People kept working, became healthier while on basic income: report • Hacker News Board

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

#701

Post by eru » Fri, Mar 06, 2020, 1:49 AM UTC

sokoloff wrote: post #70

eru wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Land value tax would be the way to go. Regulating the rent would be about as useful and effective as existing rent control schemes.. With a land value tax, the rent would still go up, but the increase would mostly be recycled back into tax take. (And you can use that tax take to eg finance (part of) the UBI.)

If you intend to tax away all the advantages of providing additional housing supply, I’d expect smart landlords to not increase housing supply.

Yes, that's a big part of why rent control doesn't work well.

A land value tax is levied on the value of the unimproved land in a specific plot. Whether you leave the land fallow or build 30 storeys of luxury condominiums on it, the amount of dollars you have to pay in taxes doesn't change.

So the (additional) housing supply is completely untaxed.

What is taxed however is the following:

If the town gets a new highway or airport, and that raises land prices, that gets taxed. Same for a UBI.

(To pre-empt the next discussion: it's not completely trivial to separate the value of the building from the value of the land. But it can be done. Insurance companies do it routinely. And there are a variety of strategies to make the assessment that are hard to game or cheat.)

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

#702

Post by mikemotherwell » Fri, Mar 06, 2020, 1:51 AM UTC

ghostpepper wrote: post #681

mikemotherwell wrote: post #661

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But if UBI replaced all normal welfare (excluding disability etc) is that such a bad thing? Part of the problem is that some welfare is not about the money, but the support. UBI is less likely to help someone with mental issues than someone who hates working at 7/11 while studying. Generalised, UBI likely helps those who have an impermanent problem over those that have longer term issues. Society likely would still…

I'm not familiar with the US system - does the term "welfare" refer to more than just monetary assistance? I would assume social programs, mental health support, addictions support, job training etc. would still be around with a UBI.

I'm not American, so same situation, but welfare as a cost to government I am pretty sure includes all spending, not just that which goes to the final recipient. https://www.budget.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/CRS%20Report%20-... is the best I could find.

I'm also pretty sure that is the case in almost all countries, where welfare is all money spent on, well, looking after people in some way?

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

#703

Post by ryanyde » Fri, Mar 06, 2020, 1:53 AM UTC

2 thoughts: * Only ~200 people out of 1000 completed the survey. Many of these people were found by the researchers, so there's likely bias (given the nature of the report) * Basic income's benefits will eventually go away in a society with easy access to credit. Similar to comments by throwaway13337.

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

#704

Post by refurb » Fri, Mar 06, 2020, 1:59 AM UTC

danenania wrote: post #359

easytiger wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A kid watching their parents break their backs as minimum-wage slaves living paycheck to paycheck doesn't prepare them to do anything other than the same thing with their lives. I'm sorry but you don't have the first clue. Plenty of immigrant families leave low opportunity nation states and work what you consider demeaning work whilst taking steps to ensure their children seek more aspirational jobs and careers.

Some do, but it's a small percentage. Many more struggle their whole lives to survive without being able to make any significant improvement to their family's economic status.

It's not a small percentage.

43% of children born into the bottom quintile (bottom 20%) remain in that bottom quintile as adults.

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

#705

Post by refurb » Fri, Mar 06, 2020, 2:00 AM UTC

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.

I had an uncle do the same thing. He loved skiing, so made sure he took seasonal work so that he'd get unemployment insurance over the winter so he could spend all his time skiing.

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

#706

Post by dahart » Fri, Mar 06, 2020, 2:01 AM UTC

blackflame7000 wrote: post #631

multiplegeorges wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And this is a very misleading summary of the results. Here are some actual quote from the study: > Ten respondents moved from unemployment to employment while 32 moved from employment to unemployment. Of the participants who moved from employment to unemployment, 13 (40.6%) enrolled in full-time education during the pilot with the intention of re-entering the labour market later as more qualified workers. Almost half…

Education does not equate to a successful job. I know a few career students that acquire one useless degree after another because every time they try to get a job they find no one is hiring.

> Education does not equate to a successful job

Yes it does, statistically speaking.

Career academics are a tiny minority of the population. The median salary of a BS degree in the US is 2x over non-degree holders. The median salary of an advanced degree is 3x. Twice the salary for having a 4 year degree, that is enormous.

