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Universal basic income to be tested in Wales

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Universal basic income to be tested in Wales

#31

Post by _rpd »

GordonS wrote: post #9

I'm going to assume it won't be "for life", but will instead be for some fixed period, such as 1 or 2 years. Scotland has been proposing doing a similar experiment too. But I'm not sure what these very small scale experiments are meant to tell us, especially since several such experiments have already been done. I can't help but be cynical and think this is governments offering platitudes to those in favour of UBI, r…

Yes, these ‘tests’ are documenting how people respond to a lottery windfall. They have nothing to do with UBI.

Re: Universal basic income to be tested in Wales

#32

Post by Mordisquitos »

jpxw wrote: post #10
s3tz wrote: post #7

I'm curious, can we determine from small scale tests like this whether the data we get from them is scale independent?

You can’t. But UBI-supporters don’t let that get in the way.

That's a good point. We've already carried out enough small-scale tests of UBI to know that it has no obvious drawbacks, and carrying out even more small-scale tests will not provide us with much new information. What we need now are state-wide implementations of UBI, as they are the only way that UBI-sceptics may be forced to accept it if the results are positive.

Re: Universal basic income to be tested in Wales

#33

Post by toyg »

GordonS wrote: post #9

I'm going to assume it won't be "for life", but will instead be for some fixed period, such as 1 or 2 years. Scotland has been proposing doing a similar experiment too. But I'm not sure what these very small scale experiments are meant to tell us, especially since several such experiments have already been done. I can't help but be cynical and think this is governments offering platitudes to those in favour of UBI, r…

It might help to look at the Welsh political landscape. Labour is in power but is permanently at risk of being replaced by the national-populist Plaid Cymru (like it happened in Scotland, where the Scottish National Party literally wiped the board). PC (like the SNP) supports UBI, so Lab has to coopt the policy. This also helps them attract LibDem voters (another pro-UBI party), whose votes are otherwise wasted (LDs can’t win in Wales). And it solidifies the covid-created Wales-Scotland axis against the UK government, currently dominated by unabashed “England-first” Conservatives (philosophically opposed to UBI, since it threatens to reduce employers’ power).

So the Welsh government has an interest in making the policy work for real, to keep them in power in the long term. The issue for them will be affordability.

Re: Universal basic income to be tested in Wales

#34

Post by sonograph »

XorNot wrote: post #13
GordonS wrote: post #9

I'm going to assume it won't be "for life", but will instead be for some fixed period, such as 1 or 2 years. Scotland has been proposing doing a similar experiment too. But I'm not sure what these very small scale experiments are meant to tell us, especially since several such experiments have already been done. I can't help but be cynical and think this is governments offering platitudes to those in favour of UBI, r…

This has always been my problem. If we're going to test UBI, then we really need to run a test over a reasonable time-frame (20 years) or so and commit into it. So we move some people off the existing schemes we have, onto UBI and let that study run. I suspect the ideal candidate group would be older, poorer people (say, in there 40s) who we would otherwise expect to coast onto a pension later. It timeframes it nicel…

It would also need to be tested in nations that have lots of social programs and nations with low social programs. A wide range of governments here. For example, I could see a UBI test in the US just going to pay for health insurance premiums (or part of them anyway)

Re: Universal basic income to be tested in Wales

#35

Post by secondcoming »

bjackman wrote: post #17
janandonly wrote: post #6

Interesting how political parties are for or against this pilot project before the results are known. What happened to gathering evidence first and then making up one's mind? There have been other projects in Canada, Finland,Kenya and the Netherlands, all with “positive” results. It is useful to ask what you are trying to achieve with an UBI? * lift people out of poverty? * save money on other social schemes, like pe…

Part of the reason for this lack of interest in the actual outcome is that state benefits are one of the main battlegrounds in the UK's culture war. A lot of the Tories' base comes from the ideological position that poorer people don't deserve to receive aid at the expense (via taxes) of richer people. Whether or not UBI achieves any of its stated aims is totally irrelevant once you see things that way. All the argum…

> All the arguments about disincentivising work are, IMO just convenient filler

Not sure, I've read articles online about companies in the US struggling to hire because people are being paid more by the government. The counter to this is that companies should pay more. Undoubtedly some could afford to do this, but others... the mom & pop outfits... may not be able to.

