Study Finds UBI Results Are Not Positive (nber.org) 235
Seven Spirals writes: A working paper [PDF], published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, studies the employment effects of a guaranteed income by providing $1,000 per month to 1,000 low-income participants for three years, compared to a control group receiving $50 per month. The results show a decrease in labor market participation by 2 percentage points and a reduction of 1.3-1.4 hours in weekly work hours. Most of the additional free time was spent on leisure, and there were no significant improvements in job quality or human capital investments. Overall, the guaranteed income led to a moderate reduction in labor supply without other substantial productive benefits.
Pretty sure they were positive ... (Score:3, Informative)
... for those who received the UBI.
But they weren't (Score:5, Informative)
People who received more money ended up with less overall money after the study. IE, they were worse off after receiving UBI compared to those who didn't. They worked less and spent more.
Here's a full rundown of the study (originally published by OpenResearch)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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The study couldn't model the inflationary effects of widespread UBI, either. So the situation is likely worse than they paint.
NBER often has a political message, in my view. So keep that in mind.
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NBER often has a political message, in my view. So keep that in mind.
Precisely this. This is a "working paper" release because any reputable peer-reviewed journal will laugh at its utterly shit methodology, insane analysis questions, refusal to consider explanations such as "people may not need to be so crazed about gig work when the income is steady, since gig work is so volatile," and reject this paper as a joke.
Re:But they weren't (Score:4, Insightful)
utterly shit methodology
There is no non-shit methodology for UBI.
Most of the studies only look at low-income people. But UBI would go to everyone.
All of the studies are time-limited. People will behave differently if they know the extra income will be permanent rather than for just a year.
None of the studies look at how the extra taxes to pay for UBI will affect behavior. To pay $1000 per month, four trillion dollars in new taxes will be required, which is a massive increase.
UBI will have long-term effects across the entire economy. There's no way to model that in a research project.
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Maybe create a Potemkin village of UBI? I know that's pejorative, but isolating it as best as possible from external economic effects is what I mean and seeing what happens to prices, perhaps.
Re:But they weren't (Score:5, Insightful)
People who received more money ended up with less overall money after the study. IE, they were worse off after receiving UBI compared to those who didn't.
Why does less money and more leisure equate to "worse off"? That's up to the individual to decide, isn't it?
Re:But they weren't (Score:4, Insightful)
Why does less money and more leisure equate to "worse off"? That's up to the individual to decide, isn't it?
Precisely. The design of the study shows clear bias, and the results too. I'll rewrite TFS as an analogy to make this point clearer:
"A working paper (...) studies the employment effects of a [retirement] by providing $1,000 per month to 1,000 [elderly people] for three years, compared to a control group receiving $50 per month. The results show a decrease in labor market participation (...) Most of the additional free time was spent on leisure, and there were no significant improvements in job quality or human capital investments. Overall, [receiving retirement benefits] led to a moderate reduction in labor supply without other substantial productive benefits."
The entire study, and its conclusions, could be used verbatim to argue for eliminating Social Security in its entirety.
Re:But they weren't (Score:4, Funny)
Capitalists think free money is bad, study confirms.
Re:But they weren't (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:But they weren't (Score:4, Insightful)
Most billionaires are socialists, when it comes to themselves. Everyone else has to pay.
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"A working paper (...) studies the employment effects of a [retirement] by providing $1,000 per month to 1,000 [elderly people] for three years, compared to a control group receiving $50 per month.
Sorry? I'm a little lost. The study participants were 21 to 40 years old. They were far from retirement age.
The entire study, and its conclusions, could be used verbatim to argue for eliminating Social Security in its entirety.
Huh. I think you're right, it could be used to argue that people would delay retirement if there wasn't SS, which I don't think would surprise anyone. Thing is, I don't think that people worked less is the surprising finding. The surprising bit is that that between decreased earnings and increased spending, they made more than a $1,000 change in their monthly budgets.
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Why does less money and more leisure equate to "worse off"? That's up to the individual to decide, isn't it?
