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The Almighty Buck Canada

People Kept Working, Became Healthier While On Basic Income: Report (www.cbc.ca) 277

Participants in Ontario's prematurely cancelled basic income pilot project were happier, healthier and continued working even though they were receiving money with no-strings attached. That's according to a new report titled Southern Ontario's Basic Income Experience, which was compiled by researchers at McMaster and Ryerson University, in partnership with the Hamilton Roundtable for Poverty Reduction. CBC.ca reports: The report shows nearly three-quarters of respondents who were working when the pilot project began kept at it despite receiving basic income. That finding appears to contradict the criticism some levelled at the project, saying it would sap people's motivation to stay in the workforce or seek employment. The three-year, $150-million program was scrapped by Ontario's PC government in July. At the time, then-social services minister Lisa MacLeod, said the decision was made because the program was failing to help people become "independent contributors to the economy."

Its findings are the result of a 70-question, anonymous online survey made available to basic income recipients in Hamilton, Brantford and Brant County. A total of 217 former recipients participated, according to the report. Forty in-depth interviews with participants were also completed in July 2019. Nearly 80 percent of respondents reported better overall health while taking part in the program. More than half said they were using less tobacco and 48 per cent said they were drinking less. When it came to mental health, 83 percent of those surveyed described feeling stressed or anxious less often and 81 percent said they felt more self-confident. An improved diet, better housing security and less-frequent hospital visits were other outcomes respondents pointed to, along with 66 percent who said they formed better relationships with family members.
Unfortunately, when the pilot was canceled almost all survey respondents said it "forced them to place on hold or abandon certain life plans."
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People Kept Working, Became Healthier While On Basic Income: Report

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  • What? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by inhuman_4 ( 1294516 )

    The report shows nearly three-quarters of respondents who were working when the pilot project began kept at it despite receiving basic income. That finding appears to contradict the criticism some levelled at the project, saying it would sap people's motivation to stay in the workforce or seek employment.

    Contradict the criticism? More than 25% of employed people quit working when they start getting basic income. That sounds like a pretty clear cut confirmation to me! Worse the whole report is based on a self-reported online survey, and written by a pro-basic income advocacy group. No doubt an actual review based on hard data would be much less flattering. As would a study that includes the hard part of basic income: raising taxes to pay for it. Handing out free money or pumping it in to a local community i

    • This caught my eye:

      A total of 217 former recipients participated/quote?

      How many people received UBI? All of those percentages are pretty much meaningless if you don't start with that.

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        See my other post further down the page.

        Most attempts at UBI-like systems were with far more people, and lasted longer.

        And they all failed. Because many people stopped working.

        But you need time to really see that happening. People aren't going to change their ways overnight.
        • Re:What? (Score:5, Insightful)

          by sjames ( 1099 ) on Thursday March 05, 2020 @08:23PM (#59801566) Homepage Journal

          Perhaps their employer was paying less than they were worth (essentially rent seeking). If the UBI becomes Universal, that will correct itself. Some might have finally been able to afford to be full time students (which will improve their future economic contribution).

          Still others might have been otherwise contributing to society. For example caring for children, cleaning up the neighborhood, etc.

          Had the program run longer, some who indeed quit just to be lazy might have learned that that isn't really a very satisfying lifestyle and so returned to work, probably as better employees than before.

        • Re:What? (Score:5, Informative)

          by kbahey ( 102895 ) on Thursday March 05, 2020 @08:51PM (#59801612) Homepage

          And they all failed. Because many people stopped working.

          No, Basic Income programs have not failed, and quite the contrary: people worked and became more productive.

          For example, in Namibia [wikipedia.org], there was reduced child malnutrition, and increased school attendance. Villagers started raising and selling chicken, and growing corn [spiegel.de].

          In Manitoba, Canada, the project was a success [www.cbc.ca] because it teenagers stayed in school longer and graduated, hospitalization decreased and poverty was virtually eliminated [dominionpaper.ca]. In addition, the experiment wanted to know if people would still work: they did! The exceptions were new moms and teenagers.

          Even by the 'worked or not' measure, the BI programs were successful. If you look at the social impact there are far more benefits than just the "work or not" metric.

