Universal basic income to be tested in Wales • Hacker News Board

Re: Universal basic income to be tested in Wales

#91

Post by dnndev » Sat, May 15, 2021, 1:17 PM UTC

mkoubaa wrote: post #74

dnndev wrote: post #58

The root cause in the US being income inequality. Less people want to spread the wealth and more people expect a version of wealth. UBI is not the blanket solution I think most are expecting. It will open a can of worms. Give more people better opportunities. Folks don’t want a hand out. Companies are too big and although do provide some benefits such as lower price in some cases we end up paying for it with lower wa…

Asserting that UBI == pity says more about your own biases then the actual policy itself

Thank you. Your right. Pity is not what I intended. Pity is not a bad thing and I appreciate when others feel pity.

*comment edited

Re: Universal basic income to be tested in Wales

#92

Post by sokoloff » Sat, May 15, 2021, 1:18 PM UTC

domino24 wrote: post #90

ssharp wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a binary choice right now. You either work or you get the enhanced unemployment benefits. With the extra $300 / week benefit, in my state (Ohio), the total benefit works out to a little under $20 / hour. Note that this is a sliding scale and earning that much would require you have at least that high of a wage previously. What you end up seeing is a lot of margin in terms of how much someone is willing to give u…

There are a few instances of being able to collect both right now. I've heard of some people who manage manual labor type companies (painters, tree trimmers, landscapers, etc) that offer to pay laborers cash (which would be in addition to the unemployment benefits) and they cannot get workers. It's like the unemployment is a high enough amount that they'd rather collect just that and not work to earn more. Perhaps th…

Or perhaps manual laborers are more ethical than you give them credit for in the post above and choose not to lie and cheat to double-dip unemployment while actually working.

Re: Universal basic income to be tested in Wales

#93

Post by neom » Sat, May 15, 2021, 1:18 PM UTC

leadingthenet wrote: post #60

wizzwizz4 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the point of the comment. The UK pays the price of UBI without getting the benefits of UBI.

Well, no. Only a small minority of people are on Universal Credit. I don’t get how this follows, at all.

If you take out pensions(~100b gbp), the UK spends (very) approx. 100 billion pounds a year on social assistance. I think OP is suggesting taking that 100 billion and dividing it evenly among the people of the UK vs specifically to the folks who have applied.

Re: Universal basic income to be tested in Wales

#94

Post by Erikun » Sat, May 15, 2021, 1:18 PM UTC

LatteLazy wrote: post #39

notahacker wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. So far we've repeatedly tested that if you give people in an area a small sum of money paid for from central government funds for a couple of years, they won't change their habits much but will be a little better off financially, which should be of absolutely no surprise to anyone. A real pilot would - as a minimum - be making the local tax rises and welfare cuts necessary to make the scheme revenue neutral, wh…

I'm the root commentor but I hope you don't mind me piling on. It's pretty well agreed that the trial in Finland worked: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2242937-universal-basic... Id welcome a trial that included paying for it. That said, I don't think it would make a big difference. The UK (I'm a brit) spends enough on welfare to just give everyone £5000 pa (including kids) at the same price. We could just star…

The Finnish Basic Income Experiment was carried out in 2017–2018. The primary objective of the experiment was to provide information on the effects of a basic income on the target population’s employment, income and use of social benefits. An additional objective was to provide information on the well-being of the recipients of the basic income. 2,000 people who were aged 25–58 and receiving unemployment benefits from Kela in November 2016 were randomly selected to form the treatment group of the basic income experiment. Everyone else who was receiving unemployment benefits at the time formed the control group. The basic income was an unconditional benefit which did not have to be claimed, and for which there were no special conditions. The basic income was paid to the treatment group unconditionally for two years, and was not affected by any income from employment or entrepreneurship. This report includes the results from the sub- studies of the evaluation of the experiment. According to an analysis of the register data, during the one-year assessment period employment in the treatment group on average increased by 6 days more than in the control group. Sub-studies based on survey data analyzed the health, mental well-being, economic situation, trust and experiences with the bureaucracy of the treatment and control groups. With regard to a number of indicators, the well-being of the basic income recipients was better than that of the control group. Qualitative interview research shows, on the one hand, the very different meanings of basic income for one's own employment opportunities and, on the other hand, large differences in the starting points and life situations of basic income recipients. Better opportunities for social participation and increased autonomy were highlighted regardless of changes in one’s own employment. A media analysis found that the basic income experiment was covered in the domestic and international media, above all from an economic and employment perspective. In a population survey measuring support for a basic income, 46 % of respondents agreed or partially agreed with the statement that a basic income should be implemented in Finland.The evaluation of the basic income experiment was carried out by Kela, together with the VATT Institute for Economic Research, the University of Turku, the University of Helsinki, the Labour Institute for Economic Research, the Finnish Central Association for Mental Health and the think tank Tänk.

Abstract of the final Report of the Finnish experiment, mostly in finnish though. https://julkaisut.valtioneuvosto.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/1...