It's a matter of perspective. Back when those Covid unemployment funds were still a thing, there were a bunch of sad panda business owners on TV next to Ron DeSantis while he whined about how poverty wages just weren't attracting workers like they used to.
Now don't get me wrong, UBI is a terrible idea, but I'm totally for livable wages for an honest day's work.
Re: But they weren't (Score:2)
Re: But they weren't (Score:4, Insightful)
Cause they idea behind UBI is income equity, not paying people to sit on their ass.
Since demand curves slope downward, you'd definitely expect more ass sitting if you give people money. You'd also expect more spending on stuff in general.
UBI proponents often assert people will start more businesses and engage in more high brow activities like art and volunteering. IIRC, the study participants did neither of these or at least, not to any great extent. I don't know if UBI proponents say that to make the proposal seem more attractive or because since they're non-ass-sitters themselves, they just project that's what other people will do. Personally I'm pretty lazy when I can get away with it so I don't find the ass sitting at all surprising.
At a higher level, this is a good object lesson. You may want people to behave a certain way when you implement a program but you have no guarantee they actually will. You have to be pretty clear eyed about people's actual incentives, not the incentives you dream they'll have.
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Given that same assumption, why would those providing the extra money, assume that extra money makes recipients "better ff"?
For those who value "more leisure time" over "more income" the value of "more income" (provided by UBI) is less than obvious.
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People who received more money ended up with less overall money after the study. IE, they were worse off after receiving UBI compared to those who didn't.
Why does less money and more leisure equate to "worse off"? That's up to the individual to decide, isn't it?
The answer to your question is in the excerpt displayed at the top of the page:
Overall, the guaranteed income led to a moderate reduction in labor supply without other substantial productive benefits.
They don't care about your welfare. Your assigned mission in life is to produce wealth, not enjoy it.
Happiness (Score:4, Interesting)
Did you see the summary? People weren't happier after the study, either. They didn't feel better. They didn't think their life had improved.
So I guess you could make an argument that you could just give people money and they'd be happier, but the study didn't even prove that.
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People got $1K/month for 36 months, then it was taken away - in their minds they just took a $12K/year pay cut - are they really expected to be "happy" with what they see as a pay cut?
Re: But they weren't (Score:2)
Thatâ(TM)s not what the abstract says:
âoeThe transfer caused total individual income to fall by about $1,500/year relative to the control group, excluding the transfers.â
So they netted out about $9900/year ahead of the control group (((1000-50)*12)-1500).
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Less money overall = less happiness? Since when? How about the free time and all that?
Re:But they weren't (Score:4, Insightful)
My uncle always says if money can't buy you happiness you're shopping in the wrong stores.
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Thanks for posting the interesting video link. I wonder what the AI and Robots of the future will produce, if most people will be out of job and therefore unable to buy things anymore. Here are a few scenarios:
Scenario 1: The haves (robot + AI) will get the automatons to make all the things they dream of, live lavish and outsized lives, will use customed drugs and cures for diseases etc. The have not's (those without the bots) will be farming to produce and eat some food to see the next day and use homeopat
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Study didn't bother to try and figure out where the money ended up. For example, when they spent the money on leisure, what did the businesses do with the additional money that was spent there. Did it just go straight to their landlord, or were they able to build capital? We literally don't know. Study didn't bother to find out.
Re:But they weren't (Score:5, Insightful)
Hey...I'd be happy with an extra $1K a month....especially if it was tax free!!!
Problem is if it's universal, everyone else is getting their $1k/mo too, and you've basically just created inflation. Prior to getting my Chevy Bolt, I'd joked that if we had UBI the first thing I'd do is go down to the Tesla "dealership" and get a new car - to discover that half of Orlando had the same damn idea. Now, I'd probably just grab a bag of popcorn and watch the fun.
UBI really only benefits people who are flat broke, since even inflated money is better than no money. For anyone that's willing to work, the UBI just gets gobbled up by inflation.
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This happened with health and education- without additionally controls, institutions maximize their profits, so when the pockets get deeper, the price tolerance is bigger, so prices go up. When fed started paying student loans directly, there was no cost incentive built in, so colleges all raised their prices until the only way to afford the, was via government pay, or be already rich.
