Basic income would not reduce people’s willingness to work • Hacker News Board

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

#181

Post by jjk166 » Mon, Jan 17, 2022, 6:29 PM UTC

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…

That has nothing to do with desire to work. Shitty jobs are shitty jobs, and if employers don't pay enough to justify putting up with the negatives, people are naturally going to do something else. I presume your spouse didn't quit after a year to sit on a couch, she quit and found some other job which was (hopefully) better.

A lot of shitty jobs out there rely on the fact that people need to settle to pay the bills. There are people with little experience or going through rough times who simply can't afford to wait for a good opportunity to come along, they need something to hold them over for a few months or maybe years. The employers know that these people have few options and will leave as soon as they do, so they offer low wages and overwork their staff and replace them when they are used up. UBI means people don't have to settle for the first low paying, undesirable job that comes along, they can hold out indefinitely for something better. Yeah, people are still going to need to get their foot in the door somewhere, and some opportunities might be too rare to be considered realistic, so we're not all going to be working our dream jobs, but the worst abusive employment anti-patterns will go extinct.

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

#182

Post by seanmcdirmid » Mon, Jan 17, 2022, 6:29 PM UTC

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…

UBI has to be under the average, not the median. If wealth disparity increases too much, the average wealth will be much higher than the median wealth, but unfortunately that wouldn’t apply as much to income.

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

#183

Post by jeremyjh » Mon, Jan 17, 2022, 6:29 PM UTC

BoumTAC wrote: post #151

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.

I do agree with this. Here in France I'm currently unemployed and I have a lot of compensation from government welfare. I'm looking for a job and every time I apply to a job, I have a little voice in my head saying : are you sure you want to work there ? You currently have the opportunity to do what you want and learn whatever you want for free, but if you work there it will be boring af and you will not be able to d…

Doesn't it also make a difference that you lose welfare benefits when you start working? Maybe you could just work part time if all earned income was supplemental with no welfare gap.

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

#184

Post by thegrimmest » Mon, Jan 17, 2022, 6:29 PM UTC

tda wrote: post #27

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…

> there are plenty of jobs where you absolutely will quit And so what if people refuse to do shitty jobs? Perhaps we as society can do without those jobs. And if we can't, we should value them more

The "So what" is that if pay for waiters and labourers has to compete with UBI, the cost of service, food, and housing increases significantly, putting it out of reach of more people, and contracting the entire economy as a result.

You can postulate about how much we should value these jobs, but the reality is that most people wouldn't be able to afford a meal at a restaurant where all the staff make 50k, or a packet of strawberries picked by pickers who make the same.

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

#185

Post by wefarrell » Mon, Jan 17, 2022, 6:29 PM UTC

criddell wrote: post #100

ChrisLomont wrote: post #12

Multiple studies of where basic income was tried in the real world found it to reduce work. For example, "Manitoba, Canada experimented with Mincome, a basic guaranteed income, in the 1970s. In the town of Dauphin, Manitoba, labor only decreased by 13%, much less than expected" [1]. There are plenty of others. I expect a targeted need use of scarce resources (tax money) is a much better use for helping those who need…

> I expect a targeted need use of scarce resources (tax money) is a much better use for helping those who need it That might be true but it also might not be true. If you add a bunch of rules to the program it can increase the administrative cost a lot and leave you with less money to distribute. I'm not sure if it's true, but when I was a kid I heard that Canada's baby bonus (Canada Child Benefit) was made universal…

Exactly. Part of the appeal of UBI is that it doesn't come with a ton of bureaucratic overhead.

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

#186

Post by teucris » Mon, Jan 17, 2022, 6:29 PM UTC

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 is not the universe sprinkling good fortune on mankind at random.

Yes. Yes it is. For every successful person in the world, there are dozens, if not hundreds, of people with just as much courage, work ethic and intelligence who didn’t get the same opportunities presented to them.

Do not mistake this position as “it’s unfair that everyone isn’t successful”. The world does not distribute potential equally. What I’m saying is that there are further barriers, completely out of one’s control, that can keep worthy people from success.

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

#187

Post by Someone » Mon, Jan 17, 2022, 6:29 PM UTC

Not necessarily. Leaving out that word is highly unfair to the authors.

It turns a defensible but also boring claim into one that draws attention, but is as good as impossible to defend.

I think that, looking at pensioners, UBI will lead to people working less. Many of those who can afford to happily are unemployed.

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

#188

Post by listenallyall » Mon, Jan 17, 2022, 6:29 PM UTC

buscoquadnary wrote: post #92

bryanlarsen wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UBI might cover your food and rent, but it won't cover much past that. So if you want some beer money or a new videogame or whatever, you'll need to work. And since after UBI every dollar after taxes goes to luxuries, a low income provides a lot more luxuries than it does before UBI, so it's actually a lot more appealing to work -- you see the benefits directly.

What if the landlord and food companies just raise the prices now that they know people have at least X dollars a month to spend on rent and food. Then people start advocating for universal housing and universal food.

> landlord and food companies just raise the prices

Which is exactly what has happened (in the US at least) as people received mini-UBI called "stimulus checks" and their bosses got PPP "loans" (that didn't need to be paid back)

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

#189

Post by ozzythecat » Mon, Jan 17, 2022, 6:30 PM UTC

staticassertion wrote: post #69

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…

> If my job requires menial labor or involves getting berated by customers (many retail jobs), personally I would absolutely not work. Maybe that's a good thing. It's insane how people in service industries are treated - like they're less than human. Shifting some power to them and giving the job a little more of an air of dignity or status would probably help a lot. And the pay would obviously go up. People would be…

> Shifting some power to them and giving the job a little more of an air of dignity or status would probably help a lot.

I agree, but is this feasible or wishful thinking?

As a society, we’re decidedly split on whether we should wear masks or should or should not get vaccines, despite the science or despite whatever seems like a rational decision. (Admittedly I’m introducing my bias here).

Would raising pay for retail workers or people acknowledging that we need to treat them with respect - would either of these actually lead to the right outcome? Or would it fuel another voice that vehemently sees these jobs as a stepping stone and not entitled to respect and dignity?

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

#190

Post by Apocryphon » Mon, Jan 17, 2022, 6:30 PM UTC

jopython wrote: post #58

the_real_me wrote: post #5

I strongly suspect that the lion's share of UBI would go directly to landlords or existing property owners.

Why stop at 'Basic income'? Why not 'Basic Housing', 'Basic Food' and others?

Good point. As production technology improves alongside automation, bringing us closer towards a post-scarcity civilization, society will be able to make more guarantees, as they are materially trivial to create.