The actual data: https://www.denverbasicincomeproject.org/research These results are actually very underwhelming. Yes, almost half the participants had housing after a year. To be exact, 44% had...
These results are actually very underwhelming. Yes, almost half the participants had housing after a year. To be exact, 44% had housing. What the headline leaves out is that so did 43% of the control group who only got $50. I would speculate that "nearly half" of any randomly selected group of homeless people would have housing after a year.
That sounds exactly like regression to the mean. At least it is a controlled study to account for this. I would agree with your description of “underwhelming”.
That sounds exactly like regression to the mean. At least it is a controlled study to account for this. I would agree with your description of “underwhelming”.
Yeah I would state that the results of the study would be that giving money to homeless seems to do nothing. $1000/month is nothing to scoff at either. It’s quite high for basic income experiments.
Yeah I would state that the results of the study would be that giving money to homeless seems to do nothing. $1000/month is nothing to scoff at either. It’s quite high for basic income experiments.
Well, it seems to have some small effects in keeping them out of the hospital, and the lump sum payment seemed to have a marginally better effect on housing. It’s certainly a far cry from the...
Well, it seems to have some small effects in keeping them out of the hospital, and the lump sum payment seemed to have a marginally better effect on housing. It’s certainly a far cry from the headline that makes it sound like it’s some kind of miracle.
On closer examination, I think that might be the same. The use of public services reduced service use in all groups, including the control group. In some areas, the control group even outperformed...
On closer examination, I think that might be the same. The use of public services reduced service use in all groups, including the control group. In some areas, the control group even outperformed the people getting large amounts of money — the control group spent substantially less time in jail. The control group went to the ER more than the lump sum group and less than the $1000/month group which seems ambiguous.
To be honest, I cannot remember a time when I have read a Business Insider article and thought to myself that it was real journalism. Everything they report on is so incredibly brief that they...
To be honest, I cannot remember a time when I have read a Business Insider article and thought to myself that it was real journalism. Everything they report on is so incredibly brief that they tend to misrepresent the things they are talking about, and that's assuming they're not just pulling one of those "according to an article published by [reputable source]..." jobs.
That quote usually refers to hiding data behind some kind of misleading analysis. This is just cherry picking and ignoring the control group which is particularly egregious.
That quote usually refers to hiding data behind some kind of misleading analysis. This is just cherry picking and ignoring the control group which is particularly egregious.
This is what interests me more than the rest of the story, what was it that prevented him from keeping a stable home? Unable to find work? Prior debt? Something else? What aid was missing...
Laws, for example, had to go back to living in his car after his payments stopped.
This is what interests me more than the rest of the story, what was it that prevented him from keeping a stable home? Unable to find work? Prior debt? Something else?
What aid was missing (financial or otherwise) that would have helped keep him on track, and how can we build that into this kind of program to make it more effective in the future?
Some people are just like that. We have to accept that you can't help everyone by doing everything for them because some will fail every time help (as in funding their whole life) stops.
Some people are just like that. We have to accept that you can't help everyone by doing everything for them because some will fail every time help (as in funding their whole life) stops.
Sure, and I'd rather keep giving those people money for the rest of their life. They cost the system money regardless, they might as well be happier and healthier. Net gain for society.
Sure, and I'd rather keep giving those people money for the rest of their life. They cost the system money regardless, they might as well be happier and healthier. Net gain for society.
Wouldn't that make some people working lowest wage jobs drop it altogether? If I received 1000 USD for doing nothing or 1000 USD for wasting 8 hours every day at work, guess what would I pick....
Wouldn't that make some people working lowest wage jobs drop it altogether? If I received 1000 USD for doing nothing or 1000 USD for wasting 8 hours every day at work, guess what would I pick. Doesn't seem like a healthy way to solve the problem because it's just plain unfair for people doing simple but really important jobs.
Those lowest wage jobs are a drain on society anyway. Random schedules, no benefits, and anyone relying on that money as their only source of income is already draining the state's coffers. I...
Those lowest wage jobs are a drain on society anyway. Random schedules, no benefits, and anyone relying on that money as their only source of income is already draining the state's coffers.
I would agree with you that I would rather do nothing for $12,000 a year than work a shit job for $12,000 a year. I also don't want to live on $12,000 a year. (Which is what a 32 hour schedule at federal minimum wage gets you, or what this scheme gets you).