These stats were published very recently by the St. Louis Fed: https://files.stlouisfed.org/files/htdocs/publications/revie...

Before I saw the statistics I would not have believed the difference is anywhere near as large as 2x.

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

#707

Post by refurb » Fri, Mar 06, 2020, 2:04 AM UTC

jonathankoren wrote: post #685

refurb wrote: post #676

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US is #1, Sweden is #9. https://thegedi.org/global-entrepreneurship-and-development-...

So your gotcha is comparing the relative ranking of two countries in the top 10? A top 10 that has multiple European counties with robust safety nets in it? I don’t think this data is saying what you think. There’s no evidence of disincentivization. This reminds me of the people that complain that UBI causes people to work less, and when you dig into it, they stopped working overtime, or went back to school, retired,…

I'm arguing that providing a solid safety net doesn't seem to drive that much entrepreneurship.

Canada is a great example. People are very risk adverse, don't start many companies, but have a solid safety net they could rely on.

And Canada is #3 on that list and as a Canadian, I can say that entrepreneurship here is a fraction of what it is in the US.

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

#708

Post by danans » Fri, Mar 06, 2020, 2:08 AM UTC

airstrike wrote: post #655

danans wrote: post #644

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just want to point out that inequality globally isn't necessarily rising. My comment specifically referred to UBI in the context of the US, so I'm not sure what the relevance of global inequality is to whether or not an individual country does UBI. If anything, the globalization that is driving global inequality down (a good thing), when coupled with domestic policies in the developed world that massively favor own…

> so I'm not sure what the relevance of global inequality is to whether or not an individual country does UBI. Because UBI is a misguided effort. It aims to fix inequality in any given country without addressing the root cause for increased domestic inequality: that low-skilled workers in developed nations are more expensive than low-skilled workers in developing nations in an age of cheap global logistics and teleco…

> Because UBI is a misguided effort. It aims to fix inequality

No, it's a tool among many that can be used to fight inequality, not a solution in itself, despite attempts to depicted otherwise by both its supporters and detractors.

> More sustainable solutions would arguably revolve around improving the educational system and revisiting {fiscal, educational, cultural, ...} incentives

This reads like a thinly veiled recommendation to privatize schooling, reduce government supports to make people"hungrier" for success, and leave people's welfare to the conditioned charity of narrow cultural interest groups. Let the "best" rise to the top in the arena of struggle.

Dr King had the best summary of this: socialism for the rich, rugged individualism for the poor.

Incentives working ways that can drag society backwards also. Set up the system so the masses struggle to keep their heads above water, and what you'll likely end up with is a lot of destructive behavior whose cost is borne by society at large.

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

#709

Post by tic_tac » Fri, Mar 06, 2020, 2:14 AM UTC

r-w wrote: post #672

tic_tac wrote: post #641

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As it is structured today, yes it is. The majority of people study Psychology, Sociology, Economics or something of that nature then go on to make power point slides or enter numbers in Excel all day for the rest of their lives. Enabling this sort of broken system is exactly what UBI as currently imagined will do. The problem with progressive crusades like UBI is that they completely ignore reality... UBI will only i…

> […] its value as a signaling mechanism, which is where the majority of modern education's value lies in the first place. I’m not sure education is a very high-resolution or effective signal for much, and I think its dilution as a signal would help force us to find a better one. I’m curious though, given how self-assured you seem: what do you think education signals right now?

Education signals that you are "better" than those with worse education. Smarter, harder working, etc.

We need to create better options for students. We can do this by refocusing education on learning practical skills for real world jobs rather than maintaining an educational system built upon a foundation over 1000 years old that up until 100 or so years ago was intended for the elites and scholars, not the average person looking for a job.

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

#710

Post by refurb » Fri, Mar 06, 2020, 2:18 AM UTC

jasonlotito wrote: post #568

frandroid wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can wait years for services *in some rare cases

No, these aren't rare cases. If you have certain not-uncommon conditions, you can wait years for services. Please don't presume to put words in my mouth again.

Bennett was referred for surgery on her right hip in November of 2013 and said she’s been told she won’t get in until early in 2016. She said her joint has deteriorated so much she is unable to work or even function without strong narcotic painkillers.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/patients-liv...