This is not a meaningless distinction -- one of the features of UBI is that it is universal. If this just goes to unemployed people we cannot see the change in behavior with people who are earning close to their reservation wage. Do they stop working?
This is streamlined rebranded welfare. Not a paradigm shift.
- As the pool increases the payout does not, only the number of winners.
- Winners get a basic income for life.
- As another condition they agree to an amount of monitoring so that we can effectively study how they behave with the basic income.
- This one would be hard, but you might have to be made ineligible for other government assistance programs maybe?
State lotteries already offer annuity payouts and even better they sometimes have 100k for life lotteries. These aren't perfect as the amount is too high but it's worth studying anyway. The basic income lottery described above would be an even better approximation.
EDIT: I just did a bit of googling and it looks like this has been tried before [1][2] , but the amounts were time-limited and low. It would probably have to be state-sponsored to take off.
Yes, a lottery winner would be swamped by many surrounding them. Less likely to happen in a trial where the full community is receiving a similar income.
The only bit i'd quibble with is becoming ineligible for other assistance programs - one concern pro-UBI economists raise is that if it replaces social programs, the cost of necessities like childcare and housing will just increase proportionally. There's a good argument to be made that certain social goods are actually better when there is no profit motive for the people providing it.
Aside from that, I really like your idea. Given the number of people who want to see a UBI, this might be one celebrity endorsement away from getting crowdfunded.
NOOO! That is a terrible idea. There is already way too much luck involved in our current economic system. If would really suck if all your friends won the lottery but you didn't.
These kinds of economic lotteries only create more inequality; which is against the whole point of UBI.
It makes more sense to start by giving out a really low UBI to EVERYONE and then gradually raise that amount over time.
I'm from Poland, where recently the government introduced a "500+" program, which means that every family in the country receives 500PLN per month, per child, from the day they are born to the time when they are 18 year old.
Now, my parents run a company which mostly has physical workers - and for a physical worker, in the "poorer" part of the country, 1500PLN/per month(after taxes) is an ok salary.
The day the 500+ program started, several employees left, literally saying that they have 3-4 children, so by just getting the money from the government they will be better off than working and they don't need a job anymore. They are all jobless and living off 500+ as far as I know.
I would say that's a pretty good indication what will happen with UBI - I'm sure there's loads of people who wouldn't leave their jobs because they like having more money(me included) but for a lot of people if free money is enough to get by then that's what they are going to live on.
And yet "Kindergeld" (same principle in Germany & Austria) is more money than that and has existed for decades, and neither country has a much higher unemployment rate than Poland (much lower than Poland in Germany, about the same as Poland in Austria). Furthermore they have fewer children per woman, so this apperantly did not spur a huge baby boom.
So not really sure what we can learn from that. Perhaps salaries are simply too low in Poland?
Kindergeld in Belgium (Flanders) is about 120€. That's a little over 10% of thr minimum wage. In this Polish story it was 33%, big difference. What ratio is it where you are referring to?
For reference, full time day care in Belgium will cost you about 500€ per month if you are not poor.
It's 190€ till age 26(!) in Germany but you get other benefits (most significantly a large income tax break, and 14 month parental leave).
Childcare is about 0-400 depending on your income but you have to be outrigh wealthy to get close to the latter (we pay 128€/m with a high 5-figures €/year household income).
> The day the 500+ program started, several employees left, literally saying that they have 3-4 children, so by just getting the money from the government they will be better off than working and they don't need a job anymore. They are all jobless and living off 500+ as far as I know.
Yeah, yeah... I know that kind of story.
This isn't the complete picture. You are presenting anecdotal evidence, and omitting important details. Some important details you are ommiting:
1A) For the job you provide, is the QoL of the work low compared to the wage and potential health hazard(s)? This seems to be the easiest counterpoint to your entire argument. You also lack statistical relevance.
1B) You omit the question wether those workers were easily replaced. If yes, what type of income & benefits did those people receive? If no, why not?
Aside from that one:
2) Which other social benefits exist in Poland?
3) Are these affected by child support benefits?
4) How exactly do the various tax systems work in Poland?
5) Are/were they performing unreported work?
