Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Basic income would not reduce people’s willingness to work

universiteitleiden.nl

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

631–640 of 786 posts

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

#631

Post by kcplate »

moosey wrote: post #453
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 ignores data that shows how many older people retired, and how large that effect is. Sum up the number of people who died, were injured, retired, our found better work, and it had a much greater effect than the government payouts. Otherwise, these problems would have already largely resolved already. Those extra payments are gone.

I made no claim here other than my opinion changed beaded on my observations. And I am pretty sure that creating 20% more money out of thin air has a downstream economic effect far beyond the day the check was cashed

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

#632

Post by bryan_w »

danaris wrote: post #607
thegrimmest wrote: post #591

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm arguing that there are many industries that would not survive workers having an alternative that provides for their basic needs, or would be transformed into niche, artisanal goods/services that would be out of reach of ordinary people.

If an industry cannot survive without forcing workers into degrading conditions and poverty wages, then it does not deserve to survive.

If that industry is farming or construction or heck, even Tv manufacturing and HVAC, then what? Should we go back to living like it's 1789?

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

#634

Post by bryanlarsen »

marcusverus wrote: post #600
bryanlarsen wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Total employment in the US is higher today than it was in 2019.

I'd like to see some data to support that claim. Fed data shows the opposite--the employment ratio is down 1.5% from its 2020 peak. That's at least a million people who've stopped working. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/EMRATIO

https://www.statista.com/statistics/269959/employment-in-the...

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

#635

Post by Dylan16807 »

Aunche wrote: post #613
Dylan16807 wrote: post #537

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much does that job pay compared to other things, and compared to the poverty line? What's a specific country I should look at here? It's definitely possible to give away too much, but that's not a good argument that $0 is optimal.

Hard to find good sources but Kuwait had a median household income of $40k. Meanwhile, almost 1 million workers make less than $300 a month, so Kuwait citizen families likely make a lot more than $40k. https://gulfnews.com/world/gulf/kuwait/almost-1m-foreigners-... The purpose of money is a medium of exchange for goods and services. Giving money for the sake of nothing defeats the entire purpose of money, because you…

> Hard to find good sources but Kuwait had a median household income of $40k. Meanwhile, almost 1 million workers make less than $300 a month, so Kuwait citizen families likely make a lot more than $40k.

Yeah that sounds pretty unbalanced.

> The purpose of money is a medium of exchange for goods and services. Giving money for the sake of nothing defeats the entire purpose of money, because you're giving everyone money without creating new good and services. Note that this is different from conditional payments like food stamps or pensions, which serve the purpose of insurance. This is also different from welfare, which is targeted towards certain people in hopes of improving their well-being.

People get lots of things for "free", like infrastructure, and that doesn't defeat the purpose of money. Basic income isn't "for the sake of nothing".

What conditions do you think are important for food stamps and welfare?

If a certain level of low income is good enough, that's basically equivalent to universal income plus progressive taxation.

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

#636

Post by teucris »

missedthecue wrote: post #546
teucris wrote: post #519

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Automation should be encouraged, not taxed I actually agree with you on this if taxation is framed as a way to discourage something. But the goal is to encourage automation but ensure it benefits society, not just a wealthy few, so… > because it makes society wealthier and more productive. It does not. It makes some people ridiculously wealthy and makes everyone else poorer.

Would you say that the tractor for instance has only made John Deere wealthy, or has it made the world better off? Has the motor vehicle only improved the life of the Ford family or would I be better off with a horse and carriage? Have personal computers only made Bill Gates and Michael Dell richer or have they benefited the human race as a whole? All of these are examples of automating laborious processes. All of th…

You are correct that the economy is not zero sum. It is not black and white, but the primary beneficiaries of automation are those who have the investment capital to leverage automation at scale. The rest get a better world sometimes, but our benefits pale in comparison.

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

#637

Post by ashtonkem »

josephcsible wrote: post #598
ashtonkem wrote: post #576

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But not everyone has the same amount of savings, or the same cost of rent, so there's a trickle as each individual runs out. And didn't unemployment bonuses only end 4 months ago?

