this post was submitted on 29 Apr 2024
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To be the devils advocate here, how would that system be fair to workers not replaced by robots? Like if im a plumber i still gotta put in my 40+ hrs/week but a factory worker just gets UBI now?
The thing about a UBI is that it's universal. You'd get a UBI despite still working as a plumber. For you, it would be extra cash - for the factory worker laid off, it would be a lifeline.
Everyone would get UBI. Nobody would be forcing you to keep your plumbing job. And even if you stuck around, you wouldn't have to work 40+ hours plumbing weeks because UBI would give you the ability to chose what dmjobs youd want to take on. And maybe now that those factory workers aren't stuck in factories, some of them might actually want to learn how to be plumbers, meaning more plumbers to take on jobs.
I highly doubt most people are just going to pick up a trade as if it is a hobby if they are getting a UBI
No, but plenty would pick up a trade to get more money, for the same reason that people still overwhelmingly seek full-time jobs instead of only part-time jobs in areas with low CoL.
I know this is a popular perception, but it doesn't allign with the results of experiments where random citizens were granted an UBI.
https://www.givedirectly.org/2023-ubi-results/
Huh would you look at that, in the UBI experiments it actually gave people more freedom to do the kind of work they wanted to do.
Mein gott, such a terrible policy.
Well, no, we've never been able to test UBI. That would require the entire population of significant geographic areas to receive UBI levels of income in a way they start believing it's a safe thing to expect for the foreseeable future, and to model how it's funded rather than just how it pays out.
What we've done is frequently means test the experiments, deliberately select low income people, but only a tiny portion of a larger low income population. Also, the participants know very well that the experiment might be a few months or a year, but after that they'll be on their own again, so they need to take any advantage it gives them. So all the experiments prove is that if you give some, but not all, low income people a temporary financial benefit, they can and will out compete others without the benefit.
UBI might be workable, or it might need certain other things to make it workable, or it might not be workable, but it's going to be pretty much impossible to figure it out in a limited scope experiment.
The Alaska permanent fund is about as close to UBI as we've gotten, but the amounts are below sustenance living so it's not up to the standard either.
So what you're saying it we explicitly looked at the most extreme examples and seen how UBI has greatly benefitted the people in those extreme situations, and every single time the experiments are conducted the results are pretty consistent, but we can't extrapolate that it won't work in less extreme situations because... reasons...
Because you still have the element of differential compared to others. In true UBI, the UBI recipient would represent the 'low point' for any citizen. Let's take Seattle for example as they recent had an 'experiment' about UBI. If you had true UBI, then 750,000 people would all get same benefit, of which 75,000 were unemployed. In the UBI experiment, 100 of that 75,000 people had the benefit temporarily, and have an advantage over 74,900 people without that benefit, and the experiment only influences 0.01% of the population in general and then only by a meager amount, so the general local economy won't even register the activity as a blip. Those 100 people can have a breather but know that time is short. So they take advantage to maybe take a class, get nice interview clothes, and show up better prepared for a job than maybe the other dozen applicants that couldn't afford to buy the clothes, take time off for the right interview, or take that class. They might not have any particular advantage if everyone had UBI, and the experiment measured success in terms of relative success over those not in the cohort.
So we are missing:
Just like all sorts of stuff in science, at scale does not necessarily map to small scale observations. Especially in economic and social science. That's not to say UBI is definitely not going to work, it's that we can't know how it will work/not work until done "for real" at the appropriate scale.
I'm gonna need citations if you're going to make claims about the data of experiments.
Well, here is the Seattle one: https://www.businessinsider.com/seattle-ubi-guaranteed-basic-income-low-income-poverty-housing-employment-2024-4
It's pretty typical, select a few people out of thousands to receive a temporary benefit and extrapolate to UBI. Sure they didn't talk about the other population, but Internet search does generic demographics for the city (750k total/75k on unemployment).
Cool. And here are 150+ other experiments and program of varying sizes and time frames pretty much all with generally positive results.
https://basicincome.stanford.edu/experiments-map/
It seems to me like there actually is quite a lot of data to support the claim that UBI is consistently good when implemented.
