Germany begins 3-year universal-basic-income trial | Hacker News Reader

Germany begins 3-year universal-basic-income trial

businessinsider.com

279 pointstosh336 comments

These studies don't really prove anything.

Common arguments in favor of these studies -

"They prove people don't quit work on UBI!"

- No, they prove that people who are in a program that is very clearly temporary will not end their careers for a short pilot program. This means nothing.

"They prove people won't spend it on drugs, booze, and lotto tickets!"

- No. If you make $1k from a job and $1k from a pilot program each month, you spend the $1k from the pilot on legitimate bills and now you have $1k to spend however you like. The study can't trace that money. (This isn't to say everyone on UBI uses it for drugs, rather, it's to point out that you cannot deduce they don't just by tracing the way the transfer payments are spent)

"The studies prove people's life and happiness improved because of UBI!"

- No kidding. You gave someone several thousand dollars no strings attached in a situation where neither taxes nor inflation would rise as a result.

What UBI skeptical people want to know is where is the proof that we can afford to tax ourselves to pay ourselves, where is the proof that it won't hurt long term productivity, and where is the proof that it doesn't cause inflation. A 120 person 36 month trial program cannot answer any of these questions.

Any UBI could be entirely reversed by an equal and opposite tax. Of course this would be pointless, but it shows that there are many possibilities, depending on what sort of taxes you combine it with, and some of them are certainly feasible because the net effect is small.

UBI is largely about symbolic equality, the kindergarten-level fairness of everyone getting the same amount. That’s important because symbols of equality are important. But from an economics standpoint it’s not a complete plan, and it’s a bit nebulous because the choice of which taxes to include in your analysis is arbitrary.

Assuming a progressive tax system, though, it does mean automatic benefits for people without other income and more financial security for almost everyone, assuming you think you have some risk of losing your job.

This is similar to insurance. We don’t buy it because we think we will make money on average.

It's not about fairness at all: it's about poverty traps, and getting people out of them. With the learned understanding that if you give things to the poor, you also have to give them to the rich, because the rich are unable to look at any pie they can't have a slice of without wanting to destroy it.

I always saw the "also giving it to the rich" as much more about avoiding the bureaucratic overhead, social stigma and other associated downsides of trying to ensure that only the poor get it.

This, and also the removal of welfare.

Since you lose welfare when you get a job often there is an opportunity cost decision, should I really work 40 hours a week to make a little more than welfare.

with UBI the salary is always additional.

Aye to take it a step further: there is a professor at UCSD who pushes for UBI Libertarianism, for that reason. Don't add conditions or requirements, just mail everyone a check and ditch all of the bureaucracy, EBT, etc.

The problem is that it makes poverty traps smaller, but doesn't make them go away. Like, if Johnny Hobo isn't able to feed his kids and blows his welfare on smokes and 40s, UBI isn't going to magically make him a better father or better at spending his money, he's just going to buy better booze.

That's a separate problem, his kids should be taken away if he's endangering them.

And the rich are so few that you wouldn't save much by exlucding them.

That's the thing. Not very expensive to also give money to the rich, and also there are extenuating circumstances. I know multiple people who had no jobs and no savings yet didn't qualify for covid checks from the US because they had high paying jobs in 2018.

If you just pay everyone, wealth still disproportionately moves towards the poor.

> you also have to give them to the rich because that's what "Universal" means.

Any UBI system that is funded through a free market economy will necessarily have the rich paying far more in taxes than they receive in basic income in return.

The important thing is to not have arbitrary levels of "rich", when the basic income disappears. That means, to avoid situations like "if I make an extra $1 now, I am no longer eligible for the welfare, and I will lose $100".

I would extend that last bit to every group in America, not just the rich

Tax doesn't help if you make no money though? If you make below poverty line, UBI helps you, whereas progressive tax doesn't

And that is why it will fail.

Fairness is not about everyone getting the same amount just for existing, for that in itself is not fair. Real fairness is everyone playing against the same rules and being treated the same under the law. Sadly governments and politicians are too corrupt to implement real fairness and have decided instead for the populist way out while keeping their insane advantage intact.

Real fairness under that definition can't exist as long as there are inheritances. People who are born in wealthier families are not playing under the same rules (just imagine if a person playing Monopoly started with ten times the initial amount of money).

I prefer a definition of fairness that is actually achievable[1]: everyone has at least the bare minimum, regardless of fitness and deserving. You can quibble about what the definition of bare minimum, but to me it should include housing, food, education and health. Any society where anyone can't get those things by asking for them is not fair, as people who don't have access to those don't have the minimum to compete with those who do.

We can't have an equal playing field. But we can perhaps make the bare minimum livable.

[1]This is almost impossible, as opposed to entirely impossible

What's the difference between your local grocery store clerk, and a Hollywood actor?

They both likely have cars, homes and an iphone. Sure, your Hollywood actor is probably driving an exotic sports car and their iphone is diamond studded, but fundamentally, what does it matter?

> housing, food, education and health. Any society where anyone can't get those things by asking for them is not fair

I agree in the general but I suspect we disagree quite differently on the details. We do provide housing for the poor, and short term homelessness outcomes are actually generally positive - we tend to get people who lose their home back into another house. We provide free education through a high school diploma and community college in most areas is exceedingly affordable with massive scholarship opportunities available for ivy leagues. You can walk into any hospital and it's illegal for them to refuse you treatment.

Does this mean our society is without fault? Of course not - we've shown repeatedly that we're terrible at finding real solutions for the persistently homeless (and no, shoving them into homes doesn't actually fix their problems as much as it fixes the stats), and healthcare is at best described as "horrifically abberant".

And we should fix those things. But that some Hollywood starlett is flying around in a gulfstream has nothing to do with those fundamental problems - it is not a lack of resources but a lack of willingness and deep understanding of the problem space.

It's easy to blame the wealthy, it's much harder to solve the actual problem set.

And this is why UBI was supported by right leaning economists like Milton Friedman. If we believe that people in wealthy societies should have a minimal standard of living including basic food, housing and health care then we can provide it through the market in the form of a basic income

It will avoid the perverse incentives that lead people to get costly health care in the ER (which is then covered by other patients) instead of having health insurance and receiving preventative care

It can prevent people from avoiding getting a higher income lest they start earning too much to qualify for the social programs they depend on

No UBI won't fix all problems - but it may very well pay for itself through better externalities

Friedman proposed a negative income tax which is different, and arguably better, than a standard flat payment.

It's barely distinguishable from UBI for any practical purpose.

> What's the difference between your local grocery store clerk, and a Hollywood actor?

Well, if you didn't know, there's stuff like this:

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/college-bribery-scand...

The special access and leg-up in society offered to people with very high wealth (whether an actor, a corporate CxO, or someone who inherits a business empire) is huge, and entire systems are set up to tend exclusively to their needs and the preservation of those advantages.

> We provide free education through a high school diploma and community college in most areas

Can you actually do anything with just an associate's? In my experience, most places that require college degrees require a minimum of a bachelor's.

My local community college offers some bachelor degrees, and an associates degree can be a meaningful life change even if it's just a move to a management position.

> What's the difference between your local grocery store clerk, and a Hollywood actor?

One has to keep working to live a comfortable life, the other doesn't (and neither will their kids).

I agree that simply blaming the wealthy isn't the solution to these problems, but your perspective regarding the plight of the American poor seems a bit rosy to me.

> We do provide housing for the poor

Waiting lists for both subsidized housing and homeless shelters are overflowing in many places. Have you ever tried to obtain housing as a person with limited resources?

> short term homelessness outcomes are actually generally positive - we tend to get people who lose their home back into another house.

What do you mean by positive? That most people don't stay homeless forever? Sure, that's better than the alternative, but you're ignoring the consequences of becoming homeless in the first place (ex. losing a job because you don't have a place to shower, sleep, or are simply overwhelmed due to your position, eviction records that make it difficult to rent again, exposure to unsafe conditions, etc.), as well as the factors that contribute to that phenomenon.

> community college in most areas is exceedingly affordable with massive scholarship opportunities available for ivy leagues.

Community college is not as cheap as many imagine it to be. Tuition typically runs $3 - 5,000/year, which doesn't include fees, course materials, or, most notably, living expenses. Financial aid isn't as generous as many would expect - as you'll see below, a grocery store clerk earning $22,646/year would receive less than $1,500 in grant aid (while being expected to contribute ~ $4,700/annually). Loans can help, but they can also become a considerable burden, especially for the 47% percent of college students who don't end up graduating within six years (or, ever, for the majority of those students). [10] Perhaps surprisingly, the typical community college graduate actually takes around 5.5 (calendar) years to earn their associate's degree (assuming no participation in "dual enrollment"). [11] If they continue on to earn their bachelor's degree, the overall process typically takes more than 8 (calendar) years. [11] That's a long time to be in a financially-tenuous position.

I may as well ignore your comment regarding the Ivy League, as the amount of poor Americans who will find it relevant is virtually zero.

> You can walk into any hospital and it's illegal for them to refuse you treatment.

...for them to refuse you treatment for a life-threatening injury, not regular checkups, non-essential treatment or preventative medicine. And if you are treated for an emergency, you'll be billed for it later. Although the ACA has made things much better for Americans, you can't simply walk into a hospital and expect free healthcare without health insurance.

> What's the difference between your local grocery store clerk, and a Hollywood actor?

> They both likely have cars, homes and an iphone.

If your grocery-store clerk is a middle/upper-middle class teenager whose parents give them those things, sure. Otherwise, this assumption seems pretty unrealistic to me. Some quick googling seems to confirm my assessment...

According to Glassdoor, the average American grocery clerk makes $22,646/year ($1,532/month) after taxes. [1] Abodo says that rent for the median one-bedroom apartment in the US cost $1,078/month last year. [2] That doesn't include utilities, which average around $240/month for renters. [3] That leaves your grocery clerk with $214 to use for all additional expenses each month. Owning a (cheap) car costs around $486/month overall, according to Nerdwallet (including a $111 monthly car payment [4] and $118 for car insurance [5], plus misc. expenses). [6] Now this grocery clerk is going $272 further into debt each month. If they want an iPhone and a ("cheap") phone plan from a major carrier, that will cost an additional $90/month (assuming they buy the cheapest iPhone 11 and keep it for two years - $700 / 24 - and opt for the cheapest standard phone plan [7]). At that point, they're spending $362 more than they earn every month and they haven't even spent anything on food, household goods, clothing, entertainment, or education!

Assuming this person wanted to improve their financial situation by attending community college (average tuition: $3,660 for 2018/2019 year [8]), they'd be eligible to receive around $1400 in Federal Pell Grants (depending on their state) and up to $1,465 in Federal Work-study benefits (assuming their college participated in the program and that they could manage working two jobs while going to school full-time), plus up to $9,500 in Direct Stafford Loans (note: not dischargeable through bankruptcy). [9] However, they would still be expected to contribute around $4,700/year toward their education.

1. https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/grocery-clerk-salary-SRCH...

2. https://www.abodo.com/blog/2019-annual-rent-report/

3. https://www.apartmentlist.com/renter-life/average-utility-bi...

4. Calculated using https://www.cars.com/car-loan-calculator/ (assuming $5,000 car price/$500 down payment/7% sales tax/4.67% interest rate/48 month term)

5. Assuming average American cost in 2020 https://cars.usnews.com/cars-trucks/car-insurance/average-co...

6. https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/loans/auto-loans/total-co...

7. https://www.consumerreports.org/cell-phone-service-providers...

8. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/12/tuition-at-community-college...

9. Calculated using above income info via https://fafsa.ed.gov/spa/fafsa4c/#/landing (Note: "Expected Family Contribution" (EFC) ended up being around $4,700/year)

10. https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/freshman-year/just-over-half...

11. https://nscresearchcenter.org/signaturereport11/

EDIT: Correction/clarification - The average American grocery clerk makes $22,646/year, gross, which comes out to about $1,532/month after taxes.

> Real fairness under that definition can't exist as long as there are inheritances.

You are redefining fair to mean equal. I don't want equal at the expense of fair.

Inheritance is a made up rule, and as such can be unmade without having to change the definition of fairness.

But second, age is thing, older people tend to have accumulated more wealth than younger people, even without inheritance. Younger people tend to be fitter and more attractive and Hollywood knows it. An equal playing field in the way you describe it will never be achievable by humans.

And that is why I say fairness is the most important, the rules have to be the same for everyone because that is the part that is up to us.

> I don't want equal at the expense of fair. > An equal playing field in the way you describe it will never be achievable by humans.

Extreme economic inequality drives unfairness by tipping the scales towards the very wealthy. Nobody is suggesting that we somehow enforce biological equality, whether between individuals of the same age, or among individuals of very different ages. To suggest so is a strawman intended to distract from the real problem of growing economic inequality.

Also, you don't need to abolish inheritance to increase fairness, but in the context of growing inequality, you must limit the extent to which it drives unfairness by phasing it out as wealth grows exponentially.

"the rules have to be the same for everyone"

"The Law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich, as well as the poor, to sleep under the bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread." --Anatole France (I always meant to get a more precise source for this quote.)

I'll restate what I said: In a game of Monopoly, someone who starts with more money is not playing under the same rules. A game of Monopoly where one player starts with more money is not a fair game, even thought we all move 6 spaces forward when we roll a six. The same thing is true in life.

