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Y Combinator Plans To Start Doling Out $60 Million Next Year to Study Universal Basic Income (gizmodo.com)

Posted by msmash on from the how-about-that dept.

The research arm of Y Combinator plans to begin a study on universal basic income next year in which it will give unconditional cash payments to 3,000 participants. From a report: The test is partially intended to see if receiving routine payments will quell anxieties around losing jobs to automation. As Wired reports, the study will be called "Making Ends Meet." Under the plan, a thousand people would get $1,000 per month and the other 2,000 would get $50 per month to serve as a control group. Some of the participants would receive monthly payments for three years and some would get paid every month for five years. Sam Altman, CEO of Y Combinator, a highly successful startup accelerator that helped give rise to companies like Dropbox, Airbnb, and Reddit, announced the company's plans to research universal basic income -- or as he put it, "giving people enough money to live on with no strings attached" -- in a January 2016 blog post. Altman explained his belief that universal basic income will eventually be implemented across the nation as more jobs are automated and "massive new wealth gets created."

1 of 376 comments (clear)

  1. Re:This again... by hjf · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I'm from Argentina. We don't have universal basic income. But we have high taxes and the previous administration left 22 million "passives" (government employeees, retirees and especially "social plan" benefitiaries). And 8 million "active" workers.

    The fiscal hole is so big we're heading to another economic crisis.

    The crisis in Venezuela makes people from there come here and easily get a job. People from here don't work. You see them outside the government-owned post and government-owned banks making huge lines. Young people in good shape and health. Perfectly fit to work. But the just, you know, don't.

    And inflation is eating away their benefits. Instead of getting jobs, they are now protesting. They demand more free money.

    This does not end well. All of the "universal income" programs ignore one simple fact: people are shit and they abuse every system they can abuse.