Walmart might have to pay a living wage if this gets enacted to entice people to work there and that would be fine with me.
Right. A UBI type scheme would give employees the means to say no to exploitative-but-legal employment. Which means employers have to pay more or decrease how much their jobs suck (e.g. by...
Right. A UBI type scheme would give employees the means to say no to exploitative-but-legal employment. Which means employers have to pay more or decrease how much their jobs suck (e.g. by providing reasonable schedules).
Plus, I see another tool in the toolbox that studies can't touch, but governments (at a certain level anyway) could: Payroll tax curves. Plot Take-home pay as a function of gross wages. A UBI like this means f(0) = 12000. What's the take-home-pay supposed to be if you're working a 12k/a job? f(12000) = ???.. Well, it definitely has to be more than 12000 if we want people to show up. 18000 perhaps? Where's the government's breakeven point, where they stop subsidising people's lives? How much does the government extract from people earning 100k? So many useful tools for making sure that people are incentivized to work, and that performance is rewarded are in that curve. Plus, there's a few simple common-sense constraints you can throw at it to ensure the curve ends up with a reasonable shape: f'(x) > 0 to make sure more wages means at least some extra take-home pay. f''(x) < 0 to make sure higher incomes are taxed more than low incomes.
Any policy discussion about UBI or similar constructs needs to in some way adjust the tax curve to keep things balanced.
It's not about Walmart or private sector but public services like sweeping the streets or taking out the trash. Why would anyone want to do that if you paid similar amount of money for doing...
It's not about Walmart or private sector but public services like sweeping the streets or taking out the trash. Why would anyone want to do that if you paid similar amount of money for doing nothing instead? Do you think government will subsidize these sufficiently to raise wages there? I don't think so. Also it sounds like a great way to raise inflation. We have seen that recently in Poland with different kind of welfare for example 2 additional monthly pensions every year for every retired person granted by ruling party to get their votes and it causes pretty common outrage among everyone but elderly. Can't imagine economical and social mayhem that would be caused here by giving people who are basically parasiting on society 1 pension every month for doing nothing.
This raises an interesting philosophical issue. Our society has a massive amount of boring, unpleasant drudgery that needs to be done cheaply to keep it running. The people who prepare fast food,...
This raises an interesting philosophical issue. Our society has a massive amount of boring, unpleasant drudgery that needs to be done cheaply to keep it running. The people who prepare fast food, stock our shelves, clean our streets and toilets, wipe elderly people's butts, empty septic tanks and porta-potties, and so on.
They're essential, but also hard to automate (so far), don't scale at all, and paying them well would likely cause massive inflation.
The system relies on fundamental inequality of... everything in life to produce a massive pool of labor that can't refuse the work.
Immigration status: they can't move to a higher-paying country/market, or they can't access worker rights
Discrimination and its many subtle and not-so-subtle barriers
Lack of educational opportunity, they weren't able to make proper use of education due to family or mental health issues
... or they simply didn't care about school very much. I remember the kids who teased me for being in math and coding clubs. They had just as much access to the same resources and preferred to screw around instead of applying themselves. Well, fast forward 20 years, and the joke's on them. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Raised in families that don't cultivate innate intellectual abilities, or... simply born with below-average intellectual abilities.
The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas should be required reading, but more realistically we should be having conversations about the lies of necessary suffering.
The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas should be required reading, but more realistically we should be having conversations about the lies of necessary suffering.
one of these is not like the others. to be sure, there is hard and thankless work that has to be done, but there is a lot that is superfluous. i enjoy going to a cafe, and sometimes eating out or...
The people who prepare fast food, stock our shelves, clean our streets and toilets, wipe elderly people's butts, empty septic tanks and porta-potties
one of these is not like the others. to be sure, there is hard and thankless work that has to be done, but there is a lot that is superfluous. i enjoy going to a cafe, and sometimes eating out or getting take-out, but if massive swaths of the service industry could be wiped out, and in exchange i can only have a coffee if i make it myself, that would be a very worthwhile trade. and, of course, the inessential work being eliminated, the essential work can be more fairly distributed and less of a burden. (hi marx)
An aside: I think that highly educated people, who are usually intrinsically motivated, have a difficult time imagining the mentality of extrinsically motivated people because it is so alien.
