Universal Basic Income Study Findings Released

I certainly DON'T intend this as a political discussion.  It's actually a very interesting SOCIOLOGICAL discussion. 

The concept of Universal Basic Income (UBI) has been thrown about by many and I have always be very suspicious of the results that seem to be intended (I have a slightly cynical view of basic human behavior).  As someone here has noted a few times: with the eventually advent of massive automation and AI, some sort of UBI (think Star Trek like society) will likely need to happen at some point.

One of the general findings seems to be that the extra money was essentially turned into additional leisure time.

There is actually a sub-discussion here also, in a more of a meta-analysis form.  The reporting on this is... interesting.  Below are three links to article, writing about the SAME study, that seem to have entirely different angles on the study (I included some basic, may not be ideal, summaries of the study noted in each article).  

Please do pull better, more representative quotes, if you can.

The New York Post seemingly talks more directly to the results (or is this not the basic finding?):

Those answers pretty much align with common sense: When people get free money, they work a bit less and play a bit more....

...Presumably, giving money to people making more money would have smaller effects on work. However, if “universal” benefits were funded through higher taxes, many higher earners would also face a new work disincentive.

At any rate, these results have — at great expense — confirmed what always seemed likely: Unconditional cash transfers reduce work while benefiting recipients in generally short-term ways.

https://nypost.com/2024/07/24/opinion/no-strings-cash-leaves-the-poor-worse-off-study/

Scientific American almost seems to come to an entirely different conclusion, or they are just talking around the basic results? 

Taken as a whole, the evidence suggests that when their most basic needs are met, people start to build a firmer financial foundation for themselves and their family. Scientific American spoke with Kimberlin to learn more about these basic income pilot programs and how this unconditional, guaranteed aid impacts people’s life.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/basic-income-gives-money-without-strings-heres-how-people-spend-it/

Wired also seem to talk around the basic results a bit:

The initial results from what OpenResearch, an Altman-funded research lab, describes as the most comprehensive study on “unconditional cash” show that while the grants had their benefits and weren’t spent on items such as drugs and alcohol, they were hardly a panacea for treating some of the biggest concerns about income inequality and the prospect of AI and other automation technologies taking jobs.

https://www.wired.com/story/sam-altmans-big-basic-income-study-is-finally-out/

I was never in favour of UBI but....

I listened to a podcast some time ago and the person talking about UBI showed that, if you get rid of welfare, food stamps and all the other "free money" programs and associated administration,  UBI becomes cheaper to implement than all the other stuff put together.

In before the lock.

In reply to ShawnG :

That was actually what I was thinking when I heard about UBI (just a more efficient way to bundle benefits), but that is clearly not what most think, want to implement, or how this study was done.

In reply to NickD :

Well, we shall see.

I would like to hope such things can be discussed somewhat reasonably (but I do have the tendency toward cynicism with human behavior)

Worst case.  At least I have a place I can search for the links to the articles I collected.... 

ShawnG said:

I was never in favour of UBI but....

I listened to a podcast some time ago and the person talking about UBI showed that, if you get rid of welfare, food stamps and all the other "free money" programs and associated administration,  UBI becomes cheaper to implement than all the other stuff put together.

I'm with you. When my wife was working for WIC, she'd get a lot of complaints about "welfare" being bad, but when you did the numbers the recipients of it cost the state a whole lot less money in the long term than the sample populations that didn't receive it. 

My biggest issue with UBI is... how do we control housing and medical care from inflating to match it? Right now my biggest expenses are daycare, mortgage, and medical care. I know there is a reasonable way to control it, but I don't know what it is and I don't trust the people making these decisions to know it (or to be allowed to implement it in that way).

Free money is not free.

ShawnG said:

I was never in favour of UBI but....

I listened to a podcast some time ago and the person talking about UBI showed that, if you get rid of welfare, food stamps and all the other "free money" programs and associated administration,  UBI becomes cheaper to implement than all the other stuff put together.

I more or less see it the same way... if a UBI system could be implemented in place of other welfare systems, maybe it could work.  Maybe... 

Part of the problem is being willing to accept some abuse WILL occur.  If you try to set up the system to weed out any abuse, it becomes too cumbersome and expensive to run and thus ineffective.  But politicians searching for something to make themselves look important will latch onto that abuse and wreck the whole thing trying to "fix" it. 

preach said:

Free money is not free.

This. It has to come from somewhere. When the federal government is already in the hole to the tune of $35 trillion...

I'm also concerned about inflation.

So just how is universal basic income any different from communism? Seems like the same to me.

Tom_Spangler (Forum Supporter) said:

preach said:

Free money is not free.

This. It has to come from somewhere. When the federal government is already in the hole to a tune of $35 trillion...

I'm also concerned about inflation.

For the people who will find this as a windfall, money is like space. No matter how much you have, that's how much you need. 

Expenses will always match income. Increase one, the other will increase. See student loans and cheap mortgages.  

The government takes money to give to someone else. The earners increase their pricing because there is more money available for the same products. The people who end up getting the squeeze are the exact people who the money is given to. See the above note about inflation. 

It is a great idea, which will have a never ending supply of unintended consequences.  My fear is that the number of people who just kinda want to spend their days in the basement playing video games can now do so.  However, is that bad?  They would probably grudgingly go to work, and do their job poorly, causing other folks to be irritated.

Now, how many people who want to work get dragged back, because their tax load is onerous, and it seems silly to be sweating while your idiot brother in law watches Gilligans Island?

The accounting would be a bit of a conundrum, too.  I get my $xxxx per month, but I earn 2x$xxxx per month, so my UBI gets clawed back at tax time.  Except I bought a new Tesla with the extra money, and I don't have the cash anymore.

