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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.
The problem with this approach is it removes incentives to work. What if you are currently unemployed or underemployed? If this basic income pushes you up by $17,000, then it removes the incentive to find a better job until you find one that makes well in excess of $17,000. If the stipend is removed once you make about a certain amount, you're creating a disincentive to make that amount.
Giving everyone a smaller basic income (regardless of their current income) avoids that trap: You are still incented to work since you'd get the basic income plus whatever job income.
This seems doomed to failure. But since it is a limited, small experiment, it's still worthwhile to gather the data and try and measure the cost tradeoffs (such as, "At what income would a person need to work until the incentive to stay on the basic income goes away?" Hopefully this would provide real data.
...was it Finland that did this experiment first?
But it's a modern PR thing, oh-we-are-so-progressive, we're going to try this, we're ahead of the heard. I've seen so many countries try this by now (and later ditching it, when it wasn't making the news anymore) that I don't quite believe in the sincerity behind the project.
I'm all for Universal Basic Income, because I personally believe that no one should starve to death, and everyone should have a basic platform where they could work themselves up from rock-bottom to a worthy place in society. And of their own choice, not what WE think is a worthy place. We're all different - there's a place for us all.
But these half assed experiments aren't impressive, just depressive. And they always make the news, as if they where amazing, innovative, new and fantastic.
There's nothing fantastic, new or amazing by it. There's only "PR - LOOK how innovative we are, we're giving it a go".
No you're not. 4K is a drop in the ocean, in fact - it's a drop in a freaking POND somewhere. If you want to see the real ramification of it all, if you want to see the actual effect, it got to be introduced as a WHOLE for everyone. People aren't automatically going to ditch their job, no one wants to live on existence minimum. but it will give oddball individuals a chance to grow into their position in life. It will give people who lost their jobs to automation - a chance to re-educate themselves, it will give people time to reflect, and not just shrivel up and die on some street corner somewhere.
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
I think this is just an experiment to gather information about UBI's in general, not solve a specific problem in Ontario. These are the kinds of tests we (as a species) should be doing now to prepare for a future (50-100+ years off?) when perhaps automation has supplanted enough jobs that we simply have more workers than work. There's no doubt automation will continue, and AI will eat up all kinds of jobs. The question of whether there will be enough new jobs is one I don't think we can definitively answer.
It's tough to imagine that future, but it's better to find out what does and does not work now than when it's too late. These things will probably need to run for a very long time to prove or disprove viability, with lots of different approaches all seemingly hinging on the fickle idiosyncrasies of the human experience.
In the end, we may find that UBI simply doesn't work AND that there will not be enough jobs. In which case there will likely have to be limits placed upon how much a company can automate (or how much people can procreate).
I'm sorry, but your opinion seems to be wrong.
means things are pretty different today then they were in the 60s. And we've got a massive, massive push for automation coming. Basic income doesn't make sense when you need everybody working. Those days are coming to and end. We can't all be Doctors and engineers. A lot of us just aren't smart enough. And we can't retrain everybody. Not everybody can learn a complex new job. Most can't past the age of 30.
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The problem is not lack of income. The problem is irresponsible behavior.
What you're missing is that lack of income causes irrisponsible behaviour. Someone who is preoccupied with money problems effectively looses 13 IQ points, according to this research, making them more likely to make bad decisions that perpetuate their problems.
Someone I know has a low income and used to have a drinking problem. What enabled her to stop drinking was a period during which she got some extra money. That was temporary, but because she quit drinking she could get by much easier afterwards. When I asked her what had prevented her from just quitting the habit before her answer was that it was the daily stress of not having enough money that made her drink to soften it. The extra money took away the stress for long enough to tackle the drinking habit.
People should be responsible and never be sick.
Also, if your neighbor makes a risky investment in starting his own company and it fails, causing him to go bankrupt, then he deserves to be poor.
If you later make a risky investment to start your own company with the exact same business model and it is highly successful, you're a brilliant business mogul who deserves the fortune you've made.
Outcome is apparently the only thing that determines your worth in some peoples eyes.