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Results: Finland’s Basic Income Experiment Help Us Build the Post-Pandemic World

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Re: Results: Finland’s Basic Income Experiment Help Us Build the Post-Pandemic World

#51

Post by ajsnigrutin »

diekdnk wrote: post #2

The experiment was terribly flawed in that it only addressed the unemployed, and it didn't affect the existing unemployment system for them, making incentives perverse for all taking part. The UBI was offered tax-free on top. It represents nothing like real life UBI and needs to be redesigned as a test.

The biggest problems with such UBI experiments is the limited time of the experiment.

If I had a shitty, dead-end job, and someone offered me (eg.) 80% of an average paycheck in my country, FOR 2 YEARS, i'd be happier than before, and use that money to pay off loans, buy a new car, go for a vacation, etc., and keep my curent job.

If I had a shitty, dead-end job, and someone offered me (eg.) 80% of an average paycheck in my country, FOREVER(!), i'd probably quit, and live off UBI, and do other stuff (fun for me, but litle of value to to wider society, and with probably zero tax money to feed the UBI system). ...or, probably move somewhere, where I can get more for that amount of money.

Most countries have lottery systems made up in a way, that you can opt for a bulk sum or get monthly payouts from the lottery... i'm sure, that we could find people, who get monthly sums somewhere in the interesting rage, to check how they're doing now.... but usually, looking at loterry winners does not show results in favour of giving people "free money".

Re: Results: Finland’s Basic Income Experiment Help Us Build the Post-Pandemic World

#52

Post by notahacker »

goatinaboat wrote: post #36
akvadrako wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The U stands for Universal The U is better understood as Unconditional. It doesn't go to everybody or everything, but it doesn't get taken away if you stop working. These were used pretty much equally until about 2011, when the less accurate one started taking hold: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=2004-04-11%202...

It doesn't go to everybody It has to, because one of the selling point of it is the minimal administrative overhead. In the U.K. we have armies of civil servants to administer our hideously complex welfare system. All of them and the costs of employing them have to go to make it affordable. The good news is that they too will get UBI...

Administering the welfare system costs orders of magnitude less than paying unconditional living wage to the UK's 8 million economically inactive working age people.

Re: Results: Finland’s Basic Income Experiment Help Us Build the Post-Pandemic World

#53

Post by swebs »

plutonorm wrote: post #35
swebs wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In science, evidence determines your viewpoints. In politics, its the other way around. If the results of an experiment support your views, then it was a great experiment and proof that you were right all along. If the results of an experiment contradict your views, then you can fully scrutinize every aspect of the test to come up with reasons why it got such a wrong result.

I don't think science is free from those flaws either. Science advances one death at a time.

There are certainly plenty of fields that have a these problems and are vulnerable to be politically driven. I'd say the further toward the "soft" sciences you go, the more you're able to manipulate results to fit certain viewpoints. 538 has a nice little demo showing off the problem.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/p-hacking/

Re: Results: Finland’s Basic Income Experiment Help Us Build the Post-Pandemic World

#54

Post by notahacker »

nabla9 wrote: post #50
notahacker wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is entirely possible to design welfare schemes with tapers which reduce marginal tax rate. The unique feature of UBI is that it is additionally designed to subsidise economic inactivity.

It seems that you are confusing marginal tax rate and effective marginal tax rate. UBI and NIT (Negative Income Tax) are designed to increase incentives. That's why free market economists like Friedman fiercely supported it. Milton Friedman - The Negative Income Tax: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtpgkX588nM

You can insert the word 'effective' into my sentence above, and it remains true. It is entirely possible to design tapered benefit withdrawals without resorting to unconditional basic incomes.

(It's also theoretically possible to design tax brackets for a UBI/NIT system which imply effective marginal rates at 80%+, though I'm not sure why anyone would actually want to do that)

Re: Results: Finland’s Basic Income Experiment Help Us Build the Post-Pandemic World

#55

Post by jacquesm »

diekdnk wrote: post #12
chii wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but did UBI encourage more productivity from those participants? Is it more than the cost of such a program? I want to know if UBI is a net benefit or not.

Since the target audience was rhe unemployed, changing up their type of income isn't going to give them a job, so prpductivity is difficult to measure. The entire point of UBI is to secure everyones basic human needs, not get them a job (unlike unemployment benefits). If we were to test UBI also on employed people, and observed their behavior, we might avtually gain useful insight into mechanica with UBI. Perhaps we…

If you already have your basic human needs met then it is just a shortcut to provide the money only to those that don't have that one checked off yet. Otherwise you'd just end up pumping money around from those that don't need it to those that don't need it.

Re: Results: Finland’s Basic Income Experiment Help Us Build the Post-Pandemic World

#56

Post by nabla9 »

moralsupply wrote: post #34

Where's the money for the UBI experiment coming from? There's no free lunch, folks...

It's not free lunch, it's wealth distribution system.

Everyone gets UBI, then it's gradually taxed away as income increases.

If some part of UBI is taken from corporate taxation, it can be thought as subsidy from companies that employ few people to companies that employ more people.

Re: Results: Finland’s Basic Income Experiment Help Us Build the Post-Pandemic World

#57

Post by ajsnigrutin »

swebs wrote: post #22
the-dude wrote: post #21

In The Netherlands there has been a form of UBI for decades, for anyone who wants it or needs it. It is called 'bijstand', is about € 1k a month and you are eligible for all kinds of other discounts and support. Just request it at your municipality and make sure not to find work.

>and make sure not to find work That's just welfare, not UBI. The U stands for Universal, which means it goes to everyone. Not just the poor or unemployed.

The problem with "universal" is, that someone with an average paycheck doesn't get anything, because he pays back the same amount he gets in taxes.

And the 'average' paycheck is not an 'average' in the term we use now (where we just look at the workers, add up their paychecks and divide by their number), but we also have to add up all the non workers (kids, pensioners, unemployed, studens,...) with "0 EUR" paychecks, and divide by the number of them too, because they'd get UBI too.

Re: Results: Finland’s Basic Income Experiment Help Us Build the Post-Pandemic World

#58

Post by jacquesm »

diekdnk wrote: post #7
squnch wrote: post #5

Nothing in Scandinavia or Japan is a viable concept for elsewhere unless explicitly tested elsewhere.

No country's alike, and no system can be copied naively. (also Finland isn't part of Scandinavia)

In English use it is commonly seen as included as part of Scandinavia. Ditto Iceland (even more improbable).

Re: Results: Finland’s Basic Income Experiment Help Us Build the Post-Pandemic World

#59

Post by luckylion »

neilwilson wrote: post #49
moralsupply wrote: post #34

Where's the money for the UBI experiment coming from? There's no free lunch, folks...

It comes from spending the money. If you don't understand that, then time to get the book and learn how the money system works https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07YM2K8F3

> It comes from spending the money.

No, it comes from taxing people outside the experiment.

Re: Results: Finland’s Basic Income Experiment Help Us Build the Post-Pandemic World

#60

Post by vixen99 »

phaemon wrote: post #40
moralsupply wrote: post #34

Where's the money for the UBI experiment coming from? There's no free lunch, folks...

Where do you think money comes from? Seriously, how do you think it's created?

It comes from taxes, borrowing and printing. Only one of those relates to the added value otherwise known as wealth creation. The other two ultimately make everyone poorer.

The question is: for a given country, what proportion of the population can theoretically be supported by the efforts of those who pay those taxes. This isn't a moral judgement on the basic income idea; it's just required prior basic arithmetic for those planning to introduce BI. Will BI actually work in the long run? I don't know.

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