Comment by grecy | Hacker News Reader

Comment by grecy | Hacker News Reader

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No need to speculate, there are plenty of countries doing variations on UBI already, and they have been for many decades. We can learn from what they do.

Australia gives around $1130 AUD / month to anyone that is low income, or doesn't have a job [1] (There is an additional $300/mo right now for COVID, but lets ignore that.)

It is means tested, but the result is that anyone that doesn't have a job (for any reason at all - don't want one, quit, can't be bothered) gets that payment. You get more if you have kids, and you might get more for rent assistance too. It's been that way for decades, and Australia's economy has not magically been destroyed. Inflation is not through the roof, prices did not magically go up to just use up this free money.

On the plus side, crime and violence are extremely low, and multiple Australian cities are in the top 100 most livable on the planet. [2]

[1] https://www.servicesaustralia.gov.au/individuals/services/ce...

[2] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/04/global-liveability-index-201...

UBI and welfare (what we have in Australia) are very different. Andrew Yang has spoken about this better than I could off the top of my head, but to add a few things about our system (which does work very well from a global perspective):

* The stigma (in non-covid times) toward "dole bludgers" is pretty significant. We're a pretty egalitarian society, but there's a fairly common distain towards welfare recipients. This would likely be reduced if everyone was receiving the payment.

* You mentioned that recipients receive payments even if they quit or can't be bothered getting a job. That's kind of the situation with the current payment (JobSeeker), which was created last year when covid hit. The usual adult benefit (formally called Newstart allowance) had very strict "mutual obligations" and required you to apply for N number of jobs per fortnight otherwise your benefits were cut (https://www.servicesaustralia.gov.au/individuals/topics/mutu...). Also, if you quit a job you would have a cooldown period (usually 8 weeks) before you would receive benefits (with exceptions for injuries, redundancy, etc).

* Rent assistance is basically guaranteed. If you pay rent, you will get a portion of this covered.

* Our welfare program also includes a pharmaceutical discount (almost all prescription meds are $6.60 for recipients).

It's a really decent program overall, but it's not UBI.

Obviously welfare isn't identical to UBI, though in my opinion it has many of the same results.

> * The stigma*

Sure, there's some stigma, but that's irrelevant in terms of the economic/financial impact to society.

> very strict "mutual obligations"

It's easy enough to fill out job applications left hand, etc. For anyone that wants it, it is extremely easy and TONS of friends from University did it for over a decade.

Anecdotally, the mutual obligations have ratcheted up quite substantially since I was at uni 10-15 years ago. There have been several scandals involving accredited "Employment Services Providers" mistreating applicants, most commonly around offering them unsuitable (dangerous, to themselves or others) work at a firm controlled by the ESP.

Applicants can't refuse, or they'll lose their payment, and this is taken advantage of.

Perhaps more comparable is the cash for every citizen programs that many oil rich gulf states run.

E.g. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen%27s_Account_Program_...

And

https://www.wellesley.edu/albright/about/blog/3926-downsides...

Also,

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/jeffreydor...

That’s all well and good, but if the payments don’t actually go to everyone, they aren’t “Universal”.

Here in Hong Kong, some years, flat payments are made to every legal permanent resident. It's kind of UBI, with flat payments and no means testing, but it fluctuates a lot. When it's payment scheme time, my bank puts up posters near ATMs reminding people to go to the government website and register their accounts to receive the wire transfer.

That being said, we have a very high wealth gap here. My understanding is that social programs are generally very lacking.

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