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Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

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Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#231

Post by nehal3m »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #172
kamarg wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it still take the same amount of work to produce what we consume Does it? Seems like if we don't have excess value going to shareholders, less work could be done to provide the current level of value for things people are consuming.

Value isnt the same thing as labor/work. This would change where the value goes, not the amount of work done. A restaurant needs X hours of labor to make Y hamburgers. This is true if all the money goes to workers, or just a fraction of it. You could pay a worker more, but that doesn't increase the supply of hamburgers. Inversely, any value tied up in the share price is not being spent on hamburgers. The best you can…

> The vast majority of excess value held by investors is not directed towards consumption.

So why does it need to be created in the first place then? That takes work that apparently does not need to happen for any other reason than economic, not because it is valuable in and of itself.

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#232

Post by superfrank »

aeturnum wrote: post #183
superfrank wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Isn't this an intended feature of UBI? The idea of UBI is that some level of material support should be guaranteed. It's about bringing "up" the floor, not really re-arranging relative equal and unequal positions. Plenty of people dislike that about it, but it's an intended feature. Absolutely, but I guess I don't see how just giving everyone money brings that floor up. Maybe I'm looking at this naively, but I don'…

That's super fair and I think you are absolutely right that it's an obvious question. Generally when people get more money for some reason the people who they buy from don't know it - but in this case they would know it! It would be foolish to ignore it. I don't have a pat answer to your concerns, but I also want you to think about what stops your landlord from raising your rent by $1000 / month right now. Like, why…

> I also want you to think about what stops your landlord from raising your rent by $1000 / month right now. Like, why not just go for it?

Answering as a landlord (I have one property I used to live in that I rent out), the reason I don't just keep raising rent is mainly because I like my tenant and want to be fair to them. Having had bad tenants in the past, a good tenant is worth their weight in gold.

More relevant to your question though, the other reason is because I know there's a ceiling after a certain point where the number of people who have the money to rent my property starts to shrink and the time it would take to find a new tenant would cost more than the amount of money I would make by raising rent.

If rent is $2000/mo and raising it by $100/mo means it's going to take an extra month to find a tenant, then I need to believe that that tenant is going to stay for at least 20 months to break even.

If everyone all of a sudden has an extra $1000/mo I could be fairly certain that my tenant won't be priced out if I were to raise rent a few hundred dollars.

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#233

Post by thesz »

superfrank wrote: post #149
thesz wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With a progressive taxation, the gap between high and low income narrows. Low income people may not even notice a change in tax bracket, if any such thing happen, high income people will give back a substantial part of that additional income. I believe, up to 50+% in some US states. This may slightly change median, I think.

Is UBI a necessary part of progressive taxation? Maybe I'm missing something, but it seems like that same thing can be accomplished without UBI. Am I thinking about that wrong?

I do not know. I just pointed out that progressive taxation makes UBI more sensible in the "more equitable society" sense.

But I do not like the notion of "more equitable society" at all. I do not think it is fair or useful.

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#234

Post by superfrank »

rvrs wrote: post #229
superfrank wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is UBI a necessary part of progressive taxation? Maybe I'm missing something, but it seems like that same thing can be accomplished without UBI. Am I thinking about that wrong?

Can you do me a quick favor and Google what progressive taxation means?

I know what a progressive tax is and I don't believe UBI is a pre-req to be able to implement a more progressive tax structure.

I worded my response as a questions because this isn't an area that I have done a lot of research on and I'm not confident enough in my understanding to be sure of that. I'd rather ask a question than assert my uncertain belief.

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#235

Post by homefree »

> "We study the causal impacts of income on a rich array of employment outcomes, leveraging an experiment in which 1,000 low-income individuals were randomized into receiving $1,000 per month unconditionally for three years, with a control group of 2,000 participants receiving $50/ month. We gather detailed survey data, administrative records, and data from a custom mobile phone app.

> "The transfer caused total individual income to fall by about $1,500/year relative to the control group, excluding the transfers. The program resulted in a 2.0 percentage point decrease in labor market participation for participants and a 1.3-1.4 hour per week reduction in labor hours, with participants’ partners reducing their hours worked by a comparable amount. The transfer generated the largest increases in time spent on leisure, as well as smaller increases in time spent in other activities such as transportation and finances."

> "Despite asking detailed questions about amenities, we find no impact on quality of employment, and our confidence intervals can rule out even small improvements. We observe no significant effects on investments in human capital, though younger participants may pursue more formal education."