Perhaps I can put it another way: the existing laws are not the only rules that govern our laws. We all live under the same laws, but we don't all live under the same rules. For some people, it's a rule that if they quit their job they will quickly be homeless. For other people (whose only merit is to be born in the right place), there is not such rule. This is not fair.

My definition of fair is not perfect, but it looks to resolve the most egregious cases of unfairness I can think of.

Why do you prefer a definition that is achievable?

What you describe is of course good, but maybe we could just call that a welfare society or some other words. Giving people the bare minimum won't automatically make their lives fair.

Some people are also more attractive and they are able to capitalize on it easily, they are treated better etc..

You are just targeting one thing it's called inheritance, what about other things like "social network and connections which are passed to the new heirs in the family", beauty/atheletic abilities and other talent?

I can't see our modern society lasting without this. Not much longer. Not after covid, and whatever 2020's throw at us, and global warming. Food riots, and real civil discord are only months away, if not weeks.

That's alarmist and unfounded. The economy has recovered heartily, in general civil discord has gone away in most areas, and grocery stores aren't running out of food or going insane with prices - I'm still sipping fancy kombucha at the same rate I paid a year ago.

More people are concerned about whether their uber eats driver is going to show up on time than food riots at the moment. I don't see that changing in the immediate future.

It seems like plausible fears could be raised for food riots in our lifetimes, but not really in weeks. There's not even widespread shortages and depression era soup kitchen lines today, and those would surely preceed food riots.

> Real fairness is everyone playing against the same rules and being treated the same under the law.

That is symmetry, not fairness. By your definition someone born with a disability should not be accommodated (because everyone has to be treated the same by your notion) and possibly left to suffer?

Or is it fair that you are enjoying products made in countries by workers that never had have the same rules and treatment you had? What did you deserve to get that, other than sheer luck of being born in the current circumstances?

Doesn't familial conditions differ so hugely that no one is really playing against the same rules and treated the same in the formative years of their lives, effects of which amplify for the rest of their lives?

No one gets to define "real fairness" without expanding what their normativity is about. And your notion is about symmetry for a subsection of civil life, not about the complexity and entirety of real human lives. I guarantee you if you were born into different circumstances you would have a very different sense of what is fair.

Just in case someone later asks and you're in doubt: this is where the thread derailed into that most tired exchange of entirely predictable arguments first seen immediately after the publication of Atlas Shrugged, and handed down from one mediocre 16 year-old to the next generation in surprisingly faithful reproduction ever since.

> Fairness is not about everyone getting the same amount just for existing, for that in itself is not fair.

Can you explain why? And if your answer amounts to "because people provide different amounts of [effort|value] to society" how would you reply to "so what?".

If your answer is "so what?" then I assume you are not interested in my answer.

"So what?" is not an answer, it is another question, and I asked it preemptively to try and avoid a simplistic answer to my original question. Do you have a more constructive answer?

because the stuff they get for existing has to come from someone else.

> Fairness is not about everyone getting the same amount just for existing, for that in itself is not fair.

> because the stuff they get for existing has to come from someone else.

Your statement doesn't hold unless we assume "it is unfair for one person to provide for the needs of another (unless it is reciprocated)", and it isn't at all clear that we can take that axiomatically.

Even setting to one side the more obvious cases of parents providing for children etc., if we were to assume that one person could, through their labour, provide for the needs of everyone else, why does it obviously follow that it is "unfair" for everyone to survive solely that person's labour?

More generally, it really isn't clear to me that these questions have such simplistic answers.

> Your statement doesn't hold unless we assume "it is unfair for one person to provide for the needs of another (unless it is reciprocated)", and it isn't at all clear that we can take that axiomatically.

the axiom is more like "it is unfair to force one person to provide for the needs of another."

obviously some people would disagree, which is their right. however by making this axiom and their disagreements with it explicit, we can discuss the reality of the situation more clearly.

> if we were to assume that one person could, through their labour, provide for the needs of everyone else, why does it obviously follow that it is "unfair" for everyone to survive solely that person's labour?

well would it be fair to force that person to provide for the needs of everyone, if they could do so but chose not to?

> More generally, it really isn't clear to me that these questions have such simplistic answers.

agreed. but discussion can help us to understand the question better, and perhaps if we realize that there is no "right" answer then that conclusion could still help us to create a society where everyone is better off.

> the axiom is more like "it is unfair to force one person to provide for the needs of another."

I think this seems like a reasonable statement (to me), but unlike for the axiom I provided, the original claim, that "fairness is not about everyone getting the same amount just for existing, for that in itself is not fair", does not immediately follow from your modified version.

Reading over the various answers people have provided, it seems clear to me that many people follow a similar line of reasoning, trying to argue from the (let's take it as axiomatic) unfairness of forcing someone else to do something, but that really isn't a necessary part of the original claim.

Returning to the extreme example of one person who could provide for everyone, we see this line of argument in your counter-question:

> would it be fair to force that person to provide for the needs of everyone, if they could do so but chose not to?

As we have agreed that it is unfair to coerce someone, the answer is clearly "no", but that isn't the only possibility in our scenario, because they could equally have decided that they do want to work to provide for the needs of everyone.

This (to me) makes it clear that the issue really rests on how this individual (and, in the real world, each member of society) feels about their obligations to others. Yes - if they (or we) have decided not to provide for others, then being forced to do so would be "unfair", but if, on the other hand, they (we) are happy to provide for others without coercion, then there is no apparent source of coercion (certainly not from the axiom you provided).

In short, "fairness is not about everyone getting the same amount just for existing, for that in itself is not fair" does not follow from your modified axiom, and instead is predicated on the beliefs of the "everyone" in question.

As a somewhat separate issue, some appear to have the impression that these kinds of beliefs are in some way fundamental, but to me it is incredibly clear that they are (at least typically) almost entirely socially contingent. Therefore, as I see it, it is entirely possible for society to shift back and forth between one that (collectively) believes in providing for others, and one that does not, without "coercion" in the sense as used throughout this discussion.

> discussion can help us to understand the question better, and perhaps if we realize that there is no "right" answer then that conclusion could still help us to create a society where everyone is better off

I agree!

As a society we should increase the standard of living for everyone. In order to do that, people need to be motivated to contribute.

I might agree with what you are saying, but it doesn't address the question, which is to provide a rationale for the claim "Fairness is not about everyone getting the same amount just for existing, for that in itself is not fair."

Your statement is about motivations, not fairness.

You're right, it's not very clear, this is what I was going for:

It's not very fair to society as a whole if we implement policies which impede standard of living increases.

Again, something I could probably agree to, but it is interesting that we seem to have to move the frame from the individual up to (the individual's share of) society in order to provide a meaningful answer.

Despite others' somewhat antagonistic answers I really just wanted to explore the reasoning behind the original statement, which I think many people instinctively agree with whilst not being able to convincingly explain why (without referencing other ideas).

Which is why Communism doesn't work. If what you get has no relationship to the work you do, there is no reason to do the work. But that's the problem a UBI solves -- you still get it when you take a job but you also get what you earn from the job. As compared with the status quo, which is already worse than this, because we have existing assistance programs that you lose by taking a job or earning more money.

> Which is why Communism doesn't work. If what you get has no relationship to the work you do, there is no reason to do the work.

It may surprise people to learn that even the Soviets effectively acknowledged the validity of that second statement. According to the 1936 Constitution of the USSR:

"ARTICLE 118. Citizens of the U.S.S.R. have the right to work, that is, are guaranteed the right to employment and payment for their work in accordance With its quantity and quality."

https://www.departments.bucknell.edu/russian/const/36cons04....

The problem, of course, being that they weren't using anything like market pricing to allocate the rewards, so in practice they went to people based on corruption and politics.

“1 in 7 billion uses luxury of online anonymity to play at being a nihilist. Forgets real world self and political power is limited to whatever the masses enable. Would rather ostricize self politically than speak up.”

I presume you are aiming this at me, and if so it doesn't apply - I was simply asking for a rationale for the original claim that "Fairness is not about everyone getting the same amount just for existing, for that in itself is not fair."

I would suggest that your retort, presuming that is what it is, is mere posturing; either you have a substantive answer to the question or not - so far you have not provided one.

Because no one owes you nothing by their unalienable right to be in charge of their own life, and you only get what you deserve by your actions. That's the fundamental moral principle of fairness. If your actions oriented towards creation then you get to hold your earnings by the right of your productive work. If your actions oriented towards extorting the value from those who create it, you deserve to be ostracized.

> Because no one owes you nothing by their unalienable right to be in charge of their own life

The question isn't whether people are obliged to provide for others, but whether or not it is necessarily unfair for them to do so. Your statement only addresses the former case, not the latter (irrespective of whether it is labelled "the fundamental moral principle of fairness").

Fairness is leveling the playground. It's not equality.

By birth, you are unequal. Would you say we should have the same measures for people with physical disabilities from birth and healthy athletes?

No. That's why we have separate categories or measures. That is fair. And that is not treating everyone equally.

As sad as it is, I say we have to accept reality, and that means that a person with disabilities will not be able to do certain things, which does not mean he/she has nothing to do. Maybe he won't be an athlete but he can of course be a novelist.

But we first have to accept the real world and get off this childish notion we are all born equal because as you pointed out, we sadly are not.

I think you missed my point. We evaluate people differently on their backgrounds already.

A 10 year old will be judged and rewarded in a favorable way compared to a 30 year old programmer. My example was to highlight the bias that people already acknowledge as fair. Poverty is a handicap in similar fashion. When we acknowledge the former in age should be judged more leniently and with grater praise, we refer to the statistical odds of a 10 year old being as good as a 30 year old and other 10 year olds.

That's the reality. You are refusing to accept it by removing the background of people in your hypothetical world. Fairness is not based on outcome.

Someone who never had access to computers, internet, mentors, etc would be judged differently compared to someone who always did. At least I would.

I take it you consider yourself born on the right side of "not equal", more specifically the "better" side?

See also the "original position" thought experiment:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_position

The notion of everyone being equal has to do with the equality under the rule of law, and nothing else. There can be no other categories of measures in that regard precisely because you cannot perform any meaningful measures across several different dimensions of differences. For instance, would you be able to make a meaningful measure of who is underprivileged the most - an orphan billionare who is not likeable by anyone in his close circle of "friends" or a poor family of 5 who regularly get invited to family dinners in their community? What are the standards?

People talk about it a lot but I don’t think there is any agreement on what fairness is.

Note that having a leader at all means someone has more power, and that’s inherently unequal, but most people think the benefits are worth it.

The law should be the leader. Sadly we have forgotten that.

then the people who write the laws become the leaders, except with a layer of obfuscation. how do we make laws that treat everyone equally?

> how do we make laws that treat everyone equally?

by stopping enacting laws that are oriented towards the abstract "society as a whole" and "benefits to the society as a whole", and by beginning treating an individual as the smallest minority in the world whose unalienable rights require protection from the crowd.

What’s truly unfortunate is how the people who can create such a cogent argument about the problems continue to enable them by bloviating at their screens on forums that don’t carry political weight, and avoid activities in general that do carry political weight.

Understand the politicians that most contribute to creating the problems are happy to absorb impotent rhetoric all day long.

Exceptional and gritty Americans will Grubhub, and social media, and otherwise luxuriate the country off a cliff rather than collectively get behind fairness in a real way.

> But from an economics standpoint it’s not a complete plan ...

I don't know much about the economics. Curious, how so?

> UBI is largely about symbolic equality, the kindergarten-level fairness of everyone getting the same amount. That’s important because symbols of equality are important.

IMHO, what you described is justice. Equality. Not kindergarten-level, or, rather, I guess it is, in the sense of it being fundamental to our moral understanding : ).

“In its majestic equality, the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets and steal loaves of bread.”

Most apparently-equal rules aren’t actually equal in their effects. Charging everyone the same amount usually hurts poor people more. UBI is one of the few apparently-equal policies that would likely help the poor more than the rich.

> In its majestic equality, the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets and steal loaves of bread.

Yes and on top of the obvious absurdity of this statement, there is a second level. As long as we punish things with fines they are effectively legal if you're rich enough.

Which kind of makes sense, because wealth is supposed to be a measure of one's contribution to society. You contributed more, you can get away with more.

> wealth is supposed to be a measure of one's contribution to society

That principle is only relevant in societies that don't have lotteries or inheritance, among other changes.

> wealth is supposed to be a measure of one's contribution to society

Curious where that idea comes from - source? Haven't encountered it.

I know that many people _think_ that, or _feel_ that way, but I haven't read anything (philosophy, political philosophy, etc), that actually theorizes it _should_ be that way, or that it really _is_ that way.

Tim Berners-Lee -- how much money does he have, and what is his contribution to society?

Or, the classic kindergarten teacher vs NBA player, etc.

I believe what commenter is suggesting is that the notion of "fairness" provided by UBI is too simplistic and easily fails to uphold that principle under any amount of scrutiny.

By simply asking the question "Who will pay for UBI and who will receive it", the degree to which it's "fair", "just", or "equal" becomes obviously nebulous

I didn't know UBI had anything to do with fair ... I thought it was a hopefully-pragmatic approach for creating a just and healthy society in our current era.

Whether it'll work or not, I know that's a larger question.

Also, I think it'd be more helpful if you would lead with what notion of fairness (why put it in quotes?) you yourself believe UBI represents.

