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The First Basic Income Experiment in Germany Will Start in 2019 (basicincome.org)
Basic income is going to be tested in Germany next year. From a report: The setup of the experiment will be similar to the one now ending in Finland, which means there will be an unconditional cash transfer to 250 randomly selected people among those already receiving benefits (250 others will act as the control group), and evaluate the impact in terms of labor market behavior, health and social relations. Behind this initiative, to be initiated in May 2019, is the Sanktionsfrei organization, a non-profit managed by volunteer professionals from administration, IT-tech, communications and law. Sanktionsfrei (meaning "free from sanctions"), with headquarters in Berlin, specializes in helping sanctioned citizens by the Hartz IV social security system in Germany. It will conduct this experiment in Berlin, for a 3-year period, accepting volunteers who may apply for it through their website.
"unconditional cash transfer to 250 randomly selected people among those already receiving benefits (250 others will act as the control group),"
Oh, the honor!
Participating in the unconditional cash test and being in the control group who doesn't get a dime. That's love of science.
The program is similar to the one now ending in Finland, which means it will fail on purpose and there will not be a permanent UBI program in Germany and by extension the EU.
The people who run the world have announced their intention to starve us to death when our jobs are automated. If you live somewhere it's legal, buy guns.
You can't tell how it actually works unless everyone gets it and the society is given enough time to adjust to it.
"Citizen get in line for your rations, and watch what you say online, we are monitoring and scoring you. As always we do this is for your own good, and remember to praise your superior leaders."
Paraphrasing Dinesh D'Souza: I would rather have the ladder to climb, and yes its 'harder', but at least its not the rope controlled by someone else to be just holding on to and hoping.
Oh how lovely.
Give the masses just enough income so that they do not take notice of your ill gotten wealth and tyranny and rise up and hang you in your guilded enclave. We can not allow people to actually contribute to society, work and profit from their own endeavors and be independant could we?
Oh heavens forbid no!
Merry Xmas slaves and Happy New Year!
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
Is a sensible, logical, rational, cheap way to run a society, and gives the electorate the power to hire or fire those controlling the supply.
It doesn't make people lazy, all evidence says the opposite. Every scrap of evidence shows that crippling people's ability to work is what makes people lazy but that UI facilitates work.
It also facilitates good work, employers can't risk unsafe or abusive conditions. Furthermore, healthy people with adequate resources can - and probably will - work harder as a result.
Real work is about feeling fulfilled and productive, deep inate human needs, not about surviving to the weekend and dying young from work-related conditions.
There are other philosophies. Other countries are welcome to them, so long as they keep them to themselves. Every country should be free to live as it pleases, not as some other country's pet.
Will Germany's program meet the requirements? Doubt it. It's not a scale invariant concept, the numbers aren't statistically useful, the Germans are too rightwing to think collectively.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
FTFA -- it's not the best translation but doesn't feel like a translation issue:
Participants will receive unconditionally the amount from whatever sanctions they will be subject to by job centers (e.g.: by not responding to certain job offers or refusing to get suggested training actions); Sanktionsfrei will always try to recover the sanction money through legal action, and if it does, the participant will transfer the contested amount back to Sanktionsfrei. Otherwise, each participant gets, for the whole time period of the experiment, the full amount of their social security benefits, no questions asked.
It would be really interesting if two people who disagree on the likelihood of success could agree on how to measure the success of this experiment.
Anyone have any suggestions on how to measure success of this experiment in a year or two or three, such that those who think it's a good idea AND those who think it won't work can both agree it's a reasonable way to measure success?
Posts above mine claim that all UBI studies have failed, and that UBI proponents always say "the study had to fail because not everyone in the country got it". If that's not true, is there any UBI proponent here who can imagine any way this study could support their position? What outcome of this study would you consider "success"?
Personally, based on history I think UBI is a really bad idea, but I'm open minded enough to look at the results of a study. What positive results should I be looking for? If you make a reasonable suggestion, I might agree that the result you suggest would in fact indicate a degree of success.