> I would say that's a pretty good indication what will happen with UBI - I'm sure there's loads of people who wouldn't leave their jobs because they like having more money(me included) but for a lot of people if free money is enough to get by then that's what they are going to live on.
Do you have children yourself? Children are a huge joy, but also a huge burden. It is a living hell to both work, and also have children. What some people with good wage do is work full time, both, and have child caretaker(s). Those are going to be employed.
There's also the problem that unskilled work in the West is in decline. I don't know if that is true for Poland though.
And there is the notion that you either work full time, or you don't work at all. Why these extremes? With 3-4 children you are overburdened by them, and it'd be an option for one of the parents to not work full time.
Hi, sorry that you feel that I'm omitting anything. As you noticed - it's an anecdote. My parents run a business, they lost some employees when 500+ started, as far as I know all of the people who left cited 500+ as the reason why they are leaving. That's about the extent of my knowledge on the situation.
I don't see why the answer to point 1A would be a"counterpoint" to anything - I don't think I presented an opinion on the 500+ program? I did mention what I think will happen with UBI, but again, I don't see the answer here being relevant. I also think that you might be under the general impression that I am against 500+ or UBI - while nothing could be further from the truth. I'm happy those people can live and care for their kids without having to work. If people can pursue their interests without having to work on UBI - great! I'm just saying that with UBI, I think it's a very safe bet to say that a lot of people who are in employment right now will actually stop working altogether. But it's just my opinion, it's not backed up by professional research or anything.
The interesting question is how did your parents' company react to this: Increasing automation? Increasing productivity amongst existing workers? Increasing salaries to attract people? Employing childless people? [in the UBI case that would be analogous to employing non-citizens or illegal workers] Producing less output? Something else?
These people quit their jobs because they were happy with their child benefits of 500 per child. This given fact, that they quit there jobs, makes me suspect that they would rather choose the strategy of increasing their salary by their number of kids than by working.
If the question would have been 'what would you do', I think I would have quit my factory job as well, actually.
These people quit their shitty jobs because they are no longer forced to do them for the sake of survival, and now have more time to spend with their family, which–I guarantee you—is more valuable than whatever they were doing at work.
Why do you think wanting to quit your job is anybodies fault, but the employers?
What you suspect of other people tells a lot about you, and very little about other people. I would be careful with that.
While I second mrottenkolber that your guess is highly stereotypical, the intention of the polish state introducing their "500+" program seems to be exactly that: increasing the birth rate.
Do you have a source on that, or do you think lawmakers might also be concerned with the well being of children, mums, dads, single parents, young parents–no matter how many children/parents there are?
There are various (english) news articles (for example [0][1]) and also a paper for the European commision [2] (so called ESPN Flash Report) claiming that.
But besides those sources there is also the fact that the child-raising benefits are only unconditional from the second child on, for the first child there is a maximum monthly income to get it.[2] If the main goal was the well being part, then this would not make much sense.
> "which means that every family in the country receives 500PLN per month, per child"
Looks like this isn't quite correct:
"The new, universal child-raising benefit of
PLN 500 (EUR 114) monthly is granted
for every second child under 18, and for
the first child if the family income is
below PLN 800 (EUR 182) per capita per
month (PLN 1,200/EUR 273 in the case
of child disability)."[0]
Well, yes - you don't get money for the first child, unless your income is very low. Those employees left their job, became jobless, and therefore were able to claim for the first child too.
Well, yes, very true. Personally, I love my job and I can't imagine doing something I don't like, but at the same time I know several people to whom the idea of liking your job is extremely foreign.
Just as a side note - I think it would be extremely difficult to find people who genuinely enjoy doing hard physical work for 8 hours a day, even at a high price point.
To me it seems you imply that its OK to coerce certain people into taking certain work. I view the second paragraph as an attempt to justify that position, despite its conflict with basic humanist ideals.
Ignoring the hypothetical nature of your second paragraph, I think you miss the incentive to all "work", which depends on how much the worker thinks his work is worth.
Take my friend the farmer, who happily works on a tiny organic farm (hard physical work) for very little pay, because he feels his work is sustainable, and productive (helps others, provides food).
