
Moving Forward on Basic Income - dwaxe
http://blog.ycombinator.com/moving-forward-on-basic-income
======
xienze
So, a question for the BI fans:

I've seen it said repeatedly that BI will save us money (or at least, not be
so outrageously expensive) in part because we can eliminate existing welfare
programs. "Just cut a single check, no more overhead from several agencies",
they say.

But riddle me this: what do you do when someone on BI has a financial
emergency or, as will happen with some regularity, just flat-out blows all
their money and now can't afford rent and/or food? Do you tell them "tough
shit, you've exhausted all your social safety nets" or are there safety nets
below BI, essentially recreating the welfare programs previously destroyed? If
so, how do you prevent fraud without a department following up on Joe's
twelfth "my car broke down" case of the year?

~~~
colinplamondon
Personally, I'd hope the system would absolutely tell them "tough shit".
There's got to be a line where the safety net gives out, because someone is
too expensive to help.

That's where family and charity hopefully take over.

At the same time, I think your instinct is right, and it's something I've
never heard mentioned before. It's almost inevitably that there'll then be the
"food security" fund, and the "housing guarantee" fund.... and then we've just
recreated the existing system.

That's the best argument against BI I've heard, and one I'd love to hear
rebuttals to.

~~~
acgourley
You'll find there are two voices for BI, the liberal and the liberatian. The
liberal would prefer to _keep_ universal healthcare and food programs and put
cash on top, making the total distribution to the poor larger. The liberatian
would prefer to simply move the complex paternalistic safety net into a
simpler cash payment which doesn't disincentivize work while not increasing
it's size.

As an aside, if you pay attention you'll see the two types of people will
squelch their vocalizations in the interest of a short term alliance in
support of BI.

Personally I believe the liberal position has both moral and practical
superiority. It's going to be cheaper to make sure people have bread and
vaccinations despite themselves than it's going to be to solve the resulting
issues later.

~~~
ncallaway
The thing I'd like to see is government services that will optionally replace
portions of your Basic Income.

If you're having problems feeding yourself, I would like to see an opt-in
program where you can receive food, in exchange for $X out of your BI. If
you're having problems housing yourself, an opt-in program for housing in
exchange for $Y out of your BI.

The same options should be available for all the necessities (clothes, food,
water, shelter, communications, and savings). The sum of these government
services should sum to your total BI grant, so if you opt-in to all government
services you have the basics of survival totally covered but receive no direct
BI.

~~~
blktiger
This makes sense to me because I have a feeling most people who would need to
rely on BI also have a problem managing money.

As an example, I once had a homeless guy ask me for money outside a grocery
store. I suggested that we go inside and get him whatever food he wanted, and
he said he'd wait for me outside. Sure enough he was gone by the time I
returned. I'm fairly certain he only wanted the money for alcohol or drugs.
That kind of person doesn't save money for food, they beg for food and use the
money for other purposes.

If you made the program automatically adjust your BI down when you started
accepting food from government programs, that would basically act as the
government stepping in for people who just aren't able to handle money.

~~~
marssaxman
So what if he did buy booze with it? I buy booze with my money and there's
nothing wrong with that. If someone asks me for money, and I feel inclined to
give it, the money becomes theirs, and why shouldn't they spend it on whatever
seems like the best choice for their circumstances? And what gives me the
right to decide what that best choice would be? I'm not living that life.
Maybe a bottle of whiskey really would offer the most comfort per dollar.
That's pretty sad, but why judge the person making the choice? Judge the
situation offering them that choice instead.

~~~
lolc
I don't want them to destroy their bodies. I don't want them to fuel black
markets with my money, and this is speaking as an occasional consumer of mind
altering substances not available in pharmacies.

Further, I don't have much money. I cannot afford a lot of stuff for myself.
So I can only help with necessities. And I don't want to judge whether any
given person is lying.

In conclusion, I never hand out money. But I've bought quite a few bags of
groceries for strangers.

~~~
marssaxman
Well, that seems reasonable. I'm just not OK with the whole "deserving poor"
idea that seems to be baked into American political philosophy when it comes
to homelessness and poverty support, because I don't want to have control over
other people's lives any more than I want them to have control over mine.

Freedom isn't freedom without the option to fuck up.

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
Having the option to fuck up isn't the problem.

The problem is that the US system has such incredibly low social mobility that
it prevents any alternative to fucking up.

The mythology of personal choice applied to situations over which hardly
anyone has actual personal control is perniciously misleading.

The "undeserving poor" \- feckless, addicted, irresponsible - is just as much
of a cliche as the opposite.

In fact, BI research shows that most people don't waste the money. They use it
to improve their lives - sometimes by starting small businesses that wouldn't
be possible without BI.

~~~
marssaxman
Your response is phrased in the form of a rebuttal, but I think I agree with
everything you are saying, so far as I understand it, which leaves me to
wonder if I didn't explain myself clearly.

I believe that the concept of "deserving" or "undeserving" poverty is not just
unhelpful but actually misleading, and creates a great deal of unnecessary
confusion. It is more useful to ignore the personal details and look at the
systems. We can't change other people; we can rarely change ourselves; but we
can certainly change systems, because they are human creations in the first
place. So that's how we should approach poverty.

I am in favor of basic income as an improvement on and replacement for other
forms of social support, for a variety of reasons: it seems like a more
efficient way to move money around, it seems like a more effective way to
distribute resources to people in need of them, and it seems overall like a
more egalitarian, less judgemental way of dealing with a whole complex of
problems which currently create a great deal of suffering. It is simple enough
to feel like good engineering. It is fair enough to feel sustainable. It is
non-ideological enough that I feel reasonably sure it would be difficult to
use it as a mechanism of social control against weirdo outliers, like I am,
but who aren't fortunate enough to have access to the same resources I do.

By "option to fuck up" I mean simply the freedom to do something other than
mainstream opinion thinks you should. In these examples, people clearly
believe it would be a bad idea for someone begging on the street to use the
money they earn to buy alcohol. Well, on average, that's probably true. But
just because someone is in a desperate way, I don't believe that gives me (or
you, or anyone) the right to tell them what choices they should make. It's
still their life. If I am willing to hand the guy on the street corner my
spare $5, I have to be willing to accept that he's going to do whatever he
thinks best with that money. If I can't be happy with that I shouldn't give
him the money. But I believe that each person generally is the best judge of
what is best for themself; I'd like it if the society around me would leave me
free to make my own choices, not because I'm successful enough not to have to
beg for money on the street, but because that's how I think we should all
treat each other all the time, regardless of circumstances.

------
lewisl9029
The most compelling case I've seen made recently for basic income is from
Yanis Varoufakis (the infamous Greek finance minister who resigned after
refusing to agree to the terms of the bailout that the Greek people voted
against in a referendum):
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvgdtF3y0Ss](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvgdtF3y0Ss)

There were many gems in that talk, but this one stood out to me in particular:

"The right to turn down a job is essential for a well functioning labor
market, and for a civilized society. And to have that right, a genuine right,
to turn down a job, you must have an alternative: An outside option. Because
desperate people will accept to do desperate things..."

"Libertarian economists, who claim that liberty is a driving force, define
liberty in a negative sense, in the sense of an absence of constraints, of
voluntarism: If you've said yes to some contract, that contract must be, by
definition, a free contract, and therefore, it must be some act of free
will... Well, it's not. The Mafia loves to give us options that we can't
refuse, to make us offers we can't refuse. The fact that we say yes to them
doesn't mean that they were chosen freely. The fact that the Greek government
accepted the terms, last summer, of the troika, does not mean that it was a
voluntary transaction. To have a free contract, to have a contract that is
signed by both sides, representing and exuding the freedom of both sides, each
side must have a capacity to say no. I said that before, and I am saying this
once more: In essence, freedom in action requires a basic income."

~~~
qq66
The right to turn down all work, at an evolutionary level, is granted only to
photosynthetic organisms.

~~~
themartorana
The right to free speech and religious expression at an evolutionary level is
non-existent. What's your point?

~~~
landryraccoon
Free speech and freedom of religion demands nothing of your neighbors except
non interference. Basic income, on the other hand, demands their labor (at our
current level of technology). In the future automation may change this, but
right now there is a big gap between demanding free as in speech and free as
in beer.

~~~
ItendToDisagree
It in fact does not require their labor. It requires effective taxation of
land and distribution of said taxation effectively.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism)
"... revenues from a land value tax (LVT) can reduce or eliminate existing
taxes on labor and investment that are unfair and inefficient. Some Georgists
also advocate for the return of surplus public revenue back to the people
through a basic income or citizen's dividend."

~~~
drumdance
All taxes come from private enterprise. All of them. It may be displaced by
time, so that money I made last year pays taxes next year, but there was
labor. That's why money even exists - as a store of value.

~~~
unclesaamm
I find it misleading that American enterprise can ever be wholly "private",
when it depends so much on regulation, subsidies, and public resources.
Taxation goes to support the common infrastructure that makes any work
possible. Problem?

~~~
drumdance
Unless private parties -- consumers -- buy stuff, there is no income. The
government can intervene and distort things (and should -- I'm not a
libertarian) but if there is no private commerce, there is nothing to tax.

In a society with no regulation, people still partake in commerce. It has lots
of problems and I wouldn't want to live in, say, Somalia, but Somalis still
engage in trade and the strongmen who run such places depend on that.

------
senseless
Good to see steps like this being made!

As a slight aside, there are strong proponents who argue, based on Ricardo's
law of rent [0], that any excess income above the basic subsistence level will
inevitably be swallowed up by landlords in the form of rents.

I'd be very interested to hear from the folks involved in this study if they
have an opinion on such an assertion, and if you have any ideas on addressing
that effect when it comes to instituting a basic income. Since, if you agreed
with those arguments, it seems that a BI's long-term impact on disposable
incomes would trend towards 0.

I am still studying the topic, but find the arguments compelling that say a
basic income would need to also be paired with something along the lines of
either a land-value tax or a community land contribution [1] (which, as the
argument is often used, would have a dual bonus by obviating the need for
property and income taxes) in order to have meaningful effect.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_rent](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_rent)

[1] [https://www.unitism.com/land/en/9-keep-what-you-earn-pay-
for...](https://www.unitism.com/land/en/9-keep-what-you-earn-pay-for-what-you-
use)

~~~
MicroBerto
I've brought this up in the past, and am always met with arguments that just
don't seem to dent the problem statement.

My simple question I always pose is this: _" If everyone has $X dollars, then
wouldn't $X become worthless?"_

I fail to see how there won't be _some_ kind of inflationary situation amongst
the lower class, especially in the form of rents over the course of a year as
leases reset. I also refuse to accept any argument that involves the majority
of landlords "doing the right thing".

Thanks for posting the Law of Rent.

~~~
cortesoft
This would be the case if the X dollars were being printed from scratch every
time they were distributed. They aren't, though; they are coming from tax
dollars.

Yes, it would most likely cause some inflation of consumer goods, since poor
people spend more of their money on consumer goods than rich people (so when
you transfer wealth from the rich to the poor, consumer goods will become more
expensive)

This increase in consumer good prices, however, will also cause more resources
to go into producing goods for poor people (who suddenly aren't so poor
anymore). Depending on the limiting factors for these consumer goods, this
will most likely cause prices to stabilize at a reasonable place.

------
misja111
What amazes me in this discussion about BI is that most people don't seem to
realize that systems similar to BI have already been tried in Europe, and that
they didn't work.

I come from the Netherlands, which has always had unemployment benefits.
Nowadays you get those only if you meet a bunch of strict conditions but it
hasn't always been so tough. In the early eighties, there were almost no
checks whatsoever. The result was that many people started to see the benefit
as a 'right', and that the choice to work or not to work was a matter of
personal choice. So basically the same thing that BI tries to achieve. But the
result in the Netherlands was that more and more people chose not to work, or
chose to do work that didn't pay anything, or worked for black money and
collect the social benefit at the same time. In the end the whole system just
got too expensive and had to be adjusted to be much more strict.

Tl;Dr; BI is a very nice idea on paper but unfortunately becomes too expensive
in practice.

~~~
MicroBerto
What I've found here on HN is that there is an _extremely_ large amount of
"wishful projection" and selection bias, in that many people here are young
and promising entrepreneurs-in-training, and they believe that basic income
will allow them to work on their startup dream without having to worry about
paying the bills.

While that may be true, they fail to realize that they are in the extreme
minority of actually-motivated people who would make a good use-case of basic
income.

The vast majority of the world will fall into other categories, such as non-
productivity or black markets. Not everyone wants to go build the next great
app, folks!

I personally believe that this is _the_ most important decision that humans
must make over the next half-century, as we automate nearly everything and
have little need for cheap human labor:

 _What do you do with all of those idle hands and minds?_

In my opinion, if you allow the masses to do absolutely nothing while
providing them the necessities for life, society will collapse upon itself
over time, as people vote themselves more and more benefits for doing less and
less work, while ostracizing the working and ownership classes. Question is
only how many generations it takes.

My favorite example is what happens when you put rats into such a utopia:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Z760XNy4VM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Z760XNy4VM)

IMHO, humans are no better than they (possibly far worse, in fact), and I see
no reason to believe how anything else will happen over the course of several
generations of "free stuff".

Humans without responsibilities and accountability = chaos. Tell me it hasn't
already begun.

~~~
tim333
The mice in the video bred rapidly and filled the space until it became too
crowded. Humans however have contraceptives and entertainment systems and so
the population stabilizes before that.

~~~
maerF0x0
and with BI can 1) afford education which is related to lower childbirth and
2) wont worry so much about retirement, also correlated with lower child
birth.

------
charliemagee
Amazing how quick this jumped into extraneous "what-if" comments and liberal
vs. libertarian and so on. It appears that the premise that YC is moving
forward on is very simple: "give them the money and see what happens."

I would imagine it would be monthly because that is how our culture works on
necessities like shelter and water. If they run out of the money on day one,
or do a deal with a payday lender, it doesn't become "tough shit." It will be
answered with a big silence. There won't be somebody to call and complain to.

Once a month money will appear in your account. End of story. The funders
aren't also attempting to solve health care and pay day lending. They aren't
creating a bureaucracy of people waiting by the phone to listen to sob
stories.

What happens after the money hits your account is the focus of the research.
Thrive or fuck up, your choice . . . and not the problem of the suppliers of
basic income.

Many here are jumping immediately to the worst case scenario stories. Those
will comprise a tiny minority. They're playing the hunch that basic income
will be a net plus and they want to find out how and how much so they can
tweak it and propose it to best impact the future.

This seems like a great use of some of the wealth that has been steadily
trickling up.

------
Spooky23
Why not look at folks who have some variant of basic income -- retirees.
Especially public sector. There's lots of data there to look at.

I have a friend who was a fireman who developed some health problems at 44
which made doing his job difficult without putting himself and others at risk.
He's now retired at approximately half pay, with healthcare. He's now doing
stuff that he is passionate about -- cooking BBQ for friends, family and
events and gardening. (very serious gardening, like he can almost feed his
family from a city lot).

There are many stories like that which are worth hearing. IMO, it would be a
better population to study, as most retirees like what I'm describing aren't
receiving subsidy for housing or food.

~~~
mason240
You can also retire from the US military after 20 years (so as young as 38),
which would be a pretty large population to study.

~~~
oldsj
True but almost no one actually does retire. You get about 1500-2000 a month
as an enlisted retiree which most people would have to support a family with.

------
tomp
> In our pilot, the income will be unconditional; we’re going to give it to
> participants for the duration of the study, no matter what.

This is omitting one crucial detail: for _how long_ will the basic income
last. At least for myself, my decisions would be completely different if I was
to receive unconditional income for e.g. 10 years (or less), vs. for the rest
of my life.

~~~
siphor
It's 5 years. Outlined in the link below

[https://blog.ycombinator.com/basic-
income](https://blog.ycombinator.com/basic-income)

~~~
xienze
So in other words, a long enough time to make people think they can draw
reasonable conclusions about the viability of BI, when in actuality it's not
long enough. You have to study the generational effects of this sort of thing.
People are going to behave very differently when they know this will be around
for a very short time versus the rest of their lives, nevermind how people
behave when they're second or third generation BIers.

~~~
siphor
There's only one way to study something like this.. and that's to do it. 5
years is a pretty amazing amount of time and I'm sure some great data will
come out of it. Some smart people will probably treat it as a short-term thing
and treat it as such, but the majority of the population are probably short
sighted and will treat it as if it will be there forever. You can do a lot in
5 years.

~~~
Alupis
> There's only one way to study something like this.. and that's to do it

This is a dangerous thing to experiment with when you have a huge nation of
318+ Million population.

It's far safer to let smaller nations, like Finland (whose entire population
is less than New York City), test this idea out for a few generations. It's
far easier to "bail out" a city's worth of people than it is a large nation,
if things don't go as planned.

~~~
clavalle
Or maybe a some folks in Oakland?

~~~
Alupis
> Or maybe a some folks in Oakland?

I don't think a city in the US is a good sample, since people are more likely
to move in and out of the city during a generational (or multi-generational)
test case. In addition, city lines/boundaries are "fuzzy" a lot of the time,
often with one side of a street being incorporated and the other side not,
etc. City boundary lines may also shift over time, etc.