Doesn't self-selection - or even preliminary self-selection - ruin such trials? Your sample doesn't then reflect the average population and you can't extrapolate from it accurately.
Ezekiel 23:20
I would love to see this happen in the states as a program of the Federal Government but it will not happen any time soon because of the prevalent Libertarian ideology of no safety net whatsoever. Short of a major economic catastrophe, things will continue to lumber along in the new year much in the same way they have done this year.
That would perhaps be because there has never been a UBI program, and this is not one?
Or to you not understand what Universal means, and cannot read: 'which means there will be an unconditional cash transfer to 250 randomly selected people among those already receiving benefits'
This is just 'giving more to those already receiving government money' - ie: those least likely to use it well (note I am not commenting on their need, just their likely motivation/ability to work).
Why is it not a TRULY random selection of 250 people? Because the people designing it want it to fail. They cannot accept the possibility that they will lose control of the state dependent level of society where they can basically buy votes in return for welfare.
Simple, really.
besides the desperate struggle for survival. Sure, you might be shallow to want any of them, but what about the rest of us? Folks who can be content to study, read, play video games, write music, paint, write software.
There's this Puritanical belief, crammed into your skull by various ruling classes, that the only thing that gives meaning to human life is desperately working to survive. We'd shook it off in the 60s and 70s, at least in the nerd community, and were looking forward to a life without constant toil and desperation. And somehow, against all odds, we sucked it down again.
I don't get it. In 2018 we shouldn't be struggling to survive. And we sure as hell shouldn't be romanticizing a desperate struggle for survival. I mean, I get that it's easy to fall for propaganda (that's kinda D'Souza's thing, he's a propagandist) but you'd think we'd have grown out of that too. It's not like we don't know what it is.
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Anyone have any suggestions on how to measure success of this experiment in a year or two or three, such that those who think it's a good idea
I don't think it's possible to measure the success or failure of something like UBI at year 2 or year 3 because I think it takes longer than 3 years to see actual changes in people's behavior. I think the bare minimum needs to be 5 years so that it at least gives someone enough time to go back to college. If we want to see actual results then look at the many smaller lottery winners with 20 year payouts. Does getting an extra 1k or 2k a month cause long term changes in behavior?
What continuously astounds me is people who dont understand that true UBI is actually a right wing/liberal concept.
Most people forget that UBI involves the REMOVAL of almost all other state payouts.
No pension, no unemployment, no housing, no sickness/disability benefit, no parental benefit, etc, etc.
State medical care is a gray area..
That is the reason UBI can function, because it removes a huge amount of corruption, bureaucracy, fraud, and inefficiency from the system and replaces it with something almost trivial to administer and deliver.
It removes the punishments for trying to succeed.
Politically, Socialists generally HATE UBI (at least those who understand it) as they believe the state is the best at decising how everything is distributed, and UBI is exactly the opposite of that.
Unfortunately it ALSO removes the states ability to reward and punish based on cash payouts to voters.
That is why it is never actually tried, and probably never will be, at least by a state - since it lowers their control.
They import 2 plus million people, very few of which can work or will work.
This will simply reduce the value of money. So if you don't get a fairly immediate pay increase when this goes into effect, you're suddenly losing money.
This is kind of like qiantitive easing. Not good for the middle class at all.
Very basic economics and logic really. Very basic.
Humanity has tried nationwide UBI - USSR, Cuba, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, various native American reservations, Alaska - you CAN get guaranteed basic income until the money runs out. In case of Cuba it was using USSR money and Saudi Arabia and Alaska is using oil reserves to fund its population, native American reservations kind-of-work (although being blamed for alcoholism and other issues) until the casino goes bust.
In every case, everything works until you run out of - literally - someone else's money.
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I believe something needs to be done to keep society functioning if, as many expect, automation will lead to a fall in the demand for labour.
But I am skeptical of universal basic income, and there are aspects that for some strange reason never seem to be discussed:
1. Whose definition of basic? Is it subsistence, or some minimum of material comfort?
2. There are people with light mental illness who will still need social workers intervening in their management of adult responsibilities.
