51–60 of 97 posts
> "Given the huge number of L.A. County residents who applied, it's abundantly clear that a guaranteed basic income is an idea whose time has come," Supervisor Sheila Kuehl said. Uh, its abundantly clear that people want free money?
I know, right? What a dangerously simplistic mindset to have for someone in authority.
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Studies like this are important to separate data from anecdotes and conjecture. There are a lot of comments and conjecture that this will kill drive and increase drug use, but without actual data those are just hypothesis. It is an interesting question around ethics of studies though. I'd be interested to see the ethics review for this study.
I commented elsewhere that this happened to me. I might be an anecdote to you but I'm living out a case study from my perspective. I actually fully support things like a UBI but we can't ignore the problems it creates and damage it will cause. I know a huge point of the UBI is a lack of means testing but even Andrew Yang's proposal included an basic age cutoff. Personally I think we need to accept that there should b…
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> because you personally couldn't handle a tiny bit of welfare. If there was a segment of the population who "couldn't handle" welfare, where do you think we would find them?
I think you need to prove there is a population that "can't handle" welfare.
We tried UBI with the multiple stimulus checks. The result was inflation, which more than ate that all up.
Sadly UBI will probably work best when it's not U.
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You're proving his point. $1k isn't enough to do anything with, so it's going to get wasted on vice. Go give 1k to a homeless guy...he'll still be homeless, and probably dead thanks to what you enabled. Qualify them for food stamps or something if you want to help. Cash always leads to trouble.
>Go give 1k to a homeless guy...he'll still be homeless, and probably dead thanks to what you enabled. Why do people assume that every homeless person is both an idiot and an addict? Especially in cities in which real estate is as expensive as Los Angeles, the overwhelming majority of homeless people aren't there because of addiction issues. All the numbers I have seen suggest that only a quarter of LA's homeless pop…
Visibly homeless people– those who literally are living on the streets absolutely do have some sort of addiction or mental illness.
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25% of foster kids end up homeless after aging out of the system. Direct cash transfer value is mostly proven from a social work/benefit perspective. Sure, coaching and counseling through social services must also be provided to help underprivileged humans take care of themselves and reach their full potential, but cash benefits help, full stop. The moral hazard argument needs to die. There is a difference between st…
The responses that completely ignore addiction and mental health need to die. Can you address what the parent described about mental health and addiction? Would you rather invest $10k into someone who has shown you they're reliable, or someone who has shown you they are unreliable? Please answer both questions.
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25% of foster kids end up homeless after aging out of the system. Direct cash transfer value is mostly proven from a social work/benefit perspective. Sure, coaching and counseling through social services must also be provided to help underprivileged humans take care of themselves and reach their full potential, but cash benefits help, full stop. The moral hazard argument needs to die. There is a difference between st…
The research on the effects of cash transfers are not universally positive. This study found a significant negative effect on employment: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4375359 We are in the “needs more research” stage of this question, not the “tell the people who are asking to shut up” stage.
Let’s do this thing and see what happens in a small enough setting that we can intervene if something really goes off the rails and even if it does the impact is minimal.
As a programmer from a bad family, group home, foster family background myself. $1k per month without working or struggle would have destroyed me. Imagine all the weed and whiskey I could have bought for that? (Which is what I would have done) Instead of working I would have been lazy. Homelessness and hunger was my major motivator and made me work in fast food while dreaming of computers. The lack of struggle would…
Are you claiming that most 21-year-old L.A. residents would be destroyed by $1000/month? I've lived in L.A. for more than 20 years, so I somewhat know the culture. My guess is the overwhelming majority would use the $1000 for a car payment and insurance. And I'd bet serious money on it.
We tried UBI with the multiple stimulus checks. The result was inflation, which more than ate that all up.
[1] https://fox8.com/news/stimulus-checks-how-much-money-did-peo...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021%E2%80%932023_inflation_su...
Edit: After a bit more research, this is less clear -- many European countries provided large unemployment checks during covid.
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25% of foster kids end up homeless after aging out of the system. Direct cash transfer value is mostly proven from a social work/benefit perspective. Sure, coaching and counseling through social services must also be provided to help underprivileged humans take care of themselves and reach their full potential, but cash benefits help, full stop. The moral hazard argument needs to die. There is a difference between st…
The research on the effects of cash transfers are not universally positive. This study found a significant negative effect on employment: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4375359 We are in the “needs more research” stage of this question, not the “tell the people who are asking to shut up” stage.
Even with research, the results are going to be hard to understand and apply without unintended consequences, and whatever intervention is going to have mixed results even if the overall effect is positive.
