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.

Comments

Student stipend...

[b0s0z0ku]

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.

Re:Student stipend...

[Dixie_Flatline]

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.

Re:Student stipend...

[lucasnate1]

People should be responsible and never be sick.

Re:Student stipend...

[BronsCon]

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.

Re:Student stipend...

[layabout]

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.

Re:Student stipend...

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Student stipend...

[Darinbob]

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.

Re:Student stipend...

[werepants]

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.

It's all about attention...

[MindPrison]

...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.

Re:This will create disincentives to work

[DontBeAMoran]

But what if Peter is an overpaid asshole who doesn't deserve his big fat pay checks for sitting on his ass in an air conditioned office pushing a mouse and entering numbers into excel?

Ah! Just kidding, Peter.

(/me waves at Peter from the cubicle across the room)

60 years of steadily increasing productivity

[rsilvergun]

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.

Re:Sounds like welfare not UBI

[ShanghaiBill]

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.

Re:Multifactor

[king neckbeard]

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.