
Basic income in Finland did not lead to finding work, researchers said - grahamel
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-47169549
======
ThomPete
It's a general misunderstanding that Basic Income is some sort of job program,
it's not. It's a job replacement program for a society where there aren't
enough jobs for everyone because technology have taken over most.

Basic Income should provide fundamental living cost support in a society that
has no jobs so there is no "but" in there.

Edit: Keep in mind we already have Basic Income it's just conditional. UBI is
different.

~~~
rixrax
And while doing that, cut the bureaucracy and stigma of having to continuously
apply for welfare, food stamps etc. Not that this would offsets the cost of
basic income.

If we picture a dystopian future where due to the rise of automation,
increases in population, lack of education and ability, ~90% of people cannot
realistically work in a productive jobs, I think it's a good time to
experiment now what and how to keep all these people busy, preoccupied, and
happy.

~~~
benj111
I always think of Star Trek. It isn't really explored in depth but there isn't
money and people don't have to work, transporter rationing is alluded to
though. I guess in a world where everything can be made in a replicator,
'employment' becomes untenable. You still need some way of rationing scarce
resources, and allowing people to 'vote' for what they want more of though.

~~~
Retric
Scarcity is beyond just stuff. Land for example is a finite resource.

~~~
savanaly
If we are efficient enough in our use of land, the demand relative to the
supply will shrink enough that it's no longer scarce.

I suppose lots of people enjoy owning their own land-- large tracts of it in
fact, and not sharing it with anyone. That's a little tougher to conceptualize
as post-scarcity as there's a limit to making land enjoyment more efficient
with advanced technology. But in a world where other resources are less scarce
perhaps we can think about colonizing other planets and terraforming as ways
to increase supply.

~~~
kardos
Not really. Even if we triple land use efficiency, population growth will
increase the demand to compensate

~~~
antris
Population growth has been steadily slowing down since 1960s.

~~~
kardos
Broadly speaking, that is because we're approaching something like a carrying
capacity, estimated to be somewhere around 10B.

If we increase land use efficiency dramatically, that effectively raises the
carrying capacity and population growth can continue much longer

~~~
antris
The population growth decline is not tied to the carrying capacity but to the
development of the economy. Countries that are further economically developed
have lower birth rates and vice versa. For example Finland is mostly a country
of deserted forest, yet it has a very slow growth rate. The country could
carry a population of 50 million easily, but is hardly growing anymore at 5
million.

------
arcticwombat
Except, of course, that the actual report has not been completed yet.

The article has a single quote from a participant, and the rest is literally
just opinion and thoughts.

There's nothing to get excited about yet.

It's going to be very interesting to read the report though, once it's
published.

~~~
cromulent
There's a webcast here:

[http://videonet.fi/web/stm/2019028/eng/](http://videonet.fi/web/stm/2019028/eng/)

They are very open that the trial was not perfect and should be bigger /
longer / better structured. Obviously economic experiments cannot control all
variables.

Interesting that the majority of the UBI recipients switched back to standard
unemployment.

------
LarryDarrell
Which would be a fine outcome. We're entering a real messy period where
dignified, decent paying jobs are becoming scarce. All of our philosophies
about work and welfare are rooted in a post WWII era where we were essentially
rebuilding the world and there was more work than competent people. If we are
going to insist that all productivity gains must now go directly to the
capital class, we're going to need a UBI, universal healthcare and housing
guarantees.

I worry that greed is too baked in, and those that have would rather let the
world burn before they give the current system up.

~~~
njarboe
Do people really want to have all of their support depend on the government?
As an American I know people that don't and even reject government paid food
stamps and healthcare, although they are poor enough to qualify for them. I
don't think it is very psychologically healthy to be so dependent on things
out of your control. A better system would be some system where people can
earn a large chunk of capital that basically sets themselves up with enough to
have their own basic income that they control.