Healthcare, when insurance companies are the main payer, they tolerate higher prices, and well here we are.
When we stop want
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Problem is if it's universal, everyone else is getting their $1k/mo too, and you've basically just created inflation.
That's assuming the money is merely created and not redistributed.
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That's assuming the money is merely created and not redistributed.
Not necessarily. A lot of the wealth of the rich is tied up in unrealized gains. Even the funds that are liquid largely aren't spent, and the economy has already price-adjusted to that money not really being in play. Taking stagnant money and making it "live" money will still result inflation.
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That and a lot of inflation has to do with velocity of money. How often it is spent in addition to how much of it there is.
If i give $1000 to the typical US house hold they are going to spend it. Most likely they will purchase some consumer goods, or services. Maybe they will send a kid to summer camp, or go celebrate an anniversary with a fancy dinner out, or replace all their worn blue jeans. Point is that money is going to almost immediately start chasing some goods. Because everyone has it, that means
Re:But they weren't (Score:4, Informative)
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Problem is if it's universal, everyone else is getting their $1k/mo too, and you've basically just created inflation.
Maybe. If it's paid for by printing money, definitely. If it's paid for through taxes, it should have no net effect on inflation, at least to a first order approximation. I'm not sure the effect if financed by borrowing.
Re:But they weren't (Score:4, Insightful)
But maybe this is a better way to create inflation than giving money to big banks at 0% interest, which is how we do it now.
I'm starting to think that UBI is where 21st century monetary theory needs to head. Large economies have recently ended up in several situations where, due to the way modern large economies are structured, the central bank needs to "lower the interest rate below 0%" in order to meet the inflation targets that prevent currency traps. That "interest rate" is really the penalty large banks pay for not meeting reserve requirements. I don't like even calling it an interest rate even though it is structured like one and constantly called that in public discourse. By having a smaller reserve, a bank can re-loan-out their money more times (this is how money is created). This means a very small club of very rich people basically get free money. (They are handed money to hold, as a bank, that they then loan out and charge for it, without having to pay any penalty if they loan out too much.) Maybe we need to lean less on that as a monetary policy driver and instead inject liquidity at the bottom with a UBI or something similar while keeping a non-zero penalty for banks not meeting their reserve requirements. But I don't have high hopes since many people have so little clue how the monetary system works. At least in the middle of the 20th century people were mostly in favor of progressive taxation and death taxes, which serves a similar function economically (evening out the flow of resources). But even that seems to have stopped being the case. People at the low end of the tax scale and with little or no inter-generational wealth have been duped into voting against reasonable progressive taxation with fairy tales. Not only does this hurt them, it makes the economy and possibly even the whole society unstable.
Re: But they weren't (Score:3)
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Yeah, they need to rerun this study with more people and a larger sum of money. Also, please make sure that I'm on the distribution list, because... science and stuff.
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Agreed, we keep on hearing that there will not be work for everyone soon due to robots and AI, so UBI would cover for the lack of labor for the former workforce. It seems to work for this.
Remember that many people work because they have to, not because they love to work. As I'm getting older with degrading health I'm more eager to retire early, get the house back in a good shape and do things I actually enjoy doing.
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Agreed, we keep on hearing that there will not be work for everyone soon due to robots and AI, so UBI would cover for the lack of labor for the former workforce.
It's more likely that people would just start to demand the creation of pointless government "busywork" jobs, because we're just collectively never going to accept that some people are getting a free ride.
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Agreed, we keep on hearing that there will not be work for everyone soon due to robots and AI, so UBI would cover for the lack of labor for the former workforce. It seems to work for this.
Remember that many people work because they have to, not because they love to work. As I'm getting older with degrading health I'm more eager to retire early, get the house back in a good shape and do things I actually enjoy doing.
No matter what the hype machine says today, robots and AI are not going to replace the majority of human labor, not in my lifetime, and I am confident not in the lifetime of any grandchildren I will have either. AGI is not around the corner and over the bend, it is decades to centuries off, if ever.