Because it's possible that some people may agree with you, and others may not. And that would be a good starting point for discussion.

"Who will pay for corporate profits and who will receive it", the degree to which it's "fair", "just", or "equal" becomes obviously nebulous

>What UBI skeptical people want to know is where is the proof that we can afford to tax ourselves to pay ourselves, where is the proof that it won't hurt long term productivity, and where is the proof that it doesn't cause inflation. A 120 person 36 month trial program cannot answer any of these questions.

There is no proof that would actually appease you. There is no way you could measure the effect on inflation without having an entire currency on UBI. There is no way we could be sure about the macroeconomic effects of UBI without first implementing it.

> There is no proof that would actually appease you.

That's not a reason to not even try to offer anything though.

You could start with a trial of these 120 persons (select from all classes of society), give them UBI and double their taxes to make it realistic, because the UBI has to be paid somehow. If plenty of them would have less money during this trial and still find UBI worth it, that would be a strong signal.

Few people would agree to be part of that study though, and one might argue that those that would (i.e. by applying) won't be representative of society at large.

Testing only the spending side of UBI is fun but useless, especially with that setting.

>You could start with a trial of these 120 persons (select from all classes of society), give them UBI and double their taxes to make it realistic, because the UBI has to be paid somehow.

1. I'd image the poster would have the same objections. It's not large enough, etc.

2. Why double their taxes at all? You could just give them less UBI. I don't see how this makes any sense. What's point of having UBI if you have less money than you started out with. You've just invented a useless tax, which we already have in spades.

> What's point of having UBI if you have less money than you started out with.

It'd only be less money for some, not for all. Since UBI is largely a redistribution scheme, you'll have to test what happens to those who are supposed to fund it as well. Are they happy? Will they move out of your jurisdiction? Do they stop working as much and rely on UBI instead?

These are important questions we need answered before we roll out UBI at large. If it turns out that everybody who's not profiting from UBI says their good byes and leaves for other countries, you'll have nothing to fund the UBI, and likely nobody to produce any goods either.

I agree that having realistic tax rates in addition to a cash grant in the experiment is key to determining people's actual behavior.

What'd be ideal is if you could randomly select a group of people and force them into the system, like it or not. Then observe their behavioral changes. This is likely of dubious legality.

A second option would be to offer people upfront an amount of money equal to the extra taxes you expect them to have to pay. E.g., if someone pays $50k/year in taxes now and would pay $100k/year in taxes under a UBI, you offer them $150k in tax-exempt income immediately to join a three year program, and afterwards they can do anything they like, including changing labor choices such that they pay less than $100k/year in taxes. This would get the microeconomic incentives fairly similar to those under a real UBI.

One possible trial that would interest me is a UBI, implemented on a county-wide basis somewhere. It might be possible to find a county containing a single city, somewhere near the center so people can't easily just move immediately outside the border of where the UBI applies, where a high enough fraction of the people in that town are in favor of a UBI to pass some resolution to create a county-wide income or property tax that funds a county-wide basic income.

The issue with that is that I suspect higher-level governments (state, federal) would decide that

a. An individual county imposing taxes that high is illegal b. UBI benefits must be paid out immediately to all residents of the city upon moving there (and now every poor person everywhere wants to move to your city).

Still, maybe there's a clever way to try it out in a fairly self-contained system?

That would certainly be a good start. People moving there because of UBI is expected in general, so it would also yield valuable results in that regard. There's the ethical issue of forcing people to be part of the experiment that really don't want to, even if you give them the option to move.

I don't know whether there are upper limits on local taxes. One of Germany's local funding is business tax ("Gewerbesteuer"), which communities regulate by setting their multiplier, the lower limit is 200% (of the taxation base), with most between 350% and 450%. The highest I know of is 900%.

Property tax also varies between 200% (minimum) and 1800% (according to Wikipedia), so there's some room as well.

Combined with an initial donation, that may be possibl. If it's somewhere where people don't naturally move to (e.g. not a major population center), the moving-effect might be very welcome as well, repopulating the area.

What about introducing UBI in Iceland? Only 364K population, and they have their own currency :)

If it is true that you cannot experimentally determine the impact, that's a pretty good reason to never try UBI.

>If it is true that you cannot experimentally determine the impact, that's a pretty good reason to never try UBI.

Ok, so we should never try anything related to macroeconomics? Let's also never change the tax rate ever again.

By that argument, and given the rigorousness of economics as a field, pretty much no policy should ever be implemented.

As a general supporter of UBI, I'm not sure there is any way to actually test UBI without just implementing it at full scale. The U is an important part of it and like you said the expectation of permanence is crucial to seeing a change in long term planning and behaviors.

The closest thing we've got to a full scale implementation is the state pension system, and various related natural experiments like 'does raising the pension age make people of that age group more likely to continue working'. It's obviously also far from a perfect experiment due to people at the bottom of the pension age bracket being somewhat different from the median working age person, but there's a reason why UBI advocates won't derive any conclusions from it at all...

My mostly anecdotal observation is that many people with US military pensions for example do tend to time retirements around pensions. But I don't know the numbers. I would assume that there have been studies related to how many people actually retire after 20 years where, I believe, they get 50% of their pay. (And what they do when they retire.) I'm not aware of such studies but I would think there's some insight there.

The main flaw is that one of the concerns with UBI is that many people might never start working and by the time they realize that UBI isn't enough, it may be too late. OTOH, someone who has been in the military for 20 years may well decide to retire early but that's a different situation.

I figure we are only ever going to get a real answer when either some very wealthy government (Norway?) or deeply troubled government (Greece?) decides to chance the country on it.

Test it in production.

... which is a terrible idea

That is how a decent chuck of macroeconomics works. There are some things that exist at such a scale that you can't accurately experiment with them. You can only theorize, run models or simulations, and observe real world results after implementation.

This is the main issue of macroeconomics as a science. There is not a "control Germany" subjected to the same history that the actual one, that can be observed in parallel to ascertain if a macroeconomic policy is beneficial or not.

The problem is that anything besides regulated capitalism with some social features built in has utterly failed. And when it fails, it fails HARD.

So implementing something so drastic without knowing if it'll work is extremely risky.

>The problem is that anything besides regulated capitalism with some social features built in has utterly failed. And when it fails, it fails HARD.

Would you say that every country on the planet is either "capitalism with some social features built in" or is currently failing hard? And if all those systems are capitalistic, what specifically pushes UBI over the edge into being something that isn't capitalism? From an implementation perspective, UBI is simply an adjustment of the income tax rate including allowing that rate to be negative. It has nothing to do with ownership, markets, or many of the other mainstays of capitalism.

> Would you say that every country on the planet is either "capitalism with some social features built in" or is currently failing hard?

Yes, if by the overcomplicated first description you mean modern mixed economies (which are more accurately descended from capitalism than actual capitalism), and those groups overlap, too.

> And if all those systems are capitalistic, what specifically pushes UBI over the edge into being something that isn't capitalism?

Nothing, it's well-within the broad outline of the modern mixed economy.

> From an implementation perspective, UBI is simply an adjustment of the income tax rate including allowing that rate to be negative. It has nothing to do with ownership, markets, or many of the other mainstays of capitalism.

I think it's debatable whether downward redistributive taxation/spending does or does not conflict with mainstays of capitalism (I think it doesz in a good way), but in any case that's a feature of modern mixed economies generally, and UBI isn't really a difference in kind. Where UBI perhaps is more at odds with capitalism than traditional mixed economy welfare programs is in weakening the divide between the chronically excluded and the working class (the lumpenproletariat and the proletariat, to use the Marxist terms), which I think is arguably an important feature of capitalism that is underappreciated specifically because Marxist-inspired socialists don't usually directly address it, especially in a transitional rather than revolutionary concept, because they viee empowering the lumpenproletariat as dangerous because they view that class as prone to recruitment as paid agents, though not actual class allies, of the bourgeoisie while not being effectively organizable against the bourgeoisie.

Why is UBI the thing that plunges us into full blown socialism, and not the myraid of other social safety nets?

I didn't call it socialism. It's certainly not full blown socialism. All I'm saying is that it's a massive, risky change.

The current social safety nets are not as drastic as something like a $1400/mon stipend for everyone in the country (as Germany is trying). That's $5 trillion a year in the US. That over doubles spending right there.

In 2019 the US federal government had $3.5 trillion in revenues and $4.4 trillion in spending. Add another $5 trillion -> $9.4 trillion in spending with $3.5 trillion in revenues. We'd have to almost triple our revenues!

I know there are plans to pay for it, and it's probably possible. But you can't deny that it is drastic.

It's very dangerous to implement such drastic changes to the economy. And the consequences of getting it wrong are horrific.

Not true.

Testing in production (with rollbacks and safeguards) is actually how things are done in many endeavors in life, especially with processes that are reversible or where the cost of mistakes are bounded. Reality is a better teacher than a simulation. This it not to put down tests -- it has its place -- but in complex systems, it's impossible to have comprehensive coverage. Stochastic things show up in real life that never show up in tests.

In software, you just keep building up your test suite. In complex stochastic systems, you'll have a much harder time building tests.

Software people have a notion that the world should be TDD-driven, but it doesn't really work like that.

Unfortunately, we don't have a test environment. And the last time we tried to make one, it became a case-study in an ethics textbook.

I imagine a permanent study with a few hundred people is still a lot easier to implement than permanent UBI for everyone.

A permanent study would allow you to observe behavioral changes among that group of people, but it won't provide insight into the societal changes. For example, what is UBI's impact on inflation and would it result in inflation that negates some or all the benefit of UBI? Or will a society with UBI still be able to fill that society's less desirable jobs in a financially sustainable way?

It'd still net us more information though. If it works out at least the permanency aspect is answered, and if it doesn't, then maybe we need to reconsider UBI fundamentally.

They also only give the money to a small number of people

Not to mention that the real question is whether UBI makes sense economically, not whether people like money, which is almost indisputable

Strip away the clickbait 'Germany begins' headline and it's 'a pro-UBI lobbying group adds 120 people to its latest trial'

The thing about government programs that hand out cash is that the money will be circulated back into the local economy most of the time, which is a net benefit (I think it would be a net positive if the money was required to be spent locally if the beneficiary makes above a certain income). It's not like it's getting thrown down a black hole. Even if a person is making great money, that additional money is more likely to be spent on higher quality local services, aside from online purchases from places like Amazon.

In some real economic sense the money is gone, though. Think for a moment of money not as some abstract numbers, but a representation of a claim on actual, real resources and suppose for example you go for a haircut, stop at a cafe on the way back, have a coffee and a pastry, all in the local economy. The resources you've consumed - the coffee and food, the workers' time, the space in the cafe and barbers - all those are gone, they don't recirculate. When that money gets spent, the person spending it is claiming a whole new set of resources with (in a sense) new money created through the process of it circulating within the economy.

One interesting corollary of this is that speeding up the recirculation of money increases the money supply and slowing it down decreases it, just as though some central bank was actually printing or destroying money. This is particularly relevant right now, when a lot of countries seem to be running the metaphorical money printers flat out and the circulation of money has been temporarily impaired by extremely limited things to spend it on.

>The thing about government programs that hand out cash is that the money will be circulated back into the local economy most of the time, which is a net benefit

How is taxing the local economy to spend in the local economy (and some abroad) a net benefit? That's just transfer payments with some friction loss.

> How is taxing the local economy to spend in the local economy (and some abroad) a net benefit?

Taxing the rich, who have a lower marginal propensity to consume and consume locally, and transferring to the poor, who have a higher marginal propensity to consume and to do so locally, increases the local velocity of money.

that increases the consumption of resources while reducing the incentive to create more.

What do you think rich people do with the money they don't use to consume with?

Taxing the national economy, with distribution locally.

IE, tax a wealthy NYer, transfer to a poor Appalachian, and the Appalachian economy sees a small boost.

... with the added friction of a UBI system. In most Western countries, you'll also have plenty of transfers to other countries, recent immigrants supporting their families, buying properties in "the old country" etc. Being able to do just that is a major incentive for immigration, both within Europe and from outside Europe.

That's development aid with extra steps then. Granted, you might argue that it's more efficient than regular development aid since it's bottoms up, not top down, but still. It's not going to re-circulate in the same economy that it's taxed out of.

The argument is generally that a single UBI system has lower friction than many disparate social support programs.

The goal is to remove food stamps, income insurance (the dole, welfare, whatever you want to call it), rent subsidies, etc. All replaced with a single cash payment. Fewer programs, no income validation, no enforcement action after the fact, etc.

This also has the benefit of reducing friction on the consumption side. No need to exchange food stamps for cash at 50% face value in order to by beer, just take some of the cash and buy beer. Empower individuals to live how they want.

Yeah, but that'll only go so far, because we have very different social programs, e.g. somebody with severe disabilities receives far more (and means-tested) than somebody who just doesn't want to work. That won't change with UBI, so we'll mostly just replace welfare/rent subsidies (which are, at least in Germany, handled by the same agency and are essentially the same thing, only some will only get rent subsidies but no cash). There's obviously some overhead, but it's not a lot, and it's nowhere near enough where not having to spend it would make a dent in the UBI costs; it's not like we spend 2 euros in administrative cost for every euro we pay out.

> No need to exchange food stamps for cash at 50% face value in order to by beer, just take some of the cash and buy beer. Empower individuals to live how they want.

