Can UBI transform society? Probably not! But why is that the bar? It can just be boring form of welfare that makes a lot of people’s lives easier. That’s still a good thing worth doing.
All government welfare is bad. The "strings attached" versions tend to be better because they impose requirements before distributions are allocated. You want to do wjat you want without restriction? Fine. Pay for it.
All welfare should come from private charity. Strings are typically attached, the outcomes are better, and you don't have to steal from a single person to do it.
Any history pre-new deal shows how incorrect this standing is.
Also, taxes aren’t theft. It’s the cost of living in society and providing for societal, shared goods. “Streets are theft!! All roads should be toll roads!” Want a grand society…
The only way to guarantee competition is to punish predatory practices of large companies against small ones, which means, surprise, regulation.
How is UBI a shared good? It definitionally takes from some to give to others. That is the opposite of a shared good.
Taxes are theft when taxes are used for nonpublic goods. That means any good that is not both nonrivalous and nonexcludable. We tend to allow the bluring of nonpublic goods the more hyperlocal we get, since we can more accurately address needs. But such nonpublic goods are still funded via theft.
What's wrong with paying for that which you use? It's a consumption based model, and I do believe it would lead to better economic and societal outcomes.
No one else here seems to share this axiom. I appreciate that it’s important to your worldview but it’s also why you and everyone else are arguing past each other.
We have a UBI program already running in America - Alaska's Permanent Fund Dividend
It has been shown that "the dividend had no effect on employment and increased part-time work by 1.8 percentage points" [0] and has lifted 25,000 Alaskans out of poverty in 2015 alone [1]
[0] - https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/pol.20190299
[1] - https://iseralaska.org/static/legacy_publication_links/2016_...
> Second, the impact on labor demand should be especially pronounced in the non- tradable sector. We show suggestive evidence consistent with this hypothesis — the esti- mated effects of the dividend on both employment and part-time work are sizeable in the tradable sector and suggest a reduction in labor, but are close to zero in the non-tradable sector. These estimates are only suggestive, but are consistent with a macro feedback effect on employment.
I enjoy data, so thank you for the studies. That said, I do not think these are adequate to generalize the impacts of UBI. Mostly this is because the Alaska-based UBI only contributes a mean of ~$4k/household. That seems wholly too small to make national conclusions; such a UBI amount is insufficient for life.
I do appreciate that the general equilibrium held. That is, the negative offsets of the opportunity cost of employment were offset by the new employment demand that the UBI stimulus had on the economy. But I think it's important to distinguish the tradeable vs nontradeable conclusion:
> Second, the impact on labor demand should be especially pronounced in the non- tradable sector. We show suggestive evidence consistent with this hypothesis — the esti- mated effects of the dividend on both employment and part-time work are sizeable in the tradable sector and suggest a reduction in labor, but are close to zero in the non-tradable sector. These estimates are only suggestive, but are consistent with a macro feedback effect on employment.
To me, it seems that the impact of PFD is akin to a stimulus check. The fungible money is utilized to buy luxuries[+]. I can think of no other reason that demand for nontradeable goods would spike. Thus, although people are lifted out of poverty, unless their nontradeble consumption is housing[+], then their consumption seems to be misaligned with general wealth building principles, such as saving and investing the difference.
More broadly, if the nation adopted UBI, tradeable offsets may be harder to come by, as they would be required to be imports, since the other states would face the same labor impact as AK.
Thank you for the data. I'll read more when I have some time, but my opinion seems to be generally unchanged, though I recognize the impacts may be lesser than my prior suggested.
The other 40% is the cost of housing. UBI could help tremendously here. The US has really cheap housing in places with no jobs and expensive housing in places with jobs. UBI would allow those without jobs to move to the cheap places. UBI is unlikely to be generous so if you want to live off UBI without a job it would almost force you to either supplement with a job or move to a place with cheap housing.
Any demand increase will lead to price increases against a fixed supply. You propose that supply will rise if demand does. Perhaps. But a lot of these industries rely on unskilled workers, and UBI would give those unskilled workers free money. I hypothesize unskilled workers would demand a higher wage to trade their freetime for worktime, and that would increase costs and therefore prices.
> The US has really cheap housing in places with no jobs and expensive housing in places with jobs. UBI would allow those without jobs to move to the cheap places
There is a reason some places are cheap: little economic opportunity. We saw the massive change some of these places underwent when covid sent many to remote only work amd they moved out of the city. The difference is that during covid those people brought private dollars to the cheaper places. UBI proposes to steal from wealthy to prop up cheap places. It creates economic deadweight.
I hypothesize the opposite. A UBI eliminates the need for minimum wage.
And small differences in income are very meaningful for the poor. For instance if somebody is making $1k/month from UBI, a $1/hour job increases income to $1160. That's very meaningful and some would take it if nothing else is available.
We shouldn't have any minimum wage regardless of UBI.
But with regards to UBI, you didn't remove minimum wage. All you did was push minimum wage to all members of society regardless of their employment status. You state as much: a $1/hour job is fine if you already make $x, where $x is minimum_wage404.
It actually creates a larger burden on the private sector than if you just let minimum wage exist, as now you have to pay everyone minimum wage just for breathing.
This would create stimulus effects which are counteracted by inflation in time.
I expect for this to be an available path but an unlikely one. People tend to give to those in need. Sometimes that comes with conditions: no drugs, get a job, etc. Historically we used religious institutions for this, which is largely why they are tax exempt.
Breaking poverty tends to require a shift in behavior. UBI by definition removes the requirement that someone makes EV+ decisions and lifestyle changes.
On what basis? Do you know how many people die in poverty in countries with no social safety net?
The "income" terminology gets confused as "salary" by those who aren't well versed with these kinds of programs.
A lot of people on welfare would say that welfare makes their life easier. Very few would say it makes it easy.