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Comment by melvinmt | Hacker News Reader

> 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?

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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.

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.

I'll eat my shoe if they come up with any other result than "resounding success!" with a healthy dose of hand-waving around any negative issues. Basic Income seems to be The Next Great Liberal Cause and YC being a Valley firm, I've got a feeling they fall a bit towards the left part of the political spectrum.

BI isn't limited to a political party. Libertarians (conservatives) see it as a way of making the government smaller.

Unless they specifically say so, please don't assume it's attributed to a partisanship.

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