It's been that way for quite a long time in Germany, cash is the default, vouchers are only a thing in rare cases where the cash component (~400Euros/month; rent, healthcare, utilities etc are paid directly) is reduced by more than 30% due to penalties so people can still buy food. Generally, people get cash and are free to spend it as they see fit.

A large problem with "cash only" (e.g. rent etc not paid directly) is that there's a significant number of people who are unable to handle money. I know, because I live next to some of them. If you give them 1100 euros instead of 400 in cash + 700 in rent and healthcare payments, you'll get plenty of people who spend their 1100 euros on things other than rent. And in that case, you'll either have to accept that they'll become homeless (and we won't accept that), or you have to still pay their rent directly, on top of whatever cash you give them.

I would like to see a source for that if you could provide one :)

If I was working full-time and could live comfortably off that plus extra UBI, I think the majority of people would spend it on more luxurious goods (phones, laptops, drugs, etc.) which are mostly ran by/on outside/blackmarket economies...

We're not sure of the magic number/ratio between "person will use UBI for basic, locally-sourced needs" vs. "person will use UBI for 'wants', sourced elsewhere" and I think there's so many factors that it will be hard (almost impossible) to come up with a palpable answer.

Source? Reality. Look at the savings and investment rates for the poor. Where do you think the money is going? Most people still source their large purchases locally, even if it's at a store chain, which keeps the local economy going because there are plenty of services used at those stores that are local.

A guy who goes and buys a nice new luxury TV from a local Best Buy is still supporting local businesses indirectly because that Best Buy is going to have multiple contracts with local businesses for services.

> What UBI skeptical people want to know is where is the proof that we can afford to tax ourselves to pay ourselves

What UBI skeptics seem to be avoiding, ignoring, or unaware of, is just how prevalent this situation already is. Most of the UBI fans I know want to replace the overlapping, redundant, and inefficient welfare systems currently in place with a simple, efficient, and universal benefit.

How inefficient are welfare systems, and how is that measured?

One measure is the amount of unclaimed benefits, which can amount to billions of pounds per year in the UK:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17139088

To play devil's advocate here:

Yes, with UBI we're basically taxing ourselves to pay ourselves, it will hurt productivity and will cause inflation.

But at least in a country like Germany, where I live, that is already happening for decades via our ever-growing, convoluted, amounts of government welfare programs, subsidies and redistribution schemes.

A UBI would then at least have the benefit of cutting out the bureaucrat middle man.

If UBI means giving everyone 18 and older $1,400 per month (like in this trial) then it is simply unaffordable and unrealistic, even for Germany.

If this expense is compensated by extra taxes on individuals then it is pointless.

If it means making sure that unemployed people receive a guaranteed minimum income then it already exists.

If it means merging all benefits into a single one then it is just a simplication and also already exists, e.g. recently in the UK.

UBI, as in 'everyone gets a payment', only makes sense if there is a source of wealth that does not depend on people to tap into. That's why it is often discussed in the context of massive automation, because then it has merit (basically robots work and you receive their 'wages').

You should read Andrew Yang's plan on how to pay for it. It is far more affordable than you think.

You do not say what this plan is and what UBI you are talking about.

In my example, which is what this trial does, it is plainly unaffordable.

Read his plan

If you can't even summarise how his plan would be affordable in this discussion then... I'll draw my conclusions.

That's a good summary of UBI, actually: It's great, please let's not get bogged down on details like financing.

Read his plan. I won’t do it justice in a couple of sentences here

> ...where is the proof that it won't hurt long term productivity, and where is the proof that it doesn't cause inflation[?]

Assuming we could obtain reliable proof that UBI reduces productivity and/or increases inflation, that doesn't necessarily imply that it's an undesirable policy. The economy exists to serve humanity, not to maximize productivity or minimize inflation. It's certainly possible that a policy could provide an overall benefit to humanity while simultaneously reducing economic productivity and/or increasing inflation by some amount.

The economy is not some ethereal beast that we must tame into doing our bidding. It is the way we measure production, consumption, and trade by humans. It cannot "serve" anyone. It is you and me and everyone else behaving in rational self interest.

Ok, then let’s abolish all laws regarding economic activity (including private property) and abandon any related social conventions. Apparently they’re superfluous.

> No, they prove that people who are in a program that is very clearly temporary will not end their careers for a short pilot program. This means nothing.

They provide lower bounds on the amount of time you can offer a guaranteed income without adverse effects on people's employment. Going to an extreme, if you offer people a 40 year UBI and they don't quit, then that's pretty damn strong evidence. 3 years offers some evidence; for particular subpopulations with short time horizons, if they keep on working for three years on UBI, I'd bet almost arbitrary amounts of money they'll keep on working indefinitely.

> No. If you make $1k from a job and $1k from a pilot program each month, you spend the $1k from the pilot on legitimate bills and now you have $1k to spend however you like. The study can't trace that money. (This isn't to say everyone on UBI uses it for drugs, rather, it's to point out that you cannot deduce they don't just by tracing the way the transfer payments are spent)

I believe these studies rely on self-reported alcohol etc consumption. The issues with self-reported consumption are already well-known and well-characterized.

> No kidding. You gave someone several thousand dollars no strings attached in a situation where neither taxes nor inflation would rise as a result.

These things are always worth verifying. One of the criticisms against a UBI is that it'll create a population of depressed losers who never interact with society. If people's lives and happiness are improved, that addresses that criticism.

> What UBI skeptical people want to know is where is the proof that we can afford to tax ourselves to pay ourselves, where is the proof that it won't hurt long term productivity, and where is the proof that it doesn't cause inflation. A 120 person 36 month trial program cannot answer any of these questions.

Could anything short of a full UBI implementation work as proof for you? If not, can you suggest what would? If, say, you took a random selection of 1000 people and promised them a lifelong UBI, and their labor force participation and levels of happiness stayed the same over the first ten years of the program, would that serve as proof to you?

> if you offer people a 40 year UBI and they don't quit, then that's pretty damn strong evidence

I think that isn't a correct assumption either.

40 yeas is a long time. Longer than many HN readers here have been alive.

In the last 40 years, how many times has the government performed an about-face on some economic policy or whatever? Too many times for someone to just throw away their career until sufficient time has passed that is becomes part of society. That may take an entire generation (see Social Security in the US, which now is a permanent fixture).

By the same token, even passing a law that implemented an all-population UBI isn't a good test for a UBI, because people might not trust that the government will continue funding it.

Until it becomes an "institution", like Social Security has in present day US.

That could be a generation or longer before knowing the actual effects, and by then (as-with Social Security) it'll be practically too late to make a course correction.

Two points:

1) Even now, plenty of people take into account the possible dissolution of Social Security or (more likely) changes to its benefit formula in their financial planning.

2) Longer time horizons could always have a hypothetical effect. You say a half century of a policy can't predict a hundred years of a policy; someone can just as well say a hundred years of a policy can't predict two hundred years of a policy.

In the long run, though, we're all dead, and the economic landscape is going to be so radically different in a century that it's pointless to predict how a particular policy will fare then. Someone in 1934 making predictions of the effects of Social Security in 2034 would be so far off as to not even be wrong. See, for example, Alf Landon's criticisms of the program then, which don't correspond at all with what its critics today don't like about it.

Maybe I mispoke my point.

It wasn't that 40 years of policy won't be enough to convince people to trust in said policy - it's the "promise" of a 40 year policy that isn't enough to convince people to trust in said policy.

Just telling people to trust the policy will be held strong for a least the next 40 years will not automatically convince people to quit their jobs and all the other possible outcomes of UBI. People who've grown up and spent a major portion of their life without UBI will likely remain skeptical, and mostly will not depend wholly on it for income.

Rather, it will, possibly take a generation of people growing up with UBI all their life before we start to see the actual societal changes UBI might affect. By then, it might be too late to make a change since there will be a generation of people who've come to depend on the government's hand for their basic needs.

> No, they prove that people who are in a program that is very clearly temporary will not end their careers for a short pilot program. This means nothing.

This argument reads like a strawman, and is detached from reality.

The argument about the risk of people quitting their job because of basic income is based on the idea that those who are forced to work shitty jobs to have a source of income (i.e., wage slavery) won't have to subject themselves to it if they already have a source of income.

More importantly, people who live in wage slavery don't have careers, they have a job. They are bound to an activity or even an employer who ensures they have a paycheck as long as they do their job. I mean, do you honestly believe that a minimum wage job doing non-specialized tasks that anyone anywhere can do and can replace you in a moment's notice counts as a career? Of course it isn't. It's just something you do to pay the bills. Do you honestly believe no one would quit that as soon as they have a way to pay the bills?

> No. If you make $1k from a job and $1k from a pilot program each month, you spend the $1k from the pilot on legitimate bills and now you have $1k to spend however you like.

Your take on the program is very disingenuous, specially in the way you try to frame the old job as being the provider of all the brand new goodies and luxuries and fancy spending while the new source of income adds nothing more beyond taking care of the expenses that were already taken care of.

Suffice to say, I'd participants were stuck with their old income, they wouldn't be able to afford anything, would they?

Basic income supplies an income baseline. That means people cease to be tied to a repulsive job just to make ends meet. How they generate disposable income is up to them. With basic income you're free to pick high-reward but low-paying jobs, or even no job at all if you are willing to live a frugal life. That's the kind of change that will be studied in these programs.

taxes will definitely rise, inflation I don't think so.

Everyone has been saying that everything will be so much more expensive if we just dumped money onto the market. Well that already happened, did anything got more expensive? Stocks, but what else?

If things became more expensive, then people can compete to reduce that price in the market. For some reason detractors of UBI have a micro focus on the demand side of equation.

"What UBI skeptical people want to know is where is the proof that we can afford to tax ourselves to pay ourselves, where is the proof that it won't hurt long term productivity, and where is the proof that it doesn't cause inflation. A 120 person 36 month trial program cannot answer any of these questions."

Yes, but some skeptics really do object to UBI on moral-based reasons - indolence, buying drugs, laziness, and the joy of work and all that. If it turned out that all the money went to drugs and people got depressed, it would be a good argument against UBI.

Will it? People will just say we need better mental health treatments.

I don't think there is a good argument against UBI that they'll accept. But of course, they don't answer the real question which is who's gonna do all the producing?

The ones producing are clearly gonna be the ones being taken advantage of on UBI, even if it works 100% as expected.

I wouldn’t really call it “being taken advantage of”.. in a real UBI, you’d only produce something if you were going to get paid enough that you want to do it.

Nobody will have to produce anything they don’t want to, now that the UBI removes the fear of where their next meal will come from. I know I personally would still want to produce things to take home MORE than the UBI.

Well, the UBI money you get would be used to buy something that someone else has produced (an iPhone, a piece of bread, a bottle of wine, etc.). In this sense, the UBI that you are getting represents _goods_ that _someone else_ is producing (and "donating" into the system in the form of taxes). I find this easier to reason about when you take the concept of "money" out of the equation.

So,oOption A is that you "donate" more goods into the system than the UBI you are consuming, which is all fine and dandy for the rest of us. Option B is that you are consuming more value that you are donating, which is less fun for the rest.

So, some people will need to overproduce in order for the people who under-produce to get their UBI worth of goods. Mind you, this isn't different than the current state of affairs. The big question for me is how would the introduction of UBI ultimately affect that ratio, given that you would be less disincentivized to stay with the underproducing group?

> The big question for me is how would the introduction of UBI ultimately affect that ratio, given that you would be less disincentivized to stay with the underproducing group?

The “given” is backwards. Compared to existing means-tested welfare systems, UBI funded by additional high-end taxes provides less disincentive to move out of the underproducing group.

If the minimum support level provided by UBI is used (in whole or in part) to offset and reduce minimum wage, it also reduces the barriers to people moving immediately to a less-inderprodicing level, and eventually up and out of the underproducing group.

> If the minimum support level provided by UBI is used (in whole or in part) to offset and reduce minimum wage, it also reduces the barriers to people moving immediately to a less-inderprodicing level, and eventually up and out of the underproducing group.

You can get rid of minimal wage with or without UBI. In fact Germany just recently introduced minimum wage - there was none before. The lack of it was clearly not regarded as boon to the society. The barrier effect is minimal, if any.

I agree this is already the state of affairs.. some people generate more goods/services/value than they consume (and build wealth), others do not.

I think everything would still work out fine with a UBI because we’d still have the most market forces at play (compared to all other social welfare/safety net/redistribution schemes). If it turns out the UBI is too high, the people who produce will have to raise prices for goods to find equilibrium again. If it’s not, prices will stay the same (or drop). Overall though, it’s the most efficient way to make sure nobody starves, even those who for some reason or other just can’t compete in the future economy.

I think once we have a UBI people will look back to the days before it like we look back at the hunter-gatherer days today, “I can’t believe in the early 21st century everybody HAD to work, just to survive!”

Open source developers are living in the future without the monthly paycheck. It is delayed because some people on HN have hijacked it.

If we were a space-faring people with automated robots doing space mining, collecting and processing materials, if there was no shortage of resources and nearly everything was automated - then sure, fine, people can have their utopian space-communism, culture-series, setup where everyone gets free money and can have whatever they want, and do whatever we want.

But we're so many lightyears away from that situation. Our resources are very much limited. If people don't keep producing, we just stagnate and decay. We're nowhere near the point we need to be.