3. What happens if there's a change in technology or other societal change (could be global warming, or something else) that leads to a massive labour shortage?
4. Will there be inflation? Will changes in housing costs force people to relocate against their will?
5. Will people really be able to lead meaningful lives without employment? (Maybe you will, but will everyone?)
that finding meaning is remarkably easy. Especially in a civilization where so few are needed to do actual work .
Also, you have completley misunderstood basic income. BI means giving everyone enough for food, shelter healthcare, education and a modicum of entertainment. This has enormous society consequences. Here are a few:
1. People don't have to live in major cities just to have work. Housing prices will drop as a result.
2. The wealthy can no longer leverage their wealth into power as easily. They lose the threat of starvation and death from lack of medical care.
3. People can't be frightened into turning on each other by demagogues. Society as a whole becomes more stable.
4. The bad decisions people make when stressed (multiple studies have shown pressure does _not_ make diamonds, it makes garbage more compact) stop.
I can't overstate the impact of #2 and #3. And these are just the most obvious. Keeping our entire society except a lucky few at the top in a constant state of mild terror at the prospect of losing everything has far reaching consequences.
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> If we want to see actual results then look at the many smaller lottery winners with 20 year payouts. Does getting an extra 1k or 2k a month cause long term changes in behavior?
That's an interesting idea. That might be worth looking at. I haven't looked at it. I wonder what sample size we could find - winners of $1,000-$2,000 month for which we have long term information from a credible, unbiased source. It's time for me to get my daughter ready for bed, so I can't go hunting for that right now, but that may be a good thing. Without knowing the results, I'd be willing to say that would be an imperfect but useful sample, in order to get some idea of what the effects of UBI might be on recipients. Obviously it doesn't take into account the costs - every dollar of the money would have to be taken from someone else.
Without having seen any studies on people who won long term lottery payouts of $1,000-$2,000 / month, I'll willing to predict / guess that in most cases it didn't profoundly affect their lives. Anyone care to predict that it did?
Of course another limitation is that we don't know how their lives would have gone if they didn't win. We'd have to compare their improvement to the average improvement. As an example, consider of we find that 15% of recipients got a degree while getting the payout. Sounds good. But 20% of people who didn't win got a degree. So people getting the payout were LESS likely to get a degree than if they didn't get the payout.
Capitalism with a poverty safety net seems to be the best of both worlds. People and companies push themselves to work hard and find efficiency while those that become disabled are protected from extreme poverty.
We've built a system where even poor people are fat. Poverty used to mean starvation and death. Now poverty means using an old telephone and living in a bad section of town.
Poverty ain't what it used to be - and capitalism made that possible.
It's always a rope held by someone, whether honestly or not, whether accountable or not.
Incorrect. It can be a rope of that is the life you choose.
But if you are careful, rung my rung you build a ladder, that only you yourself is in control of.
You're welcome to your choice, just don't get in the way of mine.
You are welcome to your choice as long as you are not stealing from those working to build in order to simply sustain.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The Germans do realize that this has failed in every country that has tried this right?
Looks good on paper, at least to marketing and sales types, but in reality it really doesn't work all that well and is far from being efficient. Only really works properly if you believe in magic. So it goes with so-called 'Universal Basic Income'; simple math shows that it would quickly bankrupt any country that tried to implement it on a scale encompassing the majority of their population. I'm just surprised that a country like Germany is willing to entertain this nonsense, I assumed they were smarter than this.
I'm sure all of these people illegally migrating will be horrified at the prospect of being given money for nothing. They will all stop coming tomorrow.
Germany already has a professional unemployed class who collect "hartz 4".
These people already know all the tricks to keep getting their benefits and to rarely pay rent and not get kicked out.
If you are a property owner in Germany, the first rule is NEVER rent to a person on H4. While they are on H4, you are paid by the unemployment center. If the people get a low paying job or a part time job, then they have to pay you and not the H4 office. Which means you will likely never see a cent.