We will of course see shifts in the work that people do, as always when new technologies are being introduced or improved, but everyone is still going to need to work, at least for the foreseeable future, probabl
Re:Pretty sure they were positive ... (Score:4, Insightful)
The study was focused in the question if people would work less by having some guaranteed income. The answer was yes, but by a tiny margin IMHO. 2-3% Isn't really that relevant.
Also, it's not written in the summary here, but it's in the study, that younger subjects were more willing to use the extra income to search for better formal education and opening new businesses.
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2-3% Isn't really that relevant.
But do you know who it is very relevant to? The IRS.
A 2 - 3% net reduction in productivity across the board means a 2 - 3 % net reduction in tax collection. And since tax dollars are what pays for UBI, the reduction in tax dollars makes it harder to fund UBI in the first place.
Also, 2 - 3% reduction in total net productivity suggests a 2-3% reduction in supply of goods and services across all markets. Even if you are tempted to interject here and say "but automation which is why UBI in the first place", as
This study has the wrong scenario (Score:4, Insightful)
Whereas those tech billionaires calling for UBI are doing so because they see that less human labor will be required by the automated economy of the near future.
So changes in the productivity of human workers will not be that relevant to the productivity of the economy. The AIs and robots will be doing the productivity "heavy lifting".
So the only question that matters regarding UBI is whether it gives people a decent standard of living while working less or not at all, and whether they still participate as consumers in the economy, because of the UBI.
So the answers this study provides are not that relevant, since they are in the context of a rapidly disappearing economy that still needs lots of human workers.
Re: Pretty sure they were positive ... (Score:2)
Did they measure human happiness / human suffering in this scientific experiment?
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Sure but the money has to come from somewhere. A net reduction in productivity is also a net reduction in tax collection. The theory behind how UBI would work is that by giving everyone, across the board, a guaranteed "minimum income" that production would actually increase because it would remove barriers that limit social mobility. That more people would go back to school, or start small businesses, or stay at home parents could enter the workforce because they don't have to worry about child care costs e
Additional free time was spent on leisure ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Isn't that an improvement in human quality of life? Toiling in "Tech campuses" 24/7 like mules to fulfill the dreams of arrogant bosses, is that what they were expecting to see?
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Yeah, it made lives better, but not more productive.
This seems to boost the quality of life argument for UBI and discussions of what should be a minimum quality of life.
But it does not boost the economic argument.
I would think the economic benefits would be more long term though, children finishing school rather than working for example. And possibly less crime and suicide if people are more comfortable.
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So making lives better but not more productive scores as a win for UBI.
UBI is a solution to an economy that needs less and less human labor over time.
The automated economy will do fine while fewer people participate in it, or while people contribute less of the add
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I definitely am oro UBI being slowly rolled out.
I think it should be done through a revenue neutral VAT starting at 3% and slowly increasing (I'm not an economist and don't have an opinion on the pace of increase).
The goal should be getting it high enough that work is optional for survival, but people still want to do it in the medium term, and as productivity increases (one person repairing 100 machines would be an example of very productive) and the system can support it, the amount should continue to go
Re:Additional free time was spent on leisure ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Quality of life improvements will be short lived when inflation inevitably arrives to gobble up the extra $1000/per person if this payment were to become universal.
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Nobody is claiming these people had been working "24/7" before they received the income. More likely, they started out working only part-time jobs, if at all.
Re: Additional free time was spent on leisure ... (Score:3)
Mindless headonism is a form of masturbation. And vice versa. Point being is it feels good in the moment but all you've done in the end is fuck yourself.
File in the "Duh" category... (Score:3, Insightful)
Ok..what exactly did they think people would DO with an extra $1K a month? Work harder or something?
Of course leisure....
Sharing income will not solve the problems we face (Score:3, Insightful)
What needs to be shared is market share.
As long only a very limited number of corporations get to decide what you can even buy with the money, and no matter what you buy, the money always ends up in their hands, the situation will only get worse.