          • by LubosD ( 909058 )
            But these tests are totally half-assed. Pretty much all tests examine what people do when they get more money, and that's it. And - big surprise - they like it.

            But none of those tests look at how the increased taxation would translate to how many people are willing to work.

            I did the math several times for my own country and the resulting tax rates would mean I'd most likely ditch my job completely, because I wouldn't want to work just to finance the UBI system. So I'd just slack off or do a lousy undemand

      • by Sebby ( 238625 )

        This caught my eye:

        A total of 217 former recipients participated/quote?

        How many people received UBI? All of those percentages are pretty much meaningless if you don't start with that.

        I'm not sure what total were participating, but given this size, which my guess would be about 25% of the total potentially, doesn't make the results meaningless.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Brain-Fu ( 1274756 )

      It seems like "giving away free money" might not be the best next-step in our journey towards an entirely robot-slave powered economy. It is too aggressive, too controversial, and too soon.

      If our labor automation as put us in a position where we are throwing away enough food to feed the entire world (which...incidentally....it has....), maybe we should just start smaller. Like a pilot program to set up some taxpayer-funded free food distribution centers in some low-income areas. Something that we can eas

      • our journey towards an entirely robot-slave powered economy. It is too aggressive, too controversial, and too soon.

        Perhaps we should wait until the ultra-dexterous robots with super-human intelligence actually exist.

        It could be a long wait.

    • Re:What? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by mark-t ( 151149 ) <markt AT nerdflat DOT com> on Thursday March 05, 2020 @07:03PM (#59801378) Journal

      More than 25% of employed people quit working when they start getting basic income.

      But what did the majority of those people *do* with the extra time that they had?

      Because that's telling... I don't know about this particular trial, but I know of one where many of the people who quit working took the opportunity to pursue further education which could give them a more promising career than the one they had before, where they would not have been able to invest the time if they had remained at their old job. In other cases, it allowed one parent out of a married couple where both parents would have otherwise worked to stay at home to look after their children and not be stressed out about finances.

      Honestly, criticizing it because it can cause some people to quit their jobs comes across as sounding like you think that everyone should be forced to work at a job that they hate.

      • I know of one where many of the people who quit working took the opportunity to pursue further education which could give them a more promising career than the one they had before

        Perhaps a cite would bolster your case. Would also be interesting to know if those people actually went out and *got* the new promising career.

      • by dryeo ( 100693 )

        24.3% of the unemployed and 27.9% of the employed went back to school or started other vocational training.

      • I know of one where many of the people who quit working took the opportunity to pursue further education

        Which one?

        Can you provide a link to the results of the trial?

    • Re:What? (Score:5, Informative)

      by dryeo ( 100693 ) on Thursday March 05, 2020 @07:41PM (#59801466)

      Well 24.3% of the unemployed and 27.9% of the employed went back to school or started other vocational training. Is that where your 25% figure comes from?
      The Dauphin Manitoba test showed that the only ones who didn't work was Mothers who stayed home as stay at home mothers longer and students who didn't quit school to help support the family. The real problem with basic income is that when the government changes, it goes away.
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

  • So _over_ 25% of them stopped working. I get that people are bad at math, but that's a lot of people. A whole lot of people. So many that I have to look askance at your objectivity when you say "Whelp, people kept working!". No, lots of them didn't.

    My teacher used to try to inspire us by saying "Who's going to build the bridges, folks!". Well, in this case, "Who's going to flip the burgers, clean the bathrooms, and dig the ditches, folks?".

    That said.. UBI will be inevitable at some point. Hard to have a fun

    • by Arzaboa ( 2804779 ) on Thursday March 05, 2020 @07:03PM (#59801370)

      4% of the people stopped working. There were 217 people in the study. There was a net loss of 9 people out of the study that decided to stop working and not go to school.

      The rest had net positive outcomes. If you don't help 208 people because you're mad at 9 of them you end up with the systems we have today.

      Overall, there was a slight reduction in the number employed during the pilot compared to the number employed prior to the pilot. 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.

      Many basic income recipients told us it never crossed their mind to stop working during the pilot. One peer support worker we interviewed said he found his job to be too meaningful and fulfilling. “I love it. I love my work to death. You got to really understand mental health. It takes one second and you’ll never see a member again. Suicidal thoughts are so bad. I understand suicide,” he said when asked why he continued with his mental health job despite receiving basic income.