In addition, if it's known anyone with an Oakland address gets BI, some (or
many) people will attempt to move there, which will cause other unintended
economic consequences for the city, skewing the test results.

A [small] nation is a better sample, since it tends to have fewer of these
issues over a long time span.

~~~
clavalle
But you are just guessing at what the problems might be.

I think that is the point of this pilot -- find the problems that crop up.

Your own argument is that it should not be done wholesale until we know what
the effects are at a smaller level: that's what's being done here.

Start small. Fix smaller problems. Ratchet up. Rinse and repeat.

~~~
Alupis
Well, it's difficult to see how this trial study is going to yield any useful
information.

\- The sample subjects are incredibly biased, in that they are already
founders and presumably motivated individuals. Not a representation of the
general population, not even close.

\- The study has a time limit (5 years). So no test subject is going to make
life-long or life-altering decisions based on this limited trial.

So, this study doesn't seem to accomplish any of the basic tasks needed to
study ramifications of such an idea in practice.

All we will know after this study is concluded, is how founders treat monthly
cash given to them for 5 years. In reality, it sounds a lot like YC is just
paying them a salary to build their business.

YC is testing the outcome of paying their founders a salary in order to
achieve greater gains down the road... something any business will attest to
being beneficial. This is not a BI study.

I agree, start small, work up. This is why I said let a small nation conduct
this test (such as Finland, who is already planning to convert into a BI
economy full-scale, from my understanding).

> But you are just guessing at what the problems might be.

No, the issues listed in my previous post are clearly issues with conducting
this test at a city level. Part of preparing a study is to examine
complications that may impact the findings... and these are obvious
complications.

~~~
elizabeth-ycr
Participants will be randomly selected from the population of Oakland--we are
not sampling YC founders.

~~~
Kalium
In all honesty, I will be rather surprised if it really winds up being a truly
random selection of the Oakland population. The political incentives for the
city to find a way to put a thumb on the scales will be very strong.

------
davemel37
If you are really serious about Basic Income, I strongly encourage you to look
at the Kollel system within the ultra-orthodox/yeshiva communities (i.e.
Lakewood, NJ)

While their model is conditional, the framework for providing a stipend to
cover basic necessities so the kollel members are free to study, is very
similar.

You will see a glimpse of what happens. There is amazing achievement, and
there is abuse of the system. There are unparalleled social services powered
by the community (i.e. hundreds of lending "GMach's" which lend and share
everything from baby strollers to expensive fertility meds.)

If you want a glimpse into how Basic Income will work, looking at the full
spectrum of Lakewood New Jersey would be eye opening.

You will see some of the most amazing examples of selflessness and
accomplishment and you will see outrageous abuse of the system.

All in All, people will be people and the only solution that is sustainable is
focusing on solving for the cause, not subsidizing the effect.

For all the kollel stipends that are paid out, ultimately, peoples true nature
wins out. The only thing we can do is work to improve that nature.

Better People make a better world, not better circumstances.

(for what its worth, I am a fan of the idea of basic income, after all...if
people will be people, than lets at least make sure no one has to suffer from
starvation or homelessness.)

~~~
jomamaxx
"ultra-orthodox/yeshiva communities"

Ultro Orthodox Jews / Mennonites etc. have a _very strong_ set of social
rules, and very conservative behavioural expectations.

You can't compare someone in such a community to the American population at
large.

The 'ethos' in a religious community centres around faith, family, duty,
responsibility.

In America, it's 'personal aspiration'.

They can hardly be used as an experimental basis.

~~~
davemel37
Maybe you can't compare it, but you can still learn from it.

------
Fede_V
I think it's great YC is funding some interesting research.

I'm a bit curious as to why they didn't partner with some established
academics in this area (there's plenty of economists who have done excellent
research here) rather than start a new program - but it's YC's money, and they
can choose how to spend it.

How open do you plan to be about things like datasets/analysis plans and so
forth? I think this would be an excellent opportunity to push forward open
science [http://osinitiative.org/about-osi/](http://osinitiative.org/about-
osi/). Further, if you allow people who are skeptical of the minimum income to
register the objections _before_ you gather the data, you can address them
before you proceed - at that point, post-hoc critiques are a lot less
credible.

~~~
sama
We did consider it, and we are working with some established academics.

However, I think it's a good idea to push forward alternative models of doing
(and funding) research. Frankly, most of the existing institutions we thought
about partnering closely with were somewhat bloated, and it would have made
the whole study significantly more expensive and slower.

~~~
etendue
> Frankly, most of the existing institutions we thought about partnering
> closely with were somewhat bloated, and it would have made the whole study
> significantly more expensive and slower.

Some of that "bloat" is due to compliance and ethics: has YC engaged an IRB
yet? SV tech companies (Facebook, OkCupid) have shown very questionable
judgement with respect to ethical considerations.

~~~
Fomite
There's a reply to this elsewhere in the thread - they've said they're using
an external IRB.

~~~
etendue
Excellent to hear, thanks for clarifying that.

------
dragonwriter
Honestly, I think any "Basic Income" research where the recipient classes
aren't 100% of the members of some well-defined polity and where the policy is
explicitly a close-ended pilot is researching something so fundamentally
different from Basic Income (it is well-known that close-ended benefits have a
different effect on behavior) that, while there may be some useful insights
that have applicability to actual Basic Income, they should be called
something else.

~~~
nostrebored
The one thing that I never actually see any of the people who tout BI answer
is why it won't just cause an increase in the price of low income goods. Why
won't laundry detergent just cost x% more money, etc. I think that the
effective spending power low income individuals have under BI would be
practically around the same that they had pre-BI if it's used a supplement to
our current programs, and lower if BI is used to replace current programs...

~~~
dragonwriter
> The one thing that I never actually see any of the people who tout BI answer
> is why it won't just cause an increase in the price of low income goods.

It won't _just_ cause that because of the way supply and demand curves for
real goods tend to work. It will _definitely_ cause an increase in the market-
clearing price of many goods demanded at the low end of the income scale
(because of how demand curves are shaped, and the influx of cash), which will
increase the quantity supplied of those goods in most cases (because of how
supply curves are shaped), resulting in people who are net beneficiaries
(after considering where the funding comes from) affording more total goods,
even though they are also paying higher prices for each unit of goods.

~~~
nostrebored
And things that lag with an increase in demand? Housing, etc.?

I don't doubt that it will have some benefit towards the TPP of low-income
consumers in the long term -- I do doubt that in the model of replacement of
current welfare systems that this is an effective approach, and I doubt that
it will be effective in the short term as housing prices will skyrocket. The
long term effects of the latter would be interesting if the short term
shockwaves caused the policy to be repealed.

~~~
dragonwriter
> And things that lag with an increase in demand? Housing, etc.?

The degree to which housing lags is a function of unrelated (to the benefit
structure) aspects of public policy (particularly, local zoning and planning
processes.) Places where the low-end housing markets are unresponsive because
of these types of policies will remain problematic for the same reason under a
UBI.

But avoiding major disruptions is one of the reasons I think a gradual ramp up
of UBI and phasing out other benefit programs by just counting UBI in income
when determining eligibility is, even though it defers the administrative cost
savings of UBI, the best way to move to it.

~~~
nostrebored
I think that a delayed implementation is one of the most reasonable things
that I've heard regarding UBI! Thanks for the input, some food for thought.

------
shawnee_
Although I admire the intent here, my opinion is that it's focused on the
wrong variable. Lack of "enough" income is not the root of the problem for why
people get sucked into poverty and stuck there. The problem is that working
people have become increasingly unable to turn their income into equity. And
the number one expensive expense of "shelter" is why. So the poor people will
have more money to pay rent ... woohoo. Landlords in Oakland are probably
already salivating, factoring this into their next rent increase, maybe even
planning to build a few more "brand new affordable housing units" in a complex
that will increase both supply and price of rent. Are people _ever_ motivated
to work harder to pay their landlords more? Almost never... But give them an
opportunity of ownership, and that truly turns the tables on not only what
kind of work they can do, but how they spend their time and money.

I'm slowly building Ecosteader to go this direction of enabling ownership to
build equity. My motivation was originally to build a land development network
of people interested in green / sustainabile building, but the more I
investigate this piece of the project, the more apparent it becomes that land
ownership really does solve both problems in one. People who own land or homes
tend to care more about environmental quality / NIMBY issues.

For the "property tax is just rent" crowd arguing that angle -- property tax
on a small and undeveloped piece of land is almost nothing... build a small
structure on that land and it doesn't go up by that much. In 90 percent of the
US, I'd imagine that tax for the whole year is less than one month's rent in
Oakland. It's when people who have massive square footage on massive acreage
start complaining that property tax makes them poor that the perception gets
skewed.

------
simonsarris
"Basic Income that ends in 1/5/10 years" is not basic income at all.

For some of the population they will literally be studying the effects of a
_temporary salary increase_ that follows a person if they change jobs.

For some of the population they will be studying a _don 't-have-to-work
sabbatical._

~~~
ncallaway
What are you quoting with the quotation marks?

I agree with you on that a BI that ends in 1 year isn't a good test. However,
from the article their goal with the sort-term pilot is "to prepare for the
longer-term study by working on our methods--how to pay people, how to collect
data, how to randomly choose a sample, etc". So...who cares if the short-term
pilot isn't a good study on BI? That's not their goal.

I disagree with you that 10 years of BI wouldn't count as BI. That is a _long_
time for an individual to be receiving an unconditional income.

~~~
whamlastxmas
The point of BI is that you wouldn't have to worry about supporting yourself
for the bare necessities. If it's only 10 years long you still have to
consider your career prospects after you lose BI. If you tell an employer
"I've been out of a job for 10 years because I got free money and didn't need
to work" they aren't exactly going to jump at the chance to hire you. Plus
your skills will be out of date.

~~~
ncallaway
> you wouldn't have to worry about supporting yourself for the bare
> necessities

I know very few people who only work in order to secure for themselves the
bare necessities of life. I suspect, even in an infinite BI world, many people
would work in order to be able to have more than the bare necessities.

However, anecdotal evidence such as "people I personally know" is terrible
evidence for making drastic changes to our social welfare programs. Which is
why we need small scale studies and pilot programs in order to begin to assess
the data of how people behave when they receive BI.

> If you tell an employer "I've been out of a job for 10 years because I got
> free money and didn't need to work" they aren't ...

No, but if you _really_ didn't want to work, you could easily take 6 years off
and then spend 2 years on education, and another 2 years getting back into the
job market. It would be really good to have this kind of data.

------
Fomite
Does YCombinator have an Institutional Review Board?

Musing about this study, it feels like it could very much run aground with
some of the ethical concerns regarding consent that have dogged some studies
with high participation incentives, in that withdrawing from the study
potentially represents a financial catastrophe, so participation in the study
becomes less than fully consenting.

~~~
elizabeth-ycr
Y Combinator does not have an internal IRB, but we will absolutely go through
an external IRB.

~~~
Fomite
That's good to hear.

------
wtvanhest
> Although basic income seems fiscally challenging today, in a world where
> technology replaces existing jobs and basic income becomes necessary,
> technological improvements should generate an abundance of resources and the
> cost of living should fall dramatically.

I am 100% for this experiment. But the assumption that technology will replace
basic jobs seems naive. Throughout human history, we have seen rapid and
accelerating technology improvements. In 1900, roughly 40 percent of Americans
were in farming. Today, roughly 2 percent of Americans are in farming [1].

During that same time period we went from most woman not working to most woman
working. We are currently in a period of prolonged, very low unemployment by
historical standards with more people working on earth than ever before.

As much as it seems obvious that technology will replace all low income jobs,
it may be obvious because we are limited in our imagination about what the
future low income jobs will be.

[1]
[http://www.ers.usda.gov/media/259572/eib3_1_.pdf](http://www.ers.usda.gov/media/259572/eib3_1_.pdf)

Do not let my comment be mistaken for a lack of interest in Basic Income.
Hopefully it will be a well thought out and great experiment. One that teaches
us about Basic Income and its potential impact.

~~~
coldtea
> _I am 100% for this experiment. But the assumption that technology will
> replace basic jobs seems naive. Throughout human history, we have seen rapid
> and accelerating technology improvements._

Arguments from "but this is how it always have been" have a tendency to break
down when significant societal/technological changes happen.

~~~
thedevil
I use a different model than everyone else which I think gives insight on
this. I split jobs into 3 categories (simplified here to make it easy to
understand):

1) jobs that mostly create economic value (doctors, farmers, programmers): the
percentage of these jobs is already small and keeps decreasing with
technology.

2) jobs that mostly transfer economic value (marketers, lawyers): these jobs
keep increasing. (Note: I'm not saying marketing and law doesn't create value
but more marketers and lawyers mostly means more value transfers rather than
more value)

3) jobs that arbitrage time and money (executive assistant, cleaning person):
I call these arbitrage because the dollar value of time varies between
individuals varies and so they trade time and both win economically. These
jobs likely grow with inequality.

In a future where wealth is concentrated and more jobs are automated, job
types 2 and 3 most likely grow, not shrink. That's what happened because of
past technological progress and I don't see a reason to think it will happen
any differently this time. In fact, I expect this to happen even more this
time.

I'm not saying this is a great outcome. In fact, I think this is an argument
for basic income. But I don't think jobs are going to disappear anytime soon.

~~~
sah2ed
> _1) jobs that mostly create economic value (doctors, farmers, programmers):
> the percentage of these jobs is already small and keeps decreasing with
> technology._

I really don't follow why job types 2 and 3 would grow instead of shrink;
shouldn't job types 1 and 2 be the ones to increase with technological
advances?

Technological advancements meant massive increases in output per farmer but
farming itself does not require specialized skills, so the increased
productivity lead to the drop in the farmer population. Contrast this with
activities like programming and medicine which cannot be automated wholesale
-- programming and medicine do require specialized skills.

For instance, we'll need more programmers in future than we have now since
someone has to program/maintain code written for self-driving cars (for the
rest of the population), precision farming (for farmers), telemedicine (for
doctors) etc, and with efforts like Learnable Programming [1], more people
will pick up programming as a career, so the ranks of people that identify
with the programming profession would swell not decrease.

I believe the same increased productivity would eventually happen to the field
of medicine -- if computers become really good at the basic stuff -- physical
examinations that can produce an initial diagnosis that is fairly accurate,
would-be doctors will spend a shorter time in training since they have less
material to master. I think this will eventually lead to more people
qualifying to become doctors.

So the point I'm making is that including farmers along with doctors and
programmers as examples of job type 1 needs some rethinking.

[1]
[http://worrydream.com/LearnableProgramming/](http://worrydream.com/LearnableProgramming/)

~~~
shkkmo
Some of the categories type 1 jobs will grow and some will shrink. More
programmers will be writing code for self driving cars, but fewer truck and
delivery drivers will drive those cars. Both of those are type 1 jobs because
they produce new value. Type 1 jobs will shift towards mostly consisting of
job that require specialized skills.

------
chris_va
I am worried that this study will just confirm the local benefits of BI (which
have already been pretty well documented, e.g. Mincome) without addressing the
unanswered questions regarding BI.

The real unanswered questions mostly revolve around large scale changes to the
economy, not localized improvements. Some questions I really want to see
answered are:

\- Will UBI create large price inflation for basic goods (which is what
traditionally happens when you give everyone free money)?

\- If so, do we think that this will still be net beneficial for alleviating
poverty? Often price inflation is regressive since it hits commodities harder
than something scarcity priced.

\- I would also like to ask this question slightly differently: What happens
if we were to give everyone the equivalent of 6 months of unskilled labor each
year? That's more or less what traditional UBI proposes, and phrased that way
who is going to provide the labor (or goods/services)?

Money can be thought of (roughly) as debt owed to you by society. When you
think about it that way, doing localized BI seems like an easy win. Doing
universal BI seems like a potential catastrophe. Does this study address the
latter?

(Edit: my awful spelling)

~~~
ffwd
Regarding inflation of prices - if feeding everyone leads to inflation of
prices then in principle we can't feed everyone. That says more about
resources than it does BI, if I understand you correctly. I think if we were
to do this, we would need the capital and infrastructure to handle the
increased demand, maybe outside the traditional economic system so that prices
didn't increase so much.

~~~
chris_va
I think you misunderstand my concern.

Going from a system where everyone needs to generate $20k of economic value
"to eat" (yes, oversimplification of benefits, but bear with me) to one in
which no one needs to generate economic value may have some macro scale
inflation issues.

Those are the issues a study of UBI needs to cover.

------
TeMPOraL
I'm really, really happy you're going forward with this!

That said, I have just one question to this experiment - how it's going to
handle media exposure?

What I worry about is that the interaction with the greater world through mass
media will blow the entire thing up and make it useless. I expect at least:

\- prices going up for rent and some stuff in areas where owners know
population is on BI

\- people getting increasingly targeted by scams

\- deliberate attempts to mess up with the experiment

Come to think of it, the first two could be solved by random enough sampling
of candidates over a large enough population. But I'm sure others here could
come up with several other potential failure modes that the huge attention and
"uncommonness" of the situation could bring.

