Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available • Hacker News Board

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#101

Post by tivert » Mon, Jul 22, 2024, 7:18 PM UTC

bko wrote: post #46

ilaksh wrote: post #22

$1000 is not enough to quit their jobs or get a nice apartment. They could move slightly closer to work if they have to commute. It's not enough for a real tuition or to support them to study instead of work. I don't think we've ever had a universal basic income test. We have always missed the universal and basic part. It's below basic and not at all universal. I suspect that you need to get international cooperation…

Why is the goal to get people to quit their jobs and get a nice apartment? Isn't it supposed to be a minimum base level of support? Why do we keep moving the goal posts? And if everyone quits their job and lives in a nice apartment, where is this money going to come from? The problem with welfare today is that its a disincentive to work. Start working, you lose your transfer payments. A lot of people are stuck in thi…

> Why is the goal to get people to quit their jobs and get a nice apartment?

> Isn't it supposed to be a minimum base level of support? Why do we keep moving the goal posts?

Ultimately, the whole point of UBI is to head off political objections to automating away most jobs, so the tech barons can pursue the technology to do that unimpeded (at least until it's too late). "Minimum base level of support" is basically the Terrafoam welfare warehouses from Manna (https://marshallbrain.com/manna).

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#102

Post by s1artibartfast » Mon, Jul 22, 2024, 7:18 PM UTC

jimt1234 wrote: post #79

bko wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is the goal to get people to quit their jobs and get a nice apartment? Isn't it supposed to be a minimum base level of support? Why do we keep moving the goal posts? And if everyone quits their job and lives in a nice apartment, where is this money going to come from? The problem with welfare today is that its a disincentive to work. Start working, you lose your transfer payments. A lot of people are stuck in thi…

Back in my college speech class, a woman gave a presentation basically supporting the "welfare today is a disincentive to work" myth, with emphasis on "today" (or current), while totally destroying the notion that welfare recipients don't "want" to work. She was a stay-at-home mom with 2 kids, her husband commit suicide after serving in Iraq and then being pushed out of the military (this was the 90s when the US mili…

This is alternatively referred to as the welfare cliff [1]

Here[2] is an extreme case study from Chicago where you would have to jump from an income of 20k/year to 80K/year to make up for the loss of benefits.

https://www.budget.senate.gov/newsroom/budget-background/the...

edit[2] https://fee.org/wp-content/uploads/articles/welfare_cliff.pn...

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#103

Post by legitster » Mon, Jul 22, 2024, 7:18 PM UTC

andy_xor_andrew wrote: post #77

I'm dumb and have no real education in economics. But even my dumb self makes the correlation that in 2020/2021, we handed out free money to keep people afloat (a very good thing), and then immediately following there was a surge in inflation. So I guess I don't understand, how do you give out free money without devaluing the currency? Am I making an incorrect correlation between the stimulus checks and the subsequen…

The stimulus checks kicked off inflation. But inflation should have been limited to the amount of money injected in the economy. We ended up seeing inflation exceeding the amount of money injected.

Hidden in Covid was a massive decline in labor force productivity and participation - the lion's share coming from baby boomers retiring during this time. So it's no longer about the amount of money, but the shrinking pile of stuff it is chasing after.

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#104

Post by legitster » Mon, Jul 22, 2024, 7:20 PM UTC

doctorpangloss wrote: post #7

The UBI folks were cursed by the pandemic and inflation. You cannot deal with that confounder. They’re not the only ones. Remember Green New Deal? That also evaporated with the end of ZIRP. You can complain relentlessly about these guys, or offer alternative solution with nothing but vibes to vouch for them. The truth is, as long as interest rates are high, the economic contraction is making everyone too scared to tr…

> Remember Green New Deal

This went along with the death of Modern Monetary Theory.

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#105

Post by s1artibartfast » Mon, Jul 22, 2024, 7:20 PM UTC

bko wrote: post #100

jimt1234 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Back in my college speech class, a woman gave a presentation basically supporting the "welfare today is a disincentive to work" myth, with emphasis on "today" (or current), while totally destroying the notion that welfare recipients don't "want" to work. She was a stay-at-home mom with 2 kids, her husband commit suicide after serving in Iraq and then being pushed out of the military (this was the 90s when the US mili…

Yes, exactly. If you pay someone not to work, I can't blame them for not working. Sure it could be short-sighted, but that's not a moral flaw. The system is designed to keep people in poverty and dependent on the system. It's really tragic

Incentives can be even worse than that if you punish people for working (e.g. take away more benefits than their income increases.)

