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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

#371

Post by qwytw »

ChrisLomont wrote: post #228
ClumsyPilot wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"shows what happens when people get money for free - prices rise to absorb it" A - so prices of $40,000 cars have increased becauae people got $2000 or whatever for free? What is that as percentage of wages, 0.5% How about this massive supply chain and manufacturing disruption, could that somehow be responsible? B - the wealthy and corporations were getting money for free for 20 years, it's called quanittative easing…

>How about this massive supply chain and manufacturing disruption, could that somehow be responsible? That is part of it. Fortunately there are plenty of other examples in US and other country history where money handouts are clearly a driver, so it's not a question of whether or not easy money adds to inflation. As mot economists put it, all long term inflation is ultimately the result of more money in the system. >…

UBI however would mostly transfer this cost to high-income earners (if financed through taxation) or capital owners (if financed by debt/printing money). Basically it's just a form of progressive taxation with a large safety need (without a means test) at the bottom, which would function as a mechanism to decrease inequality (which some economists believe negatively affects economic growth). Also another factor (and I'm personally not fully convinced on this) is that it would would actually result in higher overall productivity longterm by giving more people the opportunity to invest their time into gaining new skills etc.

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

#372

Post by godelski »

ajuc wrote: post #200
wizzwizz4 wrote: post #165

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.

i.e. > just with the quality of the result and with who reaped the rewards.

Maybe we should leave terms like capitalism and socialism out of the discussion because no one can agree on their meanings so they just become fighting words and their usefulness to the conversations are less than meaningless.

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

#373

Post by Ericson2314 »

kwhitefoot wrote: post #281
0xfaded wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another take is that if workers are able to say no to a shit job, then the burden is placed on the employer to either eliminate the job or make it less shit. In the Nordics, there are no manual car washes, yet life goes on. Economically it doesn't make sense because of the high labor costs, and realistically it is a menial job that can be for the most part automated. If you want to live in a world where you can have…

> In the Nordics, there are no manual car washes, This is simply not true, at least in the more densely populated parts of Norway. They are simply very expensive.

That works, too!

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

#374

Post by augustuspolius »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #360
augustuspolius wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This argument doesn’t get enough attention. There is a large population right now that has enough money not to work and - perhaps surprisingly to some - they do not engage in creative side projects for fun. They choose not to work.

The majority won't engage in productive tasks, but the output from the minority can be massive. Einstein wrote his papers as a side gig from his patent office job. It doesn't take many Einstein's to make up for a large number of slackers.

Why would we want to foster a society where the majority are slackers?

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

#375

Post by IndPhysiker »

cxf12 wrote: post #125

Welfare and Food Stamp Entitlements are Basic Income. And its been proven time and time again, that it incentivizes some people to avoid work.

This makes me remember working in a grocery store as a kid where people would buy steak with their WIC and food stamps that might fill one or two meals. Could it go much farther by buying different things? Of course, but that wasn't as enjoyable, so consequences fall where they must. My worry with UBI is that unless people's choices are removed through a tangled web of attached strings and reporting, the UBI is going to be spent on non-essentials shortly after funds are made available each period and then the story will turn to needing more money as the first UBI isn't enough. The cynic in me says that UBI will just give more money to people without the capacity for managing their money, which is not going to lead to any improvement in their station, only more consuming. Removing the choices just further destroys a free society, but enables waste on a massive scale. I like a good safety net with job training programs should people fall down, but I have about as much hope in being able to dunk as I do that people will suddenly start making good choices when unearned money appears in their wallets each month.

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

#376

Post by caskstrength »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #260
caskstrength wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not for the other group who will have products of their labor "redistributed" to pay for other's leisure time?

If those people aren't getting paid a very high wage, they can reduce their working hours too. If they are getting paid a very high wage, then they already had the leverage needed to reduce their working hours, and they were choosing not to. They'll still make plenty of money.

> They'll still make plenty of money.

How much is "plenty" and who gets to decide? What if they live in high CoL area? You propose they should sponsor someone else's leisure time instead of buying a house for their family, for example?

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

#377

Post by loceng »

ChrisLomont wrote: post #197
jhauris wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If UBI could be implemented in around the same cost as the welfare programs it replaces, it would have a net zero effect on inflation. The downside of nearly all current forms of welfare (in the U.S.) is that they largely enforce the poverty gap. You get to a point where a small increase in pay causes a large decrease in benefits, and you become trapped unless you can get a large enough pay increase to jump the gap.…

>If UBI could be implemented in around the same cost as the welfare programs it replaces, it would have a net zero effect on inflation It cannot, unless you're ok with screwing those already on such programs. Do the math, and you'll find it is not even close. Welfare programs (unless you include SS) are given to a tiny amount of people - spreading that across a large group of people simply screws those who need it mo…

You make accepting UBI optional, so if the $1,000 per month or existing services is better for your situation then you get to decide - not the government; e.g. maybe you have 6 kids and food stamps etc you get is way better than the $1,000/month. This way there is also a statistics dashboard that we can see who's choosing what and optimize more precisely.

You force corporations to pay, to not be able to avoid taxes - using a VAT that's customizable so things like diapers have say 0% tax vs. buying ads on Facebook has 80% tax. The nuanced ability to lever different goods and services allows tax to be fine-tuned to cover all costs until the floor quality of life is covered/existing for all.

We can supply everything 90%+ of what people need through automation, the remaining 10% or less will be the engineers and system and machine designers and maintainers - while the 90%+ can focus self-improvement/education, family/community and being creative/artistic etc.

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

#378

Post by notahacker »

dwighttk wrote: post #26

> 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. I find it hilarious that they think they can reach the conclusion they did based on that description of the experiment.

It's advocacy, not experimentation. That applies to most of the more in depth studies too, which tend to spend a lot of time and money concluding if you give a cohort extra money for a year or two, they're a bit better off as a result but haven't been able to afford to retire, something the study designers knew from the outset. We have another much larger and long running experiment in guaranteeing people livable incomes for the rest of their life called the pension system, which designers of UBI studies would like you to ignore because it only works by restricting when you're allowed to claim it.

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

#379

Post by loceng »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #152
ChrisLomont wrote: post #12

Multiple studies of where basic income was tried in the real world found it to reduce work. For example, "Manitoba, Canada experimented with Mincome, a basic guaranteed income, in the 1970s. In the town of Dauphin, Manitoba, labor only decreased by 13%, much less than expected" [1]. There are plenty of others. I expect a targeted need use of scarce resources (tax money) is a much better use for helping those who need…

> For example, "Manitoba, Canada experimented with Mincome, a basic guaranteed income, in the 1970s. In the town of Dauphin, Manitoba, labor only decreased by 13%, much less than expected" The phrasing tries to downplay the number, but 1 in 8 people stopping work is very significant. > And the current inflation (and previous events where govts gave out decent sums of cash to help short term other econ issues) shows w…

Do you know how many people stopped working when automation began?

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

#380

Post by Notanothertoo »

josephcsible wrote: post #352
kcplate wrote: post #339

I personally used to be a proponent of UBI, but after 2020 and watching some of the impact of Covid and what increasing government financial payouts has done to employment malaise and to the economy, my skepticism has increased. I am not convinced that the benefits outweigh the costs like I once did.

This is exactly where I am too. I thought replacing all of our existing safety net programs with UBI would be perfect until the COVID money happened. I knew some people would choose to just live off of it forever and never contribute to society again, but I didn't realize just how many people it would be.

Where are these people? The benefits ended a couple of months ago.
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