
Universal basic income seems to improve employment and well-being - dsr12
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2242937-universal-basic-income-seems-to-improve-employment-and-well-being/
======
marcusverus
> The findings suggest that basic income doesn’t seem to provide a
> disincentive for people to work.

Do they? The findings suggest that a monthly stipend _with an established
expiration date_ doesn't provide a disincentive for people to work.

But the policy that this experiment is supposed to bolster--a real UBI--is a
guaranteed monthly payment _for life_. I'm not convinced that these temporary
experiments--in which the participants would be fools to 'retire', since the
payments are temporary--are any indication of how people would behave when
given a a real UBI.

~~~
chillacy
It's impossible to fully prove a negative (e.g. prove this code has no bugs,
prove there isn't a teacup hiding behind mars), but each study gives us
tentative confidence to do larger and larger studies.

If we really are nearing an automation revolution which requires us to become
a demand-constrained society, then we will want to understand how people
behave with UBI.

If not, then it's still good to understand the nature of unconditional cash
transfer programs (even if temporary), for scenarios like the pandemic in the
US or as an alternative to other forms of aid in developing economies.

~~~
marcusverus
Who said they need to prove a negative? I'm saying these guys are citing a
study about apples while making claims about oranges.

They studied the impact of a temporary stipend. Yet the title of the article
("Universal basic income seems to improve employment and well-being") is not a
claim about the impact of temporary stipends. It is a claim about UBI.

You cannot honestly infer anything about UBI or the incentives created by UBI
from a study of something that is fundamentally different than UBI.

I agree that the results of the study should give us confidence to do larger
studies. If studies of UBI result in the same findings, it would likely win me
over to the pro-UBI camp.

But for now, I find it irksome that the article claims a study of apples has
taught us something about oranges.

~~~
chillacy
I guess the article should be called "2 year unconditional cash transfer
program to 2000 people seemed to improve employment and wellbeing".

But I disagree that this doesn't allow us to infer anything about UBI. It
tells us something about unconditional cash transfer over a 2 year period,
which is a subset of UBI. Baby apples, if you will.

There are of course other facets that aren't tested here, like the duration of
the study not being a lifetime, or the fact that not everyone in the society
is getting it, or the taxes not manifesting.

Ultimately, no study can fully prove the duration effects of UBI in a useful
amount of time. We could do lifetime studies and we still wouldn't know about
multi-generational effects. And we could do multi-generational studies, but do
we really have 200 years?

\---

That said I agree longer term studies are a good idea, maybe 5+ years which
would give people time to do career changes. That this study has worked out
hopefully gives someone justification to undertake the next.

------
eigenspace
I'm cautiously in favour of UBI, but this is such a flimsy study and there's
absolutely no reason to think these results generalize to an entire country of
people being offered UBI permanently.

These sorts of articles where they claim to have scientific evidence that UBI
helps just feels sleezy and disingenuous. I doubt something like this would
ever change the mind of someone who is skeptical of the idea, and might
actually have the opposite effect.

~~~
bsder
> These sorts of articles where they claim to have scientific evidence that
> UBI helps just feels sleezy and disingenuous.

Why? This article states what they did, and what the results were. Hardly
sleazy, unless, of course you have a predefined axe to grind against UBI as
the results certainly show no significant _negative_ effect. Claimed
"disincentives" are part of the anti-UBI talking points much like they were in
the "oppose raising minimum wage" talking points. In both of these cases, the
claimed negative effect has never appeared.

In addition, UBI seems to have an especial effect on families with children,
and that should _absolutely_ be followed up. It probably indicates that
families with unemployed members are less likely to be there due to inherent
issues like drug addiction and mental health and more likely to be there due
to path dependence (teen pregnancy--for example).

For those of us who are pro-UBI, this is a welcome study but hardly
definitive. In addition, since UBI experiments are always severely limited in
scope in these trials, it may be more effective to target families to get the
most benefit.

As always in these situations, I ask what experiment and evidence _would_ you
accept that UBI works? Being dismissive is different from being a skeptic. A
skeptic also has an experiment and hypothesis that could _disprove_ their
position. If you don't have a position that can be disproven, you're just an
annoying gadfly.

~~~
eigenspace
> As always in these situations, I ask what experiment and evidence would you
> accept that UBI works? Being dismissive is different from being a skeptic. A
> skeptic also has an experiment and hypothesis that could disprove their
> position.

That's exactly the problem. I'm not sure a small scale study is actually
capable of showing that UBI works or doesn't work. I worry that the only way
we're going to find out is actually implementing it.

> If you don't have a position that can be disproven, you're just an annoying
> gadfly.

Again, I'm pro-UBI. I just don't think that people's claims about UBI can be
proven or disproven without it actually being done at scale, both in terms of
the number of people given money and the length of time the money is provided.

I'm a physicist. I'm not anti-science. However, I am against the mis-use of
science in performing experiments that _cannot_ show what they aim to show.

There is no law of nature saying that for any system you wish to study, there
is a simpler, easier to understand system you can study instead which should
roughly replicate the results in your bigger messier system. Human economies
are complex.

~~~
bsder
> There is no law of nature saying that for any system you wish to study,
> there is a simpler, easier to understand system you can study instead which
> should roughly replicate the results in your bigger messier system. Human
> economies are complex.

Perhaps true, but you don't have any evidence to support this assertion
either. Physicists didn't launch ITER before doing a _lot_ of experiments at a
lower scale that they thought might scale up. Human economies _do_ have models
and rules--and often fairly simple ones model behavior quite well.

From my point of view, the first hurdle is making sure that UBI doesn't do
active harm. A lot of "means-based" support _DOES_ do active harm. The hard
cutoffs have fairly severe perverse incentives that are now well-documented.
Most of the UBI experiments seem to be indicating that they don't cause
similar perverse incentives (that is the whole _point_ of UBI but it's nice to
have some evidence).

That's important because then the argument can be made that current "means-
based" systems should be transitioned to either having a _much_ larger limit
or toward a UBI-like mechanism. Those have much more staying power than a UBI
experiment.

I don't do this to "prove" that UBI works to the dog-whistlers--they will
shout "welfare queens" until doomsday and simply can't be reached by logical
arguments.

However, I would like to have some evidence that we are allocating the money
that exists relatively effectively and that there isn't a _better_ choice for
doing so.

------
TrackerFF
I think a lot of people who haven't been down and out, are vastly
underestimating bad financial stress is - or how fast small paltry sums/debt
can grow. As the saying goes, it's very expensive to be poor.

When there's no safety net to catch you, you'll have to make some hard
choices. Is going to be the rent? or food? or medication? Pick one, and the
rest will keep on compounding until the next round.

If UBI can work as a foundation to remove that stress, well, then I can
absolutely understand how it improves the well-being of someone.