      --
      Do not fear failure but rather fear not trying. - Roy T. Bennett

      • by Falos ( 2905315 )

        If these lazy-ass slackers shifted to keeping one parent home to more closely raise a generation with better skills, integrity, critical thinking, etc that's a societal benefit with genuine value. Leaving them to be raised by youtube, parent'd by a strained K12, forbidden from wandering outside for any other fallback learning, is going to continue costing us in ways that don't show up in a spreadsheet.

        If you ever gripe about millennials, if you say "people are stupid", if you think critical thinking is show

      • by Oligonicella ( 659917 ) on Thursday March 05, 2020 @07:47PM (#59801488)

        If you don't help

        You are more than welcome to dig into your pocket and help the people you want. You are not welcome to dig into mine (with handling fee) to help the people you want.

        • by Dixie_Flatline ( 5077 ) <vincent@jan@goh.gmail@com> on Thursday March 05, 2020 @08:38PM (#59801594) Homepage

          If you don't like it, you can leave. Every day I’m working and paying taxes so kids can be educated, so someone can get a cancer treatment, so a scientist can get a grant or you can have police keep you safe. The whole point of any of us being in a society is to take care of each other. If you want to go and be a mercenary somewhere else, don't let the maple leaf hit you in the ass on the way out.

          • The sort of person who would gladly collect UBI, spending your tax dollars on things which aren't cancer treatments, police protection, or education, would gladly leave when you Canadians no longer have the tax revenue to support UBI. The problem with socialism isn't the premise, but that eventually the socialists run out of other people's money to spend.

            I would gladly spend your UBI on building my career as an actor, or writer, and once I start earning enough to pay taxes, move to a place with lower ta

        • by Sebby ( 238625 )

          If you don't help

          You are more than welcome to dig into your pocket and help the people you want. You are not welcome to dig into mine (with handling fee) to help the people you want.

          You're welcome to keep all your money and not participate in society.

          When your house goes aflame, don't bother calling the fire department, since you "don't want to help others" whose house catch fire because you didn't want to contribute to have the department.

        • I'm not free to dig into your pocket. But society is. Just like we do for national defense, or police forces, or whatever else.

  • Temporary (Score:4, Insightful)

    by ArmoredDragon ( 3450605 ) on Thursday March 05, 2020 @06:42PM (#59801274)

    Yeah, you tend to feel better with a pay increase, but the effect isn't permanent. It lasts perhaps a year or so, and then you feel the same as you were before. Employers have known for a long time that paying you more doesn't make you perform better or even make you happier, rather the main reason for it is to retain you as an employee.

    And increased money supply in the general population doesn't make housing more affordable in the long term. In the long term, it just means people pay more for the same property. Sure, in the short term these people would be able to afford their rent easier, but give it 5 years and see if that remains true. By the time you find out, it will be too late to discontinue that program, and your economy (and government budget) will be far less able to weather future recessions.

    Just like student loans, by the time you realize it's a bad idea, it's already too late.

    • where basics are taken care of. Below that point then yes, you do get more happiness as you have the money for food, shelter, healthcare, etc.

      Now, you do see well to do people unhappy despite making far more than what's needed for a bare existence (e.g. over $100,000+ in most regions, made consistently). The problem there is inflation hits anyone that makes the bulk of their money from wages (as opposed to ownership/rent seeking and/or investments).

      Basically even if you're in the $200k+ club odds ar
    • by AvitarX ( 172628 )
      One if the risks when doing business with low income people is the lack of stability.

      Rents could be lower if the risk of no payment then eviction was lower (of course some places don't have enough housing and that will never be the case, but some places do).

      Financing could be sold for less too.

      There are entire industries that cater to extracting higher profit for successful transactions because of the higher risk of doing business with people that live paycheck to paycheck with literally no reserve for even
  • "The report shows nearly three-quarters of respondents who were working when the pilot project began kept at it despite receiving basic income. That finding appears to contradict the criticism some levelled (sic) at the project, saying it would sap people's motivation to stay in the workforce or seek employment."

    According to my math, if over 25% of the workforce STOPS working after receiving basic income... that *reinforces* the criticism. Anyone else read that and think WTF?

