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Germany begins 3-year universal-basic-income trial

businessinsider.com

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Re: Germany begins 3-year universal-basic-income trial

#41

Post by ip26 »

slg wrote: post #16
missedthecue wrote: post #2

These studies don't really prove anything. Common arguments in favor of these studies - "They prove people don't quit work on UBI!" - No, they prove that people who are in a program that is very clearly temporary will not end their careers for a short pilot program. This means nothing. "They prove people won't spend it on drugs, booze, and lotto tickets!" - No. If you make $1k from a job and $1k from a pilot program…

As a general supporter of UBI, I'm not sure there is any way to actually test UBI without just implementing it at full scale. The U is an important part of it and like you said the expectation of permanence is crucial to seeing a change in long term planning and behaviors.

I figure we are only ever going to get a real answer when either some very wealthy government (Norway?) or deeply troubled government (Greece?) decides to chance the country on it.

Re: Germany begins 3-year universal-basic-income trial

#42

Post by thisisbrians »

OneGuy123 wrote: post #4

Based on how most jobs will get automated some form of an UBI will be required sooner or later. Now the only question is: how to you phase in UBI while still rewarding extra productive people to keep creating/innovating? Some will say "those people will innovate out of love". This is not always the case, many people are good at what they do and create many awesome things but given the chance they would rather do some…

Isn't this like saying that the invention of agriculture will mean society has to start feeding hunter gatherers for free? That's not how it went. People find new ways to create value all the time, and yet every time we invent anything new people keep saying "all the jobs are going away." It has yet to happen in spite of the agricultural, industrial, and now tech revolutions.

Re: Germany begins 3-year universal-basic-income trial

#43

Post by ghufran_syed »

OneGuy123 wrote: post #4

Based on how most jobs will get automated some form of an UBI will be required sooner or later. Now the only question is: how to you phase in UBI while still rewarding extra productive people to keep creating/innovating? Some will say "those people will innovate out of love". This is not always the case, many people are good at what they do and create many awesome things but given the chance they would rather do some…

I think we’d all agree that in the last 20 years, automation has increased in developed economies? So if “most jobs will get automated..”, shouldn’t we see the unemployment rate progressively increasing in those countries? Whereas the experience in the US pre-pandemic argues against this

Re: Germany begins 3-year universal-basic-income trial

#44

Post by marta_morena_25 »

missedthecue wrote: post #2

These studies don't really prove anything. Common arguments in favor of these studies - "They prove people don't quit work on UBI!" - No, they prove that people who are in a program that is very clearly temporary will not end their careers for a short pilot program. This means nothing. "They prove people won't spend it on drugs, booze, and lotto tickets!" - No. If you make $1k from a job and $1k from a pilot program…

"No, they prove that people who are in a program that is very clearly temporary will not end their careers for a short pilot program. This means nothing."

This is a really good point. But it will apply to the government program as well. Just because we have such a program at full scale, doesn't guarantee anything.

* The UBI might not always be above the poverty line

* The UBI might be terminated at any time, or after an election (That can be partly covered with proper laws, but nobody would go that far without trying it out in the first place)

* The UBI might get strings attached, like "needs to work parttime", etc.

All in all, it's a chicken egg problem. The thing is: If I have saved maybe a million in cash, UBI would encourage me to just stop working. Period. UBI will cover a good chunk of the basic living expenses (especially if you don't have to live near hotspots due to work anymore) and then the investment winnings of my savings would cover me for life.

That of course is still possible without UBI, but UBI just makes it that much more approachable, since you don't depend on investment to stay afloat. I.e. "I need to win with my investments for this to work" becomes "If I want to buy me something besides food and rent, I need to make good investments". Those two are like day and night.

I am not convinced that UBI will result in overall improvements. I would love UBI and it would enable me to stop working more quickly. Will I still provide value to humanity? Very likely, I have lots of ideas for what to do. Will I still provide value to the economy? Not nearly as much as before. That alone tells me that UBI is probably not a good idea, because it empowers the middle-class to retire early, doesn't do much for the poor (instead of a shitty job, they can now do nothing, except paint and sing perhaps, i.e. being creative; but they will still be poor nontheless) . It also doesn't do anything for the rich.

Re: Germany begins 3-year universal-basic-income trial

#45

Post by medievalMoose »

I would think this study with suffer from a pretty obvious case of the hawthorne effect: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_effect And a sample size orders of magnitude higher would be necessary to negate that, or even be significant to a "universal" scale.

