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People kept working, became healthier while on basic income: report

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Re: People kept working, became healthier while on basic income: report

#581

Post by Proziam »

hinkley wrote: post #550
Proziam wrote: post #528

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you could have worked twice as many hours and made twice as much money - would you? That was the position I found myself in, and that's how I got where I am. I never claimed to have a secret skill.

"Man. Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived."

You're describing my dad perfectly. He worked as much as I do (plus he was doing hard physical labor...) until he died of cancer in 2009. He's the reason I dedicated myself to work as much as I could as early as I could, so I could get myself to a point of financial independence. He never got to enjoy his retirement because he sacrificed his life to adopt me, so I feel a sense of urgency to enjoy life as much as I can in his honor.

Re: People kept working, became healthier while on basic income: report

#582

Post by entropicdrifter »

WalterBright wrote: post #551
sailfast wrote: post #531

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is a reduction in labor supply bad at present for low / unskilled labor? We're moving in that direction anyway using automation and software anyway, correct? Also I see no mention at all of frictional unemployment as part of Mr. Stucchio's conclusions and if I suddenly had the ability to look for new jobs I would certainly take advantage. The 10% number is created because people would now have actual OPTIONS, whi…

> I don't know anyone who would be less likely to be successful as a result of UBI. I have an acquaintance who works at min wage jobs just long enough to qualify for unemployment, then he manages to get laid off. He lives off the unemployment until it runs out, then gets another min wage job, and the cycle repeats as long as I've known him. He's quite content with this arrangement.

Wouldn't he be more successful with UBI, then? He would likely overall save the corporations he's being employed on and off by money by reducing their turnover. Also, it's likely most low wage jobs would have their wages increase because there would be less fear of unionizing if striking meant that nobody would be going hungry.

Thus, UBI can reduce the degree of low wage exploitation at both the worker's side (getting laid off asap for unemployment) and the business's side (exploitative policies countered by stronger unions and more incentive to unionize) while at the same time providing a fixed rate cost and less bureaucracy needed compared to the current welfare systems

Just saying, seems like a win-win to me.

Re: People kept working, became healthier while on basic income: report

#583

Post by jeffy »

One argument I never see in UBI discussions is that some people are just bad with money. If you give more money to someone who doesn't budget, save, live within their means, etc, it won't help. There are people who spend beyond their means and then get payday loans. So while it would help some people who would spend wisely, many would not.

You would have payday loans 2.0 where people would borrow against future UBI payments, spend on non necessities, and then be in an probably worse situation compared to the people still receiving UBI.

Re: People kept working, became healthier while on basic income: report

#584

Post by jonathankoren »

luckylion wrote: post #460
jonathankoren wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes. Someone needs to work to produce the goods and services they use, as well as fund their UBI. The more people who opt out of working, the harder everyone else must work to compensate. Workers are more productive now than they ever have been.[0] Productivity was up 253% since 1948 seven years ago. For decades they’ve been promising us the 20 hour work week, and it’s here. In fact it’s only 15 hours comparatively…

> The point is: you don’t need everyone to work full time everyday for a society to maintain a healthy standard of living. Maintaining isn't what people are aiming for though, they want improvement. People are not satisfied by objectively living much better lives than some king or pope 500 years ago.

First, peoples’ satisfaction is primarily influenced by the visibility of the inequities immediately around them.

Second, who said anything about the rate of change going to zero? Even if productivity suddenly dropped to 1948 levels, it’s not like we’d be living in 1948. It’s not a time machine.

Re: People kept working, became healthier while on basic income: report

#585

Post by lastres0rt »

refurb wrote: post #438
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #170

From my personal point of view, basic income SHOULD disincentivise work; it's a boost for society, health, well-being, children, etc. Because in the current economy, a lot of people have to work unreasonable hours, multiple jobs, and have all people in a family work to make ends meet, at the cost of personal health and well-being, personal time, having children at all or having more children, getting married and buyi…

Ok, but work (productivity) is how you actually pay for UBI. So by giving UBI, you are decreasing the resources that pay for it.

UBI is like any other government service: if you're spending more on [Service aimed at me] than I actually need to become a productive member of society (or at least not a drain on it), you're not spending your money right.