Also take my friend the construction worker, who would love to build houses for the rest of his life despite low wages, but won't, because he is unable to find employer that will enable his labor to bear fruit. Sure he could build mansions, and commercial monoliths to no end, embedding stone chipped from the Italian coastline into German upper class house-fronts, or build shopping malls. But he's not an idiot, he won't waste his life pouring his talent into luxury products and consumption infrastructure that won't help anyone in the end. He wants to build sustainable housing for people to live in, houses so cost effective everybody can have one.
Depending on coercion to motivate a work force, implies that the work to be done is actually detrimental to society.
Anecdotally speaking you're getting paid to exercise. If it weren't for the shit pay and the no health benefits I genuinely might go back to working part time as a rickshaw driver. I used to be a rickshaw driver and it was good work, and I was genuinely pretty happy. Also had plenty of mental energy available at the end of the day for thinking problems (which is why I said part time and not full time)
In a world where childcare costs for 2-3 children can swallow up the lion's share of a full-time salary, I'm in no way surprised that there would be some who can do the calculus and realize that getting paid to stay home and take care of their own kids might be a better deal than working hard to earn money to pay someone else to watch their kids.
Well they're doing it for 2000 people, so I would assume this is more of a test to see what behaviour jobless people exhibit when given a basic income. They're not rolling this out nation-wide yet. I'm all in favour of UBI because I believe there simply won't be enough work for everyone. But I can understand running a study first to test the waters. 2000 people sounds like a good number too. It's expensive, but if things continue in the way that they're trending, then it's a necessary expense.
They're calling it Basic Income, not Universal Basic Income. The goal being to see what the differences are between the unemployed and the control group.
There may be other issues baked into the implementation, but it will be hard to say the result until it goes into action and we start getting data
I agree. The implementation here will still enable us to learn about some aspects of UBI. The question of how benefits affect the motivation to gain re-employment will still need to be studied in further experiments.
I think it's worth celebrating that Iceland is doing controlled tests to explore this way. To really understand the best design for UBI, we need more of this.
how pissed would everyone be if one of these people became a millionaire through working on some business while using Finland's cash handout to finance it.
even though the taxes from that is exactly what would make the whole program absolutely free - and is the basic point behind a UBI. It really is "free" for the country.
A proper test of UBI has to make it available to everyone.
This is the same question pg asked about income inequality in general; if IPO'd founders or hedge-fund managers are mind-bogglingly-rich, why would that piss off anyone else? How does that hurt them?
The fact that are super rich is awesome. The fact that there is millions of people without health care and access to good food and education is a real problem.
So, people will be angry that someone stops net receiving tax money and starts net paying tax money (relative to the services they receive)?
Don't get me wrong, I know full well many people are irrational and petty - but aren't these people that'll find some other irrational detail to get angry about?
Being angry that a cheap system for welfare helps someone get off welfare makes no sense. Especially if one disagree with having a welfare system?
That's only true if your country is completely covered in houses up to the maximum possible height of buildings. I'm not aware of any such country (or even city or town -- possibly Singapore or Hong Kong come close).
Fine, housing and roads. I'm still wondering which country the OP lives in where both housing and infrastructure are so dense that "when someone buys a big house, someone else must have a smaller house."
Not that I disagree with you but there might be some points in the Finland constitution that guarantee its citizens the means to live a decent life. My country has that (France as well I believe) and it's a point of dissension between the various point of view of what is and should be social welfare.
These are distinct concepts. Anyone can receive the benefits, so it is universal, but there are conditions.
Advocate for the Unconditional Universal Basic Income. All citizens deserve an equal allotment of the benefits, especially because no nation's populace is ever 100% mobilized as workforce.
Exactly. Its bad because it is reported as a UBI test but is pretty much the opposite because it does not change the one thing UBI changes which is that you continue to receive the money even when you get a job.
This is not a meaningless distinction -- one of the features of UBI is that it is universal. If this just goes to unemployed people we cannot see the change in behavior with people who are earning close to their reservation wage. Do they stop working?
This is streamlined rebranded welfare. Not a paradigm shift.