    Also, the program was scrapped,

  • I need to know the criteria. I would love to be living on basic income because then I could focus on my robotics, AI, and procedural generation projects and do some actual science in which my patents would belong to me and not some oppressive corporation that tells me I should be privileged to work for them.
    • Well, if you had included the other word in your question it would be self answering... "Universal". If it's means tested then it's not by definition Universal.
  • Many past experiments have been done on UBI or something so similar it might as well be the same thing.

    Every (other) place and time it was tried, it was an abject failure.

    It should be kept in mind that Ontario's experiment was not even remotely long enough to determine any long-term effects. But the others did.

    For example, Sweden tried a similar program from the '70s to the '90s. As a co-worker from Sweden told me, "Where I'm from, if people don't want to work, they just don't. They get a check fro
    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      True now, and for the near and mid-term, we're at near full employment so it wold be detrimental. But once shit starts getting automated more and unemployment skyrockets, it's one of the only choices - you soak the people who own the automation and give the money to the rest of us. The other choice is literal class warfare.
      • Historically, automation has only led to more jobs. But that does take time.

        People were predicting that factory automation would "replace people" at their jobs since around 1900.

        Hasn't happened.
        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          Historians always like to point out past performance. The present is not the past. We were incapable of automating much 100 years ago, we are increasingly more able to do so. Eventually every historian will be 100% wrong about their predictions.
        • by AvitarX ( 172628 )
          Factory automation did though.

          Sure it lead to new jobs for new people, but it also lead to communist revolutions. I'd kinda like to avoid the second part.

          It's easy to look back and say "see, it all worked out", but there was also a huge mess for quite a while.
    • by wes33 ( 698200 )

      well, their 12th now so I rather doubt the veracity of your whole post

    • As a result, over time, Sweden's per-capita GDP went from #4 in the world to #14.

      Unless you can prove the GDP sliding from 4 to 14 is directly the result of this specific incentive you are only doing false correlation.

      What about the other countries, especially the BRIC region growing? Compared to BRICS and other Asian Tigers Sweden is smaller.

  • by mspohr ( 589790 ) on Thursday March 05, 2020 @06:57PM (#59801344)

    Whatever income participants earned was deducted from their basic income at 50 per cent, meaning once someone hit $34,000 they wouldn't receive a payment anymore, Lewchuk explained while speaking with As It Happens.

    This is a powerful incentive to not work. Sounds like they were set up to fail.

  • If you offered me this I'd turn it down on principle because if implemented nation-wide it would bankrupt the country within 2 years.
    By the way nice to see that there are others in this discussion who are realistic enough and good enough at basic math to realize this. UBI is not a viable idea and never will be -- not unless we find ourselves in a Star Trek-like utopian society where the basics of life can be had from a replicator for free and power is so cheap and ubiquitos that you wouldn't bother chargin
    • a Star Trek-like utopian society

      You might want to watch some more episodes. The Federation was an elitist society. Need something important? Supplicate to The Federation. Ever notice in what state of destitution their colonists lived?

      • I've been watching one iteration of Star Trek or other since the late 1970's and given the choice I'd much rather live in 24th Century Federation Earth than 21st Century reality.
    • by AvitarX ( 172628 )
      It's becoming possible.

      In 100 years or so we should still be able to have the equivalent of 100s of billionaires and also have everyone getting a UBI close to a middle class life now (in the developed nations).

      The right way to do it though is with reasonable revenue neutral flat taxes (since average is higher than median, this will help most).

      Something reasonable like 5% VAT and a carbon tax that captures the externalities would be a very big help to those at the bottom, but not high enough to discourage wo
      • No, no, no, no, and NO. UBI will never work in a capitalist civilization. Period. Not even going to discuss it, the subject is closed.
        Come back when we have Fusion powerplants that are so cheap to operate that they give the power away for free, and matter replicators that can supply all the basics of life, so that we don't even have to have money in the first place. Then your 'UBI' fantasy will become irrelevant and we can all truly follow our dreams.
        Since we likely won't all live long enough to see all t
  • ...and the data is based on an anonymous survey of people who were receiving free money? This has to be a troll post.
  • The report shows nearly three-quarters of respondents who were working when the pilot project began kept at it despite receiving basic income.

