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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

#81

Post by dtech »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #69
camelNotation wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are guaranteed income, you aren't bound to specific regions or locations. You can move to places with cheaper land and healthcare systems with less overcrowding. You can work less lucrative jobs in those locations and find customers for your work because everyone including the local residents of those rural areas, will have new money to spend. Local regions would see an influx in cash, allowing for small busin…

This might be a bug rather than a feature for a lot of people. Many people want humanity to concentrate in urban areas because it is better for the environment. Others complain about urbanites' tax dollars paying for rural roads (which is effectively the scenario you're describing, even if those tax dollars are labeled "UBI" and routed through rural citizens' bank accounts first). Still others see rural Americans as…

More "tax dollars" going to rural roads because more people live there is incomparable with a policy maker deciding that more budget should go there.

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

#82

Post by nabla9 »

throwaway13337 wrote: post #5

The issue I see with basic income is that most money is spent on housing and health care. These two things are supply constrained so it's more of an auction for who can afford them. With basic income, we may just raise the cost of those things. This problem wouldn't appear in a study that distributed to only some individuals. We need to solve the regulatory or otherwise organizational problems of these things to prov…

Here in Finland the UBI discussion is completely different from what is in the US. Here UBI hast to come in addition to housing allowance, free healthcare and education.

Realistic UBI would be roughly the size of minimum guaranteed pension.

The cost: Microsimulation models have shown that it can be cost neutral.

In current systems effective marginal tax rates are higher for poor people than they are for the middle class or the rich in both US, Finland and probably most other developed countries. UBI or negative income tax or something similar is needed to solve this problem.

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

#83

Post by beatgammit »

_bxg1 wrote: post #27
Ididntdothis wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are already complaining about taxes too high and lazy welfare recipients. With UBI this would get even worse and I agree that most likely it would get voted out very quickly. If we can’t even get universal health care, robust social safety net or secure retirement going without political fights, forget UBI.

The argument for UBI in place of those other things is that it's extremely simple. Legislatively, bureaucratically, etc. Just give people more money to offset all of these systems that are too expensive. Simpler also means cheaper to implement. It does avoid dealing with the root problems in some sense, but it's certainly elegant.

A lot of the poor that qualify for benefits can already get equivalents through family or friends if the program were not offered. If we just give cash, they're likely to spend it on other things and combine expenses where possible.

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

#84

Post by teraflop »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #69
camelNotation wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are guaranteed income, you aren't bound to specific regions or locations. You can move to places with cheaper land and healthcare systems with less overcrowding. You can work less lucrative jobs in those locations and find customers for your work because everyone including the local residents of those rural areas, will have new money to spend. Local regions would see an influx in cash, allowing for small busin…

This might be a bug rather than a feature for a lot of people. Many people want humanity to concentrate in urban areas because it is better for the environment. Others complain about urbanites' tax dollars paying for rural roads (which is effectively the scenario you're describing, even if those tax dollars are labeled "UBI" and routed through rural citizens' bank accounts first). Still others see rural Americans as…

So provide a basic income, but also shift some (or all) of the costs of those externalities onto the individual. Your basic income stretches farther if you choose a lifestyle that makes more efficient use of it.

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

#85

Post by japhyr »

ceejayoz wrote: post #46
snarf21 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is very true. Honestly asking: Is it working? I haven't seen lots of data on the topic. I also know the climate and endless day/night issues weigh into this too. I'm curious if academia sees this as a success or not.

It's a pretty dismal failure if you compare it to the alternative approach, which is saving the oil revenue for a rainy day. Norway has saved up $195,000 per citizen. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_Pension_Fund_of_Nor... (Alaska's dividend is also a pittance that likely doesn't even start to offset the higher cost of living there. "Basic income", it's not.)

The dividend is not particularly large as far as basic income goes, but it's an inflation-proof setup. The principal is currently somewhere around $67b. With about 700k residents in AK, that's about $90k per citizen.