In the old days in America one had the homestead act that would give you
160-640 acres of public land if you could improve it and live on it for 5
years. This program lasted from the 1862 till 1976 if you can believe it. That
was a large chunk of capital one could get by working hard at creating wealth.
Not sure if a new homestead act could work, but something similar where anyone
can volunteer to do some hard and needed work for five years and at the end of
it get a good payout that they can use at they see fit. Maybe $250,000. One
could start a business, go to college, invest and live off the interest, etc.
This I could get behind.

~~~
Frondo
We're all entirely dependent one things outside our control, and it's a
worldview that's romanticized to the point of silliness to say anything else.

As for the land grant you're talking about, that's a huge, huge give-away
right there; and, I'd note, in your hypothetical, you already inverted the
sequence of events (be given land => you keep it, work hard => you get $250k).

All UBI does is recognize that, given how technological progress puts people
out of jobs, we'd better find alternatives to distributing resources than what
we do now, because we're going to end up with a lot of heads on spikes if we
don't.

~~~
njarboe
"All UBI does"

UBI is a very specific solution to a very real and difficult problem. I think
other solutions to the problem of quick technical advances would be better,
that's all. The sequence is , you are given a resource for a period of time,
see if you can use it well, if you do you get to keep it. Not sure what a good
modern equivalent would be but such a scheme seems like a much better mode to
the future than a UBI. Or maybe a combination of things.

~~~
sharkmerry
What if you're given farmland and have a 5 year drought?

What other solutions are you talking about? Except giving away land?

------
yason
The experiment was probably staked with an agenda to show that UBI doesn't
work, given the parties in the government and the massive bias in selecting
the participants.

The sample of 2000 people were chosen from a _group of unemployed people_. I
think the criteria for being randomly chosen was having been paid unemployment
benefits during some range of dates.

So it's not representative of a real UBI at all: the point of UBI isn't to
necessarily make things better for the unemployed but, rather, the large group
of people who make very little money and barely get along.

Cashiers, cleaners, etc who can't live on their earnings, at least in big
cities. Or self-employed one-person shops whose income stream is very choppy
and who don't make much anyway. Real UBI would be _universal_ so those who are
working would get it too -- of course the UBI would increase your income and
likely your tax percentage so it would mostly be taxed away from those who do
earn a living.

The point of UBI is to cut down on bureucracy by removing various individual
case-by-case subsidies (but bureaucrats would never vote for that) and make
some base level of income predictable and reliable, mostly for people who make
less than the lower middle class.

~~~
lusmd
> most likely taxed away

Yes, most UBI proposals (as designed by economists) tax earnings with little
to know exemption. That is, we give you $15k per year, but start taxing you
the very first dollar you earn rather than only taxing income about , say,
$20k.

~~~
lazyasciiart
But what a waste of effort. Why do they suggest this instead of starting at
UBI+$1, at least?

~~~
dragonwriter
UBI itself isn't usually considered taxable income in the proposals, so
effectively that's what happens.

Personally, I wouldn't increase pre-UBI marginal tax rates for taxable incomes
below (pre-UBI median minus UBI), but I'm not a right-wing UBI proponent, and
I favor focusing first on taxing capital income equally to labor income as a
revenue source.

------
hn_throwaway_99
> The aim was to see if a guaranteed safety net would help people find jobs

I'm confused, was that ever the expected goal of basic income?

~~~
happytoexplain
Same here. I've never heard that angle.