Re: Universal basic income to be tested in Wales

#36

Post by falcor84 »

smaryjerry wrote: post #28
akyu wrote: post #8

The 'universal' aspect of UBI is critical, and many of the attempts to test UBI seem to miss this completely. Call it something else in that case.

Like the Oakland program which specifically excludes whites. Or basically every other program that only includes extremely low income people. I suppose it gets the results they want though, which is to show it helps the lives of the people, however as we have seen with this last year of unemployment checks, people just won’t go back to work if they can make almost as much for doing nothing. At our business getting pe…

Well, the whole thing about UBI, as opposed to unemployment payments, is that you'd continue getting it regardless of other sources of income, right? So you should always have some incentive to work, if the conditions are reasonable and they make it worth your time.

Re: Universal basic income to be tested in Wales

#37

Post by sokoloff »

bjackman wrote: post #17
janandonly wrote: post #6

Interesting how political parties are for or against this pilot project before the results are known. What happened to gathering evidence first and then making up one's mind? There have been other projects in Canada, Finland,Kenya and the Netherlands, all with “positive” results. It is useful to ask what you are trying to achieve with an UBI? * lift people out of poverty? * save money on other social schemes, like pe…

Part of the reason for this lack of interest in the actual outcome is that state benefits are one of the main battlegrounds in the UK's culture war. A lot of the Tories' base comes from the ideological position that poorer people don't deserve to receive aid at the expense (via taxes) of richer people. Whether or not UBI achieves any of its stated aims is totally irrelevant once you see things that way. All the argum…

I have significant sympathy for that base’s point of view.

It’s one thing to say that we must provide a social safety net for the most vulnerable, whether temporarily or permanently so.

It’s quite another to say “work should be optional and the basics of life should be provided for all [via the work of others]”.

I think you’ll find a few people who object to my 2nd paragraph, but extending the argument to the 3rd is a jump where you’ll lose a great number of reasonable people.

Re: Universal basic income to be tested in Wales

#38

Post by sokoloff »

secondcoming wrote: post #35
bjackman wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of the reason for this lack of interest in the actual outcome is that state benefits are one of the main battlegrounds in the UK's culture war. A lot of the Tories' base comes from the ideological position that poorer people don't deserve to receive aid at the expense (via taxes) of richer people. Whether or not UBI achieves any of its stated aims is totally irrelevant once you see things that way. All the argum…

> All the arguments about disincentivising work are, IMO just convenient filler Not sure, I've read articles online about companies in the US struggling to hire because people are being paid more by the government. The counter to this is that companies should pay more. Undoubtedly some could afford to do this, but others... the mom & pop outfits... may not be able to.

In the US, it’s not UBI; it’s unemployment which you lose if you work. If UBI isn’t lost via work (other than via taxes, of course), the same issue does not arise at nearly the same magnitude.

Re: Universal basic income to be tested in Wales

#39

Post by LatteLazy »

notahacker wrote: post #19
sokoloff wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do we know that it works? Including accounting for sourcing the funds and the amount of demand-driven inflation that might result?

This. So far we've repeatedly tested that if you give people in an area a small sum of money paid for from central government funds for a couple of years, they won't change their habits much but will be a little better off financially, which should be of absolutely no surprise to anyone. A real pilot would - as a minimum - be making the local tax rises and welfare cuts necessary to make the scheme revenue neutral, wh…

I'm the root commentor but I hope you don't mind me piling on.

It's pretty well agreed that the trial in Finland worked:

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2242937-universal-basic...

Id welcome a trial that included paying for it. That said, I don't think it would make a big difference. The UK (I'm a brit) spends enough on welfare to just give everyone £5000 pa (including kids) at the same price. We could just start there and make zero changes to tax policy...

Re: Universal basic income to be tested in Wales

#40

Post by gandalfian »

In practice the UK already pays the price for a universal basic income. Most poor people get some sort of tax credit and/or housing benefit. What we don't do is allow people to use it to rise out of poverty. A disabled lady thought saving some of her disability was the responsible thing to do, despite further impoverishing herself, once she built up some savings she was prosecuted for fraudently claiming benefits while having savings. There is this tremendous destructive fear that no one should build up any capital with the help of benefits when this is precisely what would lift people out of poverty long term and reduce the costs on society.
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