Right, and a lot of people have a lot less savings than the median, and those who had to count on enhanced UI during the pandemic likely had less still, since more of those were in low to minimum wage service jobs. The second quintile had only $2,100 in savings, and the bottom a mere $800. I sincerely doubt many of them were able to save up enough to last more than a few months.

The issue is that the story of enhanced UI isn't internally consistent. Apparently UI made all the (implied) lazy people stop working because it was more profitable to not work than work[0], which made it critical to turn off the benefits as soon as possible in order to force people back into the office. Except once they turned off the benefits people decided not to work and spend down their savings because ... erm, why would people do that? And doesn't this undermine the premise that people stopped working because it was cheaper to not work, if they're deciding to go broke not working for funsies?

Personally I think that the story of the labor shortage is explained as such:

1. Loss of workers due to death, disability, retirement, changing careers, and general re-evaluation of life choices in the face a deadly pandemic

2. For those that remained in the service industry, a brief exposure to being treated with dignity and as an essential part of the economy was a real awakening moment for a lot of them, and many are no longer willing to put up with workers that pay poorly and treat them as sub human. In my parts the restaurants that offer good wages always seem to be fully staffed, while everywhere else has signs crapping on people's work ethic and apologizing for slow service. Coincidence? I think not.

I think UI was critical to get people through the early period of the pandemic due to the chaos and the uncertainty of the early pandemic, but I am extremely dubious about the effect that UI had as compared to the deadly pandemic.

> And didn't unemployment bonuses only end 4 months ago?

Oh lord no. A lot of states started disabling enhanced UI back in June and July. My state ended it July 19th, nigh upon 7 months ago. I am doubtful many working Americans

0 - I've seen this floated a lot by CNBC types, and they never seem to engage with the fact that the most lethal profession during the pandemic was line cook.

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

#638

Post by ashtonkem »

notahacker wrote: post #454
Aunche wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The closest analogue to true UBI goes on in the oil-rich Gulf nations. Citizens are basically guarenteed a job where they don't even need to show up, which is basically an inefficient form of UBI. Some, like Saudi Arabia are transitioning to true UBI. The result of this is that these nations are completely reliant on foreign labor. Both skilled on unskilled work is dominated by foreigners. The latter have enough leve…

And the closest Western equivalent is the pension system. Also not a perfect comparison since pensioners are obviously older and have more assets on average, and some have large private payouts at the time state pensions kick in. But few people carry on working full time, and the system relies almost entirely on the labour of people who are not entitled to pensions to sustain it, to the point pensionable ages are nee…

> to the point pensionable ages are needing to increase because healthier, longer lived people don't retire any later.

It's not obvious that that's the guaranteed outcome of pensions, or a consequence of an unexpected change in lifespan in the mid 20th century.

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

#639

Post by josephcsible »

ashtonkem wrote: post #637
josephcsible wrote: post #598

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But not everyone has the same amount of savings, or the same cost of rent, so there's a trickle as each individual runs out. And didn't unemployment bonuses only end 4 months ago?

Right, and a lot of people have a lot less savings than the median, and those who had to count on enhanced UI during the pandemic likely had less still, since more of those were in low to minimum wage service jobs. The second quintile had only $2,100 in savings, and the bottom a mere $800. I sincerely doubt many of them were able to save up enough to last more than a few months. The issue is that the story of enhance…

> once they turned off the benefits people decided not to work and spend down their savings because ... erm, why would people do that? And doesn't this undermine the premise that people stopped working because it was cheaper to not work, if they're deciding to go broke not working for funsies?

Once you get used to 100% of your time being leisure time for months to years, it's hard to overcome that inertia and start looking for work again, even when it's the rational thing to do.

> changing careers, and general re-evaluation of life choices

People changing careers wouldn't contribute to the total number of unfilled jobs being higher, though. And if "general re-evaluation of life choices" leads to quitting your job, aren't the only two possibilities that you either get a new job, or you don't work anymore?

> A lot of states started disabling enhanced UI back in June and July.

But what about the rest of the states? And the federal government left their money faucet on until September.

Post reply on HN