Californians on universal basic income paid off debt and got full-time jobs
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
I mean, of course? what else do you expect with $500/mo capped at 2 years?
that's not UBI. the test needs to be at least $1k/mo, indefinitely.
to actually test UBI, the amount needs to be substantial and with no end.
Job interviews are almost certainly out of questions, unless you manage to get one outside work hours, or weekends.
The time between your last salary from previous job, and first salary from new job, is very critical. Some people simply cannot afford to take a new job, if first paycheck is too far away - even if it benefits them in the long run.
I'd imagine that a lot of college-educated have had to turn down opportunities (internships, etc.) because the pay didn't cover their expenses, even though that experience would have benefited them in the long run.
When I was a college student, I once went 6 months without any student loans, during some administrative error. During that time, I worked various gigs through some temp agency, and to my surprise then, I met a lot of people with decent college degrees, doing minimum wage jobs. One of the common reasons, being that the temp agency paid a bi-weekly salary - some of those people simply could not go 6-8 weeks without pay. No buffer account, no savings, nothing to sell, no credit cards to float them, no nothing.
It's not much, but for many, it's just enough to afford them more options.
At least, it certainly doesn’t for me.
It boggles my mind how people can read a headline that states an observed fact and then come with an opinion that that fact that happened just won’t happen.
Interesting take. So does that also apply to automotive manufacturer bailouts, bank bailouts, corn subsidies, oil subsidies, etc?
Imagine trying to raise taxes on every form of federal taxes on average 14% to reach this.
For that much money, there are likely vastly better places to spend it in targeted assistance instead of such a ham-handed one size fits all program, with far better social returns.
Next, imagine just fully liquidating every U.S. billionaire and seizing their assets to pay for it for 1-2 years. Very realistic and self-sustaining.
Capital flight will empty markets, similar to all the countries that got this dumb (see the swedish financial transaction tax as an example). With investment gone, payrolls will fail since lending will fail, rates will skyrocket from uncertainty, and so on.
To stave off riots, the Fed will print money, and if we're lucky we'll be another poster child for hyperinflation.
All so people who used to make 50k a year can have another 6k.
Now we're all poor, but at least we're equal, right?