Re: Universal basic income to be tested in Wales

#95

Post by jokethrowaway » Sat, May 15, 2021, 1:19 PM UTC

sokoloff wrote: post #37

bjackman wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of the reason for this lack of interest in the actual outcome is that state benefits are one of the main battlegrounds in the UK's culture war. A lot of the Tories' base comes from the ideological position that poorer people don't deserve to receive aid at the expense (via taxes) of richer people. Whether or not UBI achieves any of its stated aims is totally irrelevant once you see things that way. All the argum…

I have significant sympathy for that base’s point of view. It’s one thing to say that we must provide a social safety net for the most vulnerable, whether temporarily or permanently so. It’s quite another to say “work should be optional and the basics of life should be provided for all [via the work of others]”. I think you’ll find a few people who object to my 2nd paragraph, but extending the argument to the 3rd is…

I think both three and two are similar statements: you already decided it's ok to forcefully get money from people, you may as well make it clear without hiding behind being charitable to poor people. It's a basic psychological trick.

Re: Universal basic income to be tested in Wales

#96

Post by ghaff » Sat, May 15, 2021, 1:19 PM UTC

the_lonely_road wrote: post #67

ghaff wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>ideal candidate group would be older, poorer people (say, in there 40s) Perhaps. That helps determine if older people who don't make a lot of money anyway will just decide to stop working. However, perhaps the bigger question is if it's offered to younger people, will a lot of them simply never get a job after school and, by the time they realize they need more than UBI, it's too late.

This website is filled with 30 and 40 year olds who rerolled the life dice into successful tech careers so it’s not too late. Obviously a large part of that is the boom in tech so I don’t know how reasonably those people could have become doctors or air traffic controllers with their famously long start up time and forced retirement ages respectively. The more interesting cohort for me would be 25-35 year olds (with…

Fair enough. Although "change careers" is arguably a different situation from "I've never had a job in my life and maybe I should think about getting one. I wonder what it involves?" People obviously can turn their lives around but it's difficult.

I don't necessarily disagree with your other point although I doubt $10K a year or whatever would be enough to influence these sorts of decisions for most people. Any UBI is going to be very Basic.

Re: Universal basic income to be tested in Wales

#97

Post by waheoo » Sat, May 15, 2021, 1:20 PM UTC

_rpd wrote: post #31

GordonS wrote: post #9

I'm going to assume it won't be "for life", but will instead be for some fixed period, such as 1 or 2 years. Scotland has been proposing doing a similar experiment too. But I'm not sure what these very small scale experiments are meant to tell us, especially since several such experiments have already been done. I can't help but be cynical and think this is governments offering platitudes to those in favour of UBI, r…

Yes, these ‘tests’ are documenting how people respond to a lottery windfall. They have nothing to do with UBI.

Isn't that what ubi should feel like?

Humans have evolved and adapted so well to this planet the amount of resources we extract and roduce far outpace the resources our bodies require.

There is literally not enough work to go around so we have to make it up.

If we gave up the facade I can imagine it would feel like winning the lottery and it should.

Re: Universal basic income to be tested in Wales

#98

Post by jokethrowaway » Sat, May 15, 2021, 1:21 PM UTC

turbinerneiter wrote: post #75

sokoloff wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have significant sympathy for that base’s point of view. It’s one thing to say that we must provide a social safety net for the most vulnerable, whether temporarily or permanently so. It’s quite another to say “work should be optional and the basics of life should be provided for all [via the work of others]”. I think you’ll find a few people who object to my 2nd paragraph, but extending the argument to the 3rd is…

> “work should be optional and the basics of life should be provided for all [via the work of others]” The answers to this are: provocative: work is already optional for holders of large capital - if it works for them, why not the rest of us? humanitarian: everyone deserves decency (and we have enough to go around) utopian: we are/will be rich in everything we need, so we do not need to work for basics - we will only…

It's not up to you to decide what to do with other people's money.

Feel free to donate all your money to the poor who deserve better; if you will use threat of violence to get someone else money (no matter the cause) I'll call you immoral.

Re: Universal basic income to be tested in Wales

#99

Post by monoideism » Sat, May 15, 2021, 1:23 PM UTC

shoo wrote: post #72

kebman wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The laws are like that, because someone feels that it's not in their interest that people actually get out of poverty. The logic behind that interest is simple. You can't make people dependent on you if you simultaneously give them the tools to achieve independence. And these guys love dependent people, because it gives them power. However this attitude is ruining most Western societies.

do you have any hard data or research to back that up?

Hypothetically, if something like that were happening, do you think any of the politicians voting such legislation in, with such an intent, would admit to it in an open forum, for a study?

Re: Universal basic income to be tested in Wales

#100

Post by BigJono » Sat, May 15, 2021, 1:23 PM UTC

dnndev wrote: post #58

The root cause in the US being income inequality. Less people want to spread the wealth and more people expect a version of wealth. UBI is not the blanket solution I think most are expecting. It will open a can of worms. Give more people better opportunities. Folks don’t want a hand out. Companies are too big and although do provide some benefits such as lower price in some cases we end up paying for it with lower wa…

Half the problem with politics these days is that people still see welfare as "pity and a hand out".

Welfare is one tool in a bag of economic tricks to keep a country prospering. A country without welfare is one that has most of it's smartest minds packing boxes in a factory somewhere because they can't afford to try and fail.