The auditors will have the biggest job.  In Canda, during covid, there was a CERB program which gave everyone some cash when we were sent home.  Except we self employed, but thats another story.  There was then a glorious scramble to get the overpayments back, including a bunch of Revenue Canada people who stuck their own, still employed, still fully paid WFH asses ont eh freebie train.

I don't think it will work.

In reply to Dusterbd13-michael :

Communism assumes you are working (for the people / government).  In this case, there is no work requirement(?).

One aspect of this is it seems to have some effect on "happiness".  But, like many things, I suspect it would just define a new level and become the new "misery".

In reply to Dusterbd13-michael :

It's not communism at all, with UBI the economic system is left as-is with private ownership of the means of production etc, it's just like a cash welfare payout that everyone would get regardless of how much they make.

I see UBI as the next "advancement" that is inevitable yet finds much effort directed towards prevention rather than thoughtful implementation.

"If man were intended to fly, god would have given him wings" followed a few years later by the Jenny, then the P-51, then the 707...

Right now, labor participation in the U.S. is 62.6%...One minus that (37.4%) is probably a reasonable estimate of the percent of the population that currently isn't able to make a contribution.

Essentially, they would cost more than their productive capability given minimum wage, mandatory benefits, risk of litigation, etc..

It seems highly probable that advances in automation, processing speed, A.I., etc. will keep raising the bar on minimum skill requirements.

At the same time the cost of human labor will likely keep increasing due to societal demands for ever greater worker rights & standards of living.

We're currently at Jenny (62.6%) and I'd be shocked if P-51's won't be in the air very soon...I suggest we focus on embracement. 

In reply to mtn :

RE-inflation...  If UBI is less expensive than welfare and is less expensive than doing nothing- then the net result will be less money going into the economy.  Seems like one of the big takeaways is how this saves money over traditional welfare, right? 

Which also covers "free money isn't free"- if it costs less to have UBI than a complex welfare system, then the net result is lower taxes to pay for it.

<devils advocate)'>We already have universal basic income for farmers. Why do they get special treatment? </devils advocate>
 

In reply to alfadriver :

I'm kinda on this page.  Prevention is cheaper than the cure.  But the cure makes more money for corporations soooo let's do that. 

In reply to GameboyRMH :

Yes, as noted, not an economic/political system.  The way they seem to be testing it (and how some seem to want to implement it) is that it is a way to "lift" people out of poverty.  The study seems to show otherwise (they tend to stay where they were, just spend less time working).   Obviously, theoretically, wealthier people would get the money also, but it would be far less useful.  Realistically, no reason to give it to wealthier people, other then simply avoiding all the work to figure out who would qualify (which might actually be a wash, cost wise!)

I would really love to see another study (probably not practical), where you give them the value of whatever their normal benefits cost (maybe plus more of course) and let them spend that.  The efficiency savings would be immense (though not shown in such a study, but be easily calculated I imagine).  Issues with cash purchasing some services of course would be an issue and could encourage other inefficiencies (graft etc), or maybe just a wash with the current issues (?)

mtn said:

My biggest issue with UBI is... how do we control housing and medical care from inflating to match it?

Ask the higher education industry how they controlled inflation from the Pell Grant and GSL programs.

Oh, wait.

alfadriver said:

...If UBI is less expensive than welfare and is less expensive than doing nothing...

Just to clarify.  This is not what they were testing, and not what most seem to intend.  All those programs would still exist, you simply just give them money (like regular income).  As noted, seem like a far better thing to test though.

In writing that... yes, that is pretty much the definition of inflation (more money chasing the same products).  Using the replacement for benefits idea though does not, but also has less potential mechanism for improvement of the situation of the participant.

I, for one, welcome our new robot overlords.

Between robotics and AI there will increasingly be more humans than jobs that need doing.  That seems to be happening more quickly than our culture is able to redefine what we deem to be "a productive member of society".

At the risk of being invited to a patio building event - you can prove whatever you want with numbers but most of the time these arguments are proxy for defending socio-economic status and you can't have socio-economic status if you treat everyone equally.

Fueled by Caffeine said:

In reply to alfadriver :

I'm kinda on this page.  Prevention is cheaper than the cure.

Expedient doesn't always mean right.

bludroptop said:

....you can't have socio-economic status if you treat everyone equally.

I think you may be mis-speaking here.  Equality of treatment can very much have different results.  It's when you demand equality of results where things can get... silly.

aircooled said:

In reply to GameboyRMH :

Yes, as noted, not an economic/political system.  The way they seem to be testing it (and how some seem to want to implement it) is that it is a way to "lift" people out of poverty.  The study seems to show otherwise (they tend to stay where they were, just spend less time working).   Obviously, theoretically, wealthier people would get the money also, but it would be far less useful.  Realistically, no reason to give it to wealthier people, other then simply avoiding all the work to figure out who would qualify (which might actually be a wash, cost wise!)

I would really love to see another study (probably not practical), where you give them the value of whatever their normal benefits cost (maybe plus more of course) and let them spend that.  The efficiency savings would be immense (though not shown in such a study, but be easily calculated I imagine).  Issues with cash purchasing some services of course would be an issue and could encourage other inefficiencies (graft etc), or maybe just a wash with the current issues (?)

There's an entirely different train of thought that could be followed here.

The people that had access to UBI, that were closer to humanity's historical roots and work practices. Were they happier?  Did they have less health problems? Less stress? Less depression?

Thats more the study I'd like to see than what people do with extra money.