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Basic income would not reduce people’s willingness to work

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Re: Basic income would not reduce people’s willingness to work

#111

Post by throwhauser »

orasis wrote: post #22
sschueller wrote: post #8

Just look at the billionaires. They are all still working even after reaching retirement age.

You’re mixing cause and effect. They became billionaires in large part because of their work ethic.

They're billionaires because of the work ethic, not necessarily their work ethic. Bezos isn't optimizing his own productivity, he optimizes his employees productivity and spends his time as he pleases. He keeps the gains from the productivity regardless.

EDIT: Actually I don't know if Bezos optimizes his own productivity or not. Nevertheless, his own productivity is a drop in the bucket compared to the thousands who work for his companies.

Re: Basic income would not reduce people’s willingness to work

#113

Post by malsuwaidi »

I work in the field of economic development and this universal basic income debate has been fascinatingly ideological with little grounding in fieldwork reality. There are stones in this debate that nobody wants to touch; the relationship to work of different cultures around the world for one, as well as the very real effect of reserve wages increasing above the economic opportunities available in remittance receiving communities.

I really wish it was as simple as give people money and we will get economic development across the board, if that was the case a lot of sub-Saharan africa wouldn’t be in the situation it is right now.

Re: Basic income would not reduce people’s willingness to work

#114

Post by teucris »

Would it really be so bad if some people stopped working altogether?

One of the proposed justifications for UBI is that automation creates wealth that could (or in some arguments, should) go to everyone rather than the ultra wealthy. That automation is taking up a larger and larger slice of the workforce, reducing the need for people to work.

Many people will choose to do work that gives them meaning. Some people will do unpleasant jobs because since they can’t be automated, they pay well. And some won’t work at all. Is it so bad if there is an entire class of people who just don’t work?

Re: Basic income would not reduce people’s willingness to work

#115

Post by otherme123 »

osrec wrote: post #25
ozzythecat wrote: post #4

A link to the actual research paper would be helpful. In this experiment, what amount was given to the treatment group that received basic income? How often? How does that amount compare to the cost of living in their city? > ‘It’s sometimes said that people will sit around doing nothing if you give them free money.’ I’m not an academic, so take this with a grain of salt. If my job requires menial labor or involves g…

Avoiding a particular job is not the same as sitting around doing nothing. It's quite possible for you to get basic income, yet channel your energy to other productive things.

Or other improductive things. The more hardcore UBI defenders talk about paying Malibu surfers to surf all day, or to write haikus. That's pretty much doing nothing at a productive level.

One of the problems of those studies are that they are temporal, and everyone involved know it. If I enrole you for two years in an UBI experiment, you'll probably not leave your job, even if you hate it. But if I guarantee you the same income for the rest of your life... well, lets take a look at how many people keep their jobs, and specially their boring/shitty jobs, when they win a huge lottery price. Usually they don't do other productive things, or even other improductive things: they tend to destroy their own lifes.

Another problem is that you have to take into account how slowly people internalize the new situations. E.g. when central banks started to use inflation as a source of government income, in the first decades it was "free". But people adapted and started to track inflation and price indexes to peg the salaries to them, "learning" how to live with the new situation.

Re: Basic income would not reduce people’s willingness to work

#116

Post by tonyedgecombe »

mjburgess wrote: post #72
pc86 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is exactly what will happen. The pay for those jobs will increase, until such a point where it becomes cheaper/easier to just not have the job in the first place. I don't honestly know why whether or not people will work even factors into one's support for UBI. Some people will keep working, some people won't. Nobody will starve so that seems like something in the "pro" column at least.

It depends if you just end up paying people not to work. Money doesnt just have some "value" you can share like a pie. The value in money is just the productive capacity of an economy. If you're paying large numbers to do nothing, the value of that money plummets and people will starve. Recall: 50% of the country make less than the median wage... UBI is going to have to be way below this to preserve the very wealth w…

>If you're paying large numbers to do nothing, the value of that money plummets and people will starve.

We already pay large numbers of people to do nothing, retirees.

Re: Basic income would not reduce people’s willingness to work

#117

Post by jyounker »

quotemstr wrote: post #29
sschueller wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So poor people are lazy and the rich aren't? Maybe all these people don't want to work these kinda of jobs and are moving into other sectors. Maybe working conditions and pay need to be drastically improved in those jobs.

> So poor people are lazy and the rich aren't? Honestly, yes --- not always, but frequently. I am sick and tired of the mentality embedded in the sentence I quoted. Do you think the rich are rich for no reason at all? That their rewards are unfair? Success is not the universe sprinkling good fortune on mankind at random: success comes from hard work and the courage to take advantage of the opportunities that time pre…

> success comes from hard work

The poor work very hard.

> and the courage to take advantage of the opportunities that time presents to everyone from time to time.

It's very easy to take risks when you can fall back on mommy and daddy's wealth if something goes wrong. It's easy to grab opportunities when mommy or daddy can co-sign your loan or put up the downpayment.

Those things are true even moderate amounts of stability or wealth.

Re: Basic income would not reduce people’s willingness to work

#118

Post by rabuse »

throwawayffffas wrote: post #59
lbj wrote: post #33

Well, in Denmark we have the equivalent of Basic income and I'd say we have a major problem with peoples willingness to work. Some families are on welfare for generations now.

One could argue that welfare is the symptom not the cause.

I always tell people, "Life is inherently lazy."

Re: Basic income would not reduce people’s willingness to work

#119

Post by missedthecue »

kevingadd wrote: post #10
gruez wrote: post #9

>They simulated the reward structure of different forms of social security in an experiment. ‘We got people to do a task on a computer,’ says De Kwaadsteniet. ‘In multiple rounds, which represented the months they had to work, they did a boring task in which they had to put points on a bar. The more of these they did, the more money they earned.’ "short term experiments done in a lab" seems to be psychology's equival…

There have already been real world basic income experiments with similar outcomes

If I'm receiving $1000 a month for a six month program run by a university research group, which states very clearly that the program will end after six months, I'm not going to go quit my job.

That's the problem with these "studies". They are completely different from a permanent government program. They can't tell you the impact on inflation, the impact on the labor market, or if it is affordable over the long term.

Re: Basic income would not reduce people’s willingness to work

#120

Post by BoumTAC »

sschueller wrote: post #8

Just look at the billionaires. They are all still working even after reaching retirement age.

They are working on what they like, not what is needed, it's totally different. If the thing they do doesn't interested them anymore they will stop.
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