~~~
gknoy
I definitely did hear it as once facet of why UBI could be good. Right now, in
some places there are people who will lose benefits (I forget which variety)
if their income goes above a certain point, so they are disincentivized to
seek a better job -- as it would net them less income. One thing I recall
reading about UBI was that it removed that _condition_, and so there would be
no incentive not to get a job (other than feeling like UBI was "enough", which
IMO is reasonable).

~~~
yardie
Those places would be the US and many anglo-saxon influenced countries. Where
it is seen as if you are unemployed then it is a failing on your part, not the
job market or any other factors. If you do find a job it better pay a living
wage and it better pay now. The state will pull benefits almost immediately
once your paperwork goes through. And if the job is temporary or seasonal be
prepared to start at square one to resume benefits payments.

The incentives are really screwed up. They do want you to use it and if you do
they don't want you to leave it.

------
SatvikBeri
So, basically the article says that unemployed people who received a basic
income stipend of $685/month weren't any more likely to get jobs within 2
years than a control group who didn't.

This doesn't seem very surprising to me – if anything, I would expect people
on UBI to be _less_ likely to get jobs, and this study seems like evidence
against that.

~~~
sharpneli
The control group also got money. Just via more paperwork. UBI for Finland is
more about reducing bureaucracy and social security errors.

~~~
_rpd
Yes, the missing context here is the idea that UBI will be financed by cutting
existing social services.

------
bakhy
This is a weird title. The article says that the people on basic income were
equally likely to find a job as those who were not receiving it. I was
expecting that basic income might make people less motivated to find jobs, and
that would have been an issue. But this result seems like a positive outcome
for UBI.

~~~
dmix
It went to 2000 people already getting unemployment benefits.

> It was run by the Social Insurance Institution (Kela), a Finnish government
> agency, and involved 2,000 randomly-selected people on unemployment
> benefits.

So I'm curious what affect that had vs the general population's approach to
finding employment. Particularly young people who may have never had a job
before.

------
dawhizkid
As someone who wants to remain in the workforce, the absolute most frustrating
thing about taking a break between jobs or wanting to bootstrap a company or
start something new is not the lack of income during that time but that my
healthcare in the US is tied to having a job.

Yes, I can buy individual insurance, but moving off and on new plans is
incredibly time consuming, and if you have a certain prescription that you are
on or have something that is covered by an employer plan but may not be
covered by an individual on then it's highly risky to leave.

~~~
fucking_tragedy
> Yes, I can buy individual insurance, but moving off and on new plans is
> incredibly time consuming, and if you have a certain prescription that you
> are on or have something that is covered by an employer plan but may not be
> covered by an individual on then it's highly risky to leave.

As someone who spent time doing contract work, and working on my own business,
this is what made me seek out work as an employee.

I cannot, and will not, play the game of paying for individual insurance.
Employers can negotiate for better rates and better plans than you, as an
individual, will ever be able to.

If you have a health condition or injury, the chances of which will increase
each day that you're alive, the individual health insurance market is a
disaster.

------
lixtra
While this article is about an even more special population of UBI recipients
I have two general criticisms about UBI studies:

1\. They are usually time limited. You can expect different behavior if you
get financial security for limited time or for life.

2\. Most studies seem to be externally financed (here the whole state vs a
small population). The interesting part is if people are willing to pay for
this within their community. Are you okay to pay for your slacking neighbor
(even if she is the exception and UBI turns out to be overall good)?

~~~
mongol
It can never be time unlimited. Laws can change and will change eventually.
Any reasoning about UBI for life is flawed.

~~~
etrautmann
Well, neither extreme seems right. We reasonably expect Medicare to pay out
for decades and plan around that even if there's a possibility of laws
changing.

------
mg794613
I find the narrative of the article focussing on "how it failed" and only one
condition. "Did it increase employement" Of course this is what some might
have expected from it, but the researcher itself not. Which is only included
as a very last line.

------
mises
I still see some big issues with universal basic income, and would appreciate
one of its supporters responding to some of them:

Cost. $3.8 trillion by many estimates. That's nearly 20% of America's GDP. How
is it possible to pull this much money out of the American economy without
crashing it?

Scope. I am of the opinion that one of the beauties of federalism is that
policies can be tested first at the state level before we commit our entire
nation. Why would a national government do this?

Necessity. I don't think we need to be paying anyone who makes over 50k (maybe
not the right number, but there should be a cutoff). That just takes money
away from those who need it.

If a supporter of UBI can respond, I'd like to discuss possible concerns and
benefits.