UBI is potentially yet another tool to allow the corporations to stop people from even trying to get some of this sweet market share by killing the inertia and using it as an excuse to pass laws to make it harder.
history repeats (Score:2, Insightful)
Encouraging dependence on government increases parasitic burden at the same rate productivity decreases?
Shocking.
Re:history repeats (Score:4, Insightful)
If you want to talk parasites, you are looking at the wrong end of the spectrum. The investor class live off GDP growth, literally sucking money out of the economy to fund their own lifestyles... and they make up 98% of the economy.
But sure, lets kick down poor people even further as we fight over that 2%
interesting, but (Score:2)
Interesting, but why is this on slashdot?
No bias at all (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:No bias at all (Score:4, Interesting)
What specific flaws do you see in the study, that could be linked to this bias? Or are you just assuming that because the study finds that UBI isn't a net positive, that it must by definition be biased?
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In other words, pay only for studies that are *biased* towards your own goals.
Fine, I get what you're saying about who pays for studies. But just because studies are paid for by someone with a particular agenda, doesn't by itself invalidate the study or its conclusions.
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You are right. The study is biased because it calls itself a UBI study and then presents results that would be based on increasing welfare. In order for it to be UBI the money needs to come from the same participants that are receiving the money.
That's not the point of UBI? (Score:5, Interesting)
But how would UBI affect the happiness, life satisfaction of people? Would they all become "poets and artists" or just sit on their couch all day playing videogames?
Or maybe UBI helps people to at least look for less lucrative, but better fitting jobs? We simply don't know, and really have to experiment.
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If automation and mechanization caused massive unemployment, then we should be experiencing this today, in the US and every developed country. Just 100 years ago, at least 70% of workers were farmers. Automation decimated this workforce, to the point that only about 3% work on farms today. Those 67% should all be unemployed then, right? Yet unemployment is somewhere around 4%.
Yes, automation, robots, and AI will kill jobs. But that will not necessarily lead to higher unemployment.
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Traditionally white collar work replaced jobs lost to blue collar workers due to automation. This time around automation is heavily threatening both white collar and blue collar work. Where are the new jobs supposed to come from if these job eliminations materialize in a big way?
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This assumption doesn't hold up. 100 years ago, accounting was done by armies of people writing ledger entries by hand. Secretaries were everywhere. Shorthand was considered a requirement for anyone who went into business administration. Other armies of people were employed typing the shorthand notes. Large numbers of telephone operators were required.
No, white collar jobs have not been spared by automation.
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Yes, white collar work has expended, but *not* in the same white collar jobs that existed 100 years ago. Today we have entirely new categories of white collar jobs that weren't even imaginable back then. This pattern (replacing legacy jobs with new kinds of jobs) is a pattern that has held for hundreds of years, at least since the beginning of the industrial revolution. There is no reason to think the pattern will fail just because "AI".
Re:That's not the point of UBI? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, I'm looking at the results and seeing that less hours were spent at work and less people were working.
Less hours meant they didn't need to take overtime and could spend the time doing leisure activities. Which could mean spending quality time with family or doing stuff that relaxes them, giving them a mental break away from work.
And less participation seems to imply less are working - perhaps it also means less people are taking crap from employers and quitting, given they're not going to be completely destitute. Employers exploit their employees knowing the more trapped they are, the more abuse they can take. It would tell me that these employees are suddenly empowered to stop taking the abuse and to do something else.
Which are results to be expected - if you have a landing pad - if you're not going to be out on the street the moment you lose your job, I would expect people to quit. It's made pretty obvious when people are using non-poaching agreements to keep a fast-food worker from working at another fast-food joint because that new joint pays better.
Sure, there are crap jobs. Many people are in them who won't quit, but that's usually because those jobs have some quality - usually higher pay - that keeps them tolerable.
So what's the "not positive" aspect of this? I suppose if I was an employer, it would be bad that my trapped employees are no longer trapped, or that I would suddenly have to pay more money to keep them, I suppose.