Then, since they are on H4, it is almost impossible to get them out of your building.
Even if they are literally destroying your building, you still need to start a long and costly legal battle which can take months to finally get them removed.
Then, the parasites move to the next victim.
Are there people who need a helping hand? Of course. Should we, as a society help them? Of course.
But we also need a common sense way of doing it. Why are people allowed to just keep popping out more and more babies so they never have to work?
I know many people who took a chance on H4 people and nearly every single one of them got totally screwed over for trying to help them out.
The only thing more money in their pockets will do is let them buy more stuff. Which I guess is great for the local liquor markets.
Actually, Alaska has what is known as a "permanent fund". Oil money goes into the PF, and payouts are from the dividends of the fund, and are averaged over several years of income. The payments are currently around 1/3 to 1/6th what even I think a UBI should pay out for the states.
It is structured such that the money should never run out.
From what I understand of the studies done on the Alaska PFD, it has been moderately successful at limiting poverty, limited by how much it is and that it is only paid out once a year.
I don't read AC A human right
It would be really interesting if two people who disagree on the likelihood of success could agree on how to measure the success of this experiment.
They could start by agreeing on the goal of the experiment. For starters don't call it an experiment of UBI if what they are testing isn't Universal, isn't Basic, and isn't Income.
I'm a libertarian who supports an UBI program:
My general plan:
Around $6k/year, paid in monthly installments of approximately $500 per person. This happens to be the federal poverty line for a household of 4. I'll also listen to proposals for $8k per adult, $4k per child(perhaps sliding by age?).
Eliminate all other non-medical welfare payments.
Restructure the tax system. It was neater before Trump changed things up, but basically eliminate the first two tax brackets and bump up the 3rd by 1-2% to pay for it. You don't need the lower tax brackets with the UBI providing initial support.
Payments are limited to US Citizens who are in country for a similar period as required eligibility for the Alaskan PFD. Non-Citizen legal residents and citizens who fail to meet the eligibility requirements get an equivalent non-refundable credit.
The goal is mainly to streamline the welfare system, eliminating welfare cliffs that encourage people to NOT work. With a proper UBI, you are always better off earning more money, as I'm only taxing it back at around 25%, could be as high as 33%, once you figure in state adjustments. Yes, this means that you'd only start paying federal taxes at $24k of income per person, maybe as low as $18k. Remember, this is per person income, not household. So the system is quite heavily progressive.
1. My definition is closer to subsistence. Basically, I'm for $6k/year, which is the federal poverty line in a grouping of four. Since I'm agnostic about somebody's actual living circumstances under the program, obviously some will be able to have more material comforts than others. The way I look at it, paying more for single person households, per person, just encourages people to live alone. The idea is to give them unrestricted money, allowing them to maximize their happiness/comfort with their specific situation, rather than having the government trying to tell them how to live. IE food stamps - you MUST spend $X on food, even if that is more food budget than you need, but you need to fix your car more urgently, etc...
2. This is tricky, I generally toss this stuff over to the medical side. IE you'd get social workers from medicare/medicaid, not through the morass of different welfare systems. My libertarianism is for great freedom and responsibility for competent adults. If they aren't a competent adult, such as you describe, or children, of course they need to be taken care of and protected.
3. Look towards WWII, I guess. Massive labour shortage there. Basically, as long as you haven't indexed the UBI too tightly to inflation, what would happen is that wages would start rising, inflating the cost of goods and services. The relative wages for working would rise, the relative lifestyle solely dependent upon the UBI would fall, and more people would get jobs.
4. Implementing a UBI as I would have the program should result in minimal amounts of inflation. Changes in housing costs forcing people to relocate? Probably. I'm mean like that. I'd compare it to being on a sinking ship, if you can no longer afford the rent you'll probably find yourself being unable to afford the other stuff shortly enough. You SHOULD move in such cases, as it is ultimately better for all. States and cities may, at their discretion, supplement the UBI with their own programs, of course.