I wish could get an overall rational argument FOR UBI, so I could at least debate it.

From what I see, it's madness. The economics make zero sense.

For example ; Canada. The Federal Government. (All of this speaks of the Federal Government).

https://www.canada.ca/en/department-finance/services/publica...

2019 Federal Revenue? $312B. That's from taxes, income from oil, any and all Federal revenue.

Now. UBI. Universal Basic Income. That means everyone over 17 gets it, as an example. That also means it must cover the basics. That you can live on it.

That's the whole point of UBI, and being "free to choose career paths", and all that other blather.

That, to me, means $2k/month. Maybe that will scale, up AND down, depending upon where you live. But let's just go with $2k/month. Or $24k/year.

Stats Canada says, out of almost 40M Canadians, around 30M are 18 and older.

What's $24k30M? 720B.

So.. the entire Federal Revenue is less than 1/2 of what UBI might cost.

Now bear in mind, that there was a deficit* in Canada, about $20B. And there is currently a debt in Canada, of about 1.1T. The GoC will say it's less, 800B, but that's if they 'use assets of 300B and deduct that from actual debt", which is meaningless, because interest on debt is on 1.1T.

Right now, 8% of Federal Revenue pays just the interest on that debt. If interest rates go up, say in a year or two.. so goes up that payment.

My point is that one year of UBI, would almost DOUBLE the ENTIRE FEDERAL DEBT. A Federal Debt that arose after decades, not one year.

If you half UBI? Now it's not basic income, it's just a supplement.

And you absolutely, positively can't get that money from taxes. About 25% of people's income is taxed (yes, that's an average), that's gas tax, income tax, federal sales tax, tax on alcohol, and other such things. My point here is, you can't just double the tax.

And, the above Federal Revenue? There is a pie chart, just under 50% of Federal Revenue came from personal tax.

You could increase taxes on business, but are you going to tax 100% of their profit? Because that still won't cover it.

Let's tax the rich you say! Well, most money is invested. For example:

https://financialpost.com/executive/posthaste-canadas-3-mill...

Note, that's ONLY 8.7 trillion. UBI is 720B for one year.

And, what are you going to do?

Seize people's real estate? Then what? Sell it again? To whom? Certainly not the people you just seized it from.

Are you going to tax ... what? Because, "wealth" is real estate, stocks, companies one owns, land, more. Are you going to seize stocks? Then what? Hold on to them? How does that fund UBI?

Are you going to seize companies? Great! Now that software company, valued at 100B, is worth $1, because the original owners are out, and they were the magic, and a government isn't going to be able to run something like that.

None of the logic behind UBI seems to make sense to me. I can't see where the cash is coming from.

This doesn't even include things like inflation, loss of productivity, or 100 other little things that are "just going to work themselves out".

This version of UBI (granted, without the U), would cost $43B [0]. I'm guessing what would actually be implemented would cost more, but $720B is certainly too high.

Your post doesn't mention:

- Savings from scrapping other welfare programs

- Decreased healthcare and law enforcement costs and other economic benefits of bringing millions of people out of poverty

- Massive stimulus leading to increased government revenue

I'm not saying it would be cheap, but your post only includes the costs and not the benefits.

[0] https://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/what-would-a-guarant...

This is what I often see from UBI supporters though.

For example, why is my post too high. I state simply, "here are the number of people over 18" and "here is the amount to pay".

You say "Oh, that's too high." What?. Why! Why is it too high. What part of it. It is very, very, very simple math.

Instead, you quote an article from Macleans. Yet that article says Ontario's (not Canada's) UBI program suggested at the time, wasn't really UBI! And that on top of that, it was a flawed study!

In other words, you linked to an article showing how wrong Ontario was. How does this support the assertion that my costs are too high. The Macleans article even supports my position, because it discusses how 'reverse taxation' and 'excluding people' is not UBI, but instead modified, partial welfare. It's not universal, which is the much of the point of UBI.

You say, scrapping other welfare programs. Well, we must look at provincial numbers here, for that is a provincial responsibility.

Here is an example of the costs associated with welfare, child support, and more at the provincial level. And this is Ontario, Canada's most populous province:

https://www.thestar.com/politics/provincial/2019/04/11/socia...

https://www.ontario.ca/page/public-accounts-2018-19-annual-r... (Scroll down to Expense)

"Children's and Social services sector"

So yup, $17B.

What about EI, you say? The savings there? Well, it works as a cash positive. It is paid for by separate EI taxes (paid by employer and employee), has its own fund, and so if you axe EI?

You have to remove $21B from the federal revenue from $312B to $291B. And I should note, that EI covers things like retraining, so you'd actually lose some social programs, if you just axed EI, and moved to UBI all by itself.

So let's just take Ontario, and try to work out welfare for all the provinces. Here's where it gets a little bit complex. In Canada, we have equalization payments. Part of Federal tax is paid to the 'have not' provinces, which are poorer, and therefore need extra capital to maintain an equal quality of life.

This means that some of the federal budget, of that $321B income, is also being used along with provincial funds, to fund things like welfare in some provinces. That means if, say, NewFoundLand pays $x for its welfare budget, maybe even 50% of that revenue might come from the Federal Government.

But, let's just be quick and easy about this, and say Ontario has about 40% of Canada's population (15M), and that the "over 18" bit scales. So, 17B x 2.6 = $44B.

Of course, the "Children's and Social services sector" isn't just about welfare. For example, EI handles retraining, including some 'back to school' programs. That would vanish if it was just dropped, with a move to UBI. And maybe that's OK! But the point is there, and valid, and means it isn't a perfect change-over.

Which means it applies to a generic budget for a huge "Children's and Social services sector" category.

But OK. We've reduced the cost of UBI from $720M to a wonderful $676B. You don't remove EI, because if you remove EI, you remove EI tax.

The other benefits? Sure, they exist, at least, probably. I think they do, too.

Yet.. what does that have to do with paying for it? Understand here, the sheer cost I'm discussing. Please do the math. Please discuss how to pay for it fully.

Because things like "stimulus" and "reduced law enforcement costs" are .. what? Going to equal 4x the entire federal budget? You're literally going to switch to UBI, and the Federal Government will see its budget grow 4x?

How?

You're right - if you don't plan at all and just give everyone 2k per month, it's too expensive. In the strictest sense, UBI is impossible.

In most versions of the plan I've seen, the cost is not as simple as (population over 18) * (monthly amount). If you're looking for a breakdown of the math, check this out:

https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/bicn/pages/57/attachme...

srveale, the ENTIRE point of UBI, is:

- universal - basic

Basic costs met. Paid to EVERYONE.

Part of the "cost saving measures" are "not using complex schemes to determine eligibility to programs".

Further, if all you're wanting to do is guarantee a minimum income, that's not UBI! Not even remotely! It's simply a form of welfare, and shifting taxation under the guise of UBI.

Further, the whole concept of "I'm on EI, or I'm on welfare, but if I start working my income will drop, so what's the point" is another core concept of UBI.

When you start whittling away at these core concepts, when you bring back in the 'should this person get it' judgement and work to evaluate, prosecute if fraudulent, side of things? When you bring back in "Your income drops if you have other income" side of things?

You're just invaliding the entire point of it all.

It's not UBI.

So when people discuss UBI, please don't start talking about something entirely non-UBI.

You're arguing against a proposal which nobody in power is seriously advocating. Anyone whose done the same math as what's in your original post can come to the same conclusion that you have.

I've offered up a modified proposal, with links showing actual experts and politicians debating merits and drawbacks, including budgetary analysis. Because there isn't enough money for a naive UBI, we have to make compromises including increasing complexity and risk of fraud, but the general principle remains the same and the benefits are still there. And we already have fraud and complexity - these would be greatly reduced under the proposal, just not completely eliminated.

Based on comments like "I'm on EI, or I'm on welfare, but if I start working my income will drop, so what's the point," I can see that you haven't fully understood the structure of the proposal. There's no way that getting a job would net you less income.

I'm not invalidating anything. Please don't get caught up in semantics.

"Right now, 8% of Federal Revenue pays just the interest on that debt. If interest rates go up, say in a year or two.. so goes up that payment."

Canada has a fiat currency. Thus the Canadian government can set the interest rate on federal debt to zero.

http://multiplier-effect.org/modern-money-theory-how-i-came-...

Permanent ZIRP (zero interest rate policy) is probably a better policy since it reduces the compounding of debt and the tendency for the rentier class to take over more of the economy

OK, read. I still don't see anything but, well, a lot of "this should" and "here's why". Maybe I'm missing something, but where is the for-profit motive for banks to lend, for absolutely no return?

Further, where is the pressure to pay back debt, if there is no interest. When not just run up the debt forever? Just use the banks to create more and more cash, forever? And who cares about the effect on other parts of the economy.

What bothers me with things like this, is they are all band-aids. And not even thought out, as far as I can tell, with how the rest of the economy is going to have to function. To change. To be modified, to fit the new.

I'm OK with change. I don't mind a new system. I see the coming issues with increased automation, agree something will have to be done, but just slapping a patch here and there isn't feasible at times.

You have to remodel the whole, to fit the new.

All I can see here, is "let's just change this", and "who cares what happens elsewhere".

Yet, why would I, as a banker, lend to the government at all? For no profit? And with no ability to force repayment, and no pressure on the government (interest payments) to repay, or even stop borrowing more?

"Maybe I'm missing something, but where is the for-profit motive for banks to lend, for absolutely no return?"

You're definitely missing something, because private lenders are perfectly free to charge interest. ZIRP applies only to federal debt.

"Yet, why would I, as a banker, lend to the government at all?"

Currency issuers never need to borrow. That is an incorrect statement of why Federal debt exists. Federal debt is a savings instrument, and as Europe and other negative interest rate debt has shown, there is still a market for savings instruments even at the zero lower bound.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-08-15/negative-...

"Negative-Yielding Debt Hits Record $16 Trillion on Curve Fright"

"You're definitely missing something, because private lenders are perfectly free to charge interest. ZIRP applies only to federal debt."

As I understand it, the Canadian Federal debt is held through a variety of instruments, quite a lot of it domestically. EG, Royal Bank, TD Bank, etc.

Whether it is bonds, or some other instrument, they all pay interest. That debt exists, is owed, and yet you're saying "Just don't pay that interest"?

I don't think that's what you mean. I think you're being somewhat terse in your responses here.

For example, maybe you mean "As time passes, and new debt replaces the old". Or, "Stop issuing debit in way $x, and instead, do it in way $y".

Yet the GoC surely does not pay interest for zero reason, or cause. Clearly, there is some reason for using these instruments, such as, getting lenders to ... lend.

If you are advocating an entire policy shift, with massive ramifications to the overall method in which the GoC raises, and treats debt ; OK.. fine. Yet entire economic model shifts aren't easily conveyed by the terseness I'm seeing here.

And the articles you are pointing to, aren't really helpful, nor describe precisely what shift-in-thought you're referring to.

"Whether it is bonds, or some other instrument, they all pay interest. That debt exists, is owed, and yet you're saying "Just don't pay that interest"?"

I'm saying it's wrong to create federal bonds with an interest rate that is far different from zero.

The rules are different between currency issuers (nations with a fiat currency) and currency users (citizens, municipalities, provinces, nations on the gold standard).

Currency issuers have a unique ability to guarantee that you will hold an exact amount of the currency on a given date. No currency user can make that guarantee.

Because currency issuers can guarantee repayment on debt in their own currency, the repayment risk on the debt is strictly and exactly zero. Thus the interest rate on that debt should always be very close to zero if not exactly zero.

The fact that Canadian government debt pays high interest rates merely tells you that the government did things wrong in the past.

For clarity, all of the above is Federal.

There are provincial taxes, budgets, etc. SO when I say '25% of people's income is taxed', that's federal tax.

Three years is more security than basically any normal person has in our society. It's certainly enough time to spend 2.5 years playing computer games and then go job hunting again. It's also enough time to get a serious qualification (not a full degree sadly).

I don't think this is perfect. Proof is hard to come by in social "science". But this seems a lot better than most other ubi "studies" to me...

They should do a lottery system. Instead of giving $300 million to one person, give 1,000 people $1,000 / mo for life and see what happens.

I'm puzzled why we can't phase it in over time. Start with $100/month. The US can handle that. And then ramp it up as we see fit.

Once you had a basic income like this it would have the nice effect of then being able to talk about (and implement) other policies in a revenue-neutral way.

For example a government interested in reducing CO2 emissions could introduce a tax on motor fuel of say £1/litre and balance that with an increase of the basic income of £75/month.

The purpose of the UBI is to replace welfare systems by ensuring every citizen receives roughly enough money for the average person to live off. Paying everybody nowhere near enough to live off [and keeping the welfare state in place] doesn't tell us very much about how they would respond to that. Though one advantage over the small scale studies would be finding out how much citizens push back against even a comparatively small tax rise to pay for it....

One of the problems with UBI is that a lot of people who need support can't live off what the average person needs to live off. People with disabilities etc. may well need more, so UBI doesn't replace as much as its proponents sometimes suggest.

Let's vote for the candidate which will give us the most money... seems like a slippery slope

Still, skeptics like might have 1000 reasons why it won't work, such small studies could reduce the 1000 to a smaller number. If the study would have failed you would probably be happy and not argue that it was not correct and we should do it on a full country. If the study fails we give up, then if it does not fail we can try new larger studies.