~~~
simonsarris
Never-mind the money, I fear that even if we can implement it and pay for it,
there will _still_ be a host of social problems that UBI advocates do not want
to grapple with. There's still no answer to questions like "what if it starts
to entrench a permanent underclass and make inter-generational wealth worse,
as people who stop working bear a generation of people who have never worked,
and they bear children, etc".

[https://medium.com/s/free-money/after-universal-basic-
income...](https://medium.com/s/free-money/after-universal-basic-income-the-
flood-217db9889c07)

~~~
dragonwriter
> There's still no answer to questions like "what if it starts to entrench a
> permanent underclass and make inter-generational wealth worse, as people who
> stop working bear a generation of people who have never worked, and they
> bear children, etc".

Why would reducing disincentives to work, as compared to means-tested welfare,
rationally be expected to have anything like that effect?

~~~
cheeseomlit
The main incentive to work is that you need to work to make a living. If the
government hands you everything you need without working that is a massive
disincentive to work

~~~
manicdee
> The main incentive to work is that you need to work to make a living.

No. The main incentive to work is to have something meaningful to do with your
time. Every experiment with UBI has shown that — given guaranteed support
income — people are generally happier (or less stressed) and have a greater
incentive to find work because the disincentive of reporting job-searching
efforts is removed.

In addition, under a UBI everyone who has a paying job will have more
disposable income than people who don't have a paying job. So while UBI will
cover rent and food, if you want a nicer house or other trappings of luxury
you'll need a paying job to find the extra money.

Nobody is going to be setting up a real estate empire or discovering the cure
for cancer on UBI.

Another thing UBI will achieve is allowing people to move jobs without fear of
being trapped in poverty. They won't settle for a low satisfaction, low pay
job and will move to optimise their personal benefit.

Finally: UBI is not about "handing you everything you need." Universal Basic
Income is there to provide for the basics: food & shelter. That's it. It's not
supposed to replace an average wage, it's supposed to provide the minimum cost
of living.

~~~
mises
> The main incentive to work is to have something meaningful to do with your
> time.

Not sure about this. Only short-term experiments have been conducted. Who
knows what might happen if we have people who are raised on the idea that a
living will come to them no matter what?

I think there's also an assumption that everyone loves what they do. Many of
us do, so it's easy to think. However, the people who arguably need support
the most often have the worst, least-likeable jobs.

> They won't settle for a low satisfaction, low pay job

Somebody has to do the work. Garbagemen will never be worth $15/hr. Many jobs
that aren't will simply end up outsourced.

> Universal Basic Income is there to provide for the basics: food & shelter.

Then why would it be administered to everyone, on a national level, regardless
of other factors? Food & shelter cost orders of magnitude more in San
Francisco, California then in San Francisco, Texas. Why would it make since to
give two hypothetical people, one living in each, the same amount of money to
cover the "basics"?

~~~
auiya
> Somebody has to do the work. Garbagemen will never be worth $15/hr. Many
> jobs that aren't will simply end up outsourced.

Testing out UBI is predicated on the assumption most of those jobs "nobody
wants" will be automated, and thus not available anyway.

------
acslater00
Surprising that paying people to not work didn't lead to more people working!

~~~
notStoicEnough
Er - I'm not a proponent of UBI, but there's an important, but subtle
distinction here.

UBI is not "paying people not to work." That's more like typical unemployment
- when people find jobs, the benefit goes away, creating a disincentive. With
UBI, the benefit remains, (theoretically) encouraging risk taking.

------
ratling
What is supposed to be the bad part of this? I would equate 'happier' with
'getting their needs met.'

If you have more people than work that needs to get done I don't have a
problem with the people who aren't working being able to live.

------
kwhitefoot
There is a basic misunderstanding here. A basic income is unconditional. The
Finnish study was not basic income because it was not unconditional. It was
instead an experiment to find out if giving specifically unemployed people
money would help them find a job.

