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Comment by notahacker | Hacker News Reader

This. So far we've repeatedly tested that if you give people in an area a small sum of money paid for from central government funds for a couple of years, they won't change their habits much but will be a little better off financially, which should be of absolutely no surprise to anyone. A real pilot would - as a minimum - be making the local tax rises and welfare cuts necessary to make the scheme revenue neutral, which might actually challenge UBI advocates' certainty that it works...

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I'm the root commentor but I hope you don't mind me piling on.

It's pretty well agreed that the trial in Finland worked:

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2242937-universal-basic...

Id welcome a trial that included paying for it. That said, I don't think it would make a big difference. The UK (I'm a brit) spends enough on welfare to just give everyone £5000 pa (including kids) at the same price. We could just start there and make zero changes to tax policy...

All topical comments are welcome everywhere IMO.

If the average is £5K and many are receiving £0, it must be the case that some are receiving much more than £5K in benefits. If you normalize everyone at £5K, what happens to those who were previously receiving some multiple of that? (I’m presuming that £5K is an insufficient amount to meet what society has previously considered their need for support was.)

In essence, you’d be proposing a UBI for ordinary UK citizens to be funded by those who are currently receiving welfare [over £5K]. That would be unpopular with proponents and opponents of UBI I think.

(If half or more of that £5K is in staff and overhead and you were willing to dismantle those organizations as soon as it was clear UBI “would work”, this might be workable. I don’t know how much is direct benefits vs overheads [including eligibility and fraud checks, which would be dramatically reduced under UBI].)

We could try that experiment. Good luck persuading those pensioners who've lost half a state pension they believe they've earned and single parents made homeless that UBI is a positive change because some other people are better off though. Or getting the Parliamentary votes to even try that...

The Finnish trial "worked" in the trivial sense that unemployed people given an extra £2k a year on top of any other income they might earn were marginally better off. It didn't work in the sense that it was considered worth raising taxes to pay for it to be extended

The Finnish Basic Income Experiment was carried out in 2017–2018. The primary objective of the experiment was to provide information on the effects of a basic income on the target population’s employment, income and use of social benefits. An additional objective was to provide information on the well-being of the recipients of the basic income. 2,000 people who were aged 25–58 and receiving unemployment benefits from Kela in November 2016 were randomly selected to form the treatment group of the basic income experiment. Everyone else who was receiving unemployment benefits at the time formed the control group. The basic income was an unconditional benefit which did not have to be claimed, and for which there were no special conditions. The basic income was paid to the treatment group unconditionally for two years, and was not affected by any income from employment or entrepreneurship. This report includes the results from the sub- studies of the evaluation of the experiment. According to an analysis of the register data, during the one-year assessment period employment in the treatment group on average increased by 6 days more than in the control group. Sub-studies based on survey data analyzed the health, mental well-being, economic situation, trust and experiences with the bureaucracy of the treatment and control groups. With regard to a number of indicators, the well-being of the basic income recipients was better than that of the control group. Qualitative interview research shows, on the one hand, the very different meanings of basic income for one's own employment opportunities and, on the other hand, large differences in the starting points and life situations of basic income recipients. Better opportunities for social participation and increased autonomy were highlighted regardless of changes in one’s own employment. A media analysis found that the basic income experiment was covered in the domestic and international media, above all from an economic and employment perspective. In a population survey measuring support for a basic income, 46 % of respondents agreed or partially agreed with the statement that a basic income should be implemented in Finland.The evaluation of the basic income experiment was carried out by Kela, together with the VATT Institute for Economic Research, the University of Turku, the University of Helsinki, the Labour Institute for Economic Research, the Finnish Central Association for Mental Health and the think tank Tänk.

Abstract of the final Report of the Finnish experiment, mostly in finnish though. https://julkaisut.valtioneuvosto.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/1...

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