UBI as a productivity dividend • Hacker News Board

Re: UBI as a productivity dividend

#31

Post by SoftTalker » Sat, Mar 14, 2026, 6:16 PM UTC

estearum wrote: post #26

alpaca128 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If UBI is so high that people can afford paying extra without working for it then maybe, but I don't think that is the idea behind UBI. There still needs to be an incentive for people to work, they should just be in a place where they actually have a choice instead of living in survival mode every day.

Doesn't matter at all how much it is. It'll be (almost entirely or entirely) eaten by landlords. I am a landlord. I am setting prices for renewal. I have come to learn that 100% of my possible customer base now has $200/mo more to spend. I raise prices $200/mo with absolute certainty that I will find a renter. Congrats, mission accomplished.

How do you control what other landlords do? Why won't any undercut you by $200 and get your tenants?

Re: UBI as a productivity dividend

#32

Post by Spooky23 » Sat, Mar 14, 2026, 6:16 PM UTC

randerson wrote: post #8

I'm UBI-curious, but surely inflation would be inevitable if everyone suddenly had $x more disposable income per year? Landlords and grocery stores and everyone else would raise prices because they know people can afford it. Obviously if you're living in poverty, anything is better than nothing, but would the average middle class person be better off? As far as I can tell no country has ever tested true UBI (uncondit…

That’s one of the flawed arguments used against minimum wage. The answer is, no.

Re: UBI as a productivity dividend

#33

Post by neversupervised » Sat, Mar 14, 2026, 6:16 PM UTC

UBI will likely be necessary but that won’t appease society. Everyone wants to have a chance to climb the ladder. If it becomes self evident that humans can no longer have a meaningful impact on their outcome, there’ll be riots whether they have a roof and food or not.

Re: UBI as a productivity dividend

#34

Post by georgemcbay » Sat, Mar 14, 2026, 6:17 PM UTC

randerson wrote: post #8

I'm UBI-curious, but surely inflation would be inevitable if everyone suddenly had $x more disposable income per year? Landlords and grocery stores and everyone else would raise prices because they know people can afford it. Obviously if you're living in poverty, anything is better than nothing, but would the average middle class person be better off? As far as I can tell no country has ever tested true UBI (uncondit…

> What if you want, say, a human hair stylist or therapist: who would do such a job if they don't have to?

I have no faith in Musk's vision of an abundance utopia for many reasons, but I suspect a lot of people would still want to do the job of being a human therapist or hair stylist even if they technically didn't need to for money.

They may want to work less than 40 hours a week, but most people do have an inate need to feel like their life has some sort of productive value beyond just base level existing.

Re: UBI as a productivity dividend

#35

Post by Spooky23 » Sat, Mar 14, 2026, 6:18 PM UTC

ambicapter wrote: post #4

The only way? What about built out infrastructure? What about universal health care? What about enforcing laws? What about enforcing truth in advertising? What about punishing various types of crooks in the various markets and transactions, financial and otherwise, that ordinary people take part in? The only way? Like a silver bullet? Like that thing that the common idiom says doesn't exist?

It’s obviously not the only way. The more likely way is what is happening, a new medieval era with lords and serfs.

Re: UBI as a productivity dividend

#36

Post by kbelder » Sat, Mar 14, 2026, 6:18 PM UTC

SoftTalker wrote: post #31

estearum wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't matter at all how much it is. It'll be (almost entirely or entirely) eaten by landlords. I am a landlord. I am setting prices for renewal. I have come to learn that 100% of my possible customer base now has $200/mo more to spend. I raise prices $200/mo with absolute certainty that I will find a renter. Congrats, mission accomplished.

How do you control what other landlords do? Why won't any undercut you by $200 and get your tenants?

In a normal market, they would. But housing is highly regulated with artificial shortages, so that pricing is very distorted.

Re: UBI as a productivity dividend

#37

Post by K0balt » Sat, Mar 14, 2026, 6:19 PM UTC

UBI is the actual solution, and is well understood enough now to know that most of the arguments against it are moot points or simply falsehoods.

Unfortunately, with regulatory capture at near 100 percent and electoral capture almost as bad, there is no incentive structure with sufficient influence to make it happen. Wealth will continue to be funneled to the top, and taxation schemes that act as a de-facto sales tax create incentives that favor even more centralized systems.

But wouldn’t it be great?

An interesting aspect is that I am constantly observing innovators with significant technical and technological skills that are employed in fields outside of their expertise as a “temporary “ measure that often becomes permanent if they get further encumbered, simply because they can keel out an existence while trying to build the next cool thing. So we are wasting probably trillions of GDP in talent because people need to go work in a labor job to support their wife and child instead of continuing his very promising project in training data for humanoid robots, which could easily net 100m+ in the next decade. (Actual example. I offered him $1000 a month to keep on it, but he unfortunately needs more to survive and he has eaten through his savings over the past two years of working on it.)

Re: UBI as a productivity dividend

#38

Post by softwaredoug » Sat, Mar 14, 2026, 6:21 PM UTC

What if we build UBI but we turn out not to need it? Thats my worry. AI might possibly be “just another technology”. If we put in UBI we may disincentivize labor from adapting to an economic shift.

The real solution is to regulate the industry and break up monopolies. UBI is the modern equivalent of Walmart workers on Medicaid and food stamps. It’s raiding public funds for private profit.

Re: UBI as a productivity dividend

#39

Post by SoftTalker » Sat, Mar 14, 2026, 6:21 PM UTC

iso1631 wrote: post #29

estearum wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't matter at all how much it is. It'll be (almost entirely or entirely) eaten by landlords. I am a landlord. I am setting prices for renewal. I have come to learn that 100% of my possible customer base now has $200/mo more to spend. I raise prices $200/mo with absolute certainty that I will find a renter. Congrats, mission accomplished.

Unless of course that UBI is funded by a land value tax.

How does land value tax help in particular here? Landlord pays land value tax, which is distributed via UBI, and then paid back to the landlord in higher rents (in the above scenaro).

Re: UBI as a productivity dividend

#40

Post by clhodapp » Sat, Mar 14, 2026, 6:21 PM UTC

randerson wrote: post #8

I'm UBI-curious, but surely inflation would be inevitable if everyone suddenly had $x more disposable income per year? Landlords and grocery stores and everyone else would raise prices because they know people can afford it. Obviously if you're living in poverty, anything is better than nothing, but would the average middle class person be better off? As far as I can tell no country has ever tested true UBI (uncondit…

It depends. On its own, UBI puts a downward pressure on the value of money. Some other things (e.g. setting low interest rates) also put a downward pressure on the value of money. However, some things (e.g. taxes) put an upward pressure on the value of money. So it comes down to how all of those factors balance out.