It sounds like perfectly ordinary social security from my perspective in
Norway, perhaps with some of the requirements relaxed.

If people want to find out if basic income works it has to be given to a
representative slice of the population. This has been done several times in
North America (once in Canada, and twice in the US), as far as I can tell it
was successful.

------
randomacct3847
I always thought the point of basic income was so that you didn’t necessarily
need every member of society employed in the traditional sense

~~~
fucking_tragedy
UBI serves two purposes.

The first is stopgap rhetoric to prevent socialist-inspired rhetoric from
making popular gains as traditional employment is eroded away.

The second is to point at UBI and go "See, if you give money to people who
were made redundant in the labor market, they probably still won't be able to
sell their labor" while doing everything to ignore the fact that the market
has moved past certain people.

------
eeZah7Ux
> 'happier but jobless'

That's a very misleading title.

> Universal basic income, or UBI, means that everyone gets a set monthly
> income, regardless of means. The Finnish trial was a bit different

That's a huge difference. It encourages some of the unemployed people to stay
unemployed. That's called "poverty trap".

This was not real UBI. Also, a 2-year long trial can be very misleading.
People take very different choices knowing that they'll receive UBI for 2
years, or 10 years, or their whole life.

~~~
zozbot123
The only difference the article mentions is that the experimental subjects
were chosen among people getting unemployment benefits. What this suggests is
that _if_ you're on unemployment to begin with, differential incentives do not
have a detectable impact on whether you'll find a job - that's all. It's
saying that incentives aren't everything, at least on a 2-years-out scale.

------
matz1
So that if they are happier then that IS success. Job or no job is irrelevant.

~~~
sakisv
Unfortunately the prevailing ideology dictates that if you're not working you
are worthless and you should not feel happy.

~~~
agumonkey
It's a tough sell you gotta admit it. That money came from someone making an
effort (even if it was in form of large [reluctant]corporate taxes).

Also slacking (I am half a slacker on the way to ~zero) is toxic on the long
run.

I always thought of universal income as way to allow me to grow without a
burden. Learning, helping, producing (whether art, tools, ...).

It's supposed to help strengthen the social tissue.

~~~
matz1
yes that money came from someone making an effort, but on the premise that it
came from someone who derive happiness by doing the work not because of
necessity.

~~~
agumonkey
it's hard to ensure honestly

but I think we agree, the goal is to reduce faux-slavery due to the need for
basics necessities

------
dcre
Very dishonest headline. It failed to increase employment among people who are
already unemployed, which no one expected it to do. It also did not _decrease_
their number of working days.

[https://twitter.com/MattBruenig/status/1093859412182212609](https://twitter.com/MattBruenig/status/1093859412182212609)

------
ourmandave
Seriously asking. Is it possible to use your basic income to get a loan?

I just envision people buying all sorts of things without understanding what
they're signing up for.

And from a U.S. perspective, I don't trust a system filled with rent-to-owns,
payday lenders, and car dealer/financers stopping anyone from making bad
choices.

~~~
jostylr
Presumably you could. It is money granted to each person without strings. Not
sure how you could avoid it. A better questions would be whether the courts
could impose UBI garnishing similar to wage garnishing. I would presume not
and hence giving a loan to someone would have to be with the knowledge that
the government would not force repayment with UBI funds. It gets back to an
issue of whether someone has a history of responsible payments, something
which would be more in a person's control with a guaranteed flow of UBI.

I view UBI as a way to help ease the debt of many people, particularly those
incurred because of lost wages (loss of job, illness). It could also ease the
college debt issues because we could stop subsidizing college costs, leading
to decreased tuition, and instead the colleges would have to compete with
other uses of this money, something they do not have to do with direct college
support programs.

------
floatingatoll
This title misrepresents the outcome. A better headline would have been:

> Finland basic income trial improved happiness but not employment

It’s unfortunate the BBC chose that quote, as it misrepresents the outcome of
the trial as _creating_ joblessness, rather than failing to _alter_
joblessness.

------
onemoresoop
> The Finnish trial was a bit different, as it focused on people who were
> unemployed

I think UBI would help people who are already employed in jobs that they hate,
to find/invent meaningful jobs. A lot of employed people are miserable but
just surviving doing things that they hate (because that's the only thing that
pays and so are chained to their misery).

I think real UBI would create strong bottom up economies and get rid of value
extractors, intermediaries and schemers. It would also help people move out of
big cities back to rural areas where things are not so expensive

------
dkns
> Finland became the first European country to test out the idea of an
> unconditional basic income.

Isn't unconditional, you know, unconditional? As opposed to "From January 2017
until December 2018"?

------
yasp
Did they not have an identical cohort serving as a control to compare
employment rates at the end of the trial?