> "Overall, our results suggest a moderate labor supply effect that does not appear offset by other productive activities."

https://www.nber.org/papers/w32719

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#236

Post by roughly »

homefree wrote: post #235

> "We study the causal impacts of income on a rich array of employment outcomes, leveraging an experiment in which 1,000 low-income individuals were randomized into receiving $1,000 per month unconditionally for three years, with a control group of 2,000 participants receiving $50/ month. We gather detailed survey data, administrative records, and data from a custom mobile phone app. > "The transfer caused total indi…

So they gave folks $12k per year to see a reduce in working hours by 1.5 hours per week and lower earnings by $1500/yr. I don’t think I’d call that a “moderate” labor supply effect - I’m frankly surprised that’s far enough outside the error bars to support the claim.

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#237

Post by kbelder »

setgree wrote: post #2

As others have pointed out [0], the summaries have a much more positive spin than the accompanying paper [1]. The paper's abstract: > We study the causal impacts of income on a rich array of employment outcomes, leverag-ing an experiment in which 1,000 low-income individuals were randomized into receiving $1,000 per month unconditionally for three years, with a control group of 2,000 participants receiving $50/month.…

I think UBI is a horrifically bad idea. However, I don't think good OR bad results from studies like this are remotely relevant. It's like testing air pressure by patching 1% of a hole. The effects from testing a subset of the population could be drastically different from the effect when rolled out to the entire population.

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#238

Post by smileysteve »

vharuck wrote: post #199
BobbyTables2 wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also shudder to think what types of employers would be complicit with such a scenario.

You're right to fear employers who want to avoid claiming employees so that they don't have to comply with, for example, safety laws. But shadow work also includes situations with "casual" business relationships, like a couple who hires a nanny to watch their kids 40 hours a week. Both parties may feel that complying with tax and labor laws is too much of a burden.

> Both parties may feel that complying with tax and labor laws is too much of a burden.

That's - a way - to phrase:

- facilitate an effective 7.5% pay cut (employer paid Social Security / Medicare / Medicaid tax)

- avoid being properly compensated for overtime (assuming non exempt salary),

- and make claiming unemployment, disability benefits more difficult

When you refer to both, can you emphasize a specific burden the employee is subject to other than reduce tax benefits on disability / social security?

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#239

Post by Kamq »

karmajunkie wrote: post #227
briHass wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UBI would never be truly 'universal'. If someone takes money from me and then gives some of it back, I don't consider that a free gift. The only way the numbers would ever balance would be for most income earners to end up being taxed >100% of their UBI payment.

or for the ridiculously wealthy to be taxed at a very high rate. which is why they reject the notion of UBI so fervently.

The numbers don't line up for that.

The sum total of the wealth of all the billionaires in the US in 2021 was ~$4.1 Trillion [0]. That's about the same as the government budget in a normal year pre-pandemic, or about 2/3 of the government budget post-pandemic.

Assuming a $1000/month and a population of ~350 million, you're looking at $4.2 Trillion per year. You could almost fund it for the first year by taxing all of the wealth of the billionaires at 100%.

But what are you going to do the second year? That's total wealth, not yearly income.

[0] https://www.forbes.com/sites/tommybeer/2021/01/26/report-ame...

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#240

Post by s1artibartfast »

nehal3m wrote: post #231
s1artibartfast wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Value isnt the same thing as labor/work. This would change where the value goes, not the amount of work done. A restaurant needs X hours of labor to make Y hamburgers. This is true if all the money goes to workers, or just a fraction of it. You could pay a worker more, but that doesn't increase the supply of hamburgers. Inversely, any value tied up in the share price is not being spent on hamburgers. The best you can…

> The vast majority of excess value held by investors is not directed towards consumption. So why does it need to be created in the first place then? That takes work that apparently does not need to happen for any other reason than economic, not because it is valuable in and of itself.

>That takes work that apparently does not need to happen for any other reason than economic, not because it is valuable in and of itself.

Value =/= Work.

no extra work is happening at the burger shop. you still need X hours to make Y hamburgers. If anyone works less, fewer people eat.

The extra value is extracted from the buyers (many of whom are workers elsewhere).

>So why does it need to be created in the first place then?

In theory, the utility of investor profit serves as a market signal for what goods are desired, when things should be produced, and what should no longer be produced. Markets determine this through trial and error with thousands of participants simultaneously acting.

In theory, people have proposed doing away with the profit signal, but the only alternative is trial and error from a political process.

for the last 150 years, it has been understood that neither process is perfectly efficient. For most goods, it is conventionally understood that inefficiency of the profit signal is less than the inefficiency of political process.

By way of analogy, Walmart has a 2% profit margin which is a cost consumers bear for Walmart curating the selection of goods they want in the quantities they want. In terms of efficiency, I think it is unlikely a panel of government politicians (with their own motives and biases) could run a store and decide on the types and quantity of goods that people will want in a more efficient way.

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