Part of me thinks that such experiments should be done in secrecy and revealed
only after they're finished, but that's not how science is usually done, for
obvious reasons.

~~~
elizabeth-ycr
We want to share as much as we can throughout the process, but protecting
participants and the integrity of the study are our first priorities.

------
nirmel
I've recently been researching the structured settlement (annuity) industry.
It seems like as soon as someone has a guaranteed set of future payments, you
will get structured settlement brokers reaching out, offering to buy out their
future payments for a (often low-ball) lump sum today, and many will take it.
Will you permit these kinds of side deals?

~~~
dustinmoorenet
You can't sell your social security benefits, so I would guess the same
restrictions would apply.

~~~
stared
You can - by taking a loan.

~~~
nirmel
Right, often the guarantee of future payments can be treated as collateral to
make getting a loan much easier. At a minimum it can be used to show proof of
future income.

------
PabloOsinaga
I wonder how to test controlling for reciprocity. I.e., If I receive a basic
income as part of a pilot/experiment I will feel tempted to "give back"
somehow, while if basic income is a baseline all humans receive, that
reciprocity will not be present. How can you design an experiment so that
somehow people don't feel they are receiving money in an extraordinary way,
but rather that's just part of how the world works. Wouldn't that change their
motivations and thus the behavior you want to observe?

~~~
justratsinacoat
>If I receive a basic income as part of a pilot/experiment I will feel tempted
to "give back" somehow, while if basic income is a baseline all humans
receive, that reciprocity will not be present. How can you design an
experiment so that somehow people don't feel they are receiving money in an
extraordinary way, but rather that's just part of how the world works

FWIW, excepting the actually lazy (which I think comprises a vanishingly small
minority of the population), I think most people will _feel_ as though they
have to give back. Sure, once _everyone_ gets N dollars/month just for being
alive, they will no longer be receiving money in an extraordinary way, but
culture is hard to kill. The relentlessly inbred Protestant work ethic
provably shapes a panoply of aspects of our society even now (8 hour work days
that office drones spend half of on Reddit, etc); there's no reason to think
that its influence will suddenly drop away with the advent of "free money". I
have little to go on beyond the already extant Canadian study of 'mincome' [0]
back in the 70s, but that was generally considered a success, with recipients
putting the money to use in building their businesses and communities, rather
than sitting on their asses (with the notable exception of new mothers and
teenagers [1], for respectively obvious reasons (OTOH teenagers' HS graduation
rate improved, possibly due to not feeling pressure to go get a job)).

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mincome](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mincome)

[1] [http://public.econ.duke.edu/~erw/197/forget-
cea%20%282%29.pd...](http://public.econ.duke.edu/~erw/197/forget-
cea%20%282%29.pdf) , which is a 2011 analysis of the data from the 70s,
largely lying fallow thanks to Manitoba's provincial Conservatives

~~~
developer2
It comes down to how much Basic Income one can expect to collect. I don't
consider myself _extraordinarily lazy_ , and thus do my part working to earn a
comfortable living. Really though I'm the type who hasn't found my "dream
job", so working 9-5, 40 hour weeks, is something I don't particularly enjoy,
and it sucks the life out of me.

Existing social assistance where I am doesn't even cover the cheapest rent in
the city, requiring you to live with at least two others who are also on
welfare in a studio apartment that deserves to be condemned as being
unsuitable for human habitation. So long as "basic income" means bottom-of-
the-barrel minimum income that requires you to rent in the slums with
roommates, while barely having enough money to eat... I will remain employed.
If "basic income" ever provides more than that, I could see myself being
tempted into joining the ranks. Particularly if you are allowed to keep income
from a part-time minimum wage job without any clawbacks to the basic income.

------
twblalock
I find it very naive to assume that basic income will be implemented as a
simple, straightforward, clean replacement of our current welfare systems.

Our current, messy, complicated, unsuccessful welfare systems is the result of
many powerful political, social, and moral tendencies and forces, which will
reshape basic income in the same way they shaped the welfare system in the
first place. There will be many attempts to give some people more income than
others -- and some of those attempts will be justified. After several years,
we will end up re-creating our current welfare systems, for the same reasons
we created them in the first place. Society is not a clean slate upon which
any policies can be successfully imposed.

Unless those political, social, and moral forces change or disappear, basic
income won't be very basic after the politicians, and the voters, get their
hands on it.

Tyler Cowen's thoughts on the matter are very perceptive:
[http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2013/11/wha...](http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2013/11/what-
are-some-of-the-biggest-problems-with-a-guaranteed-annual-income.html)

~~~
someguydave
[http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2016/05/arnold_kling_on_1.h...](http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2016/05/arnold_kling_on_1.html)

Arnold Kling's opined on this point (the particular distortion of the US
political process) in his interview with Russ Roberts on the EconTalk podcast:

Kling: Well, let me make another point before I get back to that. Which is a
point I also make in the book. Which is that, it isn't that the political
process kind of just makes random errors. I think it actually makes very
systematic errors. What it does is it always seems to work in the direction of
subsidizing demand for something and restricting supply for that same thing.

~~~
twblalock
It's not just the US that is like this. Every country is.

Put another way: Things are the way they are for powerful reasons (which may
or may not be justifiable). You can't just ignore these reasons when you
create policy, otherwise those reasons will cause things to revert to the way
they were before.

Proponents of basic income will have to overcome many peoples' moral
intuitions about who deserves help, and who should have to work for a living.

If these moral intuitions remain the same, basic income won't be basic for
long -- people will vote to give more money to the disabled, less money to
felons, and so on. Should people receive basic income while incarcerated due
to a criminal conviction? Someone will come along who suggests that members of
certain racial groups should receive more money in the basic income program as
a form of affirmative action, to compensate for past wrongs. Maybe people who
choose to work should get more money under basic income, as an incentive for
others to choose to work. Should people who inherit a lot of money have their
basic income reduced?

I think it's pretty clear that the first time someone makes a change of the
kind I listed above, the cat will be out of the bag, and basic income won't be
"basic" income anymore. Then the argument that basic income should treat
everyone the same will become useless to defend against further changes. You
can't really preserve the purity of a policy design when the voters want to
change it.

There is also the danger of everyone voting to increase their income, to the
extent that the program runs out of money.

I think these moral intuitions can be changed, but only through a gradual
phase-in of benefits over time. Of course, that's exactly what has been
happening over the past century or so, and it's what led to the welfare
systems we have today.

~~~
jpindar
And then the threat of losing your income becomes just another way for the
government to control people's behavior.

------
prokes
Can anyone explain how this can be implemented mathematically? Assume 300
million people @ $12k / year, you are spending $3.6 trillion. That is already
more than current government revenue, leaving all current government services
unfunded.

~~~
11thEarlOfMar
\- To a large extent, it is expected to replace current programs like welfare
and social security. So those budgets, in theory, would be reduced or
eliminated and supplemented with Basic Income.

\- It will be a taxable income. So a family including two adults would have an
additional $24k on which to pay taxes. Those taxes help pay for the program by
effectively reducing the additional funding that needs to be raised.

\- Theoretically, it will increase wages and employment since there will be a
lot more money spent, increasing economic activity. Increasing both wages and
employment increases tax revenues, which would again offset some of the cost.
I think this is really the biggest factor that needs studying, as it seems to
have the most influence on the decision to deploy BI. Ultimately, it is a
macro economic decision. It is also the most difficult factor to model and
predict without actually implementing it on a large scale. The most important
question, in my mind, is what is the extent of inflationary pressure applied
by BI?

~~~
chimeracoder
> Theoretically, it will increase wages and employment since there will be a
> lot more money spent, increasing economic activity.

At a macroeconomic level, that money comes from somewhere (generally taxes),
which means that it's also _decreasing_ consumption and/or investment by an
equivalent amount. You can make the argument that collecting the taxes to fund
a program is still desirable in the end, but it's mathematically incorrect to
say that it would have a net increase in economic activity.

To put it another way: what would the money be spent on if it _weren 't_
collected as tax revenue? Some portion of it would be spent on consumable
goods, and the rest would be saved (invested). Money saved is very important
to the economy, because that's how society gets access to capital for long-
term investments (whether public works projects or private investments).

~~~
11thEarlOfMar
> "which means that it's also decreasing consumption and/or investment by an
> equivalent amount"

I am not sure about this, because the net amount is still new money in the
economy, being spent for services, saved, or invested. Yes, a typical person
is paying more taxes, but they will have net more money to spend or save: $BI
- [Tax on $BI] is still > $0.

As a further example, let's say there is a salon that employs 2 beauticians
before BI. After BI, they see an increase in business, and now can employ 3
beauticians, increasing employment by 1. The 3rd beautician is now paying
taxes that were not paid before. Those taxes in part can help fund the BI.

~~~
chimeracoder
> I am not sure about this, because the net amount is still new money in the
> economy

No, the net amount is zero. Unless you're talking about literally printing
money (in which case the costs are spread about in the form of inflation).
There is no 'new money'.

> Yes, a typical person is paying more taxes, but they will have net more
> money to spend or save: $BI - [Tax on $BI] is still > $0.

You're ignoring the number of people who will be paying _more_ in taxes than
they will recieve. Even if you make the moral argument for taking their money
and giving it to others, you can't ignore the fact that, without the
additional tax, the money would literally be used in some other way, either as
consumption or as investment.

As a ballpark, if the payout is $5,000/person/year * 300,000,000 people =
$150,000,000,000/year, that's $150,000,000,000/year that needs to be raised in
taxes in order to cover the program. Every dollar that gets paid out has to be
funded through money that would otherwise be in someone's bank account, and
which they either would spend or would save (invest).

~~~
orlandob
Money supply increase does not necessarily lead to inflation.

------
djschnei
Setting aside whether or not redistribution is ever justified, I do respect
the pragmatism of the UBI granted it replaces all other forms of welfare.
Faced with a choice between the current welfare state and a UBI, the latter is
a no brainer.

While not specifically a UBI, the negative income tax seeks to accomplish the
creation of a similar safety net while still maintaining a strong profit
motive for the people benefiting from it. A negative income tax is something I
would definitely get behind.

~~~
mattkrisiloff
I think it's important to some degree to be agnostic about what we mean by
'basic income'. We're planning to test the version coloquially closest to
'universal basic income', but something along negative income tax could make
sense -- we need to find the answers (hence doing the study!), not just
prescribe what we think is right.

~~~
nostrebored
But the study doesn't actually study UBI. The problems with UBI are heavily
rooted in the U -- what happens when an entire society is now making (X +
Income)? Using any reasonable economics we'd assume that the price of goods
would scale accordingly, especially at the bottom of the curve.

------
11thEarlOfMar
"One reason we think it may work is that technological improvements should
generate an abundance of resources."

This is already being seen in some contexts. For example, the portion of
income Americans spend on food has dropped from 17.5% to 10.5% over the last
53 years. "Because of the overall rise in income, and the consistent shrinking
of food prices adjusted for inflation, we actually have more disposable income
than our grandparents did" [1]. It is likely that improvements in agricultural
technology and food distribution have led to the 'shrinking food prices'
contribution, seen in the US. This means that there is downward pressure on
the actual threshold of what would constitute a basic income, and thereby
supporting Sam's assertion.

[1]
[http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/03/02/389578089/you...](http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/03/02/389578089/your-
grandparents-spent-more-of-their-money-on-food-than-you-do)

~~~
moheeb
All the figures I have seen have pointed to large increases in food prices.
Where are they getting their figures that food prices have dropped?

~~~
powera
Where are you getting figures that food prices have increased as a percentage
of total income? I've only seen that they've decreased, and GP post gave a
link supporting his position.

~~~
lukeschlather
It's macro vs. micro. Over the past 50 years food prices have fallen, but
since the great recession they've risen considerably (though still nowhere
near what they were 50 years ago.)

------
tlholaday
Are there any papers addressing the issue "basic income increases the returns
to owners of scarce goods" issue? I don't know what the correct name is.

Use case:

A 250 square foot apartment in a building with twenty annual homicides rents
for $350 per month before basic income. After basic income, the same apartment
rents for $1350 per month, because the rent on all the apartments in safer
buildings has gone up due to the increased capacity to pay of renters seeking
less lethal housing.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Are there any papers addressing the issue "basic income increases the
> returns to owners of scarce goods" issue? I don't know what the correct name
> is.

The correct name is "inflation", the effect to which this is effect is present
for suppliers of any particular good is measured by "price elasticity" \--
both price elasticity of demand and price elasticity of supply play a role (in
a real tax-funded BI, which is redistribution of returns, it is offset in part
for many goods by the fact that increased money chasing the goods in one
segment of the population is mirrored by reduced money chasing goods in
another segment of the population.)

~~~
tlholaday
"Inflation" occurs when the money supply increases but the supply of things
money can buy does not increase.

If basic income is funded by taxation, then the money supply does not
increase. Every dollar distributed to the set { A, B, C ... } is taxed away
from the set { A, B, C ... }, so the purchasing power of the set is unchanged.

~~~
dragonwriter
> "Inflation" occurs when the money supply increases but the supply of things
> money can buy does not increase.

There are two different uses of the term "inflation" in economics: one is
simply an increase in the money supply ("monetary inflation"), the other is
simply increase in nominal prices in either the market as a whole or some
segment ("price inflation"); the latter is what is being discussed in the
grandparent post. Monetary inflation is a potential cause of price inflation
(though there are other potential causes, and other factors can result in
monetary inflation without price inflation, so there is no necessary direct
relationship.)

You seem to want to restrict "inflation" to mean "monetary inflation producing
price inflation", which is narrower than either of the usual definitions.

~~~
tlholaday
The price of lithium has risen. The price rise is often attributed to an
increase in demand for batteries. Is it correct to describe this price
increase as"inflation"?

~~~
Tycho
That's how the term is most broadly used by people who follow financial
markets. Central bankers are currently obsessed with inflation as they see it
as an indicator of economic vitality (ie. people have such a thirst for
creating/obtaining new wealth and new enterprise that they are willing to pay
more for things like the batteries in your scenario).

------
xrange
>If the pilot goes well, we plan to follow up with the main study. If the
pilot doesn’t go well, we’ll consider different approaches.

I'm excited that someone is taking the initiative to test the idea further.
Any thoughts on how to tell if things "go well"? Is there a set of metrics
that will published beforehand? Most of the claims I've heard about basic
income tends to fall into the not-falsifiable camp. I am very interested to
see what data/results would convince a basic-income proponent that it isn't a
good idea. (I think the opposite would be easier, turning a basic-income
skeptic into an advocate).

~~~
elizabeth-ycr
We believe transparency is crucial to the integrity of the research, and we’ll
be sharing our research design and data analysis plan for the full study ahead
of time. We will also share the data with other researchers. As for the
success of the pilot, we’ll consider several metrics, including success of
mechanics (payment, data collection mechanisms, etc.); whether the amount of
money is sufficient to meet basic needs; and, through interviews with
participants, whether the research design is likely to offer insight into how
individuals would experience and respond to a basic income.

------
bsbechtel
One thing I didn't see mentioned in the post was an attempt to understand
macro economic forces are affected by BI. I understand there are limitations
to what can be studied in a controlled environment, and teasing out cause and
effect of macro forces can be very, very difficult, but any sort of R&D done
at a company normally focuses on reducing the largest risks first, to
determine if the project should move forward. Looking at how individual well
being and happiness are affected by a basic income seems like an (almost) no
brainer as to what the outcome will be - generally positive for those
individuals. Maybe this is something that is also being looked at by the team,
and just didn't get mentioned in a brief blog post, but I would hope this
research is at least thinking about how to address and manage these largest
risks first, instead of the opposite.

~~~
elizabeth-ycr
How basic income affects macroeconomic conditions (inflation, housing prices,
demand for labor, etc.) is really important to figure out, but it’s honestly
beyond the scope of this study. Unless BI is implemented on a macro level, we
can't measure the macro-level effects. We’re focusing on the individual-level
effects as a first step, but we'll be looking at more than happiness and well-
being. We're using the pilot to help refine outcome measures, but we'll share
those once they're finalized.

~~~
nostrademons
I wonder if you could get some interesting data about macro effects by giving
BI to a whole neighborhood within Oakland, preferably one that historically
has had low levels of migration and shops locally. Instead of sampling
randomly from the population of Oakland, universally give everyone within a
neighborhood basic income (or run a parallel study doing so).

That'd answer some of the biggest questions I have about BI. What happens to
rents & housing prices when everyone has an extra $X to spend? What happens to
prices in neighborhood shops? To what degree are people willing to travel to
avoid high prices? What happens to the social fabric when everyone is richer?
Do people engage more with their community when they don't have to worry about
basic financial survival? Or do they isolate themselves and enjoy their new
toys? If people choose not to work, what else do they spend their time doing,
and how does that effect the community?

At the very least, you'd get some really great data about elasticity of rents,
housing prices, and local goods which I bet economists would love to have.

------
stevefeinstein
I think tis is a step in the right direction, but I can't help but think that
raising the floor still leaves people there on the floor. Won't inflation, as
well as increased demand for the things people need just raise prices of those
things out of reach of those on the floor negating any benefit?

~~~
ZenoArrow
> "Won't inflation, as well as increased demand for the things people need
> just raise prices of those things out of reach of those on the floor
> negating any benefit?"

Ideally you'd want UBI to increase with inflation. However, as the initial
study is over 5 years the decrease in purchasing power by the end of the study
is likely to be minimal.

There is a risk that companies that service low-income people will increase
their prices faster than inflation, negating some of the benefits of UBI. The
only guard I know of for this is strong competition and disciplined consumers,
people have to be willing to express their dislike of price hikes by shopping
elsewhere otherwise the system won't work. I'm guessing that monitoring price
rises will be part of this YC-backed study.