An aside: I think that highly educated people, who are usually intrinsically motivated, have a difficult time imagining the mentality of extrinsically motivated people because it is so alien.
Some people would for sure, but that's true for pretty much everything. People use that same type of logic to argue against welfare programs, because of "welfare queens" taking advantage of the...
Some people would for sure, but that's true for pretty much everything. People use that same type of logic to argue against welfare programs, because of "welfare queens" taking advantage of the system. The attempts to prevent that abuse tends to cause far more harm and difficulty to people who actually need the services.
One counter-argument I have, which is the same reasoning a lot of people argue for never raising minimum wage: a lot of those lowest-wage jobs go to high school students. People who likely wouldn't be eligible for those payments, but want spare pocket money or to start saving for the next phase of life.
Outside of teenagers, people would still likely pick up those minimum wage jobs for extra pocket money. $1000 a month would require tight budgeting, with minimal fun money or emergency savings. People like indulging in luxuries, so many people would still want more money to get better housing, or splurge on little luxuries like nice restaurants or electronics or vacations—all of which feeds back into the economy because they're actually able to SPEND money.
The money from the government would just give a cushion and let them be a little more choosey with jobs. If you're not living paycheck to paycheck, you can more easily quit a bad job. People also won't be lining up for jobs out of desperation, which means companies and stores have incentive to NOT be abusive and try to retain employees.
You mentioned public sector jobs in another comment, but I'd say this logic applies to those as well. Looking it up, at least in the US street sweepers are paid on average $18-$23 per hour. That's already above minimum wage, so they wouldn't really need to raise the wage for that position to be appealing to people. Your other example of picking up garbage has a similar range, with the extra perk that (so long as policy allows) they can take stuff home. I've seen garbage workers talk about finding and taking pretty nice TVs, furniture, and other expensive appliances/electronics that just require minor fixes.
And beyond financial incentive, don't underestimate the power of boredom. A lot of retirees volunteer or get part-time jobs just to have something to do. My grandfather worked part-time until his health started failing at 92 because he got bored sitting around at home.
So all in all, I don't think it would cause the economy to crash. Most people can't comfortably live off only $1000 a month, and while some can, I think most would want more money anyway. It mostly just gives people breathing room.
Exactly. Those people should quit their jobs and society should restructure around the new cost for labor. It would be such a huge step up to make labor only necessary for luxuries.
Exactly. Those people should quit their jobs and society should restructure around the new cost for labor. It would be such a huge step up to make labor only necessary for luxuries.
Well, ideally there isnt a benefits cliff such that even working a minimum wage job turns $1,000 into $2,000. You recoup UBI costs from the upper half of the median, not the bottom. Also something...
Well, ideally there isnt a benefits cliff such that even working a minimum wage job turns $1,000 into $2,000.
You recoup UBI costs from the upper half of the median, not the bottom.
Also something something a janitor should be paid within a standard deviation of an engineer. Because death comes for us all, and 40h is 40h no matter how you labor...and I'm betting most engineers would still rather be engineers than janitors, even if janitors got paid almost equivalent wages.
As someone who ran a business providing accounting and business consulting to small businesses and is currently considering a part-time office manager position, I would absolutely take the janitor...
As someone who ran a business providing accounting and business consulting to small businesses and is currently considering a part-time office manager position, I would absolutely take the janitor position if the money was similar. Minimal large scale projects, work can't follow you home, you're mostly not responsible for the potential deaths of hundreds... Give me janitor over engineer if I could make about the same.
Criminal records can follow you forever, and make it exponentially harder to get a job. And since you can often be arrested for sleeping on a bench... Mental health issues make being employed...
Criminal records can follow you forever, and make it exponentially harder to get a job. And since you can often be arrested for sleeping on a bench...
Mental health issues make being employed difficult. Pair that with expensive medical care and you've got a recipie for schizophrenics stuck on the streets.
The actual data:
https://www.denverbasicincomeproject.org/research
These results are actually very underwhelming. Yes, almost half the participants had housing after a year. To be exact, 44% had housing. What the headline leaves out is that so did 43% of the control group who only got $50. I would speculate that "nearly half" of any randomly selected group of homeless people would have housing after a year.