Who said that any empirical study could prove anything? Except in mathematics you simply cannot prove anything. There is no way to guarantee that with UBI the things you mention won‘t happen. In the same vein, there is no way to guarantee that those things won‘t happen WITHOUT UBI.

The mindset of holding things constant is pretty short sighted in a world where things are radically changing. We have to reinvent and adjust our societies as we go along and learn from our collective experiences. Trials like this help us collect data about the consequences of complex interventions and seem to be a useful way to test the waters.

Exactly. Until an entire nation with its own currency tries this there is no way to measure the effects.

To me economics is about natural law, which is inescapable. Money is value and it is not nature's way to give something of value for nothing.

I mean, these are pilots.

They absolutely could result in the participants quitting their jobs, or just spending the money on booze and drugs and becoming unproductive and unhappy.

This appears to not be the case so far, so the results may justify a larger-scale, longer-term program, which may eventually provide enough evidence for a smaller nation or state to take the leap of rolling out a full-fledged UBI.

You're interested in the scalability of the thing, but we're still in the proof-of-concept phase, merely trying to deduce whether or not the idea actually has any potential, or if it's completely dead-on-arrival.

You are suggesting that these are quotes from the article. They are not. Also in the linked interview one of the scientists leading the study openly admits these points: “We cannot simulate a world of UBI. [...] We will not find out anything about these economic consequences, not even about possible power shifts between employers and employees, the amount of net costs or the effects on migration.” This study is meant to add data to the picture and improve the discourse.

Thank you for pointing that out. It's not my intention to mislead. I've edited to clarify.

As a big fan of UBI this infuriates me. We can't test it unless we do it nationwide. In business school they hammer into you that "cashflow is the lifeblood of the business". It stands to reason that the same goes for the economy so why are we messing about with pointless 120 person trials. That isn't testing the right aspect of the system. We need to test it's systemic impact not the impact it has on individuals.

There is also the potential for inflation and artificially increased exclusivity, which likewise is not determinate from a temporary or short term project. In order to measure the impact on inflation the experiment would have to be widespread and longitudinal just like any other potential cause of inflation.

What about very slowly ramping it up? For example, over 20 years? If a problem begins to appear, it could be slowly ramped back down. I suppose this wouldn't work politically, since the first politician that tried to ramp down the income to save the economy would be swiftly booted to the curb.

UBI should be trialed in parallel with a legalization program, which would allow those metrics to be collected and solve other crime problems by creating unemployed criminals and giving them a stipend so that they don't necessarily need to continue crime for economic subsistence.

> A 120 person 36 month trial program cannot answer any of these questions.

So what are the questions that such a trial could answer?

* What people would do with bounded windfall benefits (as opposed to lifetime benefits)

* How spending/lifestyle habits of bounded windfall recipients compare with non-recipients

* Whether receiving free money makes individuals happier or more productive over a three year period.

> where is the proof that it won't hurt long term productivity,

By that measure couldn’t we say the Capitalism pilot program has failed? Sure productivity is ever increasing and business productivity per employee is at historic highs...but all that productivity has only resulted in a larger wealth gap with all the benefits going to the investor class and net negative to workers whose real wages have been stagnant for decades?

Lol, no. Just no. The capitalism experiment is everything that has happened from the industrial revolution (really, earlier) forward. Compare with the 19th, 18th, or 17th century, and you’ll find today’s wealth gap is smaller, people live more prosperous lives, happiness indices improved, etc. Not to mention the literally billions of lives that wouldn’t otherwise exist at all.

The old billions wouldn’t even be alive but for capitalism.

Well if capitalism is responsible for all the good it must be responsible for all the bad, like industrial warfare like WWI and WWII.

Because war didn’t exist before capitalism /s

Per-capita violence has been in steady decline for this time period.

Because people weren’t born before capitalism?

“Per captia” violence? That is a hell of a qualifier you need.

Capitalism has lifted billions of people out of poverty.

"No, they prove that people who are in a program that is very clearly temporary will not end their careers for a short pilot program. This means nothing."

This is a really good point. But it will apply to the government program as well. Just because we have such a program at full scale, doesn't guarantee anything.

* The UBI might not always be above the poverty line

* The UBI might be terminated at any time, or after an election (That can be partly covered with proper laws, but nobody would go that far without trying it out in the first place)

* The UBI might get strings attached, like "needs to work parttime", etc.

All in all, it's a chicken egg problem. The thing is: If I have saved maybe a million in cash, UBI would encourage me to just stop working. Period. UBI will cover a good chunk of the basic living expenses (especially if you don't have to live near hotspots due to work anymore) and then the investment winnings of my savings would cover me for life.

That of course is still possible without UBI, but UBI just makes it that much more approachable, since you don't depend on investment to stay afloat. I.e. "I need to win with my investments for this to work" becomes "If I want to buy me something besides food and rent, I need to make good investments". Those two are like day and night.

I am not convinced that UBI will result in overall improvements. I would love UBI and it would enable me to stop working more quickly. Will I still provide value to humanity? Very likely, I have lots of ideas for what to do. Will I still provide value to the economy? Not nearly as much as before. That alone tells me that UBI is probably not a good idea, because it empowers the middle-class to retire early, doesn't do much for the poor (instead of a shitty job, they can now do nothing, except paint and sing perhaps, i.e. being creative; but they will still be poor nontheless) . It also doesn't do anything for the rich.

If I have saved maybe a million in cash, UBI would encourage me to just stop working.

You'd already be "encouraged" to take a lower-paying part time and/or less stressful job. But most millionaires aren't going to be satisfied with the downgraded lifestyle that would entail.

doesn't do much for the poor

It does a lot for the poor. It lets them earn additional money without worrying about losing benefits, which is a big problem with current welfare systems. And more importantly it gives them negotiating power; they can walk away from abusive employers without the worry of homelessness or hunger.

Personally I think the larger concerns are that if you provide UBI to everyone (not 120 random people) you're going to see severe distortions on the local economy that will encourage outsourcing wherever possible. Basic economic reasoning states that income has declining marginal utility, so wages will need to rise to incentivize people to do the work they were doing previously. Or it'll just leave.

Feels unsustainable to me.

This is one of the best summaries of UBI that I have seen. UBI proponents are advised to read this carefully.

I don’t think any honest UBI proponents would dispute it — or be particularly surprised with what the GP said. It’s obvious that significant change to the economy would have hard to predict effects when human behavior is at the center.

That doesn’t mean it’s not worth it.

Based on how most jobs will get automated some form of an UBI will be required sooner or later.

Now the only question is: how to you phase in UBI while still rewarding extra productive people to keep creating/innovating?

Some will say "those people will innovate out of love". This is not always the case, many people are good at what they do and create many awesome things but given the chance they would rather do something less productive because on some level they don't like what they do that much.

Isn't this like saying that the invention of agriculture will mean society has to start feeding hunter gatherers for free? That's not how it went. People find new ways to create value all the time, and yet every time we invent anything new people keep saying "all the jobs are going away." It has yet to happen in spite of the agricultural, industrial, and now tech revolutions.

Which new way of creating value will be immune to automation?

Robots/AI can't even automate many of the existing ways. Examples abound, but: robots/AI can't replace carpenters, plumbers, mechanics, or couriers yet. In knowledge work, they're far from replacing engineers, designers, or authors. They can barely walk on two feet, struggle to open doors and climb stairs, and can't think originally. And we have a long, long ways to go before they can. I'm not worried about "automation" as long as I can clean a toilet and a robot can't.

Maintenance of automation objects, although that's not entirely new it will expand at the same rate as the automation itself, maybe slightly lagging behind.

Improvements to automation; automation on top of automation.

Planetary colonisation planning.

I can see all of those being done better by an AI in the future. Maintenance is already done a lot by machines right now, I don't see that changing.

There is a difference between thinking that many jobs might be automated away and the hidden assumption in your question that all jobs will be automated away. Why do you think all jobs are vulnerable?

Art ?

I think the problem is that humans sell labour that is either physical or mental. Already lost physical work has been automated (see, eg agriculture). So we retreat into mental work, the knowledge economy. But what happens when we have decent AI that can perform most mental tasks?

It doesn’t feel like a continuation of what’s gone before, it feels like a step change. When the machine dominates man in all employable qualities, then it’s game over and capitalism breaks down for most people.

I wish I were wrong, but I can’t see a way out of that. Perhaps it’s good, ultimately, because people may no longer have to work in the future.

An optimistic view I guess is to work out how we transition to a new economic system that both continues to generate wealth and to share it. That sounds very much like a problem that must be solved centrally, which we are not good at, so perhaps therefore (based on historical patterns) we will have to await such an extreme level of capitalism that a revolution forces complete automation hand in hand with sharing wealth, ie coordination will only happen when all alternatives (corruption, brutal autocratic rule, state capitalism, etc) are proven unsustainable.

"Isn't this like saying that the invention of agriculture will mean society has to start feeding hunter gatherers for free?"

How did you make that connection? If you aren't hunting, you can do farm work. If you aren't doing that, you can produce tools. If you aren't doing that, you can go mine ores, make clothes, etc. Its not like agriculture was invented and suddenly anyone who wasnt farming was philosophizing, there is always something productive for you to do. Having a UBI without replacing the people who actually do the productive work is just rewarding those who don't work, you didn't suddenly remove the need for work, someone still has to do all that work that needs to get done, but now there is less incentive for them to do so when they can just kick back and worry about someone else doing it.

A UBI is a socialist fantasy that will only ever work if you have a slave force (read: AI) that does work for free.

"How did you make that connection? If you aren't hunting, you can do farm work. If you aren't doing that, you can produce tools. If you aren't doing that, you can go mine ores, make clothes, etc."

This is exactly my point.

No, your point from what I understand is that even given a UBI, people will find new productive work to do. My point is 1) that with a UBI in place, there is no incentive for people to do any of these new productive jobs, and 2) a UBI by itself doesn't suddenly eliminate the need for the old productive jobs. If all of the old productive work is automated, then yes, I agree that people will find new productive work to do. But a UBI will take away any incentive for anyone to look for new productive endeavors.

I actually wasn't talking about UBI; I was talking more generally about automation eliminating jobs being a shaky premise.

However, I still disagree with you; UBI (as currently proposed) would provide so little income that most would still have to do at least some work to maintain their standards of living. Paying me $1,200 a month would not cause me to suddenly sit on my ass, for example. And, capitalism can still exist alongside UBI: if you want more money, compete in the market to get it.

In France, there is basically UBI, you just need to ask for it. Just having the French passport and no job qualifies you to RSA [1] which gives you about 550 euros a month (according to [1], but nets to ~490 according to a friend finishing law school that had to sign up for it since cov19 is making it very hard for him to find a job right now). I believe you've don't have to have ever worked to get RSA, just being over some age (~26?) and being a French citizen. So you don't have to give UBI to everyone, just the people that need it while they figure it out. Now whether you, as a society, want it is an entirely different story; I've met some peeps that absolutely despise RSA in France.

I think there's also a bunch of programs financing unemployed people so they can go back to school and pick up a more current job once their unemployment benefits end.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revenu_de_solidarit%C3%A9_acti...

One thing different about a UBI is you get it whether or not you are employed, so at least it removes the perverse incentive to stay unemployed or lose your 550 euros a month.

That is not remotely like UBI. It has all the pitfalls of a standard welfare program and none of the upsides of UBI.

Does RSA represent the complete package of assistance for someone or are their other programs (food assistance, housing, etc)?

  > Based on how most jobs will get automated some form of an UBI will be required sooner or later.
  > Now the only question is: ...

"Most jobs will get automated" is actually very questionable. It's called "Lump of labour fallacy", although (I suppose) either not everybody subscribes to it, or it's something that tends to go unnoticed.

Fair point, but for example if trucks get fully automated: the USA has 3.5 million truck drivers.

Where are they gonna find a job? My fear is that little by little people will be running out of jobs to find and the middle class will shrink more and more because of this. At which point will the "automation tipping point" happen where the society acknowledges that it's simply not possible to find meaningful employment for everyone?

~70% of Indians are still farmers vs ~2% in the US. Would you recommend India adopt UBI before they discover the tractor and 68% of their country becomes unemployed?

What about the seamstresses destroyed by the invention of the sewing machine?

Forgive my harsh tone - but this is such a false line of thinking "Technology X will destroy job Y" that has been around for literally hundreds of years, that it deserves condemnation as it bares no reality in history or economics.

The self driving truck is no different than the sewing machine.

Past performance is no guarantee of future performance.

The rate of automation is increasing.

Forgive my harsh tone - but this is such a false line of thinking "It's always been this way therefore it will always be this way" that has been around for literally thousands of years, that it deserves condemnation as it bares no reality in history.

To dismiss fear of automation as some resurgence of ludditism is reductive in the extreme. We already see examples of automation killing jobs and seeing workers turned out on their ear because their jobs have been automated.

It's called the Rust Belt for a reason. The manufacturing jobs didn't just skip off to Mexico and China: they were automated away as well. The USA manufactures more now than it did in the 80s, but factory jobs are far fewer.

Most of those factory workers now live off of benefits and Walmart, because their jobs disappeared, driving the income disparity.

The US middle class is dying from automation but you blithely claim "hey at least they're still getting McDonald's jobs".

I think that the consequences of automation should be separated into short and long term.