~~~
stcredzero
_There is a risk that companies that service low-income people will increase
their prices faster than inflation, negating some of the benefits of UBI. The
only guard I know of for this is strong competition and disciplined consumers,
people have to be willing to express their dislike of price hikes by shopping
elsewhere otherwise the system won 't work._

There are places where people don't have enough mobility to be able to do
this.

EDIT: One of the interns at the non-profit I volunteer at landed a job, but
had to give it up because he didn't have transportation that could reliably
get him to his job. (Late shift.) He lives in Oakland.

~~~
ZenoArrow
> "There are places where people don't have enough mobility to be able to do
> this."

That's where Internet shopping comes in. Ideally you want to support local
businesses to keep jobs in the area, but if you need to fight against price
hikes and can't do so locally then the best thing to do is shop online until
the price hikes are reduced.

~~~
runako
The irony here is that it's well-documented that the poorest are also
generally the least equipped to take advantage of the best deals (online or
otherwise). Lack of a credit card, inability to purchase in bulk ("bulk" to
someone with meager financial resources might not appear to be "bulk" to you),
no Internet at home, unreliable transportation, are all reasons people are not
able to shop online or at places like Costco.

~~~
ZenoArrow
Traditionally yes, but there are options. If the individual is too poor to
have any Internet-capable device (can use free WiFi to buy things, though I
recognise this is a security risk unless you're tech savvy) then there are
ways to save money through community action (pooling resources to buy in bulk,
etc...). It's more a question of organisation and discipline rather than
opportunity, though it's certainly harder than only having to rely on your own
initiative.

~~~
stcredzero
_there are ways to save money through community action (pooling resources to
buy in bulk, etc...). It 's more a question of organisation and discipline
rather than opportunity, though it's certainly harder than only having to rely
on your own initiative._

Sounds like a good project to benefit those lower on the socioeconomic ladder.

------
melvinmt
> If the pilot goes well, we plan to follow up with the main study. If the
> pilot doesn’t go well, we’ll consider different approaches.

Interesting. What are the metrics to determine the success or failure of the
pilot?

~~~
elizabeth-ycr
We’ll consider several metrics, including success of mechanics (payment, data
collection mechanisms, etc.); whether the amount of money is sufficient to
meet basic needs; and, through interviews with participants, whether the
research design is likely to offer insight into how individuals would
experience and respond to a basic income.

~~~
stevesearer
One aspect of Basic Income that I am interested in is the idea of relocation -
will recipients receiving Basic Income in this study have the ability to move
somewhere where their dollars will go further? Or will they have to stay in
Oakland where the study is being conducted?

It would seem like a good thing to have people try to maximize the impact of
their payments and handcuffing them to a place with higher cost of living and
increasing rents would seem like a bad thing.

edit: I see now that the post says participants are able to move.

------
treehau5
Why is the underlying assumption always "as technology continues to replace
jobs and generate massive wealth" in the world of BI? It seems like BI is an
answer to a false dichotomy.

What if we fix our society instead? What if instead of massive seeking of
profiteering we actually double down on our efforts to improve lives _today_ ,
_right now_ in this very moment instead of some far distant realization of
"when all jobs are automated" which is a highly debatable premise, and if even
true, a long ways away.

That's the thing that is so frustrating to me about my fellow people in tech.
Driven to automate. Why? To what end? If you stop and think who really
benefits the most from this endless pursuit to automate, you will see it
really isn't your common neighbor.

I will say I feel this way with most fields of research and schools of
political thought as well. So much is being done for theoretical problems in
the distant future, when we could double down on current issues. Instead we
fund obscure research that may or may not reach fruition, or the underlying
assumptions might change under this hope that some future results will solve
our current problems, meanwhile the status quo remains for those suffering
now. And you wonder why people are becoming increasingly weary with science,
and even technology.

Technology was suppose to make people happier and have endless opportunities,
yet it is becoming increasingly obvious society is even more unhappy, more
anti-social, more fragmented than ever before. More people are unhappier than
ever before, more people are committing suicide, more people are addicted to
pain killers and opioids than ever before, more people are addicts in general.
Sure we are living longer, long enough to stuff our faces with all the
processed junk our wonderful technology has created so cheaply, but we have
missed out on the meaning, I am afraid.

Maybe I have just become so cynical I can't work in tech anymore.

What can I say though. It pays good.

~~~
jernfrost
Automation is an absolute necessity to end poverty. Do you really think stone
age people could have ended their abject poverty by just "fixing" their
society? It is the immense wealth create through increased automation which
has allowed the general well being of most people in the western world today.

We can't simply fix the world today by some political decision. There simply
isn't enough wealth in the world to create a good life for the whole worlds
population. Growing the economy for the whole world to the point there there
will be enough for everybody will take significant time. You can't just do it
right now, as much as you like.

Then you have countries such as the US, which has at least the same wealth asa
e.g. Nordic countries but yet has significant poverty problems largely
eradicated in Nordic nations. In a sort of naive and theoretical way these
problems should be possible to solve given that enough wealth exists. But in
practice such a thing would be difficult to achieve.

If you just installed a nordic style system in the US today, it wouldn't cause
an immediate solution to all social problems. The existence of the nordic
style welfare system over many years has made sure that there doesn't exist a
large poorly educated and dysfunctional class of people.

You can treat an illness much more easily if you tackle it early on. However
if you let it fester for years as the US has done, you will need much stronger
forms of medication.

E.g the years bad blood between blacks and whites in America can't be changed
by merely passing a set of laws.

What you can do is starting with reforms today, but it will be years before
one can reap the benefits. People's values, attitudes etc doesn't move that
fast. That is why one needs a lot of patience for solving a lot of world
problems.

It is likely much faster to develop an advance AI system than getting blacks
and white American to trust each other e.g. Likewise it will take decades
before Americans are going to think poor people aren't just lazy and caused
their own predicament.

~~~
jrochkind1
> There simply isn't enough wealth in the world to create a good life for the
> whole worlds population.

That is far from obvious to me. I have no idea if it's true or not.

But analagously, many people are surprised to learn that most countries
experiencing 'famine', historically, have been _exporting_ food, and that
there is, unquestionably, currently enough food produced on the planet to feed
everyone adequately and enjoyably. And yet people starve.

It's not obvious to me that there isn't enough wealth in the world to create a
good life for everyone, too. Now, today.

------
jokoon
Basic income, unfortunately, is not a problem of economics. You can argue for
month about its viability, but ultimately, I think basic income is a problem
of politics, because I can't see western governments and their representatives
agreeing to change their systems to implement it. Reaganomics are still alive
and well.

Basic income really sounds like one of those socialist counter weight, that,
just like new deal policies, can make capitalism viable again, but I feel it
will criticized for being some socialist measure. The end of the cold war is
still too near.

It's more a concern of political belief than anything else. Of course
economists and administration can argue about it, but in the political scene,
I'm very pessimistic.

------
lettercarrier
"Pay up, Mortimer, I won the bet."

"Here. One Dollar"

From the vantage point I have in my union job and my part time job at a very
large retailer with low wage hourly workers, there is no way rich people give
away their money. At least without wanting something in return. That point is
rock solid and not changeable. You don't get something for nuttin.

Having some that get BI and some not in a community will create a BIpolar
environment. Real emotions exist.. I can only imagine when couple A gets 5
years worth of money and single person B living down the road does not. Or
Whatever. There has to be some catch.

But this is real and not Trading Places. I wonder what the bet is and I wonder
what the dollar will be?

------
runako
In a timely coincidence, the NYT published this about BI today:

[http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/01/business/economy/why-a-
uni...](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/01/business/economy/why-a-universal-
basic-income-will-not-solve-poverty.html)

~~~
yeahmaybe
Yeah, I even saw them together at the top, but after a quick refresh the nyt
article was off the frontpage. Looked suspicious tbh.

------
ja30278
Reading arguments for Basic Income makes me realize what it must be like to
argue with a flat-earth proponent. I literally can't understand the frame of
mind that leads to the belief that this would be a good idea, at least as
proposed.

I realize this isn't a substantive argument about the issue at hand, and will
be rightfully downvoted..but I think this might be the first time I've _ever_
been so daunted by the ridiculousness of an idea, that I can't begin to
formulate arguments against it, solely because I can't tell how to frame the
argument.

------
creadee
A lot of people around the world have been receiving old-age pensions for
quite a while. Many are still healthy and able, with some of those working and
some not.

Why will this study provide better data about how people will behave when
given a basic income than the presumably huge amount of data available about
how healthy people behave on a pension?

Working out how to plug a basic income into an economy, how to arrive at what
it should be and how to transition an economy to include a basic income would
be a better use resources.

~~~
eru
In Germany, I think, you can only get your state pension when you stop
working? (Or at least, there are severe restrictions on working.)

But given these caveats, that probably exist similarly in other countries,
it's a good field to study.

Of course, the social expectations on people on old-age pensions are quite
different from the ones on the working-age population.

~~~
creadee
> In Germany, I think, you can only get your state pension when you stop
> working?

I think that's the same in the UK, too. In other countries you can work and
still receive the state pension, but most seem to be means-tested...

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

Denmark apparently has the best pension scheme which includes a "public basic
pension scheme"...

[http://www.thelocal.dk/20141013/denmark-has-worlds-best-
pens...](http://www.thelocal.dk/20141013/denmark-has-worlds-best-pension-
system-study)

> Of course, the social expectations on people on old-age pensions are quite
> different from the ones on the working-age population.

Which is why I said 'healthy', who should be the subset who are studied.

~~~
eru
Yes, but I think even `healthy' is not enough of a qualifier.

Ie healthy old people (who are well off enough) might be expected to go on
cruises etc. I wouldn't count their voluntary unemployment for much, when I
was trying to forecast what effects a universal basic income had on the
general population.

(On the other hand, I would count their voluntary employment for a lot.)

~~~
creadee
I think we can assume those whose income is just a state pension or just a BI
won't be able to afford cruises...

As with a pension, many of those receiving a BI will have other sources of
income, so I think it is a good match. And if you look at my link about
Denmark, you'll see that Denmark is to do away with forced retirement. Their
pension starts at 65, while their forced retirement age was 70. "Current
employment legislation allows companies to dismiss employees when they turn
70, but Frederiksen said the legislation should be changed to reflect the
modern workforce."

So even in the country with supposedly the best pension scheme in the world,
people still want to keep working beyond 65.

I don't see much point in small-scale tests of a BI. They'll tell us how a few
receiving them will behave, but they won't tell us how businesses or the
economy will behave when everyone's receiving them. And it's the latter we
really should be wanting to understand.

~~~
eru
Depends what you mean by small-scale. On a US scale, all of Denmark is small
scale.

~~~
creadee
What I mean is it won't tell you how a BI will affect the economy as a whole.
Not that studying a pension scheme will either, but it can probably provide
you with insights that are just as useful as YC's study will.

------
cjbprime
Very cool! Please consider studying GiveDirectly's approach to evaluation
(e.g. pre-registered evaluation plan and pre-analysis plan).

~~~
elizabeth-ycr
We will definitely be following this protocol. We're committed to transparency
throughout the study.

------
daemonk
So is this basically "pure" communism? I guess historically, countries we
called communistic didn't really adhere to its central idea; or they couldn't
do so practically due to the accompanied political/economic instability
following regime change.

~~~
_rpd
No. Communism requires abolition of private ownership. However, the
hyperinflationary spiral resulting from BI could assist a transition to
communism.

~~~
some-guy
BI isn't printing money so how would hyperinflation ensue?

~~~
_rpd
Supposing the BI funding proposal doesn't include printing money (which is not
at all clear), the price of inelastic goods (in particular housing) will rise
to absorb the universal increase in income. There will then be calls to index
BI to inflation, which politicians won't be able to resist, and the spiral
will begin.

~~~
xienze
Not just tie it to inflation, but to location as well. After all, it wouldn't
be fair for someone on BI to not be able to live in Manhattan or San
Francisco.

~~~
_rpd
> Not just tie it to inflation, but to location as well.

If it happens, I hope they do both, since the location adjustments will be
even more rapid than the generic inflation adjustments, and it is possible
that hyperinflation would just destroy the highest cost cities, rather than
the entire US, before the program is scrapped.

------
star0zero
I'm a complete armchair economist and realize that a lot of really smart
people are tackling this, but, in my limited understanding of supply and
demand, my concern would be that a new floor for basic goods and services
would materialize due to the new buying power of those on Basic Income.
Doesn't that artificially inflate the base price of those goods and services
without ever having a natural (market-based) opportunity to decrease? I'm
interested in any literature that might address this basic principal, because
I suspect it may be more complicated than I am imagining. This is sort of
tangential (from a healthcare perspective), but I'm also interested in any
research from a historical perspective pertaining to adjusted price history as
health insurance became more popular / commonplace within society (probably,
in particular, American society as I'm sure it has been allowed to flourish
for much longer here). Any help in pointing me in the right direction would be
most appreciated.

~~~
danielweber
There wouldn't be a problem delivering goods, because companies would still
compete to deliver those goods using price signals.

The problem is that a lot of goods delivered to the poor are delivered by low-
skill workers, and since demand curves slope there will be significant
inflation here, along with a lot of things undone.

~~~
maerF0x0
IMO the spike in demand will cause shortrun inflation, then suppliers will
scale up production/competition in response. IDK if 5 years is enough time to
see this all through. Depends on what they end up demanding most of. Food
seems to be in good supply so minimal inflation there. Housing is tight in bay
area so likely to see inflation there.

~~~
antisthenes
You won't see measurable inflation from such a small scale program.

------
jklontz
Very exciting! I wonder how the short-term nature of the pilot program might
have some inherent biases compared to the long-term study? Presumably there
would be less dramatic changes in behavior / lifestyle?

~~~
mattkrisiloff
That's correct -- it's really not our goal though to try and answer the main
research questions with the pilot; it's meant to help us figure out the
mechanics of doing the larger study.

------
dblock
Not one mention of Switzerland? Possibly a larger scale study soon. Voting
June 5th.

[http://www.basicincome2016.org/](http://www.basicincome2016.org/)

------
bbarn
Here's a serious question. I'm like, 50/50 with whether or not I believe BI
could work or not, but I really believe it can NOT work without being
universal in nature.

By doing it in a small geographic area only, aren't you're already skewing
your results?

These people have now an additional incentive not to leave the area, when
otherwise there may have better opportunities for upward social mobility. Now
you've got a closed system, so how do you handle the general move in and move
outs in the area? Are new residents not welcome to it? If not now you've got a
big income discrepancy. If they are welcome to it, how do you prevent a flood
of new residents?

It seems like it's doomed to fail with a small sample size, for any number of
reasons. Be very careful here, as this sample is a slice of real human beings,
who could be impacted in real ways throughout their lives.

~~~
tyrust
I'm not sure about your other questions, but regarding your claim that "these
people have now an additional incentive to not leave the area", I don't think
that's true:

>In our pilot, the income will be unconditional; we’re going to give it to
participants for the duration of the study, no matter what. People will be
able to volunteer, work, not work, move to another country—anything.

------
fiatjaf
This is outrageous. Look at how this people lobby to the State to take money
out of others pockets against their will and still appear to the media as a
benefactor of some kind.

------
politician
> Oakland is a city of great social and economic diversity...

Ok, here's an honest question. These days we often are told that increasing
diversity is the responsibility of all successful healthy organizations, end-
of-discussion (see: GitHub).

Under what conditions would increasing _economic_ diversity be seen as a good
outcome?

~~~
notahacker
Few people complain when rich and middle class people start moving into
historically low income areas (at least until the poor can't afford to live
there)

When it applies to companies, I think it's pretty universally suggested that
hiring people from poor backgrounds who've worked very hard to get close to
the hiring thresholds and are probably being overlooked by other companies is
usually a good decision. You don't get any additional "diversity benefit" from
paying them less though...

~~~
morgante
> Few people complain when rich and middle class people start moving into
> historically low income areas (at least until the poor can't afford to live
> there)

You must not be following the news much. If you even begin to move into a
historically poor area, people will cry gentrification and start throwing
rocks.

~~~
jrochkind1
> If you even begin to move into a historically poor area, people will cry
> gentrification and start throwing ro

Nah, when it's just one upper-middle-class you by yourself (how do you "begin
to" move somewhere, anyway? either you move or you don't, the 'beginning' of
moving is invisible to anyone but yourself), local people are confused or
bemused or pleased or at most slightly annoyed. When a couple friends follow,
and then all your peers follow because it seems safe and/or exciting now, and
the people who lived there before realize that the neighborhood is finally
getting safer and more amenities but _they aren't for them_, the amenities are
things they still can't afford and the safer neighborhood is one they soon
won't be able to afford -- that's when they start throwing rocks. Mostly
metaphorically so far, but I'd expect literal physical rock throwing to pick
up.

------
librvf
It seems to me that a limited, 5-year Basic Income experiment is fundamentally
flawed and will, at best, fail to predict anything important about what
system-wide BI would have on society and at worst will be disastrously
misleading and have an incredibly adverse effect on public policy.

What I'm reading scares me.

 _Oakland is a city of great social and economic diversity, and it has both
concentrated wealth and considerable inequality. We think these traits make it
a very good place to explore how basic income could work for our pilot._

To me this screams complete lack of any meaningful experimental controls.

 _If the pilot goes well, we plan to follow up with the main study. If the
pilot doesn’t go well, we’ll consider different approaches._

What does this mean? If the pilot gives you the results you want? What kind of
science is this?

