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Another Universal Basic Income Experiment is Underway, This Time in Canada (technologyreview.com)

Posted by msmash on from the further-exploration dept.

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.

13 of 403 comments (clear)

  1. Student stipend... by b0s0z0ku · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The smarter way would be to pay students or people in vocational training programs a stipend for a maximum of a certain number of years. Encourage self-improvement without the situation becoming permanent.

    1. Re:Student stipend... by layabout · · Score: 5, Insightful

      really?? I have family members on SSDI. They want to work but all the jobs they can do would set them back financially if they lost SSDI. To cover all the benefits they have on ssdi, they would need a job paying at least 60k/year. I've been near homeless once in my life and never spend (or spent) money on cigarettes, liquor, lottery tickets, drugs, or tattoos. I was put in that place because of uncovered medical expenses.

      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

      Training people is all well and good but you need employers to hire that 60yr old coal miner retrained as a web developer.

    2. Re:Student stipend... by Darinbob · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You're ignorant. There are people who cannot work for various reasons, disabilities for example, and thus not "all" people as you claim. Poverty is a pit, and climbing out of it is not easy whether or not you were born in the pit or found your way there later.

      Under US federal minimum wage, you will make less than $15,000 a year despite working full time. Then subtract taxes, rent, bus-fare or auto upkeep, medical costs, and so forth, and there's not much leftover. If you've got kids then you can't have both parents working full time. To make ends meet you work two fulltime jobs, if you can find them, the spouse works a fulltime job, and grandma watches the kids. You're still stuck in a rut though, you can't spend time finishing high school or going to college, you can't commute very far to those better jobs. Then you'll likely get laid off sometime anyway.

      Here's the irony. Working hard does not mean being paid more. The best paying jobs usually require no manual labor, the worst paying jobs are for some of the most back breaking labor out there. But don't worry if you're poor, all those people with clean pressed white shirts and ties will offer to lecture you about how you need more personal responsibility.

    3. Re:Student stipend... by Darinbob · · Score: 1, Insightful

      A college degree of any kind will put you ahead of where you would be without one.

    4. Re:Student stipend... by Dixie_Flatline · · Score: 1, Insightful

      That's not true. Even if employment didn't increase, you did see social benefits that cost the government less money.

      Young men finishing high school is a definite social benefit. More educated workers make more money in the long run. That's a net community benefit.

      Health care usage (emergency room visits) went DOWN. Emergency rooms are the most expensive way to deliver health care, but the drop in need for health care in general is also a community benefit. The government saves money when the population is healthier.

      Then when we look at this article here, we see obvious benefits just on the surface. Local businesses are seeing good days, so that means middle class prosperity is up. You also have a museum staying open because the UBI is making it possible for someone to work there that wouldn't have been previously. Even the case that I cited specifically in what you're responding to is an example of increased (partial) employment.

      UBI makes jobs that are undervalued by capitalism (artistic endeavours, community cleanup, caring for the elderly or other neglected populations) possible in much greater numbers. There are plenty of people that want to spend time making their communities better but can't because they simply don't have the resources, whether that be time or money. We should encourage that sort of volunteerism, and UBI may be part of that.

    5. Re:Student stipend... by Quirkz · · Score: 3, Insightful

      All of these people who are "poor" have no problem finding plenty of money for ...

      Jeez. If you'd said "some" instead of "all" there *might* be a point worth debating - how to separate those who could use help from those who are determined to be a complete drain on society, say, but you've clearly already made up your mind that this is a moral issue, and that everyone who is poor deserves it because of their failures. That's not only obnoxious, but provably false.

      --
      The Quirkz Handbook of Self-Improvement for People Who Are Already Pretty Okay
  2. Sounds like welfare not UBI by gatkinso · · Score: 1, Insightful

    The difference is that right now there are jobs available. I thought UBI was to support the population when no jobs were available because they were lost to automation.

    --
    I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
    1. Re:Sounds like welfare not UBI by greythax · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Doesn't have to replace all radiologists. It just needs to read the MRI and write an automated report so fast and well, that a single radiologist can sit at home in his jammies and double check AI radiology reports for entire regions of hospitals. One radiologist doing the work of dozens.

      Horses are still around despite the existence of cars. Just a whole lot fewer of them.

  3. Re:Giving a man a fish has always worked. by polar+red · · Score: 2, Insightful

    when you can do nothing and get free money

    big capital already has that.

    --
    Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?
  4. Re:This will create disincentives to work by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The problem with this approach is it removes incentives to work.

    Isn't that the same argument against providing unemployment benefits, food stamp, and homeless shelters?

  5. Multifactor by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Yep, this. Theoretically UBI only works well if:

    1. EVERYBODY gets it
    2. There is no minimum wage

    The idea is, if you are a restaurant, for example, you'd be more inclined to hire people for $3/hour just to keep the place clean. That's not much, but you could make a few thousand extra a year working a few hours a day over your UBI, even in addition to another higher paying part-time job, it would be worth it to someone.

    1. Re:Multifactor by king+neckbeard · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Actually, a UBI would likely see an INCREASE in overall wages, even if it does remove the need for a minimum wage. Because we're arming workers with the power to say "Fuck Off!" if given a lousy deal.

      There might be some exceptions for jobs where most of the job is waiting for something to happen.

      --
      This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
  6. If I wanted to support a stranger... by mi · · Score: 1, Insightful

    If I wanted to support a stranger financially, I'd do it. And, maybe, I already do.

    By spending my taxes on such support, the government forces me — at the point of a weapon implicitly behind every tax-collection — to support more people, than I would support on my own volition.

    That's government overreach — a manifestation of tyranny — and should be denounced as such. Like "meatless meatballs", "compulsory charity" is a self-contradictory term.

    --
    In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.