See my reply to your other reply. That the programs are all limited in scope and duration and thus cannot possibly speak to scale. The meta analysis says the data that is available is appealing, but acknowledges that almost none of them really hit the criteria for a real UBI in terms of scope, scale, and duration. Particularly:
I don't know that any of them manage to hit both long-term and enough to meet basic needs. Alaska is long term, but it's well below basic needs, for example.
We still do not have data that would speak to a whole society with UBI.
It seems like we're in a Catch 22 scenario. Models and experiments only give so much information by the very nature of models and experiments simplifying much more complex problems, and in order to collect the kind of holistic data that would speak to a societal level would require an experiment that is functionally identical to just full implementation. Like experiments can only get so big or go on so long before it just becomes the actual thing itself and is no longer an experiment.
And in regards to your other comment about dialing in from the extremes, instead of making everything a uniform number, we can use an formula and a handful of variables to arrive at a local number. A function that takes in common cost of living costs, such as food, shelter, clothing, utilities, transport, and generates a number that will adequate cover those expenses for a given area plus some extra because something unexpect can always happen.
With respect to formula, one aspect that proves difficult is that as you derive the right number, the right number changes. Since currency is kind of a synthetic mathematical trick we play on ourselves to "do economy", the things being modeled change when we try to force the numbers to be pleasant. Psychology plays a role to potentially make people feel better even with objectively similar circumstances (eg getting a 2% raise along with 2% inflation the person feels like they made some progress despite sitting still.
In any event, I don't have data either, but I just strongly suspect a numerical manipulation of money balances won't suffice and we will have to intervene with things like universal healthcare, housing initiatives, labor regulation, and some means of mitigating the phenomenon of billionaires. Easier said than done, but broadly just thinking we have to mind the details explicitly.
Or maybe Meta Analysis is more convincing.
https://basicincome.stanford.edu/uploads/Umbrella%20Review%20BI_final.pdf
Page 15 is rather quite enlightening.
I appreciate the thoroughness and acknowledgement about limitations:
But even with the gaps of experiments missing some pieces, the meta analysis still has a really strong positive outlook on UBI despite the imperfections of the numerous studies.
The problem is that the imperfections are systematic and the same imperfections inflict every experiment.
To use an extreme, let's say you just up and gave someone 10 million dollars. Would they do pretty well? Probably would live it up pretty well or die trying. Assuming they avoided vices that would kill them, they would probably have whatever sort of house they want, any sort of car they want, and so on. They might engage in some noble occupation now that they don't care about money that sounds nicer than most jobs to make money. You could repeat this same experiment dozens and dozens of time and come away with the same conclusion, that giving people money without conditions improves their situation. At 10 million, you probably wouldn't see the same data about 'gainful employment' as you do with $5,000 dollar experiments, where they know that won't get them going, but other facets should reproduce.
What if you gave 340 million people 10 million dollars? Well, the economy would adjust to deal with that new normal. You would have massive inflation to compensate for the glut of cash. The market for Ferrari's jumps a thousand-fold, but they aren't going to be making a thousand-fold more cars, they'll just price them up to the point where even millionaires can't afford them anymore.
What if you gave 340 million people 4 dollars a month? Nothing would happen, it's too meager to move the needle.
So a UBI would be somewhere in the middle. Now the question is whether there is a sweet spot with the right impact. Economically, it's likely that their opportunities in 'objective' terms may be about the same before and after, but they might feel less crappy about it. Though over long enough time they might get pissed that their UBI payment isn't going to be even sustenance income even if it started that way.
The other common trend in these is some romanticism of some jobs over others. He was stuck mowing public parks, but with the UBI experiment, he was able to better himself and get a more respectable job. Good for him, but who is now mowing those parks? Oh someone who wasn't in the UBI experiment. So if everyone has UBI, you can't have that nice story for everyone, someone is still going to be doing that "lame" mowing job.
UBI might be a part of dealing with a hypothetical labor surplus when we just don't know what people should be doing, but it's going to be rough. If it's too low, you've doomed people relying on UBI to forever be stuck with crappy standard of living because there would be no jobs for some of them to have the chance to supplement the income. If it's too high, then why would anyone ever mow that public park?