~~~
skoocda
There needs to be some sort of action, though. Pondering all the possible
effects has been going on for some time now, and simulating a perfectly
spherical BI in a vacuum is not going to be any more useful than a
'fundamentally flawed' empirical experiment.

>What kind of science is this?

It's the normal scientific method. They have a hypothesis. They're going to
test it in the real world. And the results will be analyzed. What's the
alternative? If the pilot doesn't go well, and they take the same approach
again, that'd be the very definition of insane.

~~~
librvf
Well, it's "not the normal scientific method." Although it's arguably a part
of it. My objection may have been a bit strenuous, as the key word here is
"pilot study." This is a pre-study study. Their only "hypothesis" here is "is
a basic income experiment with real people even at all feasible"

They don't yet have a real hypothesis about basic income, at least not that
they have presented. The questions here ([https://blog.ycombinator.com/basic-
income](https://blog.ycombinator.com/basic-income)) are rhetorical and vague,
which make for very bad hypotheses.

Personally I do not believe this study, as I see it described now, will yield
any useful scientific knowledge. The results, if they seem favorable, will be
used to influence public policy without regard to actual scientific merit and
society will be subjected to the real experiment.

I would be much less concerned if I saw someone with a rigorous background in
mathematics and economics developing an actual predictive model that could be
falsified with specific tests. When the inputs are vague ("people") and the
conclusions are subjective ("are people happy?") it is not scientific method.

------
dschiptsov
It is funny to see such naïve attempt to ignore the basic laws of ecology and
economics.

Any given ecosystem could sustain a certain limited population without being
collapsed and destroyed together with its habitats. Everything evolutionary
biologist will tell you that.

The no free lunch law, like every other law of the Universe, also cannot be
gambled out, given that money is a measure of labor, and is like ATPs of a
complex system we call local economy. Disturb the balanced flows and the whole
system will inevitably collapse.

Economical perpetuum mobile is impossible for the very same reasons a physical
one is impossible.

But who cares if it is such a brilliant scam for any politicians. When
consequences appeared they would be very rich and very dead.

------
abetusk
Does anyone know how long the pilot in Oakland will be? What the number of
recipients will be and how much they'll be getting?

I saw someone mention $10k a year but I'm not sure that's official. Also, does
anyone know what the qualifications for candidacy will be?

------
DrScump
From today's New York Times: "UBI is a Poor Tool to Fight Poverty"

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11807201](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11807201)

EDIT: changed URL to original HN reference, 180+ comments

------
carapace
A lot of the discussion here seems to revolve around UBI as a solution for
poverty and homelessness, but I would argue that that's missing the point. As
I wrote this this morning in re:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11807201](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11807201)

""" Keep in mind when discussing UBI, especially in the context of poverty,
that it is not a solution to poverty. It is a solution to automation crashing
demand by throwing earners permanently out of the economy.

Robots take the jobs so people have no money to spend even as the robots make
more stuff, cheaper.

What to do with the people? Throw them in a volcano? "Hunger Games"? Let's
just give them money and see what happens, okay?

That's UBI.

UBI isn't for the bum. It's for you (okay, well, your cousin. You read HN,
you're probably fine.)

"""

The thing that makes UBI make sense is that the economic order is being
overturned by automation.

 _We simply no longer need to work to live._ Bucky Fuller pointed this out
decades ago. His estimate put the inflection point in the mid-seventies.

We are punishing ourselves.

\---

I want to have UBI so I can devote myself to a program of research. It may not
pay off, in fact, it almost certainly won't. But there is a small but non-zero
chance that it will pay off handsomely in terms of benefit to society. It's
also a very non-linear, meaning that there is absolutely no way I can predict
when it might payoff, right up until the moment it does (or I die, whichever
comes first.)

There is no one to whom I can honestly say, "Fund me, it's worth it." Maybe I
could find an arch-angel investor, but it would be pure patronage (not to say
charity.) But with a Universal Basic Income I can devote myself to gardening
and research and be no trouble at all to anyone. And I'm not doing anything
uniquely important at my job so no one would be harmed if I quit.

~~~
jrochkind1
Why do you feel the need to distinguish between "the bum", and "you", a victim
of "automation crashing demand by throwing earners permanently out of the
economy."

Can't some portion of current 'bums', or the homeless, be victims of
"automation crashing demand by throwing earners permanently out of the
economy" too? I would think they are. Hasn't the process already begun, a long
time ago, if perhaps speeding up now? Some of the present poor and homeless
definitely seem to have been "permanently thrown out of the economy" to me.

~~~
carapace
Yes, in fact, this is exactly the point I was making. People are talking like
the homeless are someone else when the rationale for UBI, in my opinion, is
that we are almost all about to be homeless (unless we adjust our systems.)

~~~
jrochkind1
Agreed, but you seemed to be suggesting that the current homeless or very poor
are something different than that, and different from you and I. I think this
is an inconsiderate and inaccurate suggestion, by and large.

~~~
carapace
Friend, I was homeless for about four years. I know that we are all truly
equal. I apologize for suggesting anything less. Please forgive me. :-)

~~~
jrochkind1
fair enough. :)

------
saiya-jin
if whole world would work on this BI, you would buy a coffee or two for it,
nothing more. every single item we purchase and consume every day would be
massively more expensive. there is a reason why all the stuff is made in
china.

or you want BI just for yourself, your circle or your country?

once, in star-trekish future, this might be the best choice. in current world,
it just doesn't make sense apart from nice intellectual exercise on what-if
topic. what about we focus all this energy and money into directly fixing
things like preventing wars, education, health care for aging population etc?
or are these topics not cool anymore?

~~~
ConfuciusSay02
What evidence do you have to support your assertion? Plenty of products are
made and manufactured in the US and are not prohibitively expensive.

Why can't we work on multiple problems at the same time? Nobody is suggesting
we abandon other issues to work solely in BI...

------
kauffj
Unfortunately, the explanation most consistent with data on
happiness/satisfaction is that the primary utility gain from wealth is derived
from gains in zero-sum social status.

We can tell this even from the language of the post itself: "everyone should
have enough money to meet their basic needs."

Basic needs? Everyone in America has their basic needs. Almost all of the
_basic_ needs of a human, i.e. those that we received 50,000 years ago, could
be provided for $1-$2k a year. We consider modern needs beyond these to be
'basic' because there is a nature in our humanity, or the humanity of most of
us, that doesn't like it when people are so far apart from one other in power
or status.

As such, it's likely that this study will find, entirely correctly, that
recipients are happier, more productive, etc. What they won't discover is how
people behave when basic income is the status quo, rather than being the
equivalent of a lottery winner. I suspect the results will be vastly
different.

~~~
mempko
> those that we received 50,000 years ago, could be provided for $1-$2k a
> year.

Dignity is probably a basic need that $1-2k can't buy.

~~~
coldtea
Which is the parent's point precisely: basic needs is a social construct --
the physical basic needs are trivial.

------
tehchromic
One important component that should not be overlooked is how BI is tied to
basic occupation. People do need something to do, no matter how automated the
future becomes, and that thing ought to be something they are well adapted to
do.

It should not be entirely left to chance. Unoccupied people will find every
avenue for their unspent energy, and too easily this becomes competition, and
conflict.

Farming is a good example of a pastime that is historically maligned yet
immensely rewarding and pleasurable when done right.

Along with BI ought to be a very carefully structured form of basic income
that allows people cultural engagement that is productive and sustainable.

~~~
_rpd
Why, groups of like minded people could collectivize their efforts and manage
their kolkhoz according to the principles of self-management, democracy, and
openness, with active participation of the members in decisions concerning all
aspects of internal life.

------
amelius
One interesting thing with UBI is that all startups will suddenly be ramen-
profitable from the very beginning :)

Will we see an explosion of startups?

~~~
greedo
Yes, because rockstar coders are willing to work for $10k (or whatever the BI
fans are touting today), plus vague stock promises...

------
eanzenberg
Unfortunately, this experiment cannot be extrapolated to macro-scale because
it doesn't take macro-effects into consideration.

~~~
mattkrisiloff
We're certainly not trying to answer everything with this one study--we hope
it will be an important piece, but it's going to take a number of studies, a
number of different approaches to know if BI really could or could not work.
We hope us taking a first step will help push others in the US to do more of
the research we need.

------
andreasklinger
Question: Wouldnt it make more sense to pick an more isolated ecosystem than
oakland?

Eg a smaller town or even a small country (eg an island country - yes sounds
crazy but actually why not)

Or is the goal rather to find out how people will act? (as in: get lazy or
not)

~~~
badloginagain
I don't think how isolated the ecosystem is too important. I would be more
concerned with the methodology of measuring how behaviour has changed- Are
they going to follow around candidates before the checks come rolling in to
establish baseline behaviours?

~~~
mattkrisiloff
We're going to have a control group for the pilot that doesn't receive an
income, and following base-line behavior is something we'll consider doing for
the main study.

~~~
andreasklinger
To understand this correctly: the core goal of the study is to see how people
will behave?

~~~
elizabeth-ycr
We are focusing on the individual-level effects (not the ecosystem), but it's
a lot more than how people act and behave. We'll provide more details on
outcome measures later, but we’ll be interviewing participants to understand
their decision-making processes and the constraints they face. It isn’t enough
to know that certain outcomes are associated with basic income; we want to
know how cash transfers generate the effects and why outcomes vary among
recipients (if they do). These insights can inform future research and
policies.

~~~
andreasklinger
got it. thanks!

------
aminok
There is nothing compassionate about authoritarian income redistribution.

------
czzarr
What I don't understand with BI is this: if you give everyone the same amount
of money, won't prices and rents adjust accordingly by exactly that amount,
thereby nulling the effect ?

~~~
empath75
I think that what you would see is rents exploding in certain places like SF,
but if you don't need to be in a particular city for work or social services,
a lot of people would move to places like Cleveland or Detroit that are much
cheaper to live in.

~~~
_rpd
Detroit is cheaper right now, but people aren't moving there. Post-BI, Detroit
landlords will raise rent to capture any additional disposable income, so
everywhere will still be in the same relative position.

------
youngButEager
This one is easy. Just ask everyone in the town one question:

"We're going to provide a basic income for you and everyone else. Now, what
are your plans for work?"

Basic income will manufacture laziness.

As a homeless teen, when I received charitable handouts, it was humiliating.
"Why am I so inferior that I can't provide my own stuff, and rely on others to
support me?"

\- makes you lazy \- and paradoxically you begin to dislike the handout-givers
-- "they probably think they're better than me because they're self-reliant
and without them I have very poor prospects."

I turned things around by joining the military. Having handouts and not having
to work was okay but it leads to resentment, and if you're not lucky enough to
feel you're as good and worthy as the handout-givers, you start feeling
worthless and stop trying.

Ever see signs in national parks warning "don't feed the animals" ? A lot of
park-goers believe that's because human food is bad for the animals. That's
only part of it.

The parks do not want the animals to become dependent on handouts. They want
the animals to always get their food the normal way -- hunting for it, working
for it. NOT getting handouts.

Once an animal (or a person) becomes accustomed to handouts, they stop working
hard, or hunting/foraging in the animal case -- just wait for the handouts.

------
jcslzr
We have BI in Mexico for people over 65 years old since about 10 years ago.
Nothing is different in general, but for some of those people I would think
those few pesos are life changing.

~~~
zanny
This was practically the panacea of 20th century liberalism - the idea of
state retirement income being unconditional was fundamental to post WW2
society in all western democracies and become a cornerstone of growth in the
era. How could you fathom being successful in business while you had to care
for your parents?

In the same sense, that will apply to basically everyone in this century in
regards to technological unemployability. We could either stifle our society
with the burden of social unrest involving the unemployable and underemployed,
or we could just give them the money to take care of themselves so anyone who
_can_ still be productive will be able to.

------
JonFish85
Is this truly going to be a basic income experiment, or is it going to be a
charity experiment? To me it's only a valid experiment if somehow it is self-
sustaining (e.g. it's funded by the same population it's distributed amongst,
not by external donors).

Taking Oakland's population of roughly 450k, presumably this experiment
doesn't cover the entire city (guesstimating a minimum income to be ~$1,000/mo
for that area to cover rent + all expenses, that'd work out to be a $450
million per month price tag). So right off the bat it probably is going to be
limited heavily in scope, which diminishes it's value as a test of "universal"
basic income.

Even if it ends up being self-funded (which I'd be surprised if it actually
is), you have to figure out how to get people to pay for it. People probably
won't sign up to voluntarily give up more than they'll receive, which makes it
tough. And you don't have the same enforcement that the IRS does (e.g. you
can't forcibly take money/property from people). And on top of that you don't
have the power to truly create money, although you can approximate it by
taking charity donations from folks in SF.

I guess I'm just really skeptical of what any results might actually mean.

------
blastrat
Hey EVERYBODY, this topic is all what _actual economists_ , you know _literal_
big E Economists, study; so, while actual economists can disagree about this
topic, they disagree from a basis of understanding some things.

People who have not studied economics--for which the prerequisite is calculus
and also statistics so if you haven't taken those, you haven't taken
economics--...people who have not studied economics, micro and macro, should
read about this topic with avid interest, but don't debate it, you just have
no idea what you are talking about.

Not trying to be a jerk, just trying to say, this discussion is like reading a
debate of computer programming by non programmers speculating from the point
of view how they imagine it might work, like the 5 blind men and the
elephant...

The basic laws of economics have not been overturned. People respond to
incentives; there is no free lunch; dead weight losses; transfer payments; too
many dollars chasing too few goods; growth in money supply; water seeks its
own level, tides, all boats; labor theory of value; national income
accounting; trickle down, it's really a thing... I could go on, but what is
the point.

~~~
tim333
A lot of big E Economics is pretty bad. Often because they try to use calculus
and also statistics and statistics on human behaviour but humans don't behave
that way.

~~~
blastrat
big E economists are entirely aware of the pitfalls and the limitations of
their field, they know it's far from exact, and they know it much better than
people who don't study economics. Those who are ignorant of historical
mistakes are doomed to repeat them.

and in terms of rational vs irrational behavior, the behavior of fluids is
describable without deriving from the behavior of the particles that make up
the fluid; and the limitations of the approach is understood, again, not by
lay people but by experts in the field.

------
mattsoldo
Some interesting numbers:

    
    
      * The US Population is 320 million [http://www.indexmundi.com/united_states/demographics_profile.html].   
      * Our federal budget is $3.9 trillion [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget#Total_outlays_in_recent_budget_submissions].   * If every dollar of the budget went towards BI (no defense spending, no infrastructure, etc), that would be $12,260 / person / year. 
      * If you limit it to adults, it ends up around $15,000 / person / year (about 80% of the US population is 15 years or older [http://www.indexmundi.com/united_states/demographics_profile.html]).
    

This actually lines up pretty closely to the official poverty rate
[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_the_United_States#R...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_the_United_States#Recent_poverty_rate_and_guidelines)].
It equals an hourly wage of about $6 / hour.

I wonder if there were a BI, if those at or near the poverty line would tend
to get more efficient with their spending. For example, moving towards lower
cost parts of the country.

~~~
greedo
Relocating doesn't seem very easy if you're on the short end of the cash
spectrum.

------
lubesGordi
I think of basic income as a venture capital firm that treats us all as
individual startups. Lots of value can be generated by people doing what they
find worthwhile on their own terms. Some people will sit around playing video
games all day. Others will raise their kids. Others (like me) will build
things. I'd wager we'd get more out of this then forcing people to work at
McDonalds.

------
danans
As a resident of Oakland, I am excited about YC running this experiment here.
I'm sure there will be plenty of debate over whether it's the best location,
but it is definitely a place that provides a microcosm of many the issues BI
hopes to address. It also has a population, regardless of where they are on
socioeconomic spectrum, that is relatively open-minded to experiments like
this.

I look forward to learning more details about their program.

~~~
mattkrisiloff
Glad to hear! If you or people you know might have any feedback, please feel
free to reach out at basicincome@ycr.org

------
prodmerc
This shit again.

NO ONE has given me an answer to the question: what will happen when basic
income inevitably raises the overall price of basic stuff because now
"everyone can afford it"?

It will be back to zero, people with basic income will not be able to afford
_both_ housing/bills and food. Moreover the ones without will be totally
fucked.