~~~
java-man
no they did not.

~~~
contrast
Yes they did, according to the article:

“Mr Simanainen says that while some individuals found work, they were no more
likely to do so than a control group of people who weren't given the money.”

Note this means the headline is the opposite of the truth. And the quote is
not to be found in the article. It’s how the author/editor chose to interpret
a single individual’s statement, despite the overall finding being very
different.

------
sleepysysadmin
In Ontario Canada, our outgoing government tried basic income as well. It
increased unemployment in the pilot cities. So our new government eliminated
basic income quickly because it was the opposite of the general trend of all
other cities.

The reality is that people don't need money. Money is important but what
people need is a purpose and goals. Which a basic income system does not
provide.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mS5WYp5xmvI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mS5WYp5xmvI)

~~~
knight-of-lambd
How do you know this when the study was cancelled a year early (by a
Conservative gov't, no less)

------
mikhailfranco
Universal Basic Income:

 _Work Hard, Keep Half_ v. _No Work, Free Stuff_

[https://delvedc.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Universal-
Bas...](https://delvedc.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Universal-Basic-
Income.jpg)

------
izzydata
I thought the idea was to reduce pointless busy work and increase actual
productive work for people that wanted to. The overall outcome being increased
net productivity. I have no idea how you would measure that though as I
imagine there would be less people interested in working overall.

------
nickelcitymario
In other news:

Vegetarianism did not lead an increase in animal population.

Policing did not lead to an increase civic engagement.

Prophylactics did not lead to an increase in birth rates.

...I wonder what other goals I could retroactively apply to social programs to
show how they failed to achieve things they were never meant to address.

------
Simulacra
I think it's human nature to do a little as possible for the most reward. If
someone is giving you money to literally do nothing, then you're likely going
to do..nothing!

~~~
Arubis
Within the framework of rewarding people for behaving the way you're
compelling them to, that's probably roughly true.

But I'm doubtful that people are actually sitting around, twiddling their
thumbs, doing _nothing_. Maybe they're not getting jobs per se, but I'm very
curious about what they actually are doing with the time they'd otherwise have
to sell.

~~~
Simulacra
If you gave me money with no requirement that I perform a task, or adhere to a
set of rules, just free money in my lap, I'm going to use it to increase my
level of joy and comfort, and avoidance of work. Granted I may take that money
and spend it all on hookers and blow, but I will be doing what I want with
that money, and not having to return any service or labor for it.

~~~
mrybczyn
where will the hookers and blow come from if the hookers and dealers are on
basic and doing nothing?

~~~
verall
price rises until people start working as hookers and dealers to afford other
hookers and blow ;)

------
rezeroed
Should be "happier but still jobless". No one lost jobs as a result. the
result was that the jobless were happier. An improved situation.

------
jancsika
Would be curious to know what the overhead of the UBI program was compared to
the overhead of whatever unemployment program it was replacing.

------
lail
I wish they included employed people in this trial.

