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Comment by chrismorgan | Hacker News Reader

> two thousand arts and culture workers for a span of three years … earmarked €25 million for the plan … top recommendation … €10.50 per hour

3 years × 2,000 hours per year (estimate of full time employment) × €10.50 per hour × 2,000 people = €126 million, five times as much as is earmarked (even ignoring administrative costs). Perhaps it’s 400 rather than 2,000, perhaps it’s not full-time, perhaps the mention of the top recommendation of €10.50 is a red herring and not what’s being implemented (one must admit that €2/hour doesn’t sound so impressive), perhaps something else?

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Sounds basically like a grant program, not UBI.

However, slapping the phrase UBI on your program while it’s trendy is a genius way to “rebrand” something most governments already do. Politicians are the best marketers.

A few times in the past 3–5 years I came across Europeans who would travel and do stuff like photography or filmmaking while being compensated by the government. I was told that those are programs where basically all you need is to be an unemployed artist. (Some of those people would also do remote software consulting or such, although I think that was bending the rules slightly.)

For a country that wants to start a similar program, mislabeling it (because of course it is not actually universal) as “UBI” could be strategic—make people comfortable with the term that could later be expanded to involve actual UBI with less controversy.

> mislabeling it (because of course it is not actually universal) as “UBI” could be strategic

Note that the Irish government, which already has a bunch of other artists' grants and supports, is _not_ calling it "universal". That's a (mostly foreign) media thing.

I see. Makes my comment rather meaningless.

> which already has a bunch of other artists' grants and supports

I imagine most governments do it to some degree, but the question is how straightforward those grants are to get by someone who legitimately warrants one. Is there a lot of bureaucracy to get through in Ireland? do you often meet creatives receiving such a grant? traveling on it abroad?

So the big one is that earnings from art up to 50k are tax exempt, and that's very easy to get, of course.

IMO exempting from tax is qualitatively different from just giving an artist money to live off of, which is what surprised me in those French/Swiss programs.

One must either already be successful and business-savvy enough to earn money from one’s art or have a job/a sponsor, which defeats the point to some degree.

I’m aware governments offer grants where they sponsor art, but from what I know the requirements and amounts of paperwork make it not really interesting to someone without established fame or connections.

There are also grants (see https://www.artscouncil.ie/available-funding/ for instance, and local authorities and things have their own), but this thing seems like an interesting addition, and far less complex to administer.

> For a country that wants to start a similar program, mislabeling it (because of course it is not actually universal) as “UBI” could be strategic—make people comfortable with the term that could later be expanded to involve actual UBI with less controversy.

Or water it dowm so that people can't ask for actual UBI.

>Politicians are the best marketers.

There's statutes and case law that make it unwise for real marketers to make claims the way politicians do.

> Politicians are the best marketers

They are certainly accomplished liars.

The only redeeming feature for me is that the scope is so limited... to some number of artists... because an unbounded program would just be an incentive for all unemployed people to lie about being artists... By limiting the numbers means you have to have a crtierion whereby people are accepted. Another program I like is apparently India pays chess. grand masters a bit of a living stipend so they can focus on their chess? I think such things can be better uses of money than the typical wasteful expenditure of government programs... in this case the money goes to people most likely to use it in good ways or people who have shown merit. To become a chess GM is exceptional. Just like being a serious artist as a lifestyle.

2,000 hours at 40 hours/week is 50 weeks. As a European, that sounds really really high.

I believe around 1,700 is the real average for all of EU, for instance. That is not enough of course to change the result much (at 1,700 hours they would need €107 or just above four times the earmarked amount), I just wanted to point it out.

My figure of 2,000 was estimating the hours you’re paid for, including holidays, not the hours worked, matching Australia’s model for salary, where the figure is normally reckoned annually. It’s still definitely a touch on the high side (standard in Australia is 7.5h/day, which multiplied by 5 days per week and 52 and a bit weeks per year comes to 1,950 hours per year or a little more), but not by much—around 2.5%, rather than 11–12%.

> 1,700 is the real average for all of EU

Salary average is also misleading, there is a fair amount of inequality in European salaries and total compensation, a median would be better suited.

1768 hours to be more exact, at least HR in my company (FAANG) in Germany calculates it that way (85%)

Yes, the back of the envelope calculation (Italy) is:

52 weeks x 5 days/week= 260 working days

260 - 20 (minimum paid holydays) -20 (other reasons, national holidays, etc) = 220 working days

220 x 8 = 1760 hours/year, this could vary - maybe - up to 1800 hours depending on a number of factors, but not more.

It is basic income, so presumably the artist will be able to make additional money their art.