Now that the annual oil revenue has declined, there's debate every year about what to do with that principal. AK has been cutting services the last few years, even though we have almost $70b in the bank.

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

#86

Post by vzidex »

pjc50 wrote: post #68
jimbokun wrote: post #47

> The project worked by recruiting low-income people and couples, offering them a fixed payment with no strings attached that worked out to approximately $17,000 for individuals and $24,000 for couples. Why discriminate so heavily against couples? It creates every incentive to lie about your relationship status. Or to avoid sharing a household altogether, creating greater economic inefficiencies and less built in soc…

Yeah, that's a means test and breahes the "universal" principle.

You've hit the nail on the head - means testing is the killer of any social program. Means testing makes social programs challenging to access and frustrating to use, leading to them being unpopular and unsuccessful.

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

#87

Post by macspoofing »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #38
throwaway13337 wrote: post #5

The issue I see with basic income is that most money is spent on housing and health care. These two things are supply constrained so it's more of an auction for who can afford them. With basic income, we may just raise the cost of those things. This problem wouldn't appear in a study that distributed to only some individuals. We need to solve the regulatory or otherwise organizational problems of these things to prov…

> With basic income, we may just raise the cost of those things. The problem with this argument is that it proves too much. It's true of anything that causes the poor to have more money . Lower unemployment, higher wages, anything. Heck, it's true of lower healthcare costs, because people would have more money for housing, or vice versa. Housing costs and healthcare costs are problems, but they're independent problem…

>Right now there are explicit subsidies for housing and healthcare. If they get replaced with a UBI in the same amount

Good luck with that. UBI is barely tolerated by the left and progressives but only under the constraint that it doesn't replace any existing social welfare programs. The minute UBI advocates start pushing it as a replacement is the minute that progressives will squash it.

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

#88

Post by simonsarris »

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 market when its a short-term study is huge.

For the ~10% figure, Chris Stucchio has a fairly succinct roundup of the work disincentive of other studies so far: https://www.chrisstucchio.com/blog/2019/basic_income_reduces...

~~~

Personal opinion: If you consider multi-generational entrenchments of poverty as its own problem, worth serious merit, then the work disincentive could be a disaster. In UBI long run, the children of parents who have never worked are probably going to be at a large disadvantage. I think its already a problem today for children of SSI recipient parents (even compared to children of SSDI parents), but its not easy to prove.

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

#89

Post by allannienhuis »

jasonlotito wrote: post #35
virgilp wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But this is from Canada, don't they have universal healthcare?

> universal healthcare That doesn't mean what you think it means. There are many things not covered or not covered practically that you would want to pay for private healthcare. e.g. You can wait years for services, or you can pay a few thousand a month and get it sooner. This is critical for things that necessitate early intervention. Wait too long, and when the government does finally come around to being able to p…

I doubt your experience is the norm. The system isn't perfect - there's definitely gaps or things I think should be covered (eg dental), and I know everyone's experience is different, but as a counter example I've never felt the need or desire to pay for private healthcare either (aside from not-covered dental) on demand or with private insurance, and I don't know any of my family that do either. (BC resident) The system has been there when we've needed it, including access to preventative care like cancer screening programs.

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

#90

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

jasonlotito wrote: post #43
seszett wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems Americans often believe that, but virtually nobody in Western Europe would even think of going to the US for healthcare. I would assume the same for Canadians. I have no idea if that's actually true, but the widespread opinion is that the ~free (it depends a lot between countries, it's usually simply affordable, rather than free) healthcare here is much better than what a normal person can afford in the US.

> It seems Americans often believe that, but virtually nobody in Western Europe would even think of going to the US for healthcare. I would assume the same for Canadians. This is not true. It's just ignored because people would rather believe that universal healthcare is infallible. We moved from Canada to the US precisely because of healthcare for our children. In Canada, care was non-existant and the private servic…

Do your children have special needs? It never even crossed my mind to move to the United States. I imagine given my profession I could get a job with decent benefits, but I can't imagine wanting to move to the states for the health care, unless I had a special requirement.
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