That sounds exactly like regression to the mean. At least it is a controlled study to account for this. I would agree with your description of “underwhelming”.
Yeah I would state that the results of the study would be that giving money to homeless seems to do nothing. $1000/month is nothing to scoff at either. It’s quite high for basic income experiments.
Well, it seems to have some small effects in keeping them out of the hospital, and the lump sum payment seemed to have a marginally better effect on housing. It’s certainly a far cry from the headline that makes it sound like it’s some kind of miracle.
I've not dug deeper into the data, but if this keeping out even a small number of people out of the hosptial that is huge.
On closer examination, I think that might be the same. The use of public services reduced service use in all groups, including the control group. In some areas, the control group even outperformed the people getting large amounts of money — the control group spent substantially less time in jail. The control group went to the ER more than the lump sum group and less than the $1000/month group which seems ambiguous.
This is why I ignore Business Insider. Every article leaves me feeling clickbaited.
To be honest, I cannot remember a time when I have read a Business Insider article and thought to myself that it was real journalism. Everything they report on is so incredibly brief that they tend to misrepresent the things they are talking about, and that's assuming they're not just pulling one of those "according to an article published by [reputable source]..." jobs.
There are lies, damned lies, and statistics.
That quote usually refers to hiding data behind some kind of misleading analysis. This is just cherry picking and ignoring the control group which is particularly egregious.
This is what interests me more than the rest of the story, what was it that prevented him from keeping a stable home? Unable to find work? Prior debt? Something else?
What aid was missing (financial or otherwise) that would have helped keep him on track, and how can we build that into this kind of program to make it more effective in the future?
Some people are just like that. We have to accept that you can't help everyone by doing everything for them because some will fail every time help (as in funding their whole life) stops.
Sure, and I'd rather keep giving those people money for the rest of their life. They cost the system money regardless, they might as well be happier and healthier. Net gain for society.
Wouldn't that make some people working lowest wage jobs drop it altogether? If I received 1000 USD for doing nothing or 1000 USD for wasting 8 hours every day at work, guess what would I pick. Doesn't seem like a healthy way to solve the problem because it's just plain unfair for people doing simple but really important jobs.
Those lowest wage jobs are a drain on society anyway. Random schedules, no benefits, and anyone relying on that money as their only source of income is already draining the state's coffers.
I would agree with you that I would rather do nothing for $12,000 a year than work a shit job for $12,000 a year. I also don't want to live on $12,000 a year. (Which is what a 32 hour schedule at federal minimum wage gets you, or what this scheme gets you).
Walmart might have to pay a living wage if this gets enacted to entice people to work there and that would be fine with me.
Right. A UBI type scheme would give employees the means to say no to exploitative-but-legal employment. Which means employers have to pay more or decrease how much their jobs suck (e.g. by providing reasonable schedules).
Plus, I see another tool in the toolbox that studies can't touch, but governments (at a certain level anyway) could: Payroll tax curves. Plot Take-home pay as a function of gross wages. A UBI like this means f(0) = 12000. What's the take-home-pay supposed to be if you're working a 12k/a job? f(12000) = ???.. Well, it definitely has to be more than 12000 if we want people to show up. 18000 perhaps? Where's the government's breakeven point, where they stop subsidising people's lives? How much does the government extract from people earning 100k? So many useful tools for making sure that people are incentivized to work, and that performance is rewarded are in that curve. Plus, there's a few simple common-sense constraints you can throw at it to ensure the curve ends up with a reasonable shape: f'(x) > 0 to make sure more wages means at least some extra take-home pay. f''(x) < 0 to make sure higher incomes are taxed more than low incomes.
Any policy discussion about UBI or similar constructs needs to in some way adjust the tax curve to keep things balanced.
It's not about Walmart or private sector but public services like sweeping the streets or taking out the trash. Why would anyone want to do that if you paid similar amount of money for doing nothing instead? Do you think government will subsidize these sufficiently to raise wages there? I don't think so. Also it sounds like a great way to raise inflation. We have seen that recently in Poland with different kind of welfare for example 2 additional monthly pensions every year for every retired person granted by ruling party to get their votes and it causes pretty common outrage among everyone but elderly. Can't imagine economical and social mayhem that would be caused here by giving people who are basically parasiting on society 1 pension every month for doing nothing.