I wonder if they can take a full-time job in a different industry

So, some of it may be an assumption that:

- Some beneficiaries would otherwise be on jobseekers' allowance (208 eur/week)

- Many beneficiaries would not be full-time, and might be mixing this with a part-time job

- Many beneficiaries will drop out of the programme and get a normal job

I've never really looked too closely at the idea of UBI, although I like the concept. I always assumed that any money you earn would then be deducted from future payments. With completely arbitrary numbers, let's say UBI was 1000€/month and I earned 500€ in a particular month, then next month my UBI payment would be reduced by that amount. If I earned 1500€ my next UBI payment would be zero, but the excess 500€ would not be rolled over. I may have completely misunderstood how UBI is supposed to work though.

I always assumed that any money you earn would then be deducted from future payments

Not directly, at least not in most described implementations. Most implementations say that, if you qualify, you get 1000€/month every month no matter how much you earn. Now a lot of people add a secondary mechanism where some or all of that money gets clawed back, indirectly via increased income tax, if you earn 'too much', but the base idea is the 1000€ gets deposited into your account every month no matter how much or little you earn.

The rationale for this is a), not do disincentivize doing extra work and b) to simplify the system as much as possible and remove the need to spend a lot of extra time and effort on means testing, fraud detection, handling complaints etc.

I believe most implementations do not do that. That could lead to a disincentive for work, since you would need to make the entire amount of the ubi payment before your labor is benefiting you.

It is usually a flat rate for everyone, no matter the income. If you want more money, you sell your labor like normal

Sadly, this is the way it works in the UK. Welfare payments are cut by any increases in your pay. So a person who might be offered overtime for some extra money has no incentive to take it because their total take home stays the same but with the latter they miss out on spending time with their family/resting etc.

That's a terrible way to implement UBI. It causes the dreaded welfare trap where people are incentivized to do nothing. UBI should be unconditional. This makes it much easier to implement, removes the stigma, and most importantly avoids the welfare trap. You want people who rely on welfare to be encouraged to become self sufficient, not trap them in dependence.

Welfare traps are a policy feature for company owners who employ a lot of people. It's a strong disincentive for employees who are trapped to ask for a raise.

Nonetheless when they appear their presence is typically (naively) chalked up to simple incompetence.

>Welfare traps are a policy feature for company owners who employ a lot of people.

It's simpler than that. There's not even a need to speculate about outside meddling.

No bureaucrat or appointee ever got a promotion or got more resources at their disposal for getting people off of government services and shrinking the relevance of the program. If you start with the program serving 10k people budget negotiations, getting those job reqs, etc, etc. will be harder if the program is so good that next year there's only 9k people on it. There's a massive incentive to just not give a shit about giving people a bridge to actually get off of welfare because why would any organization actively give a shit about creating a pathway toward making itself less relevant.

>It's simpler than that.

This isnt complicated.

>No bureaucrat or appointee ever got a promotion or got more resources at their disposal for getting people off of government services and shrinking the relevance of the program.

I can remember a number of such examples where there were incentives this being just one: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/30/cruel-...

If business runs government then it's in their interests to keep benefits systems stingy, capricious, hard to navigate and unpredictable as it makes people more reliant on their employers.

Removing it altogether would probably trigger riots but the frog can certainly be boiled.

Is the welfare trap real though? I suspect it may be for tiny minority, but imo most people would prefer to actually do something than sit on their ass and collect money for nothing. Again I may be grossly naïve in this area.

It is absolutely real and the biggest cliffs are for those already working full time.

Here's an example showing how someone making 31k per year needs to find a job making 80k a year to increase their net income.

Regarding who this impacts:

Approximately 35% of Americans make <31k and would see their quality of life go down if they took a job paying >31k.

Another approximately 40% of Americans earn between 31-80K and would be better off financially if they took a pay cut to 30K (at least in the short term). They get to see those making less living better.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welfare_trap#/media/File:Welfa...

OK, that is a different kind of welfare trap. Something similar occurs in the UK, where earning more money from an employer can reduce benefits payments and you end up worse off in real terms. However I was really asking about the welfare trap of "get money for doing literally nothing", which I personally believe is a nonsense that only a tiny minority would be happy doing.

"a basic income pilot program that would award SELECTED arts workers €10.50 ($11.90) per hour."

Selected is the key word. I imagine it would be only a handful that are paid to be full time artists, while the remainder might get funding for specific projects or periods of time.

> I always assumed that any money you earn would then be deducted from future payments

Contrary to what everyone says in this thread, this is the crappy way welfare exists in the UK

Most welfare systems work something like that. This is why welfare is generally not considered a form UBI.

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