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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 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.
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.
when you can do nothing and get free money
big capital already has that.
Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?
...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.
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.
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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With automation, as well as outsourcing, there will be a growing percent of people in 1st world countries who's IQ will no longer allow them to be productive citizens.
Indeed. One of the first jobs being eliminated by AI is radiologists. They have an average IQ of 125. We need to find a way to lower their IQs so they are happy being plumbers. In "Brave New World" they did this by injecting alcohol into artificial wombs.
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.
I don't see why. In the US, the budget allows something like $5k/yr in UBI without increasing taxes or decreasing programs that aren't replaced by UBI. I mean, that's only 1/3 of the way to a real UBI program, but that's the US. With a crazy bloated military budget and pretty low tax rates.
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Since the government here would sooner annex Mexico than implement UBI, it is worth looking in to alternatives that would actually work here. One that they really need to look at is single-payer healthcare. Yes, I know it is grouped into the category of "evil *isms" in this country, but it could make a huge - and hugely positive - economic impact if it were actually implemented.
Take a moment to think about why so many people on the job market are waiting for FT work and why so many PT jobs go unfilled. The driving force behind that decision is health insurance. We tell people they need it, though in many cases PT jobs still are not required to offer it (or at least they are not required to offer it at a price that the employee could actually afford).
If we made even a base plan available to every man, woman, and child, then suddenly the workers who are turning down PT jobs in spite of interest in them (in particular this is a lot of parents of younger children, as well as retirees with poor benefits). could take those jobs. This opens up more FT jobs for people who can't get by on PT work alone.
And yes, single-payer from the government would cost money. It would be a tax, just like income tax. And a large number of people would find that tax would end up being less than what they pay to their insurance through their employer once everything is accounted for, it would just be handled differently.
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High unemployment that is. Particularly in the Maritime provinces (far east coast of Canada) where most people work in the fishing industry. in the winter, everything is frozen and there is basically no tourism. So most of them go on unemployment benefits - year after year after year. Work 6 months, 6 months on the dole.
When I lived in Ontario I knew this guy that cut grass on golf courses in the summer and collected UI all winter. Lived in his parents basement. Sold a little dope on the side to supplement his "income". In fact, I knew lots of people like that. It was almost as if you were considered a sucker if you worked all year.
This, from what I observed, was the problem with having lots and lots of social programs. Some people need it, some are just lazy. How do you determine who should get it and who should not?
Having a UBI seems like a logical concept. The problem is how do you decide who gets it? How much should it be? Once you're on it how long do you stay on it? Forever? Will people on UBI be allowed to work part time or will that be de-incentivised like it is for current unemployment and welfare programs?
Without some sort of exit strategy this will end up becoming another perpetual "poverty alleviation" program paved with good intentions but littered with poor results.