauphin, Manitoba in the early 1970s.

Did all of the basic income funding come from the population of Dauphin though, or was it subsidized by a larger tax base like that of Manitoba or Canada? For a useful experiment to be conducted, seems that the program should be funded entirely from the population that receives the benefit.

Re: Finnish basic income pilot improved wellbeing, study finds

#127

Post by jokoon »

I wish there was some study that would actually prove that free money is bad, and that it's required to pay people have a productive society.

Because so far, this sort of belief belongs to religious texts, and it's still an important pillar of how society works. We still judge the homeless and moochers because they are not willing to work. We even put people at job where they're not productive, as long as they look busy, available, and obeying.

Re: Finnish basic income pilot improved wellbeing, study finds

#128

Post by pdeuchler »

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…

> There was no clear indication that basic income encourages people to find jobs. You can scratch that one off the list.

You clearly didn't read the study or even the guardian article. There was clear evidence that basic income encourages people to find jobs in many cases, just not conclusively in every case (which no proponent of UBI argues).

> There was a pretty big and important hypothesis that the study was trying to pin down: is UBI profitable? Do you give 500 EUR and get more back?

That wasn't even close to the hypothesis that they were trying to disprove. You made this up off the top of your head. They were trying to develop a simpler, less bureaucratic welfare system that didn't have the pitfalls of the existing system while measuring dependent's wellbeing.

> And the answer is: there is no trace of that.

Again, not true. There was plenty of evidence that a UBI (as enacted in this study) could have positive economic effects, just not in every single case, and not conclusively.

Pretty much the only conclusive result from this study was that the dependents had a better sense of well being on average from the control group. That's it. I have no idea where you got these made up factoids from, I cant find any kind of review or analysis that shares your opinions or statements.

Re: Finnish basic income pilot improved wellbeing, study finds

#129

Post by Miner49er »

lcall wrote: post #74

I tried to explain in this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23033922 ...why a UBI at the US federal level takes away freedom to try better ideas to do good at other levels, is morally wrong, is harmful, and that we can do much more good with persuasion, fundraising, letting states handle it (or smaller scopes), etc etc. (With down-votes, a thoughtful comment is appreciated; thanks.)

I guess the difference is I don't see it as charity, especially not a "forced charity".

You're stuck in viewing things in through a lens of how private property works now.

Why is it that those who own some land deserve a cut of the profits of that land? That land was stolen at some point. Who says that anyone can truly claim ownership of land? Isn't land to be owned by all? And the same can be said of much more then just land.

Instead of the work of all previous generations and large parts of land being inherited by the few who are lucky enough to be born to the rich or whatever, it should be distributed to everyone. That can take the form of UBI.

For an argument of these points, read the first 3 chapters of of The Conquest of Bread by Peter Kropotkin.

https://thebreadbook.org/conquestofbread.html

Re: Finnish basic income pilot improved wellbeing, study finds

#130

Post by pdeuchler »

pasiaj wrote: post #8
notkaiho wrote: post #3

> "Aimed primarily at seeing whether a guaranteed income might encourage people to take up often low-paid or temporary work without fear of losing benefits" Turns out people do not, in fact, generally want to take precarious or otherwise unattractive jobs unless forced to economically. Who'd a thunk?

You are correct. People also don't seem to take up fulfilling and meaningful jobs /w low wages even with basic income support. One of the arguments in Finland was that basic income would encourage and enable people to take on meaningful & important NGO jobs and community efforts despite their low pay.

Did you even read the article or the study? One of the only conclusive statements from this study was the UBI experiment as enacted here encouraged dependents to take up "fulfilling and meaningful jobs /w low wages"

FTA:

“Some people said the basic income had zero effect on their productivity, as there were still no jobs in the area they were trained for,” said Prof Helena Blomberg-Kroll, who led the study. “But others said that with the basic income they were prepared to take low-paying jobs they would otherwise have avoided.

...

It also encouraged some participants to get more involved in society, by undertaking voluntary work, for example. “Some found the guaranteed income increased the possibility for them to do things like providing informal care for their family or their neighbours,” said one of the researchers, Christian Kroll.

“The security of the basic income allowed them to do more meaningful things, as they felt it legitimised this kind of care work. Many of the people who performed such unpaid activities during the two-year period referred to it as work.”

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