------
manicdee
This experiment was performed in 2017. The basic criticisms of it are:

\- participants selected only from long term unemployed \- Finland was still
in a period of austerity following recession (low hiring rate) \- tiny sample
population \- limited period \- stingy, the amount provided doesn't really
provide a basic income

------
timonoko
TL;DR: They got the same unemployment money (~555€) as before, but it was
called Basic Income. But they did not have to partake the quarterly motivation
shit from jobless office anymore. Which made them indeed happier. Success!

~~~
cromulent
No, the key difference was that you could also earn money from other work
without losing the government money.

This means that you can take on part time jobs without freaking out that you
will lose unemployment.

This also means (for local business owners) that you can hire people for part
time / spec work without being concerned about long term effects. This is a
big deal for small businesses.

~~~
drcode
...which of course the study showed they didn't do, it showed the cohort did
not take on more part time jobs.

------
antpls
Regarding me, I could be happier without working, or working less than I
currently do. So, according to the article : "this is a triumph"

------
mherrmann
Not sure how the numbers add up. The infographic says it cost €20M. The text
says 2,000 Fins got €560 for 24 months. That would amount to €26.88M.

------
jgalt212
If you think the Great Society had bad effects on poor black folks, just wait
to see what bad effects UBI has on _everyone_.

------
PhasmaFelis
That's a weird way to spin it. Much more useful and interesting, to me, is
that UBI recipients weren't any _less_ likely to get jobs. That implies that
UBI will not--as some fear--in fact lead to a bunch of lazy, parasitic
layabouts. They're still trying to find work, they're just happier and
healthier while they're doing it.

------
sakisv
I think the idea of UBI as it is, makes it an easy target for comments that
characterize people as "freeloaders" or trading "something" for "nothing".

The problem is that the UBI seems to be coming from the taxes that other
people, which may be a good first iteration to try something out, but it will
fail in scale.

I will assume that the aim of these experiments is to find a way to provide
for an ever increasing number of people at a time that the number and the
quality of jobs is dropping, largely being replaced by automated systems. Last
year the governor of bank of England voiced concerns about the automation
stripping out jobs which could "lead to a rise of marxism"[1].

I find the idea of a UB Dividend[2], or social dividend[3] instead something
which would have more chances to succeed. The main idea behind it is that
everyone will be entitled to a dividend which will be funded by private
companies. So instead of having the Apples and Googles of the world sitting on
a pile of cash, they could put a portion of their earnings in a fund which
would then be given back to everyone to allow them to continue to purchase
their products and services.

1: [https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/mark-
carney-...](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/mark-carney-
marxism-automation-bank-of-england-governor-job-losses-
capitalism-a8304706.html)

2: [https://medium.com/dark-mountain/universal-
dividend-a988c31c...](https://medium.com/dark-mountain/universal-
dividend-a988c31c372b)

3:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_dividend](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_dividend)

~~~
chillacy
I believe some states already do something like a UBI: saudi arabia and alaska
both pay out dividends from resource extraction.

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pattisapu
"Work and love . . . work and love . . . that's all there is." -Freud

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Sidious
Well-fare is insidious and destructive. Look up the origins of communism,
those people only destroy.

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dvh
Just wondering, is there anyone here who lived in socialism (or in single
communist party regime) and honestly believe that UBI can work?

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pastor_elm
did they really have to study this? We have decades of welfare to analyze. UBI
is dead in the water. Call it a negative tax rate instead.

