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Another Universal Basic Income Experiment is Underway, This Time in Canada (technologyreview.com)
Lindsay, a compact rectangle amid the lakes northeast of Toronto, is at the heart of one of the world's biggest tests of a guaranteed basic income. Technology Review: In a three-year pilot funded by the provincial government, about 4,000 people in Ontario are getting monthly stipends to boost them to at least 75 percent of the poverty line. That translates to a minimum annual income of $17,000 in Canadian dollars (about $13,000 US) for single people, $24,000 for married couples. Lindsay has about half the people in the pilot -- some 10 percent of the town's population. The report outlines that the Canadian province's vision for a basic income -- and the underlying experiment -- differs from that of the one we have seen in Silicon Valley. The report continues: The Canadians are testing it as an efficient antipoverty mechanism, a way to give a relatively small segment of the population more flexibility to find work and to strengthen other strands of the safety net. That's not what Silicon Valley seems to imagine, which is a universal basic income that placates broad swaths of the population.
The most obvious problem with that idea? Math. Many economists concluded long ago that it would be too expensive, especially when compared with the cost of programs to create new jobs and train people for them. That's why the idea didn't take off after tests in the 1960s and '70s. It's largely why Finland recently abandoned a basic-income plan after a small test.
The most obvious problem with that idea? Math. Many economists concluded long ago that it would be too expensive, especially when compared with the cost of programs to create new jobs and train people for them. That's why the idea didn't take off after tests in the 1960s and '70s. It's largely why Finland recently abandoned a basic-income plan after a small test.
It's largely why Finland recently abandoned a basic-income plan after a small test.
But it didn't. The experiment is proceeding according to plan and will continue until the end of 2018.
Contrary to reports, the basic income experiment will continue
I'm not convinced you read the article.
For instance, near the end, there was this:
"In 2015, two years before the basic-income trial, Bowman asked a case worker if she could get help paying for transportation to a Fleming campus that offers classes in social work. The official said that would lead to cuts in other benefits Bowman relied on. The message Bowman says she got was: “You’re unemployable. You’re not worth investing in."
A lot of people that are stuck in poverty actually want to work. (Indeed, many of them are working and just not making enough money to break out of poverty.)
The original Mincome experiment in Canada in the 70s found that the only people that worked less during the experiment were new mothers, and young men...who used the money to stay in high school and complete that stage of their education, rather than leave school early to get a job and make enough money to help out at home.
Context is certainly everything with experiments like this, which is why people keep trying them. I think for many parts of Canada, this could be a big win.
Funny, because I was one of those working poor until I started making more money. I'm pretty sure you're wrong; I don't smoke, I don't use drugs, I don't have tattoos or piercings, I don't gamble, and my drinking is limited to one or two drinks per week (if any at all). When I was making less than $16k/yr and supporting my partner, there weren't hundreds of dollars every month for me to waste; what's changed is that I make almost as much in a month as I used to make in a year.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
Pre-emptive strike: Math is still math, UBI still doesn't scale up, UBI fanbois need to keep it in their pants, calm down, and resign themselves to working until they drop dead, no free ride for you or anyone else, not until you invent 24th Century Starfleet-style matter replicators and plentiful free power to run them provided by ubiquitos antimatter reactors. </subject>
AC: "I saw this guy buy a 6 pack after using food stamps one time."
Also AC: "Therefore, the poor are shiftless, lazy alcoholics who deserve to starve."
Personal observation is not the same as data. A huge number of people are just barely scraping by and will be homeless the moment that a layoff, car accident, or medical condition happens.