Definitely, I agree that "automation jumps" do create a short-term problem, if it's not handled by the government. And I think it's a hard problem.

What I disagree with, and think it's a fallacy, it's that it constitutes a long term problem. I stress that long term is beyond the work life of an individual, so the argument "what does person X if they lose their job" doesn't apply, rather, what's the size of the workforce (= employed people).

People who think that the work pool is fixed, typically don't realize that automation (the robots are coming!) is not a modern phenomenon. Automation in a modern sense started centuries ago, so the arguments shouldn't take today as starting point - they should take the 18th century instead; if the argument was true, we would all be unemployed right now.

Nobody can say what what will be the new jobs in the future, as much as 20 years ago, nobody could imagine, say, the position of the SEO expert.

The first automated trucks won't be able to handle everything. There will still need to be a "driver" to ride along with it, at the very least to handle paperwork. Many truck drivers own their own trucks, and I imagine many of these people would be the first adopters of the technology.

The point is that change will still happen gradually, and people will still be necessary.

>I imagine many of these people would be the first adopters of the technology.

Why do you think so? I can’t quite think of a great reason why they would or wouldn’t be the first. My inclination would be that they wouldn’t because 1) self-driving tech would be expensive (more expensive than not having it, certainly), and 2) individuals might not be willing to risk it vs. companies that can afford it to fail and bear the cost.

I think we’d all agree that in the last 20 years, automation has increased in developed economies? So if “most jobs will get automated..”, shouldn’t we see the unemployment rate progressively increasing in those countries? Whereas the experience in the US pre-pandemic argues against this

UBI isn't socialism. The incentive for productivity under UBI is called capitalism, and it means that the people who want to live more than slightly above the poverty level will continue to work, and the people who want to get rich will continue to innovate and start companies. There are plausible (though obviously untested) arguments that UBI will increase innovation by getting people out of bullshit jobs and enabling entrepreneurs to pay their bills until their companies are profitable.

And what about the people who don't want their earnings to be taxed to pay for people who can work but choose not to?

To be fair I don't think UBI is unique in this problem. Even traditional assistance programs struggle with this problem. It would be wonderful if we had some mechanisms that helped people become self-sufficient but that seems to be a very much unsolved problem.

I don't think UBI will be much better at this but the argument that it could be more efficient (i.e. provide the same level of support to more people at the same cost when compared to traditional assistance packages) is what continues to intrigue me about UBI.

"will increase innovation by getting people out of bullshit jobs and enabling entrepreneurs to pay their bills until their companies are profitable."

I think that relies on a definition of "innovation" that is not proper.

What does "innovation" mean?

We already have restaurants. If you open another restaurant have you done anything innovative at all? Most likely not.

You're not going to develop the next generation of microchip in your basement. Multibillion dollar industrial plants are beyond the means of an individual who depends on UBI.

So what kind of new development are you likely to actually create?

Precisely. There is no way I could live he life I want on €1200/month.

UBI is unrestricted income, which makes it so questionable and potential harmful. Regular wellfare with it's rules and conditions can still serve the same purpose, while being better for society on grand scale.

It's true that with more automation we need better wellfare-rules, especially more flexible ones. But no rules at all looks like a strong ignorance against the existing problems if people who are in demand of wellfare now.

There are many who need wellfare because they are simply unable to function on their own or who are not willing to be productive for whatever reason. On the other side there are also those who are good on their own and have the wish to be productive, just don't get the chance.

For the first ones UBI is bad, for the second ones UBI would be good. The question is how to filter them and figure out how to help them both without harming the other side.

Germany already has a system that works well in that regard, even though it's not perfect. But in germany the focus usually is on supporting the people to be useful again, so they cann support themself. Though the problem is this grinds a gear with both sides, creating many complains from certain people.

I think one of the strongest practical arguments in favor of UBI is that the beurocracy needed to decide who deserves to receive welfare is so cumbersome and inneficient that it's more cost effective to not have any restrictions at all. There is a whole subsystem of the courts dedicated purely to dealing with these conflicts. Resolutions are generally very slow and there's tons of overhead s because you have to pay lawyers. Just give every adult citizen a flat amount and you open up the possibility of reducing the size of government in the process of fighting income inequality. This seems like a compromise that could be feasible in the US, but UBI would have to be robust first.

This is sort of along the same lines of the observation that just providing housing to homeless people is cheaper than incarcerating them, and provides better outcomes. Of course there is something about this that people instinctively don't like, and in practice the general population has shown it would rather spend more money to accomplish less in order to prevent someone else from getting something for free.

Indeed, it's a valid argument for those who are proper adults and can handle their live. But it's an invalid argument for those who need support even on that level if living. Bureaucracy is more often build to give those support who need it, even if they don't think so, as they have different goals than society. It's major problem and basically unsolvable.

> This is sort of along the same lines of the observation that just providing housing to homeless people is cheaper than incarcerating them, and provides better outcomes.

Does it?

> Of course there is something about this that people instinctively don't like

It's not just instinct, it's often also experience and understanding things on a greater scale. At least in germany it seems many who work in social services and hotspots are against UBI simply because they see how bad certain people can't handle their live even with all that help given.

If someone is having so much trouble that giving them money or monetary equivalents won't help, then the traditional american welfare apparatus won't be of much help either. It then becomes a question of what kind of living assistance those people need. If they receive nothing, then they end up in prison where we have to pay for them anyway. Most of these people aren't dangerous at all, but don't have anyone to help them, and can't afford mental health treatment. There is alot of overlap here with other endemic problems like our broken healthcare system.

The cost of incarceration in the us is over $30k/person/year, not including exorbitant and exploitative fees levied against inmates and their families for basic communication etc. Just providing housing and staff is much cheaper. The prison system in the US has also become a giant warehouse for these same mentally ill people, whose problems are generally exacerbated by an environment that isn't designed to help them.

> Based on how most jobs will get automated

Will that happen before or after we get fully driverless car everywhere?

> based on how most jobs will be automated ...

Look into the luddites.

There is no evidence to come to such a conclusion.

I see the claims that this won't produce inflation with extreme scepticism.

And I say this, living in a country that has had something similar to a basic income for years, although not fully universal (universal for kids, and people below certain income line), the vast majority of people get it and ended up resulting in that around half the public budget goes to social expenses. Every year that bag gets bigger, deficit gets bigger and having more currency flowing, inflation gets bigger and bigger.

So, this income is increased and salaries get adjusted, and it ends up in a never-ending cycle of income trying to catch up with inflation.

It's very hard to get out of that situation once you are in it, because now people depend on this money, and the political cost to cut it is so enormous that nobody dares trying to do it. It would mean the end of their political careers.

Maybe Germany can show us that it can be done, it will be very interesting to see the results. But from what I've experienced, this is not as simple as many people think it is.

> I see the claims that this won't produce inflation with extreme scepticism.

I haven't seen price drops since many people stopped working and can afford less, so I don't expect the system to work logically in the other direction either.

You probably won't see prices dropping, as many businesses are selling much less and they need to keep prices to cover the costs.

Rents are easily adjusted for the new income.

Limiting the increase of rents is often named as a feasible remedy. However this can be circumvented by renovations, after which the rent can be increased. Or reversely, renovations might be omitted totally, which yields a net quality decrease for the inhabitants in the long run.

What country is this? Iran?

Argentina

Basic-income already exists.

New money is created by chartered banks as debt on their balance sheets by fiat through fractional reserve banking practices. This is how money is created and distributed in the USA; centralized in ~4500 institutions and a few tens of thousands of people deciding things. It would be just as easy, though controversial, to remove this pure profit stream from the banks and instead give it directly to people.

Of course people would probably re-invent the banking system in a distributed way. But then at least it would be clear that the money banks are literally making isn't through some business skill or value addition or even the physical services they provide: it's from being able to magic up new money for circulation.

There is plenty of money for basic income. The system for basic income already exists and is the foundation of modern society. It just needs to be made universal.

https://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/service/gehaltsrechner-geh... An article in German, but 1943 Euros a month in Germany is the median income. And it takes only around 6100/month to be 1%.

It strikes me how little is the salary gap in Europe, even in the UK.

In Turkey, it starts with 2K and easily goes up to 15K as you advance in your career or have a profession that is on demand. This leads to drastically different lifestyles among regular people. The 3-4K people almost don’t meet the 8-9K except in work environment and there are a lot of both.

Restaurant and other venue prices almost act as gate keepers between workers of different classes. In Europe that might be said for super rich but mostly any place can be occasionally afforded by anyone.

The most striking that I’ve seen was in Cuba. In restaurants where regular people eat, a meal would cost about 0.5CUC, in restaurants where tourists and the ruling class eat a meal would cost 15CUC, which is about half of the salary of most people.

Also, Cubans with access to tourism are orders of magnitude more well off(bribes, contraband, dealing with tourists easily brings more than a salary per dealings).

Both in Turkey and in Cuba, drastically better income brings you closer to the western lifestyle, so the range usually means the difference between living like a middle class in a western country v.s. living a century behind in terms of tech and comfort.

Some context: In Germany one would need to earn around €135k (about $160k) annually for a monthly net income of €6.1k. You would have to pay around EUR 45k in income tax (incl. "soli"), 3.4k "church tax", 5.5k in health + care insurance, 7.7k pension insurance, and 1k in unemployment insurance.

> You would have to pay (...) 3.4k "church tax"

This is the only one from the list that you don't _have_ to pay, unless you're officially part of a church.

Is that gross or net income?

net. also, calling it "only 6100" is completely crazy by german standards.

It's net income.

The one thing I've not seen discussed, and maybe I'm just not using the right terminology, is how inflation is controlled in a UBI world. If everyone is on UBI then it would be very simple to peg things like rent or auto payments to the current UBI rate - the same way apartments in New York City today are often priced based on the average bonus paid financial services workers. Granted that not having to worry about housing would relieve a huge burden for many people, but if other necessities like food or fuel are similarly pegged to the UBI, in the same way food costs changed during the Euro conversion, then it seems like we might ultimately end up in the same place where a percentage of the population needs assistance beyond UBI.

Last time I asked this question here, I got downvoted without any answers. So here is my second try, this time specifically for Germany:

Show me the calculation of where the government will get the money for paying their entire adult population this amount. And let's assume everyone will keep working at their current job. (Which they won't since at a "Basic Income" pricepoint, lots of people would prefer spending more time with their family and so would opt-in working part-time etc).

So yeah, were is that realistic calculation of how to pay for full country UBI?

Here's a proposal for how it could be gradually implemented in the UK by simplifying the tax code:

https://atlaspragmatica.com/arguments-for-a-ubi-conclusion/

It seems to roughly involve the top 22% of earners having a tax bill that is up to 10% bigger than currently, while everyone in the bottom 78% of earners is unaffected or a net beneficiary.

Let me get this straight, the starting point is taxed like this, assuming the average wage in UK which seems to be 35k for a full-time job (https://www.findcourses.co.uk/inspiration/articles/average-s...)

35k makes net 12k (not taxed) + 18.4k (at 20% tax rate) = 30.4k net

In the conclusion, everyone gets a "UBI" of 666 per month, which basically doesn't even cover rent (https://www.statista.com/statistics/752203/average-cost-of-r...). If they would follow this German test, it would need to rise to 1100 pounds per month.

So in this scenario, that average full-time employee pays 48% flat tax on income:

35k taxed at 48% = 18.2k net, plus the 8k UBI leaves this average full-time employee at 26.2k. That is 4.2K less than before.

Looking at that graph at the end, I think there is some "creative graph-plotting" going on, unless I'm seriously mistaken in my calculation.

So how can this be the ideal calculation? The graph and conclusion seems to be in complete error. And even then, 8k per year barely seems like a 'basic income'.

> In the conclusion, everyone gets a "UBI" of 666 per month, which basically doesn't even cover rent

There are plenty of places in the UK where the average rent is below £500 pcm, or even £400:

https://nolettinggo.co.uk/blog/10-cheapest-places-to-rent-in...

It's not a requirement of a UBI that every citizen should be able to live wherever they want, but it is an assumption that most citizens would have some income other than the UBI, or already own their own home, so it's not like everyone in the country would flock to places with the cheapest rent.

> Looking at that graph at the end, I think there is some "creative graph-plotting" going on, unless I'm seriously mistaken in my calculation.

Your calculations make sense to me, and I think it is reasonable to be distrusting of an economic analysis that doesn't provide the raw data for its most crucial graph (even as a link to a CSV file). The data in the article it links to is more complete, but approaching things from a different angle:

https://atlaspragmatica.com/arguments-for-a-ubi---the-realis...

£35k is about £27.4k after tax. You have forgotten about national insurance.

Well spotted. I actually asked the article's author to address the concerns above, and they responded here:

https://atlaspragmatica.com/a-united-federal-britain/#commen...

Like you, they calculated the current take-home pay of this hypothetical person as £27,442 and, under the proposed UBI system, a take-home pay of £26,550. That's a one-off decrease of £892 which is about 2.5% of their gross salary.

For an imperfect comparison, Figure 5 here:

https://www.tuc.org.uk/research-analysis/reports/lessons-dec...

shows a similar real terms wage decrease in 2011, supposedly due to the political choice of austerity.

As another comparison, the Department for Work and Pensions estimated that 3.5% of their 2010-2011 budget was spent on administration:

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/what_percentage_of_th...