You can spend that government money on any number of services: Prisons, Childcare, Libraries, Transportation, etc. UBI is different in one major detail:

UBI assumes that people are, at this stage of human technology and society, smarter about how to spend that money the government is ALREADY going to spend on them than the government itself is.

Furthermore, to differentiate itself from mere "welfare", any attempt at means-testing to try and ensure that only "worthy" clients get UBI is just going to add further cost to the system. Specifically, it will cost more than simply distributing the money involved. After all, drug tests cost money. Paperwork costs money. Employing enforcers costs money AND office space AND equipment for them to do their job.

It's a radical notion -- after all, doesn't figuring out if giving out "free money" actually saves money still itself cost money? Still, we're not comparing UBI to a mythical "perfect system"; we're trying to compare it to the imperfect system we have right now, where the cost of NOT doing it gets reflected in things like crime, mental illness, drug abuse, preventable deaths, etc.

There is already a cost associated to continuing to do things "the way we've always done them". UBI is that same cost spent in a different way.

Re: People kept working, became healthier while on basic income: report

#586

Post by nennes »

tomp wrote: post #447
nennes wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So as a gender, women choose lower paid jobs and work less? If this is true and it is a choice, that would mean that women as a gender are either lazy or less qualified. If this is not true then it is evidence of inequality in the selection of employees. I don't see either of the above making your point.

So you're writing on HN instead of working more because you're lazy and less qualified? Or do you voluntarily choose to spend part of your life not working and doing other things that you find enjoyable? TL;DR: go away troll.

Yes, you got it, women have more enjoyable things to do than working. How convenient.

Re: People kept working, became healthier while on basic income: report

#587

Post by peterashford »

csa wrote: post #488
munk-a wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That skill is so trivial to learn compared with the skill of surviving and building up income from nothing. Rich people literally just need to not be complete idiots - if you've got 300 million in the bank put it in some low interest stable investment and you'd be able to live off the investment earnings alone. There, I just explained all the life skills you need as a rich person - there is no equivalence between the…

I am guessing that you do not know many people who were born into wealth. There are existential questions that gnaw at some of these people that hinder them from taking the seemingly simple path that you have presented. I would also argue that it is not as easy as you would think to park millions in some "low interest stable investment" that also does not have substantial (for generational wealth) counter-party risk.…

I literally cannot believe you are seriously making this argument.

Re: People kept working, became healthier while on basic income: report

#588

Post by free652 »

z9e wrote: post #553
free652 wrote: post #475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sane? Like a great-grandmother? Would be she insane to live in NYC where is her whole family?

It would be insane for her family to not take her into their home and take care of her, which unfortunately the US doesn’t do as much as other cultures.

So right now she is independent, but under UBI she has to beg her family? Is that what you call a success of UBI?

That's just income redistribution from the most vulnerable, right wing would love this.

Re: People kept working, became healthier while on basic income: report

#589

Post by throwaway894345 »

adwn wrote: post #579
volkk wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Many people want humanity to concentrate in urban areas because it is better for the environment. I'm interested in learning more about this. I've never heard of it, are there any sources proving that this is the case? If people spread out more, is that actually more harmful? I can imagine this is an extremely complicated topic

I can't provide numbers for this, but many things are more efficient for dense settlements: transportation, any last-mile distribution (food, water, electricity) and collection (sewage, garbage).

This is the line of reasoning I was referring to. Also urban areas emit (cause?) less carbon per capita than rural areas and both do better than suburban areas.

Re: People kept working, became healthier while on basic income: report

#590

Post by jonathankoren »

refurb wrote: post #458
jonathankoren wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Similar findings are repeated all across the social safety net. For example, the Scandinavian countries with their robust social programs routinely top lists for ease of entrepreneurship. [0] (e.g. Losing health insurance is big disincentive to starting a new company.) There are also have been repeated studies that found that financial stress causes people to perform worse on cognitive tasks, and removing that stress…

Ease of entrepreneurship might be high, but actual entrepreneurship lags the US where a much weaker social safety net exists. Ow do you explain that?

You’re connecting two irrelevant things.

Look at Sweden.

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/09/sweden-...

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