    And no one sees a problem with a quarter of the country quitting their jobs?

    • And the other three quarters paying more taxes so others could live rent free. Oh... I forgot, you get the same allotment - after bureaucratic tipping, of course. They always forget to mention the bureaucratic overhead.
    • Re:Odd (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Dixie_Flatline ( 5077 ) <vincent@jan@goh.gmail@com> on Thursday March 05, 2020 @08:51PM (#59801614) Homepage

      To go back to school or do labour that normally isn't compensated, but has a tangible value, like staying home to take care of family, or volunteering in the community? No, I don’t see a problem with that.

      Additionally, a bunch of these people smoked and drank less, which I also don’t have a problem with.

      Some of the ones that stayed employed went on to work higher paying jobs. This mostly sounds like upsides.

  • None of the tests that I've seen of a UBI actually test a UBI. They are not real tests until the participants of the test themselves are the source for the funding for the UBI. Because a real UBI system is zero-sum - everyone is a participant. The money to pay for it comes from the people receiving it (though not everyone may pay into it equally), because there is nowhere else it can come from, meaning the amount everyone combined pays equals the amount everyone combined receives. Zero-sum.

    As long as
    • by spitzak ( 4019 )

      This has got to be the stupidest argument against this I have ever heard.

      If you are interested in how poor people react to getting UBI, there is no need to include some rich people in your test because what they do will have ZERO effect on what the observed population does. And in fact somebody paid for this money, so you are testing exactly what you want anyway.

    • by AvitarX ( 172628 )
      The problem is you can't really do a zero sum test in a small group since you're effectively fining the losers from UBI unfairly (not going to argue about the fairness of taxation which is arg
  • Of course they're not going to quit and try to live off of the basic income, whatever it is.

    Yes, in general if people are making X and are then suddenly given Y, they're not going to quit working, they'll keep working because then they'll have X + Y at the end of the month.

    In other words, now the money derived from working is viewed as the "extra" money, not the money they're given.

    Damn right they'll keep working because now they're actually making some real money compared to what they were making. Now it

    • If you do the same 40 hours of work but end up with more in your pocket at the end of the month, the incentive for most people is to keep working, not to quit working.

      This is incorrect. Economic decisions are made on the margins, this is called Marginal Utility [wikipedia.org]. The more money you earn, the less valuable one additional dollar is worth to you. If you have $5 and someone gives you $1, your wealth increased by huge 20%. If you have $50,000 and someone gives you a dollar, your wealth increase is negligible.

      Consider this hypothetical situation: Person A gets $5000 in UBI and works a job that pays $15000. Person B gets $15000 in UBI and works a job that pays $15000. Since bo

  • Individuals getting free stuff like it.

    Just my 2 cents ;)
  • The money from universal basic income comes from a value added tax on everything. That tax hits poor people the hardest because they have less of a margin. So they pay a higher tax and get more money in return? Seems like a wash.

    What does the middle class get for all their extra taxes?

  • It was a trial. Why would they quit when they knew they'd just need to get a job again when the trial was over?
  • by kenh ( 9056 ) on Friday March 06, 2020 @01:50AM (#59802280) Homepage Journal

    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.

    Whatever income participants earned was deducted from their basic income at 50 per cent, meaning once someone hit $34,000 they wouldn't receive a payment anymore, Lewchuk explained while speaking with As It Happens.

    So means-tested UBI? I thought the "magic" of UBI was based on everyone just getting the lump-sum allowance each month.

    So everyone in the survey earned between $17K-34K - if you earned $8K while enrolled in the program, you'd get $13K in UBI ($17K - (8K * 0.50)) = $17K - $4K equals $13K plus your original $8K/year.

    I wonder how many of the people that were working under the program earned anywhere near $34K/yr?

    If you look at the numbers, an unemployed ($0K income) person gets the full $17K, or the equivalent of $8/hr (not a living wage!), someone making $15/hr gets about nothing from the UBI, maybe a grand or two.

    These are not generous numbers, these are not life-changing amounts, and this is not what most people understand UBI to be - they assume you mean the Andrew Yang definition, where everybody gets a certain amount, equal to what everyone else gets, no deductions.

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