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Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

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Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#81

Post by ilaksh »

bko wrote: post #46
ilaksh wrote: post #22

$1000 is not enough to quit their jobs or get a nice apartment. They could move slightly closer to work if they have to commute. It's not enough for a real tuition or to support them to study instead of work. I don't think we've ever had a universal basic income test. We have always missed the universal and basic part. It's below basic and not at all universal. I suspect that you need to get international cooperation…

Why is the goal to get people to quit their jobs and get a nice apartment? Isn't it supposed to be a minimum base level of support? Why do we keep moving the goal posts? And if everyone quits their job and lives in a nice apartment, where is this money going to come from? The problem with welfare today is that its a disincentive to work. Start working, you lose your transfer payments. A lot of people are stuck in thi…

Good point about making it unconditional. I meant more like for an opportunity to pause work or reduce work to find a better job, or study, or start a business. And I should not have said nice apartment but rather standard apartment. Many lower cost apartments are substandard: pest problems, poor heating/AC, no hookups for washer/dryer, crime-ridden area, etc.

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#82

Post by heylook »

kevinventullo wrote: post #36
joe_the_user wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it some shock-horror thing that people worked less? I think, for those who imagine AI taking a vast swath of jobs (like Altman), the aim for basic income is to get people working less but without this resulting social/work disengagement (whether AI will have that effect is a different matter).

Moreover, it is possible to create value without making money.

In fact often the most efficient, effective, and long-lasting value creation has nothing to do with money at all.

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#84

Post by ixwt »

andy_xor_andrew wrote: post #77

I'm dumb and have no real education in economics. But even my dumb self makes the correlation that in 2020/2021, we handed out free money to keep people afloat (a very good thing), and then immediately following there was a surge in inflation. So I guess I don't understand, how do you give out free money without devaluing the currency? Am I making an incorrect correlation between the stimulus checks and the subsequen…

The difference is that money was created then for that purpose. In an ideal universal basic income, the money comes from taxes; not just printed on the spot. This to my (probably base and naive understanding of economics) would not result inflation, because it would be a re-circulation/flow of tax money, rather than injecting new money to the economy.

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#85

Post by _lyxd »

rbanffy wrote: post #66
throwawa14223 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's my incentive for subsidizing non-work in others?

Knowing that it doesn't matter how badly you screw up, you'll always be able to cover your most basic needs. This is one. We should go deeper into this question. I most certainly would continue doing a lot of the things I do now, but for fun and to progress the state-of-the-art in my field of work. I'd accept higher taxes in compensation for the assurance I will always be able to do what I do best, instead of what so…

> > People in a functioning society still have to work

.. to pay taxes for social services.

> I'd accept higher taxes ...

how do you pay for these taxes if you have no job/income?

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#86

Post by legitster »

joe_the_user wrote: post #13
legitster wrote: post #5

This is a pretty generous reading of the study. One result they are missing out is that the income actually reduced overall employment compared to the control group, and ended up decreasing household earnings: https://www.nber.org/papers/w32719 Even with a generous reading, it was an extremely expensive study. And similar proposals like the Negative Income Tax would cost far less money and have none of the presented…

Why is it some shock-horror thing that people worked less? I think, for those who imagine AI taking a vast swath of jobs (like Altman), the aim for basic income is to get people working less but without this resulting social/work disengagement (whether AI will have that effect is a different matter).

This strikes me as such an out-of-touch idea right now.

Maybe in the distant future we do not need people to work. But we are currently dealing with the largest retiree population our country has ever had, and more money chasing after fewer goods and services nearly crippled our economy with stagflation. It takes two weeks to get a plumber right now in our area.

If you also hope to implement UBI nationwide, you need some expectation that it pays for itself with productivity gains. Otherwise it will all get inflated away into nothing.

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#87

Post by marcusverus »

altruios wrote: post #20
legitster wrote: post #5

This is a pretty generous reading of the study. One result they are missing out is that the income actually reduced overall employment compared to the control group, and ended up decreasing household earnings: https://www.nber.org/papers/w32719 Even with a generous reading, it was an extremely expensive study. And similar proposals like the Negative Income Tax would cost far less money and have none of the presented…

YES!!!! Not every job is moral, essential or needed, the idea that 'everyone needs to participate with American capitalism as a worker drone' needs to die.