So, what gives? Run BI in a few small counties and call it a success? Gee
wouldn't BI supporters love that...

~~~
clavalle
>what will happen when basic income inevitably raises the overall price of
basic stuff because now "everyone can afford it"?

That is the kind of question that experimentation like this sets out to
answer.

There are a lot of theories. My personal theory is that, in general, stuff is
not going to get more expensive because of basic income. Providers know that
people have more money to spend but there is also still competition between
providers.

There will be places where this generality fails, no doubt. Two areas that I'd
be interested in looking at are businesses that require marginal employees to
provide a small amount of value and cannot raise prices to cover the increased
cost of enticing employees to work for them: fast food, for example. They may
have to pay more or change what kind of employees they hire or they may even
get to pay less since basic needs are accounted for. Who knows. That is why
experimentation is needed.

My main concern, and you may be referring to it with your 'basic stuff'
category, is what will happen to rents. Landlords know that people /need/ a
place to live. I would not be surprised if there is a spike in rents because
they hold more power over their consumers than, say, a fruitseller whom, if
they raise prices to try and capture some of that extra cash sloshing around,
might find their customers just buying a muffin or going to the movies or,
really, anything else that is available in the overall market.

~~~
orthecreedence
I thought this about landlords as well, but landlords are also subject to the
same economic rules. Many landlords are just trying to cover the payments on
the their property + a little extra. If the landlord has BI as well as the
renter, then the baseline doesn't really move at all. The landlord doesn't
have to charge more to cover expenses because they get BI too.

That's the theory, anyway. I really have been on the edge of my seat to see
how this idea works out and what the details will be like.

My biggest concern with BI is the abolishment of state healthcare. With
healthcare expenses as astronomically high as they are in the US, I think the
only real path to a workable system would be universal healthcare + universal
basic income, and then getting rid of welfare, food stamps, etc. I can't see
this working if people have to spend all their money on health costs.

~~~
greedo
That's not how economics works! If the landlord can charge more for rent, they
will. Look at how college tuition skyrocketed as schools became awash in
student loan money. Do they need to raise rents? Possible, depending on how
inflation hits there costs. But if they can, and the market will bear the
cost, they will. That's how pricing of all goods works.

~~~
clavalle
Only if you ignore competition.

~~~
greedo
Competition between colleges and universities hasn't done much to keep tuition
costs in check.

~~~
lettergram
That's not what the previous commenter was discussing. College/Universities
have no incentive to lower the cost of tuition because everyone can get a loan
for what ever they charge.

The idea being, the government has removed financial competition and there is
no "best for your money" because many students can get a loan for where ever.
The way to change this, is to obviously not enforce/have the law enforcing the
payback of all student loans. This will dramatically drop attendance at
outrageously price universities, forcing them to either drop tuition (or just
take more out of country students).

~~~
greedo
Landlords will have no incentive to lower costs either; they have the opposite
incentive, charge as much as the market will bear.

------
anonymousiam
With basic needs met, how many people will strive for more? Will we see an
increase or a reduction in the workforce? Many people seem to have no idea how
a free market economy works, or what is the role of government. I believe that
most people are in favor of the concept of "no taxation without
representation". In other words, people want to have a say in how their
government spends the taxes collected from them. How would this work out in
the "basic income" system? Government taxes would be collected from those who
were earning money (leaving out the fact that a large percentage of them may
work for their government and thus are not actually adding value to the
economy). The taxes then get distributed to the non-working, non-contributing
people collecting their "basic income". As fewer people see the need to work,
the economy collapses. (See "The Economic Collapse of the Soviet Union.")
Aside from the honorable egalitarian intentions, how is this a good thing?

------
thejeremyweaver
Per Malthus, the ever-expanding global population will probably prevent us
from achieving a state of total abundance in the long run. We may (or may not)
be able to rely on technological progress at times, but constant population
growth is virtually guaranteed (barring any sort of population management or
disasters).

I love the kind-hearted spirit of this effort, but it seems ill-informed.

------
manmal
I wanted to write a comment a la "Who is going to work at Starbucks if they
don't need to earn their rent" \- but then I realized that those jobs might go
away very soon. And what then? I don't want to live in a world with 70% of the
population losing a large portion of their growth potential (bc of
unaffordable education, healthcare, even housing).

~~~
freekh
Something that is always surprising me when visiting the US, as a
Scandinavian, is how many employees there are in a given shop (or coffee bar
:). I don't think a Starbucks/shops/coffee bars needs as many people to
operate as there often (in my experience) are in the US (at least in the 10
different cities/places or so I have been to on the east & west-coast/mid-
west).

Assuming Scandi baristas are about as efficient as their colleagues over the
pond, it is probably the time to complete a coffee-transaction that suffers,
though, as with software development, I am not sure if throwing more people at
the problem necessarily solves it quicker.

As an example, I remember one time, when I was waiting for a coffee (in the
US) and there were no less than 5 employees more or less just hanging out
discussing something more important than making my flat-white-double-soy-
extra-machiato-caramel-coffee-like-beverage (which I could mean sarcastically,
but I don't since I was waiting for a flight and not in a particular hurry)
for a pretty good amount of time.

I suppose you could arrest me on this being my own experience (and you
wouldn't be wrong), but I am feel confident that there must be some numbers
that back them up because the difference is so flaggerant.

Apparently unemployment rates are as high or higher in Sweden for example, so
there should be as high a demand for jobs at Starbucks here (in the case
profits suffers from this). Intuitively I think that you'd rather hold off,
take the well-fare and wait/prepare for a good job than taking one at
Starbucks if you got a (good) education. This in turn (again my hypothesis),
has made it the norm for that relative extra minute (or whatever) for coffees
in Scandinavia, thus that job (as barista number 5) doesn't exist here at all.
The price of a barista would also be higher, because it is harder to fill
those positions. Which also makes changes the margins on how much more sales
the barista number 5 would need generate for it to be profitable.

In any case, finally, commenting on the comment above :) I think that, in some
places, many of those jobs do not exist (anymore) and it is still pretty OK to
live here...

------
gpsx
I think it is great to study basic income. While many people think it will
work, many others are worried people will become unmotiviated and this will
have bad consequences. An alternative thing to also study is a workfare
program that gives jobs to everyone.

As mentioned in other comments, the HN readers are very motivated people. Most
people in general are not. Many people may not work and either become lazy
(such that they can no longer work) or worse occupy their time with something
counterproductively, such as in gangs. Even without basic income I know people
who didn't work for a while and eventually they became helpless with regard to
work.

Using computers we can provide work for all people. This can be something like
accounting, project management, or something as basic as rating movies and
video games. There is always more work to be done, it just might not be
economically viable. Where needed, these non-economically viable jobs can be
subsidized as a form of welfare.

~~~
thro1237
This was tried in India. It is called MNREGA.

From Wikipedia:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Rural_Employment_Guar...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Rural_Employment_Guarantee_Act,_2005)

National Rural Employment Guarantee Act 2005 (or, NREGA No 42) was later
renamed as the "Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act" (or,
MGNREGA), is an Indian labour law and social security measure that aims to
guarantee the 'right to work'. It aims to enhance livelihood security in rural
areas by providing at least 100 days of wage employment in a financial year to
every household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual
work.[1][2] Starting from 200 districts on 2 February 2006, the NREGA covered
all the districts of India from 1 April 2008.[3] The statute is hailed by the
government as "the largest and most ambitious social security and public works
programme in the world".[4] In its World Development Report 2014, the World
Bank termed it a "stellar example of rural development".[5]

~~~
gpsx
That looks like it fared pretty well, though not perfectly. I think it could
have non-manual labor opportunities can be added via computer.

------
jacquesm
It is one thing to create a dependency, it is quite another to terminate the
relationship. I hope YC has a _really_ good plan on how they will wind this
down if they decide not to go through with it.

Chinese proverb: save a mans life and you are responsible for him. This might
very well end up with some horrific withdrawal effects if and when the project
is terminated.

------
psadri
Would a basic income simply cause a rise in the cost of living (housing, food,
etc...) and therefore nullify its intended effect?

~~~
rtkwe
There's arguments on both sides of that. The truth is that economics are rough
guesses at best and the only way to know if demand will outstrip supply
leading to price increases or if supply will increase enough to make up a lot
of the difference is to try and see what happens.

What's actually likely to happen is that some places supply won't increase as
much because of external limits (a la zoning in SF or space in NYC) and other
places the supply will increase enough that there will be only small effects.
On top of that it's hard to guess how much more mobile people will be if they
have a guarantee of income if they move to the midwest from a big city where
their BI will go much further, which would blunt the demand increase in big
cities.

It's a huge mess of interdependent factors and effects.

------
EGreg
People wonder "where is the money going to come from?" On a national level it
could be newly issued fiat currency, which silences the "it's theft!" argument
but then raises the crucial question: what about inflation?

Well, there are two issues here:

1) If the people are freed up to learn or take jobs (I wish minimum wage would
be abolished in any jurisdiction that UBI is given out) then more dollars
would be chasing more goods and services, so no inflation.

2) However, if there will be more money chasing the SAME number of goods and
services, we would have to remove the money from the system by taxing
corporations. And this _is_ , in fact, something that raises questions of
liberty (of corporations). Corporations can choose where to operate and they
often choose tax havens.

What we should really be doing is recognizing the incredible changes that are
coming because of AI and its effects on automation in the next 20-30 years.
Demand for human labor will fall and experience massive shocks. Wealth
creation will increasingly be done by ROBOTS.

This is a GOOD THING as it breaks countries' historic dependency on social
security schemes working from having more and more children pay for the
elderly. That leads to overpopulation and kicks the can down the road to the
children.

Instead, we want to TAX THE MACHINES by somehow measuring the productivity
gains from laying people off. Not enough to disincentivize R&D but enough to
scale with the UBI and remove money from the system. The machines don't really
need to keep ALL the money and the argument that "taxation is theft" starts to
sound silly when you are taxing profits of corporations run largely by
machines.

The other way, of course, is to redistribute the money to shareholders in the
public stock market via dividends. This has been the "socialism" we've had so
far in this country.

~~~
greedo
"newly issued fiat currency" is theft. Forced inflation is theft from people
with savings etc etc etc.

~~~
dragonwriter
I accept that some people have this broad of a concept of "theft", and I have
no problem (so long as it is clear what is meant) with using the word this
way, however, once it is broadened this far, I fail to see any necessary
connections with the moral implications of more typical definitions of
"theft".

~~~
greedo
Normally I would say that printing more fiat currency isn't theft since it's
usually done in a lawful manner. And since theft is by definition unlawful
taking, then that wouldn't qualify. But inflating the money supply by 2-3
trillion dollars would be a generational transfer of money like we've never
witnessed in the US.

~~~
dredmorbius
1970s

------
ChrisBland
I applaud the move to push this forward, but the cynic in me can't help but
ask; is the federal government really willing to make a portion of their
employees obsolete? Are the people who run these large bureaucratic
departments willing to give up that power? How will AFEG & municipal unions
react to this?

------
ivanhoe
Perhaps I'm missing something, but how BI accounts for the fact that not
everyone has the same basic needs or expenses? Someone will need expensive
medications, another in-home care services, parents will need to spend money
on kids, pay for daycare/schools, etc. Writing the same check to everyone
might save you from bureaucracy, but it will put vulnerable groups in a
relatively worse position, while single healthy people will profit from it.
Also how do you avoid just deepening the gaps between the poor and the rest?
Poor will still be getting approx. the same amount as they do now, but the
rest of the population will get extra money they didn't have before, so the
difference will be even bigger? Also wouldn't this extra cash flow create
inflation, raising all the prices?

~~~
neon_electro
I can't respond to all of the needs and expenses you enumerate, but I'm of the
opinion that you need to have a single-payer healthcare system or something
similar that decouples medical emergencies from their costs, so that a basic
income isn't needed to pay for those emergencies.

------
timwaagh
my main concern with this is that the working class will lose social status
compared to those who don't work. In fact it could give those who don't work
more status than the working class (my broad definition of working class would
include anyone who does not have enough to stop working) because they have
much more time. i don't think this is something we want to see. Although its
arguably better than the current welfare system it still hurts hard-working
people with little wealth. i would argue for a basic income in terms of food,
shelter and some facilities, but not money. this will keep a clear class
difference between the working class and dependent people. which means
unemployment still means misery and work still means happiness. it would keep
the incentive intact without being cruel.

~~~
Yen
Does your concern depend on the "dependents" receiving basic income, but the
"working class" not receiving basic income? Or, does it depend on basic income
possibly changing the signifiers of social status?

If it's the first case,

Most proponents of Basic Income want to implement either Universal Basic
Income (everyone gets the same check, regardless of their means), or a Basic
Income which drops off proportionally with earned income.

In a Universal Basic Income scenario, someone who chooses to work should
always have more income than someone who does not work. Given how much social
status is currently centered around wealth and income, a worker should have
more social status than a non-worker.

If it's the second case, where we assume implementing UBI will change the
markers of social status - I think this is pretty unlikely. For the
foreseeable future, having more income than someone else means being able to
buy rarer or higher-quality luxuries. Humans value rarity and scarcity.

------
stevesearer
Will recipients of Basic Income payments be allowed to move to somewhere with
a lower cost of living where their payments will go further?

Handcuffing people to a location - especially one with a rising cost of living
like Oakland - seems like it would not be in the best interest of participants
receiving such payments.

~~~
zodiac
I think they can.

> In our pilot, the income will be unconditional; we’re going to give it to
> participants for the duration of the study, no matter what. People will be
> able to volunteer, work, not work, move to another country—anything.

------
seanmccann
One of the big differences between the government writing checks and a private
organization, are the tax consequences. Does anybody know exactly how that
would work? Would it just be self employment income, with all the self
employment taxes? Or would it be a gift (and tax free if under $14k/yr)?

------
fosco
I do not really know where I stand on BI yet, but my concern is that if the BI
is coming from taxes, why not tax income less and tax consumption more? This
will encourage people to still be productive members of society rather than
trying to find ways to live off the BI forever.

~~~
criddell
> This will encourage people to still be productive members of society rather
> than trying to find ways to live off the BI forever.

It sounds like you have a fairly narrow definition of productive member of
society. A lot of volunteer work has little or no monetary value (things like
dog walkers at your city's animal shelter) yet still are good for society.

~~~
fosco
Volunteering full time on BI sounds like they are paid to volunteer, and my
narrow definition is because I see people behaving similar to what I've
observed with foodstamps.

finding ways to live off solely that and making little to no effort finding a
job, simply finding ways to increase foodstamps by having additional
dependants or otherwise.

these people are not volunteering more or what I would say are being
productive members of society, yes they are likely a small percentage, maybe 1
out of 50 however, I see that percentage skyrocketing if something like basic
income is provided.... I don't mind being totally wrong, I just find it very
very very hard to believe people will still try to be 'productive' members of
society ina general term.

not to invoke Ayn Rand, because I disagree with more than 50% of Atlas
shrugged, but the whole concept of 'To each according to their need and to
each according to their ability' does not work. people will abuse the system
of BI just like SNAP or foodstamps or Dole are abused today.

~~~
fosco
just to add quickly, I do believe one day the need for many types of work will
be minimized to almost nothing, so some solution will be required, but from
what I've observed with proposed BI solutions I have very little faith in
actually succeeding.

I dream of a day that was referenced in Star trek where all of these
challenges were 'solved'. I do not see BI in its current infancy being a
possible solution, it needs work and I'm excited to see more research on the
topic because that is what it needs in order for a solution like it to be
truly successful.

------
glibgil
Have you given much thought to the effect of a participant taking on debt
during your experiment?

~~~
flatline
Landlords and colleges are likely to gobble up as much of that free basic
income as they possibly can. Payday lenders stand to make an even bigger
killing than they do now. If not done carefully, it could result in an even
more quickly widening wealth gap than we have now.

~~~
jessaustin
BI (and any assets purchased with BI?) should definitely be off-limits to debt
collection, but wouldn't that solve this sort of problem?

------
hypertexthero
I'm delighted this is moving forward and that the pilot program will be in
Oakland! I lived in a cooperative house there years ago and experienced the
sharp contrasts in wealth.

See also:

The One-Minute Case for a Basic Income -
[http://www.basicincome.org/news/2013/02/opinion-the-one-
minu...](http://www.basicincome.org/news/2013/02/opinion-the-one-minute-case-
for-a-basic-income/)

A flyer of the same: [http://hypertexthero.com/work/basic-
income-11-arguments/](http://hypertexthero.com/work/basic-
income-11-arguments/)

------
brandelune
"We think everyone should have enough money to meet their basic needs—no
matter what, especially if there are enough resources to make it possible. We
don’t yet know how it should look or how to pay for it, but basic income seems
a promising way to do this."

The bit about "how to pay for it" is interesting considering that Uber, AirBnB
and other companies that are known to not pay corporate taxes and exploit
their workers have been funded by Ycombinator.

Maybe Ycombinator should fund a startup that manages to have companies pay
workers a living wage _and_ pay corporate taxes. That would be a nice
contribution to the world economy.

------
exabrial
If the "pro basic income" people gave 5 mins of their time to charity for
every hour they talk about being an online social justice expert, we would
have already solved these problems.

BI fixes the symptoms, not the disease. The disease is that people think that
they're being charitable by demanding social programs. Wrong. Being charitable
means getting your hands dirty, helping people, educating them, physical
presence. I dare you instead of typing hacker news comment, Google your local
food kitchen, spend $10 on items they need. Show up in the flesh Saturday
morning and actually do something besides flap your gums.

