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Is giving people cash working? Six months of Denver's Basic Income Project

denverite.com

11–20 of 188 posts

Re: Is giving people cash working? Six months of Denver's Basic Income Project

#11
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mental health declined? As in, worsened? This sounds wrong.

> However, researchers did report that all participants showed declines in overall mental health. Sounds like it's accurate. Living in a capitalist hellscape will do that to you.

And yet somehow still better than a communist utopia

Re: Is giving people cash working? Six months of Denver's Basic Income Project

#12
post #4

But this is not what basic income is about, is it? As far as I know, basic income means that everybody receives a fixed income, rich or poor. What happens in Denver is just a social project, the only thing mildly special about it is that recipients didn't have to do anything in return. But there have been many of such projects in countries all over the world.

Giving everyone a basic income is more commonly called Universal Basic Income.

Or a pension.

Re: Is giving people cash working? Six months of Denver's Basic Income Project

#13

$1,000 a month won't even get you a small apartment where I live. You'd need double that just to rent one. Denver citizens must be lucky. My current home costs around $1,600 a month, utilities not included.

The hope is that having more money can bootstrap a virtuous cycle which allows them to generate a more livable income. The old adage "you have to have money to make money" is not entirely incorrect.

Re: Is giving people cash working? Six months of Denver's Basic Income Project

#14

$1,000 a month won't even get you a small apartment where I live. You'd need double that just to rent one. Denver citizens must be lucky. My current home costs around $1,600 a month, utilities not included.

You don't need a small apartment to get out of homelessness, you just need a room What's the cheapest shared room (roommate wanted) where you live?

e.g. https://sfbay.craigslist.org/search/roo?max_price=500#search...

Re: Is giving people cash working? Six months of Denver's Basic Income Project

#16
post #3
post #2

[flagged]

Mental health declined? As in, worsened? This sounds wrong.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gqtOfZG2sSanWgUdzn-lx-pwSXZ... has the source report.

> Participants were asked to rate their mental health on a scale of 0 to 10... average the full sample of participants reported a mental health score of 6.12. [...] In addition, participants took the 10-Question Kessler Psychological Distress Scale (Kessler et al., 2002). Participants were asked ten questions rating how often they experience specific feelings related to distress on a scale from 1 to 5.

> Table 16 describes paired sample t-tests of the participants who completed the enrollment survey and six-month follow-up survey. While participants from none of the groups showed statistically significant changes,

This should probably have been a period and end of paragraph instead of a comma.

Re: Is giving people cash working? Six months of Denver's Basic Income Project

#17

$1,000 a month won't even get you a small apartment where I live. You'd need double that just to rent one. Denver citizens must be lucky. My current home costs around $1,600 a month, utilities not included.

This is true, but it can often be combined with income from working, and often people will share housing. (Students, for example.)

Re: Is giving people cash working? Six months of Denver's Basic Income Project

#18

$1,000 a month won't even get you a small apartment where I live. You'd need double that just to rent one. Denver citizens must be lucky. My current home costs around $1,600 a month, utilities not included.

Along with sharing rent with roommates, homeless people can and do still work and combining that with a basic income can get them over the hump and into stable housing where a single job sometimes can't.

Re: Is giving people cash working? Six months of Denver's Basic Income Project

#20
post #4

But this is not what basic income is about, is it? As far as I know, basic income means that everybody receives a fixed income, rich or poor. What happens in Denver is just a social project, the only thing mildly special about it is that recipients didn't have to do anything in return. But there have been many of such projects in countries all over the world.

[flagged]
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