In practice the UK already pays the price for a universal basic income. Most poor people get some sort of tax credit and/or housing benefit. What we don't do is allow people to use it to rise out of poverty. A disabled lady thought saving some of her disability was the responsible thing to do, despite further impoverishing herself, once she built up some savings she was prosecuted for fraudently claiming benefits while having savings. There is this tremendous destructive fear that no one should build up any capital with the help of benefits when this is precisely what would lift people out of poverty long term and reduce the costs on society.
I'm going to assume it won't be "for life", but will instead be for some fixed period, such as 1 or 2 years. Scotland has been proposing doing a similar experiment too.<p>But I'm not sure what these very small scale experiments are meant to tell us, especially since several such experiments have already been done. I can't help but be cynical and think this is governments offering platitudes to those in favour of UBI, running experiments designed to produce the outcomes the government wants.<p>Realistically, the behaviour of someone receiving monthly payments for a known fixed term is going to be <i>radically</i> different than that of someone who knows they are going to receive that payment for life, and that it will increase online with inflation or the CPI (Consumer Price Index).
Interesting how political parties are for or against this pilot project before the results are known. What happened to gathering evidence first and then making up one's mind? There have been other projects in Canada, Finland,Kenya and the Netherlands, all with “positive” results.<p>It is useful to ask what you are trying to achieve with an UBI?<p>* lift people out of poverty?<p>* save money on other social schemes, like pensions, disability payments, schooling or housing subsidies?<p>* save money on secondary effects of poverty (like lower average health, or more mental and psychological problems)?<p>* make everyone's life “better” (if so, define better)?<p>* boost the economy?<p>I am going to conduct my own personal UBI experiment starting February 2022. I will be gifted €1.000 per month for 48 months... and I am thinking about maybe blogging or vlogging or instagramming about my experiences.... Any suggestions from the HN crowd?
Housing can’t be both affordable and a good investment. The price of a home should therefore equal its replacement cost. If the market value of the home with the land is $1 million, but the cost to build the home is $200k, raise taxes on the land until the new market value is $200k. Tada, Land Value Tax.<p>Why am I mentioning LVT in a Universal Basic Income thread?<p>What should we do with the money we earn through a LVT? Give it away through UBI.<p>Win-win.<p>If you want to start with a smaller LVT and work your way up to equalization over a period of 20 years, that's fine.
The 'universal' aspect of UBI is critical, and many of the attempts to test UBI seem to miss this completely. Call it something else in that case.
How do they test this for a subset of the population, while actually ensuring the at-scale harmful impacts don't happen when it is scaled up? One of the biggest concerns I've heard is inflation. If you test on a small group, you won't see inflation and you will think your test was a success.
The trouble with these pilot schemes is that they involve too few people and are too short to make any firm conclusions.<p>Elections and different politicians with different viewpoints can be elected half way through and other financial implications arise - like COVID, or in the case of the Finnish pilot a change to the unemployment benefits system that made making comparisons difficult.<p>The true benefits and costs of UBI are probably only evident after decades or even generations.
"We need to make an early start on designing the pilot to make sure that we have the best chance of operating a pilot that allows us to draw the conclusions from it that we would all want to see."<p>Not a very scientific attitude
(I think this is a great idea btw, just that quote is quite cringe)
Is it actually going to be universal? Because if it's not, don't call it "universal". I see a lot of articles stating that "universal basic income was tested with massive success" when there was nothing universal about it.<p>There's a big difference.
There are already studies on effects of UBI:<p><pre><code> https://philip.greenspun.com/blog/2016/11/30/long-term-effects-of-short-term-free-cash-guaranteed-minimum-income-experiments/</code></pre>
Anybody did take part in similar test here ?<p>I'm somehow in a false UBI situation, monthly jobless benefits, and while waiting for answers I volunteer (mentioned it a few times). I found the freedom very .. freeing and motivating (actually the system was slowing me down, politics as you know). So I really wonder how it is to live officially in this condition.
Can anyone point me to a clear description of what we should expect UBI to do to prices? I definitely worry that it will simply increase rent & other necessities, but I of course don't know.
One can dig up any UBI thread here on HN, and read the same arguments. Over and over again.<p>Doesn't matter one bit it is in Wales this time. <i>Beaten to death</i> I assume is the proper term.
There's a lot of hypocrisy in the so-called moral objections to UBI. I don't hear of any comparable moral requirement for employers to offer a decent living wage and working conditions because under capitalism labour is merely another commodity to be bought at the lowest price.
Coronavirus, UBI, working from home, unbearable traffic, etc are all part of the same technocratic agenda. The world is being re-shaped and most people on this site can't see the wood for the trees. What we are moving into is total governmental control of every facet of our lives - it will be a fascist dictatorship run by google, amazon etc. You may think I am overstating the case, but it is all well planned - take a look at the nice words here:
<a href="https://sdgs.un.org/2030agenda" rel="nofollow">https://sdgs.un.org/2030agenda</a><p>The governors are not our friends, we are being lied to in order to agree to give up control of our natural born freedoms (to move, breath, control what we put into our bodies). It is the death of individuality, and the growth of the collective. Sad times.
It's disappointing to see the tories ("The Conservatives" political party's nickname) knee jerk opposition. It would be nice to see more details on the actual trial (length and amount paid). That said, we basically know UBI works, it's just that no one has the balls to just do it...
That's where my taxes will go. And I have to pay almost a grand a month for private healthcare because of incompetent NHS. Maybe I should move to Wales to get some of my money back.
The root cause in the US being income inequality. Less people want to spread the wealth and more people expect a version of wealth. UBI is not the blanket solution I think most are expecting. It will open a can of worms.<p>Give more people better opportunities. Folks don’t want a hand out.<p>Companies are too big and although do provide some benefits such as lower price in some cases we end up paying for it with lower wages and less opportunities for other entrepreneurs.
I am going to conduct my own personal experiment starting February 2022.<p>I will be gifted €1.000 per month for 48 months... and I am thinking about maybe blogging or vlogging or instagramming about my experiences....<p>Any suggestions from the HN crowd?