~~~
erikpukinskis
UBI is different from welfare because you don’t have to qualify for it, so it
removes any incentives to alter your life to qualify for welfare.

~~~
gambiting
Poland has an interesting example that could be used as UBI experiement.
Recently introduced "500+" program pays 500PLN(~$130/£100) for every child
after the first one(or all if the family has no other source of income).

Now, to you westerners $130/month might sound like nothing, but actually, with
3-4 children you are getting a regular salary for effectively doing nothing,
without any extra conditions. And apart from the loss of the benefit for the
1st child if you get a job, nothing stops you from working and yet still
collecting the benefit. It has improved the living conditions in Poland
considerably, and families with children can now afford a lot more than they
could previously. I personally know one company that lost a decent chunk of
its staff to it - why work for you while I can get similar amount of money and
stay at home? Of course the question of whether Poland can afford such a
generous program is a different question altogether, but it cannot be denied
that for many people this completely unconditional injection of cash is
absolutely equivalent to UBI.

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yingw787
I don't know how much I support basic income as a substitute for jobs. Jobs
can suck, but basic income takes away the levers for poor people (anybody
relying on one primary income stream for disposable income) to be useful to
the rich and powerful, leaving them completely vulnerable to the games of the
latter. Even if you mopped a rich person's floor and the rich person wanted to
dispose of you, he'd likely have to replace you with another floor mopper; the
coupling between rich and poor is still there. Without jobs, the poor are
completely expendable. If things go well, there's no way the poor can keep
paying attention to maintaining the system, and things can go bad. If things
don't go well, the bottom can drop out. This is of course not discussing the
other benefits of jobs (a feeling of dignity, a way to spend time, being
around other people and a tie to society).

I'd rather support a system of federated capitalism where everybody owns and
rents some amount of capital (financial, intellectual, social, etc.), along
with a government that can provide for basic needs. Everyone has some
nontrivial amount of power, and has to respect other people and their power.

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herostratus101
Silicon Valley People: We need basic income because there aren't enough jobs
for low-skilled workers.

Also Silicon Valley People: Let's have open borders and import unlimited
numbers of low-skilled workers. Doing anything else is racist!

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nafey
Although I do not support the idea of UBI I can't help but feel a bit
disappointed that it didn't work out.

------
psadri
Handing out free money will most likely just cause inflation and defeat
itself. The inflation will make the amount paid out in basic income
insufficient to live on.

The alternate to basic income for the purpose of housing, health and food, is
to provide a basic version of those resources at zero cost.

~~~
DougN7
I don’t know why you were downvoted because you’re right. A simple thought
experiment can prove it: give everyone $1 million every year starting today.
Is everyone suddenly rich? Just for a few days. Eventually milk will cost
$500/gallon. The effects of Supply and demand can’t be legislated out of
existence.

~~~
zimzam
That’s like saying any inflation is bad because if it were a million percent
bad things would happen. It doesn’t tell us anything about reality.

~~~
DougN7
The inflation would render the money we gave everyone nearly worthless, by
approximately the amount given out. It’s similar to adding six zeros to every
bank account.

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hippich
I used to be all-in UBI supporter. To my "hacker" mind it appeared like a
wonderful hack around issues society is facing. But lately, as I saw our
parents retire, I was thinking about what really keep people happy - and as
soon as basics are covered, it appears that "being useful" is what jobs are
really about.

UBI, as a result, may lock people forever in a jobless situation. UBI will not
provide enough capital to bootstrap anything, it might disconnect you from
people doing something. This can only increase the resentment between employed
and unemployed classes. Granted, some will find themselves doing what they
wanted to do their whole life (non-profitable) and couldn't because they had
to put food on the table. But is this the case for everyone? I am afraid the
rest will risk being marked "not useful" for life, and that doesn't sound like
something that makes one happy...

Sorry, it is just my random philosophical thoughts and no real answers or
pieces of advice here...

~~~
romwell
Counterpoint: receiving UBI would not be any more of a "not useful" mark than
simply being unemployed.

Technically, we all are receiving a UBI of $0 right now. The idea is just to
increase that amount to cover rent and food.

If everyone's getting it, there is no stigma.

(Same disclaimer on random philosophical thoughts and no real answers)

~~~
hippich
Not really talking about stigma here since, as you correctly pointed out, UBI
assumes everyone gets it. It is more of an existential question for the person
themselves - "what is exactly is my purpose"?