5. This is a philosophical question where my first thought is "how many people live meaningful lives with employment?" I'll point out that "employment" is a fairly new thing. Even then, years ago you had around half the population solely concerned with running the household, and many of them found it meaningful. I guess it is up to the individual.
I don't read AC A human right
And then I'd use the next few payments to afford to take two weeks off and go on an additional vacation!
Nonsense. The demand doesn't change, just the ability to pay for it. That means there will be MORE competition for a newly expanded market, a company that raises prices when their competition can undercut them will simply lose market share.
The "increased demand" leads to a larger supply, not higher prices.
or the like. It's either that, communism, or dystopia. We're fast approaching a time when the wealthy and the ruling class just plain don't need us. If you want to see what happens to folks who aren't needed in our current civilization cast your eye to the Indian Reservations pre-casinos or to large swaths of Africa.
I don't see anything wrong with these taxes either. The people who'd be paying them aren't doing any work either, they're letting robots and a few engineers do all the real work. They're not workers, they're owners. The only value they add is "leadership". Anyone who's ever stat through a meeting with their company's upper management knows exactly what that's worth.
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The Communist days of East Germany tried a different way to make the population feel they had money and the gov was well planned.
:)
East Germany kept prices as constant as they could over many years to show they had none of the Wests "price" problems.
Now Germany will tax its working population more and more and give more money away to random people in Germany.
The "unemployment" problem in German is just going to rise with illegal migrants and random people wondering around Germany.
Now Germany has to price in a new income for everyone.
The German working poor will not get enough free money to support them as they will have to pay tax and face reduced gov services.
Services they once got will have to be paid for. The "free" income will not make up for what they have to pay for
The middle and upper class will face more and more tax to pay for more payments for all "Germans".
Longer waits for any gov and health services with reduced services.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
citation?
Same with Electrical. I worry not about robots taking my job. I do however worry about self-entitled people trying to take the money I earned for doing my job.
Perhaps if occupancy was close to 100%, and no one anticipated an increase in demand (due to the UBI), prices might increase temporarily, to the extent that people who already had rental housing get an increase in income.
We're not at 100% occupancy, though. If some landlords raise rates, others will undercut them. With more people able to afford a place to stay, more units will be built. Supply will increase, to match the demand. The only constraint is the number of people who can afford to pay a rent (or a sale price) that makes it profitable to build new units or houses.
A UBI should be phased in gradually to avoid sudden imbalances that would lead to any disruption.
One effect of a UBI will be more mobility. If you don't have a good job, you could more easily move to an area with lower costs without having to worry about immediately getting a job in order to survive. With people moving in to an area like that, the local economy will improve and jobs will become more available, more housing will be built. People won't be locked in as much to a bad situation.
I'll bet in 20 years time, we still have humans installing and maintaining pipes in this country - as well as many many other things.
Maintaining, yes. Installing in new build houses? That could be automated in a handful of years, as could vast swaths of other labor in current house building.
Home construction hasn't changed appreciably in terms of labor inputs since... basically ever. Humans still build houses the way humans have built houses since the 15th century. Sure the carpenter now has pneumatic tools, and the foundation was dug by one man with a machine instead of 40 men with shovels, but other than that, there's precious little difference. With electrical and plumbing work the manual labor on a house has actually gone UP in the past century. Name any other industry where labor has increased instead of decreased in that time period.
New houses are designed in CAD software. The data required is already in machine-readable format. Sure, draftsmen (I won't call them architects) would have to stop being quite so sloppy and incompetent, but that would happen. Draftsmen would become computer programmers. Except they wouldn't. Computer programmers would become draftsmen, and all the thumbfingered clowns bumbling around in AutoCAD would be out of a job.
Is this happening now? Nope. Could it happen? Oh yes.
Same with Electrical. I worry not about robots taking my job. I do however worry about self-entitled people trying to take the money I earned for doing my job.
You already pay social security you asshat. Someone's grandmother is making her electric bill payment every month using your payment into social security. UBI is more of the same.
What a way to straw man..