Obviously replacing most benefits with a UBI won't remove all government administration costs, but it could lead to multiple society-improving outcomes (like improved health) which could reduce the over all tax level.

> Show me the calculation of where the government will get the money for paying their entire adult population this amount.

The plan is obviously not that everyone gets UBI-amount more money per month than they do now.

You are talking about the net result. But in the end, the government is going to pay everyone this amount. So let's say government taxes income at a higher percentage, so that the middle class basically gets the same net amount. How high will you need to tax those middle class jobs?

If the middle class basically gets the same net amount, they would need to have their taxes increased by the same amount as UBI. That just follows from the premise of your question.

What is that in terms of tax rate? I don't know, Dane-pgp seems to have already answered with a concrete proposal.

> That just follows from the premise of your question.

That is a bit too simplistic of a calculation, since a tax rate also affects lower and upper class. You might as well end up with way less tax income by applying that simple rule.

And that complete proposal is very weak: only 666 pounds per month UBI, which doesn't even cover rent, and the average full-time employee loses 4.2K per year. If that is the best, ideal calculatio you can come up with, it is very weak, no?

How do you make people work under UBI system? I think most people underestimate how basic people needs are. Get me food, place to sleep and some videogames and I can live like that forever. I won't be seeking new ventures and constantly improving myself, and most people will do the same. Which might be ok in itself, but we don't have robots working for us so we can't switch to full UBI.

I would think this study with suffer from a pretty obvious case of the hawthorne effect: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_effect And a sample size orders of magnitude higher would be necessary to negate that, or even be significant to a "universal" scale.

Some goods are virtually in infinite supply in Western World societies. Basic food, cloths, healthcare (most of Europe AFAIK, not the USA, by choice), even cars and housing. It could make sense to give them for free or give the amount of money that buys them.

However if one wants that kind of food which very few farmers produce and very few chefs cook, or that car that is made in 100 units, or that house on that hill (1 unit) then it's inevitable that you must pay a lot. This means you have to find a way to get a lot of money. UBI won't buy special things and special lifes. It's work as we know it that does.

So, I don't see problems with UBI. If you want to be Musk or Bezos you will (very few persons anyway), if you care only about drinking beer you will (a lot of people) and work to gain some extra for the occasional special thing.

The problem is where all that money comes from. Countries are printing money now and nobody cares anymore. Is it possible to keep doing that for 100 years if everybody agrees?

It's only 120. I don't think this is going to teach us anything new.

I think the main objection is whether it will work when made universal. We know giving a small number of people money is both liked by those people and economically viable.

I think to really add new information to the debate, we need something that is self-funded by at least a state/province/prefecture/etc.

A lot of these tests miss validating one of the key arguments against means-tested assistance - that there is a cliff to scale for people who were on that assistance, but crossed the imaginary line to slightly better means and are now significantly worse off.

Consider a family who are receiving affordable housing program benefits in an expensive urban area. If they strive to improve their incomes, they are unlikely to afford the same home in the same area at market rate. However, the threshold for that assistance is often a lot lower than the actual income needed for the market rate unit. What would a rational self-interested person do in this situation? Avoid going over the threshold at all costs, in other words stay poorer than they could have been.

A test that would be super beneficial is to see what choices would people make if you removed means-testing - would they feel empowered? Would outcomes improve?

I don’t have a very good grasp of economics, but can anyone explain why it makes sense to give someone $1000 to do nothing when you can pay them $1000 to do something productive, like build a road? Ideas like negative income tax, government supplemented minimum wages, or increasing EITC makes more sense to me.

It's not $1000 to do "nothing", it's $1000 so they can do whatever they want. If they're building some useless road (and many of the public works projects of the past whose aim was to provide "full employment", were busy-work projects moving rocks from one pile to another), then they don't have the time/energy to work on something else that they deem more fulfilling or productive.

They do a fundamental activity for the economy which is consuming. Consuming produce jobs and investment.

That is in fact a fundamental distinction between the Universal Basic Income and the Federal Job Guarantee.

One criticism of the UBI is that being unmoored from production makes it extremely inflationary. That requires high levels of tax to destroy enough money to offset the inflation.

https://www.realprogressivesusa.com/news/economic-justice/20...

they may know better than you how to use resources available to them in their position.

it's not either or. give everyone money AND pay for useful programs

The headline makes it look like this would come from official sources, but it doesn't. It's a private initiative by some non-profit/charity, financed by private donations, and supervised by some researchers. Duration: 3 years. Amount: 1200€ per month. Participants: 120. Control Group: 1300+. Start: 2021.

This is roughly the same as our unemployment benefits, supposedly without the hassle. How health insurance is handled I can't see.

edit: People under 25 would probably benefit more, because currently they are disadvantaged. Something about parents liable for them, having to live at home, getting less because living at home with parents, and so on.

The problem with UBI trials is that they cost a lot of money to be remotely effective. That is because for it to be somewhat meaningful the amount has to be high, it has to involve a lot of people, and it has to last a long time. I was wondering, what if researchers try it in a very poor country where $10 a month is meaningful. Many countries won't want to do it presumably because money will be leaving their country. However, it will be a relatively cheap way of seeing how UBI would effect inflation, self choice unemployment, and creative inventions.

Why is the title of this "Germany begins..." when there's only 120 people in the trial? This would be an appropriate title if it were a trial with 120,000 people.

UBI is only relevant if it's universal. Doing such a study on a small sample is rather irrelevant and inconclusive.

A better idea might be to do it in a village and compare with another village that doesn't have it. But even this cannot fully replicate the nation wide effects of UBI. How about immigration laws? Germany is in EU, anyone can move to Germany and ask for UBI.

Waste of effort and money to prove nothing.

Rather than funding programs like this, people would be far better served by being educated on how to better use the money they have.

Just look at the US Bureau of Labor Statistics on how people spend their money. https://www.bls.gov/cex/2018/CrossTabs/sizbyinc/xtwo.PDF

For example, a couple making less than 15K a year is spending 2K on restaurants! A couple with that income shouldn't know what the inside of a restaurant looks like. But I don't blame people for that. I think we've let people like this down by not educating them.

Nobody teaches you how to use money to improve your life.

And this isn't just for lower income folks. I can't tell you how many high income people I know that foolishly spend their money (buying boats, new cars, etc) and hardly have anything left for retirement.

Why do I read this here? (German here).

It really baffles me that these things seldomly make it to our media.

It did though, I read it on Tagesschau: https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/grundeinkommen-studie-101.h...

Most countries give so many tax rebates to low-income individuals it's essentially UBI. Welfare, food stamps, unemployment insurance, lowest taxable income level.

The $1,400US/month Germany is proposing is less than their minimum wage of $11US.

It's a really interesting point because, at least in the USA, we sort of make people work for their 'tax rebates'.

They have to fill out complicated tax forms (really, a tax preparation company fills it out and takes a cut) to get rebates like EITC. They have to spend time visiting government offices to renew their food stamps. They have to be subject to relatively invasive life inspections for welfare- and 'workfare' programs that require people to leave their house, put their kids in daycare, and rake leaves for 8 hours a day are always going in and out of fashion, with over half the states usually implementing a form of that program under some name.

I feel like if it were my choice, I'd like to get a little less money but have it 'guaranteed' without a bunch of time obligations that would interfere with my attempts to raise my kids, learn a skill, or get a basic job. Of course, 80%+ of people in the USA who are in poverty are children, carers, disabled or the elderly, so it's not like they're learning a new skill or trying to find other work. Their time is still valuable though.

Actually it is a little more than the minimum wage, when you consider taxes and social insurances. The 18,000€ minimum wage net you 13,600€ a year or 1,133€ a month.

The money from the UBI experiment is a gift and the recipients do not need to pay taxes on that. Not sure if they need to pay for the social insurances

I've said this before here on HN, but Naval Ravikant (of AngelList) nailed the problem with government pay subsidies and universal basic income on a podcast with Joe Rogan.

"A slippery slide transfer straight into socialism. The moment people can start voting themselves money, combined with democracy it's just a matter of time before the bottom 51 votes themselves into the top 49. By the way, the slippery slope fallacy is not a fallacy; they haven’t thought it through.”

"The moment you start having a direct transfer mechanism like that in democracy, you're basically doing away with capitalism which is the engine of economic growth. You're also forcing the entrepreneur out, or telling them not to come here."

"People who are down on their luck, they're not looking for handouts. It's not just about money, it's also about status and meaning. The moment I start giving money to you, I've lowered your status and made you a second class citizen.”

"You have to teach a man to fish, not to basically throw your rod in and eat the leftover scraps."

> The moment I start giving money to you, I've lowered your status and made you a second class citizen.

This is why the "Universal" part of UBI is important. Having everybody get it reduces the social stigma. (Also providing the bonus side-effect of reducing the admin overhead that comes with means testing)

UBI won't work at scale without fundamental changes in any government to ensure that a UBI wouldn't be exploited by the renting infrastructure.

... 120 people will receive ...

Well as Science continues to steal everyone's privacy, and Capitalism is the defacto remuneration system in place, I think its only fair we get a universal income if Govt's want us to be good little citizens. Considering the current laws in place, like Copyright, Patents etc etc, its very hard for new comers to enter the market and compete, not to mention the massive setup costs to get into some lines of business. Financial cleansing is perfectly legal in this day and age.

About 4 billion people will now ask themselves : Where is Germany and how can I immigrate ?

If what you say is true...why not all 7 billion?

I think UBI is a failed project from the beginning. We dont need UBI per se we need to provide basic utilities at fraction of the cost or for free.

Housing should be free so should be food. We are incredibly efficient when it comes to building real estate or producing food.

We can set a basic standard for quality of housing and food (you get seasonal fruits,veggies,bread,flour,chicken etc etc).

You should be incentivized to learn how to cook and take care of yourself and acquire additional skills.

The usefulness of UBI will be diminished by inflation and market behavior.The money you get wont actually help you to get things that you need.

Producing food makes more sense. Certain types of food is very cheap. Housing and real estate though, it seems is much more expensive and difficult to provide.

I'm not even going to bother to read this article. I'm not a fan of UBI and I think this is an admission that we don't have real solutions for the pandemic and we aren't even going to try to come up with real solutions, like helping people get into remote work and creating germ control solutions (like Little Caesar's pizza portal) for things where remote work is not an option.

I mean, glad to see they don't want their people to just starve. Three years is maybe a good time frame for helping people come up with real solutions.

The problem is that if you aren't explicitly stating up front that we are giving you three years to adjust to the new reality and we need you working on solutions, then those three years are going to fly by without people working on solutions and then the checks will stop coming and then what? You are just delaying disaster, not resolving anything.

This isn‘t the government carrying out the trial, but a crowd-sourced private non-profit.

What makes you assume this is in response to the pandemic?

Unless Germany has a secret fleet of human-level AIs that can do anything a regular German worker can for free, this will fail. Even worse is that this failure will make them think UBIs will never work.

You're making the hard assumption that, by distributing a UBI, people will just sit around and do nothing. There is no data to back this statement up, and it's very likely that people will actually work more while on UBI. UBI is designed to provide _choice_ for workers, not force them to do something they don't want to do.

For all we know, UBI could lead to solving some of the worlds biggest problems by giving people, who otherwise wouldn't be able to, the freedom to solve problems they're interested in, not just work some dead end job to barely make ends meet. You'd be surprised at how much better humans are at doing things when they actually like doing them.

Let's let the studies roll out before making assumptions. I do, however, believe these studies are much too removed from reality to prove much of anything. The dataset is much too small and 36 months isn't a great deal of time. We will see.

Am I the only one who hates both the term, the idea and frequent discussions of "Universal Basic Income"?

-The term feels like just a rebranding of slightly-modified concepts that have been around forever

-The term also says "income" when it's really just "Forced Redistribution (FR)". ... why does the term focus on the money people receive and not the money people pay?

-The discussions in favor of UBI/FR generally revolve around new inventions which could lead to mass unemployment. These are such old arguments that have been debunked with every new mass-unemployment causing invention, from the rake to the tractor to the sewing machine. UBI/FR supporters have the same arguments as those who burned down sewing machine factories in the 1800s.

-What would the world look like if we implemented UBI/FR after the sewing machine or tractor? And would year 2500 look better with or without UBI/FR?

-Why do people support a government policy that they wouldn't support for their own children? Most of us have known of or heard of rich families where the kids got all the money and resources they need into adulthood vs those who were forced to earn their own way... it's obvious which parenting strategy turns out better.

> Why do people support a government policy that they wouldn't support for their own children? Most of us have known of or heard of rich families where the kids got all the money and resources they need into adulthood vs those who were forced to earn their own way... it's obvious which parenting strategy turns out better.

UBI is about providing a floor for people. Most people like the idea of their children having access to food, shelter, healthcare and education. From the article, the amount here is "just above Germany's poverty line", so it's not fair to compare it to "rich families where the kids got all the money and resources". People earning this UBI have enough to survive, but not much more. This isn't enough money to go on family vacations, buy fancy cars, live in lavish homes, etc. There is still a strong incentive to work and improve your personal circumstances, the main difference is that losing your job, or having a medical issue, shouldn't be enough to put you or your family on the street.

Forced redistribution already happens. It's called taxes.

The salient difference between the current system and UBI is on the receiving end: some of the taxes are paid back out directly as a basic income.

That's why FR isn't a useful name. "Universal basic income" describes what the real change would be.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com