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#106

Post by nehal3m » Mon, Jul 22, 2024, 7:22 PM UTC

s1artibartfast wrote: post #73

rbanffy wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I appreciate the honest answer to what was a bit of a provocation. Can we assume a fraction of people would still be doing these relevant things and that it'd be enough to maintain a functioning society? If not, wouldn't that point towards the directions we need technology to evolve? Would paying more to the people who now don't need to work, but are willing to, suffice? One thing I would bet on is that, in that scen…

Cards on the table: I think the vast majory of people would do less, and perhaps very little socially productive work without the current financial incentives. > Would paying more to the people who now don't need to work, but are willing to, suffice? This is not possible because you cant simultaneously pay workers more (as a whole) and have them subsidize the non-working. I admit it may be possible to reallocate comp…

> Cards on the table: I think the vast majory of people would do less, and perhaps very little socially productive work without the current financial incentives.

I don't disagree, but aren't you implicitly admitting here that the vast majority of people don't want to spend their lives doing work? We get a few laps around the sun, once, before we return to oblivion. It seems a tragedy to me to force almost everyone into spending that brief spark of life on the drudgery of increasing shareholder value.

If you agree, would you then also say that it would be in humanity's interest to work toward a situation where people can lead happy, fulfilling lives? I'm not saying I have any answers, but I am saying that implicit in your own assumption is a problem that needs solving.

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#107

Post by philipov » Mon, Jul 22, 2024, 7:23 PM UTC

andy_xor_andrew wrote: post #77

I'm dumb and have no real education in economics. But even my dumb self makes the correlation that in 2020/2021, we handed out free money to keep people afloat (a very good thing), and then immediately following there was a surge in inflation. So I guess I don't understand, how do you give out free money without devaluing the currency? Am I making an incorrect correlation between the stimulus checks and the subsequen…

The stimulus checks weren't the only thing we did, however. We did a lot of quantitative easing to keep the stock markets from crashing, and I would blame that first.

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#108

Post by JumpCrisscross » Mon, Jul 22, 2024, 7:23 PM UTC

rbanffy wrote: post #64

eamsen wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To add value to society?

Why is value needed? How much of it is sufficient for society to function? Yes, it IS a provocation. Let's go deeper into this question.

> Why is value needed? How much of it is sufficient for society to function?

As much as people want. A subsistence lifestyle is incredibly cheap and accessible; most of us just don't want it.

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#109

Post by JumpCrisscross » Mon, Jul 22, 2024, 7:24 PM UTC

falcolas wrote: post #78

eamsen wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Value production is needed, because the value we produce is fleeting and healthy societies grow. How much value is needed is determined by the society through a free market.

How much value can a disabled veteran provide to the free market? If that value is zero, should they just lay down and die? What if they're not a veteran, but just an unfortunate soul with a disability that provides "zero" value?

> How much value can a disabled veteran provide to the free market? If that value is zero, should they just lay down and die?

If you do this you stop getting new veterans. Functionally speaking this is why every society with armies has veteran benefits.

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#110

Post by bko » Mon, Jul 22, 2024, 7:25 PM UTC

legitster wrote: post #5

This is a pretty generous reading of the study. One result they are missing out is that the income actually reduced overall employment compared to the control group, and ended up decreasing household earnings: https://www.nber.org/papers/w32719 Even with a generous reading, it was an extremely expensive study. And similar proposals like the Negative Income Tax would cost far less money and have none of the presented…

I agree that something like a negative income tax would be cheaper with fewer downsides. But it would be spun as "subsidizing Walmart". You see that today when politicians criticize part time Walmart employees for still being eligible for benefits.

Imagine if some low wage employer could pay you $10 an hours and government throws in an extra $5. If the market clearing rate is $15 for an employee, giving a subsidy of $5 pushes the wage down to $10 (effectively $10). They could offer $15 (effectively $20), but then you have a misalignment of quantity supplied and quantity demand, which would result in too many applicants and having to select on non-economic terms (e.g. overpaid do-nothing internship going to the CEO's nephew)