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Basic income would not reduce people’s willingness to work

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Re: Basic income would not reduce people’s willingness to work

#321
post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then roll on automation. Not even the Luddites had a problem with automation; just with the quality of the result and with who reaped the rewards.

Automation is good. Automation in a capitalist society with unlimited IP laws results in dystopia.

"a capitalist society" is not a binary attribute. There can be elements of capitalism and elements of "socialism".

Private property can coexist with government supplied housing for instance.

In the "capitalist" USA a lot of the military industrial complex lives off government handouts. Why not the people too? The cakes and cookies we should earn ourselves, the meat and potatoes (and housing) should be a right for every citizen

Re: Basic income would not reduce people’s willingness to work

#322
> who saw no indications of such a behavioural effect.

One wonders what he was seeing.

I used to know a fellow who would get himself laid off as soon as he'd worked long enough to qualify for unemployment. Then he would fail to get a job until the unemployment ran out, then he'd get a job. He lived for many years like this.

He had no interest in working. He was quite open about what he was doing.

Re: Basic income would not reduce people’s willingness to work

#323

Would it really be so bad if some people stopped working altogether? One of the proposed justifications for UBI is that automation creates wealth that could (or in some arguments, should) go to everyone rather than the ultra wealthy. That automation is taking up a larger and larger slice of the workforce, reducing the need for people to work. Many people will choose to do work that gives them meaning. Some people wil…

Yes. Because the people most likely to quit are the people at the bottom. We need a lot of bottom tier workers to run society. See how much stuff falls apart right now with the labor shortage.

Re: Basic income would not reduce people’s willingness to work

#325

You are earning $4000/month after taxes and begin to receive $1000/month. What do you do? Some fraction of people will reduce their workload so their earnings are $3000/month, bringing their total income back to $4000. Some fraction of people will not reduce their workload at all and inflate their lifestyle to depend on $5000/month. The overwhelming majority of people will choose the latter; we already know this, it'…

In the U.S. that would be a very good outcome. 15% of American households experience food insecurity. We absolutely want these people to spend it, not save it.

Even stimulus checks that were small and arrived irregularly had a huge impact on hunger in America. $1000/mo on the regular would be revolutionary.

Re: Basic income would not reduce people’s willingness to work

#326

A link to the actual research paper would be helpful. In this experiment, what amount was given to the treatment group that received basic income? How often? How does that amount compare to the cost of living in their city? > ‘It’s sometimes said that people will sit around doing nothing if you give them free money.’ I’m not an academic, so take this with a grain of salt. If my job requires menial labor or involves g…

Then many of those people can go work in ways of their choosing. Surely providing more value to themselves, their families, and society as a whole.

This is basically Plato's Republic 101.

Re: Basic income would not reduce people’s willingness to work

#327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would we want to create tax policy that discourages automation investment in favor of human labor?

On one hand, you say that fewer people working reduces the pie. On the other hand, you say we should encourage automation. What situation would enable full automation and enable 100% workforce participation?

I'm not a luddite. I think that automation is good, but I don't think that it makes humans permanently redundant. The human skill set is too diverse. Automation should be encouraged, not taxed, because it makes society wealthier and more productive.

Re: Basic income would not reduce people’s willingness to work

#328
post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who would take a job for significantly less than they receive from the government?

The U in UBI stands for universal: everyone gets the same amount, regardless of whether they have a job. Taking a job is additive with UBI, there is no "significantly less money". Under UBI, a government could do away with minimum wage completely because there is no coercion by necessity. The employer only needs to pay enough to make it worthwhile for the employee to show up.

+1

Using UBI to eliminating minimum wage, government unemployment insurance, and other problematic/expensive programs is one of my favorite parts of UBI.

Re: Basic income would not reduce people’s willingness to work

#329
post #9

>They simulated the reward structure of different forms of social security in an experiment. ‘We got people to do a task on a computer,’ says De Kwaadsteniet. ‘In multiple rounds, which represented the months they had to work, they did a boring task in which they had to put points on a bar. The more of these they did, the more money they earned.’ "short term experiments done in a lab" seems to be psychology's equival…

There have already been real world basic income experiments with similar outcomes

Can you show some of these? My research has shown the opposite

Re: Basic income would not reduce people’s willingness to work

#330
post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I'm receiving $1000 a month for a six month program run by a university research group, which states very clearly that the program will end after six months, I'm not going to go quit my job. That's the problem with these "studies". They are completely different from a permanent government program. They can't tell you the impact on inflation, the impact on the labor market, or if it is affordable over the long term…

20+ year year old permanent program https://www.wired.com/story/free-money-the-surprising-effect...

Paywalled, anyone have another link?
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