~~~
phil248
I think you're missing the bigger point that we have been giving out food for
generations and it has not helped reduce poverty. You're basically telling
everyone to go do all the stuff people have always been doing that never
works.

~~~
exabrial
My question is did you take the $10 challenge... or no?

Last time I checked (on saturday), my local food kitchen was swarmed with
hungry people, not an endless line of volunteers.

------
koolba
If I live in Oakland or know someone who does can I tell them to sign up for
free money?

~~~
mattkrisiloff
We're not sure how we're going to pick the participants yet, though we do know
it will be a random selection process, in-line with randomized control trial
principles. If you know anyone from Oakland that has feedback though, feel
free to have them get in touch! matt@ycombinator.com, or basicincome@ycr.org

------
AdamN
I just hope they run this as a proper research study. The Millennium Villages
weren't set up with controls and so there's very little research value to be
gotten from all that effort.

Things to note:

1\. Who is in and who is out is fluid. There are no well-defined communities
and some people will get into the BI cohort purposefully (i.e. staying with a
friend who is in the BI district or claiming to be family).

2\. People move ... much more than one would think.

3\. People are individuals but really, families are the core unit of society.
Don't just measure individual outcomes, measure family outcomes.

------
abalone
From Sam's original post on BI: _" We have some examples of something close to
a basic income in other countries, but we’d like to see how it would work in
the US."_[1]

Why the focus on the US, exactly? Why not focus the research grant on the
undoubtably _massively_ larger data set of basic income / welfare programs in
more Social Democratic style governments? Just from a scientific standpoint
wouldn't that be a better study?

[1] [https://blog.ycombinator.com/basic-
income](https://blog.ycombinator.com/basic-income)

------
arjun1296
Wondering how long is this experiment going to happen ? Giving basic income to
cover their existential expenses like a good food,water, shelter, clothing,
education and healthcare is fine. However, the happiness depends on how much
more can they save(to plan their investment) and also "invest" for their
future to uplift from their current social living status to something higher.

Until and unless some time is given for the subjects to actually "act on their
free will" I doubt whether this experiment would be successful.

------
skeeper
Related links:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11839490](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11839490)
and
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11839510](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11839510)

------
djrogers
I've got a question for the BI fans that I haven't seen addressed before: The
U.S. is a huge country, with wildly varying costs of living. Will a UBI be
adjusted for regional costs, or will it be a simple flat rate?

I can see problems with both options; with the former you'd encourage people
to stay in (or move to) more costly regions, and with the latter you'd either
be paying someone in Salina Kansas above the median income as UBI, or you'd
have people on UBI in Chicago, Oakland, and NY still unable to pay their rent.

~~~
_rpd
All the proposals that I have seen are flat rate, with people being positively
encouraged to relocate to areas that are currently less expensive.

------
necessity
"We are living in a sick society filled with people who would not directly
steal from their neighbor but who are willing to demand that the government do
it for them." \- William L. Comer

------
malthaus
I just put in my YES vote for the upcoming Swiss vote on the topic. It won't
get through mainly due to it being a very high-level proposal with too many
questions open and a rather weak supporter camp. They could have done a better
job of presenting models on how the economy would change which makes the
financing part work.

Nevertheless, depending on what the share of yes-votes is it might trigger
further discussion here and in surrounding countries.

Unfortunately, i'd be surprised if it gets more than 35% yes votes.

------
fudged71
What impact does UBI have on technology and companies?

In theory I suppose more people will be able to afford a basic phone, banking,
transportation etc so more eyeballs on ads and users of services. By getting
out of the poverty trap, more people can be employed so even more expendable
income on technology.

Will companies pay their employees less if their basic needs are covered? Then
automation would be less of a cost advantage. Cheaper labour could mean a
shift of manufacturing back to the US?

~~~
justinv
Though, on the contrary, you'd have to now pay people X amount above BI to get
them to do menial jobs.

i.e. if you get $10k from BI or can get $12k from working building widgets,
you'd have to decide if that time spent making widgets is worth the $2k extra
vs the opportunity cost of leisure or painting or whatever.

~~~
dragonwriter
> i.e. if you get $10k from BI or can get $12k from working building widgets,
> you'd have to decide if that time spent making widgets is worth the $2k
> extra

That's not how UBI works. The "U" in "UBI" is "unconditional", referring
(among other things [0]) to the fact that it isn't means-tested; that is, it
isn't reduced for outside income.

So, if you have $10k in UBI and there are jobs making $12k building widgets,
you don't get $2k extra from working, you get $12k extra [1].

[0] It also refers to the absence of _behavior_ testing, which is a common
feature alongside _means_ testing of public welfare programs.

[1] Before taxes. Income (including payroll) taxes will reduce this, but you
don't lose UBI dollar-for-dollar (or, for that matter, at all) with outside
income.

------
Grue3
As a non-American, can I be a control group? We can research how basic income
affects different cultures and stuff. Just send me free money and see what
happens!

------
stevedekorte
So the proposal is an expensive new social program to be paid for by
governments that are already deeply in debt and unable to pay for their
current liabilities?

------
pjlegato
How will any basic income scheme avoid the problem where all politics and
policymaking will then reduce to "promises to increase the basic income"?

------
fiatjaf
I don't understand what is the purpose of this research program. Is it to find
the better ways the State will then use later when BI is implemented?

------
jfe
I think Milton Friedman's negative income tax is an improvement on this idea,
and has the benefit of providing more of an incentive to work.

------
CoffeePower
This should be interesting.

In the not too distant future we will have huge numbers of global population
turned redundant by technology, what will they do?

~~~
pizza234
Automation-apocalyptics forget, intentionally I assume, that new types jobs
are created in the course of history, not only lost.

While that is no guarantee of how (much) the direction of the jobs market will
shape, it makes thing more complex than the "we're sinking!" analysis, since
there are more variables which take part than just "robots".

------
sebastianconcpt
"Oakland is a city of great social and economic diversity, and it has both
concentrated wealth and considerable inequality."

Also has great economic liberty if compared to the rest of the world which
makes it particularly fertile territory.

Try this in a socialist paradise like Cuba or Venezuela and when you compare
the outcome you'll see what I mean.

------
H0n3sty
I'm very curious about how the participants other income will change. Income
is the best proxy we have for productivity, so if their other income changes
much then we might be able to make some interesting observations about their
work/leisure tradeoff.

It would also be very interesting to see how productivity changes with respect
to demographic factors.

------
livestyle
Why isn't anyone talking about how they will actually be able to pay for this?
We know how people respond already. It's called welfare. The interesting part
is that everyone gets it. But the 1000lb gorilla in the room is HOW will it
get funded. Do we have an energy boom like Alaska etc and fund it that way?

~~~
dragonwriter
> We know how people respond already. It's called welfare.

Welfare is not the same as BI, and has different structural incentives, so
there is no reason to expect that people will respond to BI the same as they
do to means-tested welfare programs.

> Do we have an energy boom like Alaska etc and fund it that way?

No, we have a "growing returns to capital" boom, and fund it by taxing capital
the same as other income, rather than tax favoring it.

~~~
livestyle
> No, we have a "growing returns to capital" boom, and fund it by taxing
> capital the same as other income, rather than tax favoring it.

Could you please provide some sort of example of this?

> Welfare is not the same as BI, and has different structural incentives, so
> there is no reason to expect that people will respond to BI the same as they
> do to means-tested welfare programs.

I'm well aware they are not the same. However I work with many who are on
wellfare and understand their mindset a good % of people who will be on BI
will be these people.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Could you please provide some sort of example of this?

An example of taxing capital the same as other income? Basically, its just
elimiting reduced LTCG rates and other reduced rates of taxation applied to
capital gains. (Probably with added provisions to allow advanced and deferred
recognition of gains so that irregular windfall gains -- capital or otherwise
-- aren't unfairly taxed as all current-year income in a progressive system.)

> However I work with many who are on wellfare and understand their mindset a
> good % of people who will be on BI will be these people.

In a UBI, _everyone_ will be on the UBI. The initial percentage of the people
who will be on UBI that are current welfare beneficiaries is equal to the
percentage of the population that are current welfare beneficiaries.

(In what I see as a sensible transition to a mature UBI funded primarily by
taxes on capital, the _early_ net direct beneficiaries of UBI are mostly _not_
current welfare beneficiaries, but working people who are not eligible for
means-tested welfare programs, since means-tested programs would only be
phased out as UBI-counted-as-income resulted in eliminating eligibility for
them.)

------
grownseed
This is probably where my ignorance of socio-economics will shine, so please
bear with me. In all the articles I've come across regarding universal basic
income, I've never seen the idea of a flat tax rate mentioned (e.g. everybody,
everything, 20%). It seems to me that it could work for the same reasons UBI
is supposed to, i.e. reduce overheads among other things, while in this case
also potentially reducing the risk for abuse and manipulation.

In my view, a universal flat tax rate would go hand-in-hand with a universal
basic income. Since the essential aim of UBI is to ensure people can at least
meet their basic needs to achieve a certain degree of freedom, it wouldn't
seem too far-fetched to imagine meeting those needs at the societal level as
well (which is already done to a large extent in a lot of countries anyway),
i.e. free public healthcare, improved and completely free public education,
even free electricity, water, internet and so on. The knock-on effect
obviously being that the UBI wouldn't need to be as high should some or all of
the basic needs be covered by default as public services.

Taking this a bit further, I'd like to see companies be incentivized to have
their employees participate in Education in general. For instance, employees
could spend 4 hours/week of their working time to go explain what they do to
kids or run training sessions for adults trying to change career paths. The
employer could be rewarded through some sort of tax break or something
similar. Teachers would of course still exist, but the "burden" of Education
would no longer be theirs only. I think this would have a number of benefitial
effects:

\- it would subsidize the cost of Education to some extent

\- it would help level and adjust the job market more rapidly

\- it would help participating employees have a better understanding of their
own job

\- it would expose people undergoing education to more professionals as
opposed to almost only academics

But most of all, I believe it would make people realize that Education is
everybody's responsibility and that it is a continuous and evolving process
for people of any age or background.

There's obviously a lot more to be said about any of my points above, but I'd
be interested to hear what people here think.

 _I understand that YCombinator would not have the ability to set tax rates
and such, this is more of a thought exercise._

~~~
Yen
If I understand your proposal correctly, you propose to

    
    
      * set the income tax to a flat 20%
      * provide no (or very little) universal basic income
      * Increase freely available benefits
    

Addressing the tax issue specifically - you propose the benefits are:

    
    
      * Reduce overheads
      * Reduce risk for abuse and manipulation
    

I don't think a flat tax rate will achieve the things you want it to.

A progressive tax rate doesn't add any administrative overhead at all, it's
just a different way of deciding how much tax you pay once you've correctly
totaled your income.

Right now, I see 3 general categories for 'abuse and manipulation' in taxes -
fraudulently misrepresenting your income, fraudulently misrepresenting
deductions you may qualify for, or legally structuring income and behavior to
pay much less taxes than otherwise expected (i.e., finding 'loopholes').

Your primary way of combating those abuses would be to simplify the deductions
people can take. To a lesser extent, you can also simplify or refactor the
different definitions of income.

A flat 20% tax rate means decreased government revenue overall, lower taxes
for the rich, and higher taxes for the middle-class and poor. Most people
would consider that to be a failure on every point.

~~~
grownseed
Thank you for your comment, you bring up some very valid points. I think I
might not have expressed myself clearly enough on some of mine so I apologize
for that.

    
    
      set the income tax to a flat 20%
    

The 20% I mentioned was a completely random figure, my guess is that it should
be much higher, but this would obviously need to be researched properly. This
also wouldn't solely be for incomes, but rather for all financial
transactions, which I believe (though I may be misguided) would reduce
potential loopholes that rely on declaring income in various ways (including
not as income). I think this idea is more or less in line with your idea to
"simplify or refactor the different definitions of income".

Additionally, with a flat tax rate, I imagine it would be much easier to
subtract taxes at the source (e.g. as is done in the UK for incomes) which in
turn would reduce administrative work and therefore overheads.

    
    
      provide no (or very little) universal basic income
    

I am definitely in favour of a substantial universal basic income (within
reason, of course). I simply believe that it would work better alongside a
strong support network (i.e. education, healthcare, etc.).

    
    
      A flat 20% tax rate means decreased government revenue overall, lower taxes for the rich, and higher taxes for the middle-class and poor.
    

Regarding "lower taxes for the rich", I'm not sure how true that is (again, if
we agree that 20% is a made-up figure for now). The rich benefit from ways of
skirting these things that poor and middle-class people do not have. This
reminds me of an article by Warren Buffet in the NYT on how the rich get
special treatment ([http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/15/opinion/stop-coddling-
the-...](http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/15/opinion/stop-coddling-the-super-
rich.html)).

As for poor and middle-class people, I think it's important to look at the
bigger picture. The initial tax spending would be, as you note, possibly
higher, however relatively speaking this is money they would no longer need to
spend on basic necessities, which for society as a whole seems more beneficial
and a greater equalizer.

------
fouc
I want to give major kudos to Y-Combinator for getting into research, and
especially for launching a Basic Income experiment. I consider this Elon Musk-
level thinking!

Due to the fact that we're automating a ton of work and approaching a post-
scarcity type society, it will definitely be important to determine if basic
income is achievable.

------
igallina
This should be read by anyone who agrees to this distortion...
[http://www.threefolding.org/essays/2007-04-100.html](http://www.threefolding.org/essays/2007-04-100.html)

------
chimpchange
Oh goody, income is magical. We can all just vote ourselves whatever we want.
Let's all be millionaires - it's just a congressional act away.

Real income is earned not commanded. Any attempts to the contrary are doomed
to fail.

------
louprado
Since BI often discussed in the context of ML taking away jobs, why not
perform this study on Uber drivers.

As someone who walks by Uber's new Oakland HQ regularly, it is always covered
in anti-tech graffiti. Uber might gladly fund part of the research for PR
reasons alone.

------
gcc_programmer
I can't help but wonder - if there is basic income, won't the economy adjust
and prices would rise so that any basic income would be insufficient again to
buy you anything more than food for a week (not enough for rent or anything
fancier)?

------
kirykl
Is having a trust-fund a form of Basic Income ? I wonder if there's any
research there

------
slantaclaus
I hate to be the ostensible libertarian, but unless EVERYONE gets BI, the
system will only perpetuate the poor staying poor just like so many other
government programs that disincentive moving up in income due to the loss of
benefits

~~~
Yen
While I can't speak for everyone, I expect most proponents of "Basic Income"
as a new social structure are advocating for "Universal Basic Income". i.e.,
everyone gets a check.

In addition to, ideally, providing for a basic level of needs, a Universal
Basic Income also enforces a certain equality of social status - there's no
stigma to getting your UBI welfare check if your rich neighbor across the
street is getting the same check.

The most commonly proposed alternative to a truly Universal Basic Income is
the Negative Income Tax. If implemented with a progressive tax system (like
the U.S's current tax system), there's still no disincentive to work, as every
marginal increase in earned income is associated with a marginal increase in
real income (even as the negative income tax benefit drops off).

Actually, for what it's worth, one of the strong arguments for switching to
UBI is that our current system of welfare programs actually disincentives
moving up in income! In current implemented welfare programs, there are
several income-tested thresholds where support drops out entirely - meaning
that a marginal increase in earned income can represent a _decrease_ in real
income.

------
jrochkind1
> If the pilot goes well, we plan to follow up with the main study. If the
> pilot doesn’t go well, we’ll consider different approaches.

What does going well or not going well look like to the funders/researchers,
how do you recognize it?

------
vocatus_gate
The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s
money.

~~~
abalone
Same could be said for startups!

~~~
brbsix
Only startups actually have to raise their capital in an entirely voluntary
manner, with all the due diligence and stipulations that entails. Government
just takes it. It's the difference between your wife shopping for groceries
with your credit card and an armed gunman sticking you up the ATM telling you
to comply or die.

~~~
abalone
Where are all these people buried who have been shot for not paying their
taxes?

~~~
brbsix
It's the threat of violence. Like I said, you either comply or die. Just try
resisting your eventual imprisonment and find out. Of course people are well
aware of what the threat ultimately entails and as such choose to comply, but
this makes it no less immoral.

~~~
abalone
You'd think, if that were the case, that at least one person would have been
killed for not paying their taxes in U.S. history. Can you cite a single
example? Otherwise you're employing empty rhetoric.

~~~
brbsix
Eric Garner

~~~
abalone
Given the couple hundred million people who are compelled to pay taxes every
year, if they truly faced a "comply or die" ultimatum you would expect over
the decades to see thousands (at a minimum) of killings.

Eric Garner and quite a few others are terrible examples of police brutality
that minorities face in the enforcement of what should normally be non-lethal
actions under any circumstances, even total non-compliance. Lethality here is
a method of racial and/or class suppression, not so much enforcement of
specific laws (e.g. jaywalking, loitering, cigarette tax compliance).

------
martin_bech
We basically already have Basic Income in Denmark.

We have "kontanthjælp" which in practise everyone, without an income qualifies
for.