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Or perhaps they were in fact still working, just not as part of the "labor market". Did they include unpaid work in that? Carers, housework, childcare? Part of the point of a UBI is that people doing this sort of work deserve to be paid too.
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Obviously, the point of an UBI is to keep people supplied with essentials (and a bit more) when there is not enough work. Seriously. What it this stupid reporting? The last thing we need is _more_ productivity to make the situation worse.
UBI is a Red Herring (Score:5, Insightful)
I've only ever seen two kinds of UBI, neither particularly useful:
1. A dollar amount that is not much more than a pittance; $30-40 USD a month isn't bringing anyone (in America) out of poverty.
2. A dollar amount that is impossible at scale for any nation (without massive asset forfeitures by the wealthy, even then it's not sustainable); Sure, a "living wage" would be good, but just run the numbers. Multiply the "living wage" in your country by the number "eligible" citizens and compare it to the national GDP for example, or to the total tax revenue of the government (if you're thinking we should shutter the government and just redistribute the taxes). You'll find there's a problem where ends do not meet.
There's this odd belief that because of the existence of inequality our resources are infinite if we could only distribute them fairly. Unfortunately that is not the case. By the time you're making a UBI that is actually "universal" and actually provides a "basic income" where basic is enough to survive, you're literally raiding every single coffer in the nation to pay for it.
So, why don't distribute support based on, I don't know, a needs assessment? If you need support, we can provide it, and if you don't need it, you're fine without? UBI appeals to people because everyone wants money for free, but nobody seems to care who is going to pay for it.
Re:UBI is a Red Herring (Score:4, Interesting)
UBI is appealing because its really just the laffer curve going negative. If we assume that lower taxes always stimulate the economy, why not exploit it? Lets let taxes go into negative territory by just handing out money. The economy will be so stimulated it'll make our heads spin.
According to the study though, maybe the way to make the everyone even richer than they are now is to -raise- their taxes, essentially letting their UBI go negative, causing them to be more productive and stuff!
Working 2 jobs vs 3 deemed unproductive. (Score:4, Insightful)
being 19 and being able to spend money on "leisure" activities like going to school.
"Despite asking detailed questions about amenities, we find no impact on quality of employment, and our confidence intervals can rule out even small improvements."
"We observe no significant effects on investments in human capital, though younger participants may pursue more formal education"
this study is straight bullsh**.
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I didn't see anything about people working 3 jobs before the study, and 2 jobs afterwards. Did I miss something?
Who were the subjects? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: Who were the subjects? (Score:2)
It would be handy if they said what UBI is. (Score:2)
Americans are working more hours than the Japanese (Score:5, Insightful)
Also for folks saying "the people who got it had less money" no, that's not what the study said. People on the UBI treaded water. E.g. they came out the other end with the same amount of money as the control group. This is obvious. They were working too much and cut their hours by what the UBI gave them. Then spent that time on the leisure their grandparents had and that they lost in the search for Shareholder Value.
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Studies show that people who work more hours, do *not* tend to be among the low-income groups that were part of this study. https://econofact.org/work-and... [econofact.org]
Does human life have an intrinsic value? (Score:3)
Just asking for a friend. I would never dare go for the funny. As I read all the previous comments (and the story has already elicited many) I was mostly looking for potential funny, but it seemed most people were just dabbling in bids for insight.
There was a period when I thought UBI was the only approach that made sense to keep most consumers in the economy in any significant way. However that was based on an ekronomic analysis, where economic activity is divided into essential, investment, and recreation followed by the observation that very little of today's economic activities are actually essential.
However now I seem to be in some kind of transitional philosophic state. I don't think time-centered ekronomics will ever go anywhere. Conventional economics is too big and too vested, notwithstanding the lack of any results that could be defined as remotely essential. So I think economics needs to be rethought along "natural" lines. Ma Nature is NOT like that, but insofar as some of the early economists actually stumbled over some insights, they were mostly thinking in evolutionary terms before Darwin started the ruckus. I'm mostly thinking of David Ricardo, though Adam Smith gets much more recognition. (Ricardo for "comparative advantage" but Smith for what? If you think the "invisible hand" means anything, you need to go back and look at what Smith actually wrote.)
