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

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

#101

Post by notahacker »

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #25

The massive increase seen in the control group seems to indicate that either ~5% of the money delivers >50% of the benefit, or there were some other factors that were more significant than the money.

Yeah, this. It looks like any interpretation of the data is complicated slightly by the three groups all having slightly different initial situations, but the approx 34% of people finding stable housing within six months after receiving a monthly stipend that looks sufficient to cover budget room rent vs the 31% who found housing after receiving virtually nothing doesn't look like a promising result.

There are always going to be secular trends of surveyed people regardless of what they're given. First of all a lot of homelessness isn't permanent, so if you monitor a group of homeless people some of them will cease to be homeless over the course of time regardless of whether they're getting anything from you or even aware they're being monitored. And secondly people are aware they're being studied, and often react. That may be as simple and positive as doing more to help themselves because the nice person showed concern about where they'd be in six months time, but it may also be people acting or claiming to act differently because they believe the payments are linked to what they report (no matter how much surveyors insist it's unconditional and there's no judgement and no possibility of the experiment being stopped or continued...)

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

#102

Post by itishappy »

Detrytus wrote: post #73
itishappy wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 wil…

Inflation is not the only component of UBI, far from it, social effects are pretty important too. "Do humans still feel compelled to work when their income is guaranteed" is a critical question that does not require a nationwide test to investigate. I wouldn't be so quick to write off the results here.

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

#103

Post by Aurornis »

davidrupp wrote: post #89
Aurornis wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As far as I know, basic income means that everybody receives a fixed income, rich or poor. People frame it like that, but in practice it would be offset by increased taxes for most. For example, everyone gets $20,000 per year as "universal" basic income. However, your taxes go up $20,000 per year or more because you weren't in the lowest tax bracket. We have to pay for the UBI somehow. UBI of a substantial amount w…

What's a scenario in which adding $20K to my income results in more than $20K in additional taxes? The highest marginal tax rate in the U.S. for 2023 is 37%, and it kicks in after about $578K for a single filer. So increasing my income by $20K increases my tax bill by at most 37% of $20K.

We can't give everyone $20K without raising taxes.

The money has to come from somewhere. Taxes would go up to pay for it.

You can't have both UBI and the current tax rates.

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

#104

Post by mongol »

davidrupp wrote: post #89
Aurornis wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As far as I know, basic income means that everybody receives a fixed income, rich or poor. People frame it like that, but in practice it would be offset by increased taxes for most. For example, everyone gets $20,000 per year as "universal" basic income. However, your taxes go up $20,000 per year or more because you weren't in the lowest tax bracket. We have to pay for the UBI somehow. UBI of a substantial amount w…

What's a scenario in which adding $20K to my income results in more than $20K in additional taxes? The highest marginal tax rate in the U.S. for 2023 is 37%, and it kicks in after about $578K for a single filer. So increasing my income by $20K increases my tax bill by at most 37% of $20K.

It is not the tax on the UBI that is referred here. It is whatever tax will be neccessary to finance it. You can't reason about this by looking at the current rax system, since it would most likely need to change.

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

#105

Post by BytesAndGears »

mongol wrote: post #55
webdood90 wrote: post #29

[flagged]

I don't think UBI is a politically stable idea. It will be diluted by different initiatives to favour certain groups over others, and the actual UBI income will soon be eaten by inflation. Fast forward 10 years and the same problems will remain.

> Fast forward 10 years and the same problems will remain.

I don’t have a strong opinion on UBI, but I want to challenge you on this.

If everyone gets $20k per year, let’s say the median earner goes from $40k to $60k. An increase of 50%. And let’s assume that we don’t increase taxes, even though it would definitely play a role.

Pretty soon, inflation kicks in and everything goes up 50% in price.

But a low income earner of $16k per year is now making $36k per year. More than double! So the 50% increase of prices means that the UBI helps the lower income person’s purchasing power to be on a more level field with the middle earners, even though the middle earners obviously still are better off with their larger income. Just less so.

And the person making $200k is now making $220k. But the 50% inflation means that they have to lower their consumption a bit, to be more in-line with the median earner.

So introducing UBI like this causes an automatic rebalancing between different levels of income, somewhat, even if the median earner is unaffected. Obviously this is greatly simplified though.

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

#107

Post by enragedcacti »

ProjectArcturis wrote: post #84

I'm actually amazed at how little basic income helps people. The study had a control group which only received $50/month in aid (vs treatment groups that got $1000 a month or $6500 upfront and then $500 a month). The control group improved nearly as much as either of the treatment groups! In terms of housing, the $1000 a month group only improved by 6% more than the $50 group. That is to say, even if you just give pe…

> In terms of housing, the $1000 a month group only improved by 6% more than the $50 group.

6 percentage points more, not 6% more. Kind of a big difference. A 26% increase is 30% more than a 20% increase. Group B has a 75% increase in participants finding housing compared to the control group.

> That is to say, even if you just give people enough money every month to get an apartment with a roommate, only 6% will actually use it that way.

While that is statistically correct we don't know why it is only used that way 6% of the time. The greater increase in the lump sum group could indicate that the $1k/month group couldn't pay for application fees, deposits, or other upfront costs even if their supplemented income otherwise could sustain the monthly costs of housing.

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

#108

Post by paulddraper »

dools wrote: post #43
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.

Yep it’s just another means tested transfer payment. When you drill into it basic income advocates are just pushing for less punitive welfare. It’s a noble goal but not especially novel. What we need is a job guarantee: http://www.jobguarantee.org/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Sbw0lZ9LmY

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

#110

Post by serverlessmom »

[Giving money]: helps people significantly improve their living conditions

All Media: is this experiment too extreme and weird to ever try out in practice? We ask these far out kooks if this off-the-wall moonshot could maybe someday happen in a dream land

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