Re: Germany begins 3-year universal-basic-income trial

#46

Post by notahacker »

yboris wrote: post #31
missedthecue wrote: post #2

These studies don't really prove anything. Common arguments in favor of these studies - "They prove people don't quit work on UBI!" - No, they prove that people who are in a program that is very clearly temporary will not end their careers for a short pilot program. This means nothing. "They prove people won't spend it on drugs, booze, and lotto tickets!" - No. If you make $1k from a job and $1k from a pilot program…

I'm puzzled why we can't phase it in over time. Start with $100/month. The US can handle that. And then ramp it up as we see fit.

The purpose of the UBI is to replace welfare systems by ensuring every citizen receives roughly enough money for the average person to live off. Paying everybody nowhere near enough to live off [and keeping the welfare state in place] doesn't tell us very much about how they would respond to that. Though one advantage over the small scale studies would be finding out how much citizens push back against even a comparatively small tax rise to pay for it....

Re: Germany begins 3-year universal-basic-income trial

#47

Post by bilal4hmed »

joubert wrote: post #35
bilal4hmed wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look at the middle east, countries like Saudi, Iran, Kuwait, Qatar have done it for decades. Using your logic they should be ruling the world. Instead it has created a dependent population, unwilling to work and needing an army of immigrants to do the work at horrible conditions.

> Look at the middle east, countries like Saudi, Iran, Kuwait, Qatar have done it for decades. False, according the the World Bank : “Currently, no country has a UBI in place, although there have been (and still are) several small-scale pilots and a few larger-scale experiences. Only two countries—Mongolia and the Islamic Republic of Iran—had a national UBI in place for a short period of time.“ https://www.worldbank.…

that is false, living in the Middle East and know whats up

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen%27s_Account_Program_(S... https://basicincome.org/news/2011/05/kuwait-a-temporary-part...

Re: Germany begins 3-year universal-basic-income trial

#48

Post by thatcat »

missedthecue wrote: post #2

These studies don't really prove anything. Common arguments in favor of these studies - "They prove people don't quit work on UBI!" - No, they prove that people who are in a program that is very clearly temporary will not end their careers for a short pilot program. This means nothing. "They prove people won't spend it on drugs, booze, and lotto tickets!" - No. If you make $1k from a job and $1k from a pilot program…

UBI should be trialed in parallel with a legalization program, which would allow those metrics to be collected and solve other crime problems by creating unemployed criminals and giving them a stipend so that they don't necessarily need to continue crime for economic subsistence.

Re: Germany begins 3-year universal-basic-income trial

#49

Post by GrinningFool »

michannne wrote: post #34
traviswingo wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're making the hard assumption that, by distributing a UBI, people will just sit around and do nothing. There is no data to back this statement up, and it's very likely that people will actually work more while on UBI. UBI is designed to provide _choice_ for workers, not force them to do something they don't want to do. For all we know, UBI could lead to solving some of the worlds biggest problems by giving people…

I find it interesting that even after a worldwide pandemic has proved that the majority of humans will prefer to act selfishly to maintain their own comfort level, you still somehow hold out hope that given literally free money, that the majority wouldn't also use this money selfishly to maintain their comfort level.

> find it interesting that even after a worldwide pandemic has proved that the majority of humans will prefer to act selfishly to maintain their own comfort level

Has that been proven?

Re: Germany begins 3-year universal-basic-income trial

#50

Post by skybrian »

missedthecue wrote: post #2

These studies don't really prove anything. Common arguments in favor of these studies - "They prove people don't quit work on UBI!" - No, they prove that people who are in a program that is very clearly temporary will not end their careers for a short pilot program. This means nothing. "They prove people won't spend it on drugs, booze, and lotto tickets!" - No. If you make $1k from a job and $1k from a pilot program…

Any UBI could be entirely reversed by an equal and opposite tax. Of course this would be pointless, but it shows that there are many possibilities, depending on what sort of taxes you combine it with, and some of them are certainly feasible because the net effect is small.

UBI is largely about symbolic equality, the kindergarten-level fairness of everyone getting the same amount. That’s important because symbols of equality are important. But from an economics standpoint it’s not a complete plan, and it’s a bit nebulous because the choice of which taxes to include in your analysis is arbitrary.

Assuming a progressive tax system, though, it does mean automatic benefits for people without other income and more financial security for almost everyone, assuming you think you have some risk of losing your job.

This is similar to insurance. We don’t buy it because we think we will make money on average.

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