Universal basic income doesn’t work
 

https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...rty-inequality

A study published this week sheds doubt on ambitious claims made for universal basic income (UBI), the scheme that would give everyone regular, unconditional cash payments that are enough to live on.

It could find no evidence to suggest that such a scheme could be sustained for all individuals in any country in the short, medium or longer term – or that this approach could achieve lasting improvements in wellbeing or equality. "

That's actually not what the article or even study says.

It just highlights the fact that up to this day, there is no UBI trial has existed long enough, had sufficient amounts of participants or actually paid out an above-poverty amount that would allow to draw clear conclusions.
In other words, no UBI scheme tested so far would work - in the opinion of the authors.

Please learn to use the quote function. The above two sentences are copied with the sentence in between excised and no indication here. If these aren't your words, they should be in a quote box. If you remove a sentence, you should note it with ellipses.

Isn't there some rule about addressing the topic and not the poster? Funny how that gets ignored sometimes.

I will provide you all with the second on-topic reply in this thread. Now then:

Bigfoot's existence has not been disproved yet either.

I'm pretty much living hand to mouth right now and do not want free government cash, nor do I want them handing it out as a BUI to anyone else. Cash? Hellll no.

Adults can be spoiled same as children. I think it's largely these spoiled children of "helicopter participation trophy" parents who are embracing socialist ideas like this. And you damn well better take care of the borders if you want to pay people not to work! We'll have a billion people living here in no time.

I was raised to not be a burden on society. Funny how things have changed.

It seemed to work in somewhere like a region in Pakistan (iirc, from a tv documentary a couple of years ago). People were each given their own debit card with regular sums added to it. It appeared to work wonders for self-esteem, independence and morale.

Research conducted for Public Services International, a global trade union federation, reviewed for the first time 16 practical projects that have tested different ways of distributing regular cash payments to individuals across a range of poor, middle-income and rich countries, as well as copious literature on the topic.

ftfy.

If you think a rule has been broken, it is your responsibility to report the post.

Here's another pertinent quote from the article:

They weren't testing UBI. They were testing something that isn't UBI.

Yes, let’s perpetuate the memes that keep the one percent in their place, maintain our middling privileged existences and poor minorities down. Unbridled capitalism FTW!

Okay

That’s pretty funny. Thanks.

It has to my satisfaction. Just because there's still flat-earthers or young-earth creationists or people who think a rocket cannot propel in space doesn't mean that rational people can't think that these are proven facts long past any reasonable debate.


I agree with you there, and I guess I basically agree with the overall conclusion of the report (even though it comes from a source whose motives in this regard can be questioned). Still, UBI has never been tried. (None of the programs mentioned in the study were "universal" save perhaps the Alaska one, but that one is just a small annual "dividend" far below the poverty line.

I think UBI is an idea whose time has not come yet, but perhaps may come in the future. Too soon to say. Maybe science and technology will someday reach a point where effectively we can have a functioning society where nobody has to do any real work, or at most, only a small number of people are required to do the work for which a human being is needed. Then, UBI would probably make sense as a policy. That may be a pipe dream from watching too much Star Trek and other science fiction. The future is hard to predict.

But right now and for the immediate foreseeable future, I think that probably "the money could be better spent in other ways" as the authors suggest. Universal health care, for example. Repairing public infrastructure. Modernizing our energy infrastructure. Those things first.

This is exactly what it says. As in it's in the article, the summary he presents is literarily in the second paragraph of the article.

There's also this:

The cost of a sufficient UBI scheme would be extremely high according to the International Labour Office, which estimates average costs equivalent to 20-30% of GDP in most countries.

To put it in perspective, that's eight to ten times the US military spending relative to GDP or between one and one and a half US federal budgets, again relative to GDP. If no trial has existed for long enough that's because no country has the money to even attempt one.

McHrozni

I notice that the article has hundreds of comments, most of which appear to me to be saying that what the article says isn't what was concluded by the study, because the study wasn't examining UBI at all. The article is wrong. Which is pretty disappointing since The Guardian is usually pretty good at fact-checking.

...but that is based on their assessment in the absence of an actual UBI scheme that, in their opinion, deserves the name.

But there are many different versions of UBI, and what they think it ought to be isn't necessarily what makes most sense.
Also, putting a cost on UBI without calculating what it would save is not very fair.

I'm curious, is there some conservative version of this forum out there? Or is it that conservative internet users mostly seem to be similar to those we get here? I know that my in personal experiences with conservatives, whether on here, social media, or in meat-space, there is a definite archetype. It sort of becomes a chicken or egg question, does a conservative viewpoint tend to create that persona, or does having a persona such as we are discussing incline one to hold conservative values?

You're free to post your definition that wouldn't be quite as extravagant.

Well, what would it save?

Here's a US budget. The entire pie is 21% of the US GDP. The numbers ebb and flow a bit, but since the total cost of an UBI are 1-1.5 times the size of the whole thing those fluctuations don't matter.

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/Rv..._Z_hAlEMc-s1yA

It would save what, all of social security and a few of the reminders I guess. Let's round it to a nice 30% of the budget saved, this is probably well over the top, but you'll soon see this doesn't matter all that much.

