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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

#571

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

kukx wrote: post #543
SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #528

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We already have a big inflation problem that is directly related to policies that rain money on those not working. Do we have any sort of evidence for that claim?

Of course. Printing money inflates its supply. And increasing the demand for products (by providing easy money) without increasing the supply of products (and actually decreasing it by restricting work) will lead to higher prices. It is economics 101 and it was tested by many countries eg Germany before the WW or more recently Venezuela.

Sorry, yes, printing money leads to inflation. I was asking for evidence that "We already have a big inflation problem that is directly related to policies that rain money on those not working." is the source of a large portion of inflation instead of the multitude of other reasons that money is printed. Of the recent $4 trillion coronavirus payout, only about a fifth of that went to workers or their families[1], and even that isn't all to people who aren't working.

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/business/corona...

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

#572

Post by thegrimmest »

CraigJPerry wrote: post #560
thegrimmest wrote: post #486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Migrant labourers mostly, and in places where these are not available (like Japan), strawberries cost a lot more , making them a "special occasion" treat for middle classes, and putting them mostly out of reach of poorer people.

So less strawberries but you get to bin US healthcare and replace it with Japanese style healthcare instead? That’s an easy yes.

Not just less strawberries, but less everything that involves domestic/UBI-competing labour, which is a lot. If we did this worldwide, it would be everything.

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

#573

Post by wefarrell »

ChrisLomont wrote: post #235
wefarrell wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. Part of the appeal of UBI is that it doesn't come with a ton of bureaucratic overhead.

Look up and demonstrate this "ton of bureaucratic overhead". All US programs have efficiency ratings you can find. There is not the overhead you (and UBI people in general) claim. Pick the system you think is most inefficient, then look up to find admin budget versus money paid out. I've done all this, under the same initial belief you have, and it's simply not true. And UBI will also require the same overhead to col…

You're confusing federal programs (like Medicare and Social Security) which tend to be transparent, efficient, and universal with state run programs (like Medicaid, SNAP) that make up the bulk of welfare spending.

You're not going to find a straightforward answer about to the administrative budgets of SNAP or Medicaid.

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

#574

Post by dgb23 »

staticassertion wrote: post #69
ozzythecat wrote: post #4

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…

> If my job requires menial labor or involves getting berated by customers (many retail jobs), personally I would absolutely not work. Maybe that's a good thing. It's insane how people in service industries are treated - like they're less than human. Shifting some power to them and giving the job a little more of an air of dignity or status would probably help a lot. And the pay would obviously go up. People would be…

In addition it would incentivize companies to actually invest into research and development instead of wasting money into dead-end financial schemes and bullshit jobs. Everyone wins.

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

#575

Post by TigeriusKirk »

ashtonkem wrote: post #568
asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #564

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure that they aren't gradually doing so? I don't expect cessation of benefits to have an instantaneous effect.

Why wouldn’t it have a rapid and sudden effect? If you suddenly slash the UI benefits for an entire state at once and people only start trickling back to work slowly, then it implies that there are other unexplained factors at play. After all, the hypothesis is that UI is allowing people who otherwise would have to work to survive to not work. Shouldn’t the sudden cliff in payments make these people go find a job onc…

If benefits were indeed providing more income than people previously got from their jobs, they have a good chance of building savings from that income. Those savings won't instantly evaporate when the support is cut off, they'll decrease over time. As the savings run out, people will return to work.

Personally I think this is a good thing, both the buffer and the staggered return to work.

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

#576

Post by ashtonkem »

josephcsible wrote: post #569
ashtonkem wrote: post #568

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why wouldn’t it have a rapid and sudden effect? If you suddenly slash the UI benefits for an entire state at once and people only start trickling back to work slowly, then it implies that there are other unexplained factors at play. After all, the hypothesis is that UI is allowing people who otherwise would have to work to survive to not work. Shouldn’t the sudden cliff in payments make these people go find a job onc…

> once their meager savings are exhausted Doesn't the fact that they have savings explain why it's a slow trickle?

The issue is that the median American doesn’t have enough savings to not work for a long time. The median American had $5,300 in 2019, and the median rent was a bit over $1,000. These numbers are just not consistent with huge swaths of the economy deciding to hold on for months and months of unemployment once benefits were cut. Since the numbers don’t add up, something else has to be going on.

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

#577

Post by [deleted] »

CraigJPerry wrote: post #307
bitshiftfaced wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about everyone else who now also has the capital to pursue their dream job? Just as before basic income, there's many people competing for a finite number of dream jobs.

What about them? Comparatively enjoyable jobs will pay less, horrible jobs will pay more. Want to “work” as a golfer? Cool, enjoy living on UBI because no one will be topping up your salary for that. The person who cuts the greens earns wayyyy more than you though. Want to play lots of golf? You’re going to run out of UBI to pay for all those greens fees. Maybe you need to think about taking on a side gig in a comfor…

[deleted]

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

#578

Post by Kim_Bruning »

augustuspolius wrote: post #278
lordnacho wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UBI would lower the effective tax, because it wouldn't put off everyone who might be able to work. Denmark having high tax in general is another story, but at least with UBI not everyone who is getting paid will be thinking "hmm I lose all that income if I take a job, plus I can't be at home so much".

Realistically speaking, it sounds like introducing UBI would require a plethora of fundamental reforms (political, taxes, housing, job market) to be successful. While I enjoy thinking about that as a mental exercise, I consider it a complete fantasy - seeing how American politics work.

On the other side of the pond in a lot of European countries you already have this concept of "levelling", where progressive taxes control the higher end of the salary band to reduce income inequality. It's not such a large stretch to introduce controls on the lower end as well.

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

#579

Post by rrrrrrrrrrrryan »

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.

Capitalistic societies still have taxes. Any realistic UBI proposal would have to funnel some of the efficiency gains from automation toward constructing a strong social safety net.

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

#580

Post by 908B64B197 »

staticassertion wrote: post #69
ozzythecat wrote: post #4

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…

> If my job requires menial labor or involves getting berated by customers (many retail jobs), personally I would absolutely not work. Maybe that's a good thing. It's insane how people in service industries are treated - like they're less than human. Shifting some power to them and giving the job a little more of an air of dignity or status would probably help a lot. And the pay would obviously go up. People would be…

> Maybe that's a good thing. It's insane how people in service industries are treated - like they're less than human

Wait until you hear about healthcare. Not sure how you would staff an hospital floor once UBI is introduced.

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