I suspect shorter and shorter work weeks has to be a mandated solution, rather than some fixed money amount injected per capita. Spread those crap jobs over more people. Instead of unrelenting 40 hours of landscaping a week, a couple hours a week and surplus labor means you get 20-fold more people doing the job. Though first we have to actually have an obvious labor surplus to get that going.
have you like, ever seen people in retirement? they start doing labour just to entertain themselves.
I'm probably a minority but i would in a heartbeat. I stopped doing residential AC because the bills didn't get paid that often (people just don't like paying bills) and honestly i couldn't compete with larger companies while still having to maintain my epa certs, gas reclamation charges and the cost of refrigerant alone .
UBI is to cover the basics, its not going to let everyone live in luxury, you'd still want for extra cash, you just wouldnt NEED it. Thus people would still be willing to work
I would love to learn to weld, be a mechanic, electrician... basically all the things I've had to pickup up in a triage capacity. I would love to give up my 9-5 rat race job and learn to do something beneficial well. I can't justify the current expense of taking 18-24 months off to go back to school though when I make enough to stay alive at this point.
You are probably right, but at the same time we might be surprised. UBI becomes the catalyst for this experiment to take off though.
UBI is generally proposed as a basic sustenance income, a fairly austere lifestyle that is "enough" but likely not fulfilling.
Of course if you don't have enough "work" to go around, that vision of UBI becomes pretty dystopian, as some people are stuck with bare bones living with zero opportunity for better. If we do get there, then that sort UBI isn't going to be enough, but as you say it it's too much and you still need human work some, well, is a tough question...
Or you put in 16 hours a week, and some other people do the rest of the hours.
On the other hand, we could also train the factory workers to become assistant consultants, or give them some other bullshit job...
Please, no more bullshit jobs, we have enough of those to untangle
Isn't that the thing? We automatize so much and instead of getting the 20hrs/week, we struggel so much to improve efficiency. But for what? There are sectors I agree with that approach (like medicine, climate impact and so on). But if I have to use the same smartphone technology for 10 years or don't upgrade to an 8k TV in the next 20 years, that is utterly fine by me, if that means that I'll have to wrk 20hours less per week.
can != got to
I want fewer don't wish to be there workers, not more.
Tax companies a % of what they save by reducing head count. Salary, benefits, insurance, everything. They still save $, but not as much - they pay into a fund for UBI. And eliminate loan interest tax deductions for loans (totalling) over $X (some reasonable threshold that doesn't penalize middle class mortgage holders).
And to the poster above, UBI is for everyone, so those still working get UBI plus a paycheck - that's how it's fair.
We are NOT economically prepared for the renaissance coming. And our octogenarian leaders don't even understand how to set up a printer. Something's gotta give or the economy will collapse. Some estimates are up to 25% of jobs in the next 10 years.
The basics of Supply and Demand. If automation means more consistent and bigger Supply, then prices will* come down and more of the Demand will be able to afford the goods and services in the Supply. Larger supply means cheaper prices, possibly to the point where value becomes basically meaningless.
*assuming that Supply isn't artificially limited by the owners of industry to protect their own profits. If only someone wrote a series of books and pamphlets about how the owners would do everything they can to protect their profits.
I'll take "How to completely miss the point of what I wrote" for 1000 Alex.
I never said anything about anti-work* and I literally addressed the point about how high production and automation and plentiful Supply drives prices down.
*Which it seems like you're assuming people won't do any labor and instead it's people won't work bullshit jobs that don't actually do anything productive and can actually more choose what they work on instead of working for the benefit of the industry owners
Well, the hypothetical is essentially a post scarcity "economy", if there is zero demand for "work", then work would have to be uncoupled from livelihood in some way.
A crap outcome would be to meaninglessly keep toiling at work that we could automate because we are afraid of dealing with consequences of a big labor surplus.
However, this is a hypothetical, and even if it starts becoming a reality, it's going to be awkward when we can't meaningfully have "work" for everyone but we still need work for some people.
I will agree that the hard core antiwork folks that say today we could get by with everyone only doing what they wanted for fun are unrealistic. However it'll be... Interesting to see how we might navigate possibilities.
The highly automated factories?
The folks that don't want them building guillotines in their spare time. Remember kids, guillotines cure economic anxiety.