> everyone needs to participate with American capitalism as a worker drone

Working a job you don't like is a leaser evil than mooching off of your neighbors. The level of entitlement required to argue the opposite is absolutely mind boggling.

How many people have to work full time to support one able-bodied layabout?

UBI may make sense in the event of technology-induced mass unemployment, but folks won't tolerate it otherwise. The incentives are simply and universally too bass-ackwards for society to function. They're backwards for the idle (who will find it easier to cut costs than work), for new graduates (who can split living costs with friends and delay entry into the workforce indefinitely), for workers (who would rather rent a trailer and chill than work 40 hours a week and live in the 'burbs and drive a new truck), and for politicians (who will shamelessly promise endless increases in benefits).

IMO UBI is a litmus test for basement dwellers, unserious utopians and plain-old first-order thinkers.

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#88

Post by bryanlarsen »

ilaksh wrote: post #22

$1000 is not enough to quit their jobs or get a nice apartment. They could move slightly closer to work if they have to commute. It's not enough for a real tuition or to support them to study instead of work. I don't think we've ever had a universal basic income test. We have always missed the universal and basic part. It's below basic and not at all universal. I suspect that you need to get international cooperation…

But significantly more than $1000 is not financially feasible for a balanced UBI program. The average US taxpayer has $40,000 of income and pays $6000 in taxes. A balanced UBI program would increase the average taxpayers taxes by an amount equal to the UBI. So the $40,000 of income would increase to $52,000 and taxes would increase from $6000 to $18000. It works out to about 15% increase in tax levels.

Yes, we'd try and reduce that income tax increase by getting money elsewhere, most significantly because UBI should allow us to decrease welfare payments significantly. But that would still contribute well under half of the $12K.

The numbers work at $1k a month, but they don't work for levels significantly higher than that.

And if UBI isn't balanced, then it will affect inflation, making it much less impactful.

I believe that $1k/month is a good figure for UBI. It's not quite enough to live on, but it can be in a shared-housing situation, and it can go a long ways to cover expenses if you have to quit your job due to an abusive boss or something.

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#89

Post by doctorpangloss »

verteu wrote: post #71
doctorpangloss wrote: post #7

The UBI folks were cursed by the pandemic and inflation. You cannot deal with that confounder. They’re not the only ones. Remember Green New Deal? That also evaporated with the end of ZIRP. You can complain relentlessly about these guys, or offer alternative solution with nothing but vibes to vouch for them. The truth is, as long as interest rates are high, the economic contraction is making everyone too scared to tr…

> The UBI folks were cursed by the pandemic and inflation. You cannot deal with that confounder. The study had a control group, who also experienced pandemic & inflation.

You can do whatever you want during periods of inflation. "It" will fail. The existence of a control group is meaningless. The control group will have bad outcomes too. So what if it does? Nobody can design interventions for periods of inflation, because inflation makes everything look bad: your outcome, control group's outcomes, everyone's outcomes.

For example, Brazil created their current public health system in 1988, realizing it in 1990, during inflation that was between 1,000-2,000%. It wasn't really functional then. Looking at it in isolation, at the time it was created, it would look like a failure, but all of Brazil looked like "a failure." Would it be valid to use SUS as implemented during 1,000% inflation as an example of why public health insurance is bad? No way.

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#90

Post by legitster »

Willish42 wrote: post #59
legitster wrote: post #5

This is a pretty generous reading of the study. One result they are missing out is that the income actually reduced overall employment compared to the control group, and ended up decreasing household earnings: https://www.nber.org/papers/w32719 Even with a generous reading, it was an extremely expensive study. And similar proposals like the Negative Income Tax would cost far less money and have none of the presented…

> And similar proposals like the Negative Income Tax would cost far less money and have none of the presented downsides. Most people file taxes once a year, meaning they would get this payment once rather than monthly, which makes a huge difference if living on the poverty line. Similarly, many people making less than the minimum for filing [1] likely don't file their taxes. This was an issue with the child tax credi…

I understand the pragmatic barriers to onboarding or bi-monthly payments via NIT, but it still seems easier to overcome these barriers than institute a domestic UBI.
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