This raises an interesting philosophical issue. Our society has a massive amount of boring, unpleasant drudgery that needs to be done cheaply to keep it running. The people who prepare fast food, stock our shelves, clean our streets and toilets, wipe elderly people's butts, empty septic tanks and porta-potties, and so on.
They're essential, but also hard to automate (so far), don't scale at all, and paying them well would likely cause massive inflation.
The system relies on fundamental inequality of... everything in life to produce a massive pool of labor that can't refuse the work.
The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas should be required reading, but more realistically we should be having conversations about the lies of necessary suffering.
one of these is not like the others. to be sure, there is hard and thankless work that has to be done, but there is a lot that is superfluous. i enjoy going to a cafe, and sometimes eating out or getting take-out, but if massive swaths of the service industry could be wiped out, and in exchange i can only have a coffee if i make it myself, that would be a very worthwhile trade. and, of course, the inessential work being eliminated, the essential work can be more fairly distributed and less of a burden. (hi marx)
i.e.
the indignity of the many serves the minor convenience of the few
An aside: I think that highly educated people, who are usually intrinsically motivated, have a difficult time imagining the mentality of extrinsically motivated people because it is so alien.
Some people would for sure, but that's true for pretty much everything. People use that same type of logic to argue against welfare programs, because of "welfare queens" taking advantage of the system. The attempts to prevent that abuse tends to cause far more harm and difficulty to people who actually need the services.
One counter-argument I have, which is the same reasoning a lot of people argue for never raising minimum wage: a lot of those lowest-wage jobs go to high school students. People who likely wouldn't be eligible for those payments, but want spare pocket money or to start saving for the next phase of life.
Outside of teenagers, people would still likely pick up those minimum wage jobs for extra pocket money. $1000 a month would require tight budgeting, with minimal fun money or emergency savings. People like indulging in luxuries, so many people would still want more money to get better housing, or splurge on little luxuries like nice restaurants or electronics or vacations—all of which feeds back into the economy because they're actually able to SPEND money.
The money from the government would just give a cushion and let them be a little more choosey with jobs. If you're not living paycheck to paycheck, you can more easily quit a bad job. People also won't be lining up for jobs out of desperation, which means companies and stores have incentive to NOT be abusive and try to retain employees.
You mentioned public sector jobs in another comment, but I'd say this logic applies to those as well. Looking it up, at least in the US street sweepers are paid on average $18-$23 per hour. That's already above minimum wage, so they wouldn't really need to raise the wage for that position to be appealing to people. Your other example of picking up garbage has a similar range, with the extra perk that (so long as policy allows) they can take stuff home. I've seen garbage workers talk about finding and taking pretty nice TVs, furniture, and other expensive appliances/electronics that just require minor fixes.
And beyond financial incentive, don't underestimate the power of boredom. A lot of retirees volunteer or get part-time jobs just to have something to do. My grandfather worked part-time until his health started failing at 92 because he got bored sitting around at home.
So all in all, I don't think it would cause the economy to crash. Most people can't comfortably live off only $1000 a month, and while some can, I think most would want more money anyway. It mostly just gives people breathing room.
Exactly. Those people should quit their jobs and society should restructure around the new cost for labor. It would be such a huge step up to make labor only necessary for luxuries.
Well, ideally there isnt a benefits cliff such that even working a minimum wage job turns $1,000 into $2,000.
You recoup UBI costs from the upper half of the median, not the bottom.
Also something something a janitor should be paid within a standard deviation of an engineer. Because death comes for us all, and 40h is 40h no matter how you labor...and I'm betting most engineers would still rather be engineers than janitors, even if janitors got paid almost equivalent wages.
As someone who ran a business providing accounting and business consulting to small businesses and is currently considering a part-time office manager position, I would absolutely take the janitor position if the money was similar. Minimal large scale projects, work can't follow you home, you're mostly not responsible for the potential deaths of hundreds... Give me janitor over engineer if I could make about the same.
Criminal records can follow you forever, and make it exponentially harder to get a job. And since you can often be arrested for sleeping on a bench...
Mental health issues make being employed difficult. Pair that with expensive medical care and you've got a recipie for schizophrenics stuck on the streets.