Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

cbc.ca

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

711–720 of 809 posts

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

#711

Post by thatcat »

sixstringtheory wrote: post #691
blackflame7000 wrote: post #638

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, because you can be educated in any topic up to and including the history of the Kardashians. This in no way contributes to a better functioning society. Your entire premise that education = more intelligence is completely wrong. Would you argue a person educated by extremists correlates with a better functioning society? The only thing that betters society is the positive application of knowledge to creating some…

> Education does not equate to a successful job > The only thing that betters society is the positive application of knowledge To apply knowledge, you have to first acquire it. How do you propose to do so without education?

GP's point seems currently the improvement of society is not guaranteed by a degree because either it's based on knowledge that is not applicable to improving society or their job applies that knowledge to something net negative to extract value.

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

#712

Post by OceanSunfish »

Mirioron wrote: post #538
fma wrote: post #519

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of Andrew Yang's proposal was to pay for a UBI with a 10% VAT, especially on services gained from automation, AI etc. Things that give companies a productivity boost, while also avoid taxes. So this would be a way to get the money back. For example - currently a trucker driver will pay state tax, federal tax, pay taxes on the things they eat/buy. When a self driving truck comes...all of that above won't occur any…

> Things that give companies a productivity boost, while also avoid taxes. Shovels, cars, tractors, computers, pens, paper etc? A truck driver can do the job of many cart drivers! And a cart driver can do the job of people who carry things with their own body.

Sure, all of those things created large economic gains for their respective economies. It's a question of how much of that economic gain can we capture with taxation.

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

#713

Post by syrrim »

winstonewert wrote: post #684
syrrim wrote: post #626

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you expect UBI to be funded? Either taxes or wars, and we haven't invested very much in our army.

UBI would be funded by taxes, duh. But the funding mechanism isn't at issue here. The point is that for every dollar earned the participants lost 50 cents due to a decrease in support from the basic income. That's a massive disincentive to work.

Any practical UBI will require a large increase in taxes. If this isn't an income tax, it will be a payroll or sales tax, which both have a similar effect. A UBI pilot needs to model that tax just as much as the actual money transfer. If a practical UBI system contains a "massive disincentive to work", a model of such a system should contain this as well.

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

#714

Post by retpirato »

sixstringtheory wrote: post #691
blackflame7000 wrote: post #638

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, because you can be educated in any topic up to and including the history of the Kardashians. This in no way contributes to a better functioning society. Your entire premise that education = more intelligence is completely wrong. Would you argue a person educated by extremists correlates with a better functioning society? The only thing that betters society is the positive application of knowledge to creating some…

> Education does not equate to a successful job > The only thing that betters society is the positive application of knowledge To apply knowledge, you have to first acquire it. How do you propose to do so without education?

the point is a degree in a subject where there is no money to be made is a WASTE of money. A degree is not inherently worth the time & money spent earning it if you can't make a career with it. You'll also have student loans to pay for. Don't bother saying "free college" is the issue either. There's no such thing. Somebody is paying for that "free" college in the form of higher taxes.

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

#715

Post by thereare5lights »

multiplegeorges wrote: post #378
simonsarris wrote: post #88

This is very misleading reporting. First: All studies so far show a pretty consistent ~10% work disincentive. This is what all the detractors say when they say it disincentivizes work. So how about this one? From actually reading the study's conclusion: > Slightly less than one-fifth were employed before but unemployed during the pilot (17%) So even worse than what we've seen so far. 17% dropping out of the labor mar…

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…

I can't upvote this comment enough. The parent comment was so egregious in its misrepresentation of the study.

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

#716

Post by rtkwe »

blackflame7000 wrote: post #634
rtkwe wrote: post #573

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main thing being said is there's a drastic difference between knowing the BI you're getting is temporary and it being a 'permanent' government program. There's no way to provide a citation for that because the only way to run that is to have a full UBI and study the results to see if these short term BI studies still hold water. However it's not a stretch at all to say people will act different when they're tempo…

In fact it's well known that disposable vs fixed income directly impacts the financial decisions people make

The main argument I, and I believe the OP, was making is because the period of these programs are limited, and not even the full period is guaranteed as this shows, it affects how people act. If it's a program I believe I can count on existing for 10-20 years I can make significant life changes around receiving the money, eg move somewhere super cheap and volunteer or something, but at just a few I know I'm going to have to go back to normal at the end so making those big changes is harder.

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

#717

Post by Thorentis »

thereare5lights wrote: post #715
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…

I can't upvote this comment enough. The parent comment was so egregious in its misrepresentation of the study.

It didn't misrepresent anything. If I was enrolled in a study where I was given free money, I'd stop working and pursue study or other interests too. Seems like these people knew the study was temporary, and took advantage of it. A permanent basic income would produce results no study is capable of measuring.

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

#718

Post by airstrike »

danans wrote: post #708
airstrike wrote: post #655

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 r…

> 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.

You're putting words into my mouth and your comment just derailed completely thereafter, so I'm not even going to waste time addressing your criticism if you're not assuming good faith on my part.

I suggest you pause and reflect upon your apparent assumption that others who hold opinions different from your own do so because they are morally inferior or somehow driven by less noble motives.

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

#719

Post by thereare5lights »

Thorentis wrote: post #717
thereare5lights wrote: post #715

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't upvote this comment enough. The parent comment was so egregious in its misrepresentation of the study.

It didn't misrepresent anything. If I was enrolled in a study where I was given free money, I'd stop working and pursue study or other interests too. Seems like these people knew the study was temporary, and took advantage of it. A permanent basic income would produce results no study is capable of measuring.

Wrong.

Parent said

> First: All studies so far show a pretty consistent ~10% work disincentive. This is what all the detractors say when they say it disincentivizes work. So how about this one? From actually reading the study's conclusion:

>> Slightly less than one-fifth were employed before but unemployed during the pilot (17%)

> So even worse than what we've seen so far. 17% dropping out of the labor market when its a short-term study is huge.

Child comment proved this to be misleading. I myself was misled. Anyone reading this would think that this study showed that UBI disincentivizes work. Child comment showed that this conclusion does not follow from the study.

You can speculate all you want on what permanent UBI would do but what the parent comment said is absolutely a misrepresentation of the study.

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

#720

Post by danans »

airstrike wrote: post #718
danans wrote: post #708

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 r…

> 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. You're putting words into my mouth and your comment just derailed completely thereafter, so I'm not even going to waste time addressing…

My sincere apologies for assuming the motivation behind your comment. If that's not the correct interpretation of your comment - which was very vague - please do explain the concrete manifestation of it.
Post reply on HN