The cost thus dropped from 1-1.5 times the size of the whole budget to 0.7-1.2 times the US federal budget after you include the savings. On the whole you still need to collect enough revenue to pay another federal budget after savings, give or take.

Economy is boosted, but so is inflation, so the net result there is temporary. You can't count on the economy boost to pay for the whole thing, not by a long shot.

Their statement on affordability holds true, I'm afraid. UBI is either too small to live on or unaffordable for any country. You could have one with free food and housing I guess, that might work.

McHrozni

Bigfoots get UBI, you know. All cryptids are socialists, it's why they hide: so nobody else crashes their party to get benefits.

Personally, I'm not fully on board with an UBI.

I am reminded of stories from the German Re-unification: as a "welcome gift", everyone in East Germany got a 100 Marks (something like $100 I think), and most people spend it instantly.
There are people who won't be able to make do even with $400 million - Trump comes to mind. Others need less than $1,000 to get their stuff done.

So a UBI will never replace food kitchens or shelters if the goal is to care for the most vulnerable.

It also seems to say that when something kind of like UBI is tested it seems to work or at least have positive results.

My summary:
"There have been a variety of programs where in cash is distributed to poor people instead of services, many versions have positive results but since nobody has actually tried UBI it won't work"?

I'm ambivalent about UBI but the linked article nor evidence supports the claim in the OP.

Lol

The story so far:

Giving people money to buy the services they need doesn't seem to work.

However, some of us are still confident that if we *also* give money to people who don't need it that will totally work.

How about just give them the services they need instead of giving them money they may or may not need or may or may not use properly?

That's my preferred policy, actually! But it doesn't have the cachet of a blanket wealth-redistribution program like UBI.

I'd bet they know what services they need better than I do. I'm no so arrogant as to think I know what is best for someone I've never met.

Oh no! "Wealth redistribution"!. :D

I'm going to say it. Wealth should be redistributed. Take some of the wealth away from the obsanely rich and give it to some poor people so they don't starve.

Really? I am. I'm arrogant enough to assign the same needs to every human being: food, shelter, air, water, clothing, medicine top the list.

Reminds me of the people who say they won't give money to homeless people because they won't spend it right.



"Really? Then how about we provide them shelter and food?"
"We can't afford it! Now, if you'll excuse me, the valet is here with my Porsche."

Yeah, that's so me, and exactly what I was saying.

Not really. I don't even know why I quoted you before just saying whatever nonsense popped into my head. Still, your kindness is, as always, an inspiration...for someone else, probably.

At the end of the day, though, it's really tiresome to hear people talk about how we can't afford to make life at least a little less painful to those at the bottom of the income scale...especially in the US where we have more food than we know what to do with and lots of space for people to live. The free market truly doesn't give a **** about any of us, so it obviously isn't the solution.

If this was directed at me I never said anything about not being able to afford etc. I merely question the means of redistribution to those in need, whether directly supplying money is preferable to instead supplying the goods and services that money should be buying. I don't object to a portion of taxes taken in money going towards a safety net, but I'm not sold on the notion that the form that safety net should take is a cash payment rather than food, clothing, shelter, etc.

It wasn't really directed at you, and I agree with you. There should be safe access to the fundamentals for everyone. Providing cash payments, at the end of the day in the best case scenario, primarily benefits slumlandlords, grocery chains, and health insurance companies. They don't really need more help.

The day the people of the US finally learn that socialism isn't prohibited by the bible, nor synonymous with communism, we might be able to make some headway on this ****. As it is, we can't even bring ourselves to adopt systems that are proven to work, like single-payer health care. I imagine we could provide a lot of government cheese (wheels big enough to live in!) on the savings we'd realize by destroying the private health insurance industry once and for all.

Even though it doesn't work it's still won't stop some people from trying it.

Where is the proof that it doesn't work? Your "study" doesn't prove anything.

Not quite.
The welcome money was originally for people who made it across the death strip with nothing but the clothes on their back.
That the border crossing might suddenly open was not foreseen by anyone. When that happened, any east german who visited the west received the money but not everyone in east germany.

Later, when the east german mark was replaced west german mark, easterners basically got some free money because they could exchange their marks at a special exchange rate (much better than the market rate).

On the other hand, humans have been in communities since the very beginning, even while being hunter-gatherers. It's no surprise that we take care of each other now. What form that takes is the question.

Have you ever dealt with a small child who doesn't want to do something? Say, they don't want to learn to tie their own shoes. They will often just wiggle the laces at each other in an attempt that is transparently designed to fail, and then loudly exclaim "see, I can't do it!"

That's sort of how UBI seems to be treated. Here, look, I'll give far too little money in a haphazard way to some arbitrary group for not enough time to examine the process....wiggle wiggle flop...See, we can't do it!

I share this with you only because of your love of analogy.

*sigh*
This is not a socialist idea at all. This idea goes against socialism. Traditional socialism is a worker's idealogy. It holds that all value is created by work and that everyone must work.

The most notable proponent of a UBI in recent US history was an advisor to Ronald Reagan: Milton Friedman.

It doesn't?