So Ma Nature's perspective is different. When you can't compete you die. If you managed to reproduce before dying, then your genes get to do it all over again. But the sooner you die, the better the fertilizer you become. No mercy and no UBI and nothing remotely related to "the value of human life" in Ma Nature's rather cruel world. Just extreme and ruthless efficiency with no weird accumulations of massive profits anywhere. (The big dinosaurs were only a transient aberration? Or perhaps the coal deposits and oil fields should be regarded as sunk profits?)
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s/today's economic activities/today's economic activity/
Harsh reality (Score:2)
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None of this requires UBI. We already take care of people in the us. Despite the garbage and lies posted by some up the thread nobody is starving to death in the US unless they are to mentally ill to eat.
We can improve the social safety net a close the gaps for the bottom rungs without passing out free money to everyone. Most importantly we can do so in a way that does not disincentive productive work. We are already 80% of the way there really.
The 20% isnt simple by any means but it is just fixing the pr
Obvious results are obvious (Score:3)
Obviously. As I've said myself in the past.
UBI is a stupid idea all around. I'd even go so far as to say it's pushed by people who want to wreck democratic countries.
Free government money .. (Score:3)
How is this surprising? (Score:2)
Honestly, have we become so disconnected from basic human behavior that people expect different?
Are people so engrossed in theory that they think we can give people free money and they're just going to keep working? Heck, I'm a professional and if there was a UBI, I might very well stop working once I had have enough in terms of a house and some savings. Not just that, imagine how much of a pain you would be at work if you didn't actually fear being laid off because you'd still have UBI. Our efficiency woul
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Missing the point (Score:3)
The whole basis of the Industrial Revolution was automation would increase leisure time. The basis of the computer revolution was we eliminate paper and reduce hours. We work keep hours than ever before and deal with more paper than ever before. People who work less hours when they make more money isnâ(TM)t a problem
This wasn't a UBI study (Score:2)
at best it was a inflation study showing that adding free money to a society does not have positive results.
To be a UBI study we need the group that is benefiting from the allocated money contributing that money. It's quite ridiculous to keep having this discussion and the funding is based on magic.
Trouble is we're going to need UBI (Score:3)
Labor is nearly universally viewed now as a liability to companies. If companies could do what they do with no employees they would, and earnestly strive towards that The natural conclusion to this worrisome trend is that no one is employed. At that stage we'll all need UBI. There was a time when companies viewed employees as assets and treated them as such. Somewhere over the decades things have really changed direction and I'm not sure it's positive.
Re: (Score:3)
So I think you're quite correct. Pursuit of "productivity" and profit without any restrictions will lead us to UBI. We will have UBI or we will have blood in the streets (as Reid Hoffman s
UBI objectives? (Score:3)
With automation and AI ascending, many job functions will be eliminated or reduced. Many low-income people are working multiple jobs and more than 40 hours a week. it should be an objective to allow such workers to reduce their hours so it should not be surprising that UBI would create a trend of fewer hours worked.
Bad writeup summary (Score:2)
The people who got more money had 1500 less income ... because they were ahead by 10500.
And the kicker ... "with participants’ partners reducing their hours worked by a comparable amount" - which means a household isn't *required* to be a 2 household income. (or 2 FTE household) ... Which gives leverage/time to care for family.
Not Universal Basic Income (Score:2)
Color me surprised (Score:3)
Starve 'em to work (Score:3)
... is a very powerful tool for the oppressors.
There will always be a small number of people who refuse to work no matter what even if it means that they live in squalor.
What happens when there are no jobs available if and when AI does eventually take over? What will they do with those unemployable people?
Will they let nature take it's course or will UEI come back in some form?
All UBI 'experiments' are flawed (Score:3)
...becaused the money is never handed out *universally*.
That, and the fact that there is always a polotical agenda at work.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Next, stratify the respondents into three groups. One group would be 333 low-income people. It shouldn't be a problem, as the sample was collected across two states.