Is giving people cash working? Six months of Denver's Basic Income Project • Hacker News Board

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

#71

Post by pdonis » Tue, Oct 10, 2023, 9:05 PM UTC

ncallaway wrote: post #33

Detrytus wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But they are not giving it to everyone, just to homeless people. That does not warrant the "Universal" part of the name. EDIT: I think I misread the whole thing, it really does not say "Universal" anywhere :) Anyway, I think someone, soon will try to use this project as an argument in favor of UBI, which is ridiculous.

Right, which is why it doesn't...have "Universal" in the name, and is referred to as a "Basic Income Project"

Right, which is why claiming that this is a study of "universal basic income", as the GGP claimed, is wrong.

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

#72

Post by MisterBastahrd » Tue, Oct 10, 2023, 9:05 PM UTC

webdood90 wrote: post #29

[flagged]

Fixing education?

What does education have to do with this? Are we really still pretending in this day and age that education is some magical panacea to fix even a fraction of the ills? A populace with a lot of education and a poor means to earn a living wage just means you'll end up with a lot of educated poor people.

The current way of things is an anomaly in human history. You can't have a continuous consolidation of wealth by the very few AND allow them to capture the means of production and pretend that things are going to be hunky dory in the long run. Either you ensure that the average person can have a comfortable life in your system, or heads are eventually going to start rolling. The only question is how long before that happens.

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

#73

Post by Detrytus » Tue, Oct 10, 2023, 9:06 PM UTC

itishappy wrote: post #50

Detrytus wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But they are not giving it to everyone, just to homeless people. That does not warrant the "Universal" part of the name. EDIT: I think I misread the whole thing, it really does not say "Universal" anywhere :) Anyway, I think someone, soon will try to use this project as an argument in favor of UBI, which is ridiculous.

> I think someone, soon will try to use this project as an argument in favor of UBI, which is ridiculous. Why's that ridiculous? Testing a small scale trial on the people most likely to be effected by a larger scale program seems pretty reasonable to me.

But the UBI works completely different at small and large scales. When you test it at small scale it seems to be working exactly as expected. But when you try to introduce it globally (I mean, for the whole country), then it suddenly starts affecting economy as whole, and the only result you get is inflation, and no one is better of with UBI compared to their previous situation. When the news breaks that everyone will be getting free money the natural reaction of all the sellers and service providers is to raise prices.

I mean, I know UBI haven't been tried at whole country scale, but the populist government in my country came pretty close, trying to bribe people with things like social security payments for parents (you get paid a pretty penny monthly for each child you have), or giving extra pension raises to retired people - basically giving away free money to everyone. And guess what? Inflation in my country peaked at 19% in February, luckily it fell down to like 8% in September.

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

#74

Post by porkbeer » Tue, Oct 10, 2023, 9:06 PM UTC

codedokode wrote: post #45

LoganDark wrote: post #8

$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.

Almost everywhere if you move little further from the center of the city and from the subway, the prices become more reasonable.

Tell me of this denver subway...

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

#75

Post by ffgjgf1 » Tue, Oct 10, 2023, 9:06 PM UTC

aimor wrote: post #56

misja111 wrote: 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.

This is still a study about UBI, it's looking at differences based on how the income is delivered. A part of UBI, different from other types of aid, is that the recipient can spend the money however they see fit. There are question about how well this will work. Will the recipients benefit or suffer by not being restricted in how they spend? Will they benefit or suffer by being given the money all at once at the begi…

If you only include homeless people statistically you can expect that they will make poorer financial decisions than the rest of the population.

Also there are other implications, I’m not even sure what’s the point in calling this UBI (the data might of course be still valuable for other purposes).

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

#76

Post by asdff » Tue, Oct 10, 2023, 9:07 PM UTC

webdood90 wrote: post #29

[flagged]

This is only because we have decided life's necessities should be sold to you with a healthy profit margin. It says a lot about our society when we say that no, poor people should not get more money, it would just be gobbled up by increased rents. Things like socialized housing, medicine, transportation, communication, education, as well as food, would do a lot to solve this, but since we've decided that these essential pieces of modern life should be used as a means to enrich a small few, we deal with this Ouroboros of a society.

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

#77

Post by LoganDark » Tue, Oct 10, 2023, 9:07 PM UTC

plagiarist wrote: post #59

LoganDark wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We live just barely above that line, and recently got $600/mo of food stamps revoked, which did an order of magnitude more harm than the pitiful raise that got us there.

The abrupt cutoff for benefits is one of the most inept things the government has ever done. A reduction in benefits should always be less than the increase in income.

I should qualify for my own benefits, theoretically. I'm autistic and bed-ridden, but don't get any of those benefits, because they want me to provide evidence of an active, ongoing job search, as well as previous rejections that show attempts to get a job.

I don't want to do that. I am not someone who needs to tire themself out working for the rest of their life. Yet that is what I would need to do in order to qualify for any support.

I have burnt out of at least 2 jobs already because of severe ADHD and this is just totally soul-sucking and terrible.

I have diagnoses of ASD and ADHD. They know I have both. Soon they'll know I also have DID. Maybe at some point they'll realize how much I need the help.

Anyway, sorry for veering off-topic.

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

#78

Post by Toxygene » Tue, Oct 10, 2023, 9:07 PM UTC

exabrial wrote: post #65

I'm all about _private_ people giving their money away to those less fortunate, but guys... We're talking about a city that is a mile high in altitude and has exotic Winter and Snow seasons, and this is a 6 month study?

If you are asking why the study isn't covering a period of time including winter, it's because the study goes for a full year and this is only a report at the half way point.

> On Tuesday, the group released data on the halfway mark of the pilot program, showing that rates of homelessness and food insecurity decreased, while shelter and employment rates increased over the past six months.

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

#79

Post by pdonis » Tue, Oct 10, 2023, 9:07 PM UTC

itishappy wrote: post #50

Detrytus wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But they are not giving it to everyone, just to homeless people. That does not warrant the "Universal" part of the name. EDIT: I think I misread the whole thing, it really does not say "Universal" anywhere :) Anyway, I think someone, soon will try to use this project as an argument in favor of UBI, which is ridiculous.

> I think someone, soon will try to use this project as an argument in favor of UBI, which is ridiculous. Why's that ridiculous? Testing a small scale trial on the people most likely to be effected by a larger scale program seems pretty reasonable to me.

> Why's that ridiculous?

Because drawing conclusions about what happens if you guarantee income to everyone, based on studying a project that only guaranteed income to homeless people, is ridiculous.

> a small scale trial

Is not what this is. You can't have a "small scale trial" of universal basic income. That's the whole point.

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

#80

Post by stouset » Tue, Oct 10, 2023, 9:07 PM UTC

exabrial wrote: post #68

stouset wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UBI is a practical solution. Education and reproductive changes don’t alter the reality that you can spend years working on developing skills in an industry that rapidly disappears due to technological upheaval. It also doesn’t change the fact that you can’t remedy a plummeting number of jobs for low-educated people by educating everyone. Will pilots be necessary in ten years? Twenty? Fifty? What do we do about the f…

Sure but who pays for it? Who decides who gets to be rich?

Taxes pay for it, just like they pay for existing benefits schemes. In theory, we could eliminate many of the means-tested approaches we currently use, which impose significant overhead costs from the means-testing. Do those taxes come primarily from industries which are profiting from disrupted heavily labor markets? Do they come from general income taxes, or corporate taxes, or something else? All of these are interesting discussions to have, but "yes but who pays for it" isn't an argument not to do it.

And I genuinely have no idea what you're even getting at with your second question. Nobody? The market? What does UBI have to do with individuals becoming rich?