Arlington's first guaranteed income pilot boosted QoL for poorest residents
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Re: Arlington's first guaranteed income pilot boosted QoL for poorest residents
#2This just in: free money helps poor people. More at 11.
Re: Arlington's first guaranteed income pilot boosted QoL for poorest residents
#3I think this is good, given the insane cost of living here. Hopefully this does not contribute to rising costs too much.
Re: Arlington's first guaranteed income pilot boosted QoL for poorest residents
#4Arlington as in Arlington County, Virgina, to be clear... quite a few Arlingtons in the US.
Re: Arlington's first guaranteed income pilot boosted QoL for poorest residents
#5I'm an anarchist communist. (Wait, hear me out, I'm not an anarchist in "The Purge" sense.)
It's interesting to see the hypothesis of authors like Kropotkin validated to some degree. Anarchist authors have long posited that if you emphasize "wellbeing for all" ahead of profit or productivity, the social nature of humans will result in a largely positive experience. People will, hypothetically, do good things if their basic needs are taken care of. The book The Conquest of Bread is a utopian look at this general idea.
It seems like study after study on UBI shows that when you take care of the immediate needs, people seem to seek self improvement and higher quality work.
You see this in open source communities as well, which are some of the most anarchist communities imaginable - take freely if you need this, give what you can back is a deeply anarchist ethos.
I hope that the rational in our communities continue to push for more experiments here, more programs that simply provide universal income to people. Continue to replicate these results and turn the best things into policy.
Re: Arlington's first guaranteed income pilot boosted QoL for poorest residents
#6This just in: free money helps poor people. More at 11.
It doesn't just help, that would be "they are fed and housed". But it genuinely improves the quality of work they perform. They get better jobs as a result of this, which isn't exactly intuitive to most people.
Re: Arlington's first guaranteed income pilot boosted QoL for poorest residents
#7Arlington as in Arlington County, Virgina, to be clear... quite a few Arlingtons in the US.
Also: Arlington is to DC as Oakland is to SF or Jersey City is to Manhattan. Only, you know, a lot nicer.
Re: Arlington's first guaranteed income pilot boosted QoL for poorest residents
#8Arlington as in Arlington County, Virgina, to be clear... quite a few Arlingtons in the US.
Also: Arlington is to DC as Oakland is to SF or Jersey City is to Manhattan. Only, you know, a lot nicer.
hmm.. having lived in all of those cities, I'd say closer to South Bay then East bay re SF.
Re: Arlington's first guaranteed income pilot boosted QoL for poorest residents
#9Of course it did. If you give poor people more money they will on balance have better lives. Left unaddressed are questions like: How does giving free money compare to spending the money on directed social programs? What is the optimal amount to give?
Also, am I reading this right? "Individuals who received the stipend reported increasing their monthly income by 36%, from $1,200 to $1,640, compared to the control group, whose income only rose 9%." They gave them $500 and their income went up $440. Is that before or after the $500?
Re: Arlington's first guaranteed income pilot boosted QoL for poorest residents
#10This just in: free money helps poor people. More at 11.
It doesn't just help, that would be "they are fed and housed". But it genuinely improves the quality of work they perform. They get better jobs as a result of this, which isn't exactly intuitive to most people.
Except it should be the single most intuitive thing that people with enough resources can work better than those without.