Kontanthjælp pays 2.181 USD a month, and on top of that you can get help with
rent etc.

~~~
joelmichael
If only people without an income qualify, then it is not Basic Income. Basic
Income is received by everyone without any means test. The purpose is to avoid
perverse incentives in which people on welfare see little value in getting a
job.

------
dpweb
It's in the corporate interest to promote Basic Income. Relieves the social
unrest of an automated future.

Corporate calls for Basic Income aren't very credible unless they come with a
new corporate tax.

------
known
UBI gives impetus to
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_mobility](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_mobility)

------
jeffdavis
Will YC withhold taxes? Or might recipients get into tax trouble?

Is it possible that a mix of people with BI and without would cause some weird
social phenomena that spoil the study?

------
simplify
Has anyone considered "subsidizing jobs" as an alternative to BI? Would it
work better if the government gives $X to a company when they hire someone?

~~~
rtkwe
Then you get into a whole mess of determining what's actually a company and
what's a job and lose one of the (hopeful) benefits of BI which is allowing
people to explore creative endeavors like the arts which aren't totally job
based or allowing people to study for a better job without having to
compromise and basic living standards.

~~~
simplify
Well it wouldn't be 100% subsidized, meaning that the company has to payout
_some_ money. With a subsidized payout, I imagine companies would hire even
more people. And, even if someone gets away with not actually "working",
there's a cap on the number of dollars the government subsidizes.

As much as I like the idea of programming side projects by just relying on BI,
I'm not sure how realistic that is; I think cost of housing and food – both of
which are increasing – needs to get much lower for that to be possible.

~~~
rtkwe
You misunderstand me. My main point was that by making it a job subsidy you're
limiting the benefits to jobs only where UBI would allow people to pursue non
job endeavors like education or creative fields without being destitute. Not
that some people could skirt the system by making a company just for
themselves to get benefits.

> As much as I like the idea of programming side projects by just relying on
> BI, I'm not sure how realistic that is; I think cost of housing and food –
> both of which are increasing – needs to get much lower for that to be
> possible.

The point of UBI would that it would be set high enough to cover those costs.
And if a particular location is expensive enough that it couldn't you'd have
the freedom to move wherever it could to support you. Living in the mid-west
is incredibly cheap compared to any big city or the coasts after all.

~~~
simplify
Surely we could work out education / creativity. For example, the gov could
consider attending a university as a "job", and send funds that way. In any
case, why worry about people "skirting the system" when the alternative (UBI)
requires no work at all?

~~~
rtkwe
I'm _not_ worried about people getting paid to do nothing. It's a feature not
a bug to me because it gives people the freedom to do non job things like the
arts which are culturally enriching or do volunteer work helping other people.

------
internaut
Congratulations to -Elizabeth, Matt and Sam.

It's wonderful somebody is taking something out of the economics textbook and
into reality.

Success or failure, this is the right thing to do.

------
livestyle
Love the ambition of the project, but can't help but think they're focusing on
the wrong end of the problem to solve.

------
tim333
It would be interesting if some of the homeless sleeping on the street were
included to see if they get themselves together or not.

------
ams6110
The conclusion seems to be foregone: _We think everyone should have enough
money to meet their basic needs—no matter what_

------
justifier
wow, as of writing this comment there are 1114 points and 1134 comments

i remember only a few years ago developing a model for capitalism without the
need to acquire capital and being mocked, ridiculed, and chastised

i am glad to see that this conversation is so mainstream now and the strongest
voices are becoming those in support

~~~
Snowdax
I would argue that the idea is not quite mainstream yet outside the tech
community. The tech community though is very concerned about UBI as we see
automation barrelling down the line and making a large percentage of the
population unemployable. When that happens many a programmer would like to not
be lynched in the streets by Luddite mobs for doing their job.

------
fouc
It just occurred to me that birth rate might go up on Basic Income, which
wouldn't be very sustainable.

~~~
dragonwriter
> It just occurred to me that birth rate might go up on Basic Income, which
> wouldn't be very sustainable.

IIRC, empiricially birth rate tends to go down with a stronger social support
network (probably because people rely on children reaching adulthood less as
an emergency support).

------
vespergo
Let's call this what it is. Any system that short circuits the basic human
need for hard work and reward compensation will never be a success. You can
sugar coat it and re brand it any way you want to. Humans need that feedback
loop of blood, sweat and tears before they receive a 'reward'.

~~~
tim333
It's been theorised that hunter gathers in good times did ok without blood,
sweat and tears.

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

~~~
jrochkind1
That theory is actually pretty challenged. Makes me want to find time to
enhance the wikipedia article, but it would be a lot of work.

Among critiques are that the !Kung San people the study of which is at the
basis of this theory _weren't_ actually exclusively (or possibly even
primarily) engaging in hunting and gathering as economic activity at the time
the anthropologists studied them, but those anthropologists just chose to
leave out the wage labor as "atypical". And that the !Kung San at that period
of history actually were a regional underclass -- if they didn't work much,
that's because they didn't have many options, and is similar to the extremely
poor in any society. See Edwin Wilmsen, _Land Filled with Flies: A Political
Economy of the Kalahari_

That's just a start.

But anyway, I agree with you that it's ridiculous to think that people can't
be happy unless extorted to work for others at threat of starvation.

------
chatmasta
Why don't you hire someone who will need the basic income themselves? Do you
want your team to be comprised of a bunch of PhDs who have never needed a
basic income? Or is it more important to have PhDs on the program so it at
least looks good, even if it doesn't scale or succeed?

------
zby
It looks like more and more Pirate Party ideas are moving tech mainstream.

------
nathanwindsor
This is a great project proposal and I wish them the best.

------
ElijahLynn
This is very Venus Project'ish! I am very excited by this blog post. If anyone
wants to learn more about some fundamentals behind this, start down the Venus
Project path and prepare to think differently.

------
sukilot
samaltman, have you compared and contrasted your approach to GiveDirectly's
and other existing programs?

------
dba7dba
We need to ensure Living Wage is paid.

~~~
neon_electro
I think a Universal Basic Income would help with this. Given the ability to
survive without working a shitty, low-paying job, you now have the ability to
say no to said jobs. Meaning demand for said jobs goes down, forcing the
employer to automate or raise wages so that someone takes the job.

------
atdt
Thank you for doing this, YC!

------
Jemaclus
There's a lot of skepticism about basic income, especially when it comes to
how does it save money? The top comment as of this writing is questioning it:

> But riddle me this: what do you do when someone on BI has a financial
> emergency or, as will happen with some regularity, just flat-out blows all
> their money and now can't afford rent and/or food? Do you tell them "tough
> shit, you've exhausted all your social safety nets" or are there safety nets
> below BI, essentially recreating the welfare programs previously destroyed?
> If so, how do you prevent fraud without a department following up on Joe's
> twelfth "my car broke down" case of the year?

Allow me to digress for a moment, I've recently been reading "The Expanse"
series, and they have a throwaway snippet in the second book (i.e., not a
spoiler) where a Martian Marine is walking the streets of a city on Earth.
There's a girl who sells her a hot dog. The girl says that she's doing it for
work credits. After she accumulates one year worth of work credits, she can
attend university and get a real job and make money. Otherwise, she'd have to
be "on basic."

Like I said, it's a throwaway scene, so there's not a lot of detail, and even
in the later books when they talk about being "on basic", it's not a detailed
description. But the girl in the story distinctly mentions "money" after
"getting a job" which came after "university." That implies to me that, on
some level, money doesn't exist for those "on basic." (And to be clear, in
this not-terribly-futuristic Earth, everyone's on basic.)

In other words, the term "on basic" implied to me that you get food, shelter,
clothing, access to public transportation, K-12 education, healthcare, and
basic internet automatically. But if that's the case, why would anyone want
money? Well, the implication here is that the food is minimal: ramen noodles
and vegetables and beef. Shelter are studio apartments. Clothing are Wal-mart
quality. Basic internet is more like 56K than broadband.

In the Expanse Earth, if you want more than that minimum (and most of us
would), then you have to spend a year working to prove your willingness to
contribute to society, and then you can go to university for free, then get a
job and make money. That money can buy you things like a house with a yard, a
car, surf and turf, and vacations to the moon.

If we were to somehow (and that's a big if) go with the definition of "basic"
from The Expanse, it's almost impossible to squander it. You aren't handing
Joe $500 and saying "This is your money for the month. Don't blow it." The
food and clothing are free. (Presumably with demonstrable need, but in a post-
scarcity society, perhaps T-shirts cost virtually nothing compared to the
previous welfare systems and you might as well just hand them out on demand).

I'm not an economist, and I don't know the ins and outs of basic income, but
that one throwaway page in The Expanse made me think a lot about what I think
basic income should look like... and I don't think it should look like a
monthly check.

~~~
clavalle
People can decide what they need. It is a lot less bureaucracy to say "Here's
a check that should be able to get you shelter, clothing, and food -- go find
it." rather than trying to place everyone somewhere.

~~~
JustSomeNobody
I just see way too many people not doing this. BI would be like winning the
lottery to these people. Someone would hand them a check once a month and
they'd go spend it on useless stuff.

To top it off, they'd be first in line to complain about how crappy "the
system" is.

~~~
zanny
People will complain about anything and everything. What is extremely valuable
about UBI, though, is that unlike traditional welfare systems where those who
squandered it are often just those who are also the most pitied, there is no
ostracism for using a UBI and no social isolation for it because _everyone_
gets it, and those who cannot manage their money have no one to blame but
themselves.

Today, the poor are defensive of one another to some degree, defending their
"way of life" even when it is exploitative of social safety nets because they
have to fight for scraps and every step of the process in getting such
benefits is humiliating. It should surprise no one that once people have it,
they are happy to blow it and stick an effective fuck you back to the society
that ostracizes and criticizes them.

Which is one of the pillars of utility in UBI. It is a panacea solution to
negating hostile poverty based cultures like ghetto. There is no more war
against the poor, or active emotional attack for needing help. Everyone gets
the help, and there is no vector for abuse through it, so those who are
aggressive towards it or squander it are no longer fighting the man but are
just fools who deserve no pity.

------
fidget
BI is the flat tax of the welfare world

------
eanzenberg
If that were the case, then the dividens should be paid proportionally to the
"collective" taxpayer... the ones who paid the most taxes... the wealthy.

You totally don't get it and probably never will. Wealth isn't created equally
and will never be. Do yourself a favor and read up on Venezuela.

~~~
geekingfrog
Except that the wealthy don't pay that much taxes in the first place.

~~~
eanzenberg
[http://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/13/top-1-pay-nearly-half-of-
fede...](http://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/13/top-1-pay-nearly-half-of-federal-
income-taxes.html)

~~~
themartorana
"The top one percent of income earners, who paid 38 percent of federal income
taxes, faced an effective tax rate of 23 percent." [0]

"The richest 1% of the world’s population now owns 50% of its total wealth,
according to a report by Credit Suisse." [1]

I was in the top 5% last year. I paid an effective tax rate of 28% federal,
and almost 45% including state/local. Why should I give one flying fuck if the
people that control 50% of the world's wealth pay a majority of taxes, if they
pay a lower effective tax rate than I do?

This idea that the 1% pay more than their fair share because they pay a
majority of taxes is some ridiculous double-speak. One single percent of
people control 50% of the world's wealth. You want me to feel bad for them
how?

[0] [http://www.economics21.org/html/rich-pay-more-their-fair-
sha...](http://www.economics21.org/html/rich-pay-more-their-fair-share-
taxes-1205.html)

[1] [http://fortune.com/2015/10/14/1-percent-global-wealth-
credit...](http://fortune.com/2015/10/14/1-percent-global-wealth-credit-
suisse)

~~~
danjayh
Friend, you _are_ more than likely in the top 1% of the _world_ population.
That only takes about $32k/year[0].

[0] [http://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-
finance/050615...](http://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-
finance/050615/are-you-top-one-percent-world.asp)

~~~
themartorana
You're right. I am. And the stats above were US focused. (The 50% of wealth
stat holds[0]).

The point, though, was GP's sole contribution was a link pointing to an
article that the top 1% pay nearly half of federal income taxes (actually
45.7%) as a counter-point to its parent claiming the rich don't pay their fair
share.

Well, 23% federal is not their fair share, based on income and wealth
accumulation.

As to me being in the global 1%, there is no doubt. But like I said, I paid a
lot in taxes, and I champion basic income (see any previous comments of mine
on the subject). I don't defend high earners as unfairly burdened, and I
believe that poverty and lack of healthcare in this world is a political
problem, not a money/resource problem, and the fact that so many kids in the
US, let alone the world, go hungry at night is a travesty of epic proportions.

[0] [http://inequality.org/wealth-inequality/](http://inequality.org/wealth-
inequality/)

------
miguelrochefort
Genuine question.

Why do you feel we should keep useless people alive?

~~~
zanny
Because you and I are likely to become useless. If we are not capital owners,
who do not have the means to survive exclusively off the value of our assets,
then we will become useless to the economy in this century.

We already do not send people to prison for unpaid debts. And it is not a
genocide we could easily see through - the unemployable, a number growing
daily through automation, will not just sit down and die, but likely burn all
of society down around with them if abandoned by said society.

This isn't some isolated fragment of the population. This decade, its going to
be 11 million US citizens associated with the trucking and transport
industries. In the decade following, service jobs, office jobs, actuarial,
law, and medical jobs will all be going to AI neural nets and robotics with
realized vision. And if we ignore how they contributed to the economic engine
that produced such abundance, and let them starve while the owners of the
means of production reap near infinite supply, that _would_ realize our
current extinction event to its fullest.

------
haaen
BI is immoral: why should anyone who can work get money for doing nothing?

~~~
Bjartr
Serious question: why should everyone work?

Followup: why is having some minimum amount of resources to live on immoral as
opposed to merely unfair?

~~~
haaen
First of all, not everyone should work. Be it a child that lives off of his
parents' money, a stay at home mom whose bills are paid by her husband, or a
young, poor but promising artist who lives in an apperment from his mecenas.

BI is immoral (imho of course) because people get paid for doing nothing. It
sends a message to society: laziness pays.

~~~
avar
Being for or against policy because of the "message" it sends has historically
been a pretty bad idea.

Just look at the drug war, where we don't want to send the "message" to kids
that drugs are OK.

There's no telling what incentives people will actually have once BI is
implemented. Maybe they'll actually be more incentivised to seek risky and
rewarding work because they have a guaranteed safety net.

------
pithic
Is the Basic Income concept (in its current formulation) a voluntary program?
Or will it depend on violent coercion?

------
zappo2938
I grew up with basic income. In high school my parents gave me $25 a week. If
I wanted a new bicycle or expensive sneakers I had to work. At the time $25
covered going to the movies on a Friday or $7 grand stand seats at Fenway.

Maybe we should look at how teenagers manage allowances.

~~~
rtkwe
I don't think that's a good test case because allowances don't have to go to
things like basic necessities so leisure and nonessentials get all the money
and there are a lot of constraints on what a teenager can do. They're bound to
their home and have limited free time to do other things.

------
yanilkr
Or moving backwards, the study will findout.

~~~
justratsinacoat
I presume your strong, proud, pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps oneliner
throwaway comment was well thought out, so perhaps you could shed some light
on the interesting artistic choice of failing to put a space between "find"
and "out"?

~~~
yanilkr
Look at your self righteous attitude. Maybe you should grow some tolerance for
alternative ideas and thoughts. There are many of us who are skeptical about
the idea and would like to see how it goes.

~~~
justratsinacoat
>Maybe you should grow some tolerance for alternative ideas and thoughts

Yes! Exactly! That's _just_ what I wanted you to do! And you even elaborated a
bit! A nasty throwaway line like yours about how it's obviously going to fail
does not telegraph that you're "skeptical about the idea and would like to see
how it goes" \-- quite the opposite. You've already determined that the study
will fail, and that's the conclusion you're interested in seeing. Think I'm
wrong? How could I have reasonably concluded otherwise based on "[o]r moving
backwards, the study will findout"?

~~~
untilHellbanned
Pointless trolling the troll.

~~~
justratsinacoat
>Pointless trolling the troll

Slimey, yet satisfying!

------
haaen
The YCR statement says:

"We think everyone should have enough money to meet their basic needs—no
matter what, especially if there are enough resources to make it possible."

Why give free money to people who are too lazy to work?

~~~
kilroy123
Why not just give them money? If someone is "too lazy" to work, they're not
going to be productive in any job anyways. We already give these people
substantial subsidies in the form of food stamps, housing assistance, etc.

If someone wants to not work and live in a bad part of town. No offense, by
why do you care? You'll live a much nicer life than them, working, and having
more.

~~~
donutz
> If someone wants to not work and live in a bad part of town. No offense, by
> why do you care?

Sounds like "basic income will cover rent in the bad part of town" means that
safety isn't covered in "basic"?

~~~
brbsix
I have a hard time understanding how BI is going to afford everyone the
ability to live in a nicer part of town. "Nicer parts of town" are a scarce
resource. As such, they're costly. If you increase the BI to a level that
would presently afford everyone to live in nicer areas, then the prices would
simply rise commensurately.

Also I'm not really sure what safety has to do with the BI. The whole point is
that each person gets $n and they can spend it as they see fit. Maybe someone
would like to spend 10% of their BI on secure rural accomodations. Maybe
another person would like to spend 100% on a sketchy rat trap in the
Tenderloin. That's their prerogative.

