No, but plenty would pick up a trade to get more money, for the same reason that people still overwhelmingly seek full-time jobs instead of only part-time jobs in areas with low CoL.
A monthly universal basic income (UBI) empowered recipients and did not create idleness. They invested, became more entrepreneurial, and earned more. The common concern of “laziness” never materialized, as recipients did not work less nor drink more.
Well, no, we’ve never been able to test UBI. That would require the entire population of significant geographic areas to receive UBI levels of income in a way they start believing it’s a safe thing to expect for the foreseeable future, and to model how it’s funded rather than just how it pays out.
What we’ve done is frequently means test the experiments, deliberately select low income people, but only a tiny portion of a larger low income population. Also, the participants know very well that the experiment might be a few months or a year, but after that they’ll be on their own again, so they need to take any advantage it gives them. So all the experiments prove is that if you give some, but not all, low income people a temporary financial benefit, they can and will out compete others without the benefit.
UBI might be workable, or it might need certain other things to make it workable, or it might not be workable, but it’s going to be pretty much impossible to figure it out in a limited scope experiment.
The Alaska permanent fund is about as close to UBI as we’ve gotten, but the amounts are below sustenance living so it’s not up to the standard either.
UBI is to cover the basics, its not going to let everyone live in luxury, you’d still want for extra cash, you just wouldnt NEED it. Thus people would still be willing to work
I’m probably a minority but i would in a heartbeat. I stopped doing residential AC because the bills didn’t get paid that often (people just don’t like paying bills) and honestly i couldn’t compete with larger companies while still having to maintain my epa certs, gas reclamation charges and the cost of refrigerant alone .
I would love to learn to weld, be a mechanic, electrician… basically all the things I’ve had to pickup up in a triage capacity. I would love to give up my 9-5 rat race job and learn to do something beneficial well. I can’t justify the current expense of taking 18-24 months off to go back to school though when I make enough to stay alive at this point.
You are probably right, but at the same time we might be surprised. UBI becomes the catalyst for this experiment to take off though.
UBI is generally proposed as a basic sustenance income, a fairly austere lifestyle that is “enough” but likely not fulfilling.
Of course if you don’t have enough “work” to go around, that vision of UBI becomes pretty dystopian, as some people are stuck with bare bones living with zero opportunity for better. If we do get there, then that sort UBI isn’t going to be enough, but as you say it it’s too much and you still need human work some, well, is a tough question…
I highly doubt most people are just going to pick up a trade as if it is a hobby if they are getting a UBI
No, but plenty would pick up a trade to get more money, for the same reason that people still overwhelmingly seek full-time jobs instead of only part-time jobs in areas with low CoL.
I know this is a popular perception, but it doesn’t allign with the results of experiments where random citizens were granted an UBI.
https://www.givedirectly.org/2023-ubi-results/
Huh would you look at that, in the UBI experiments it actually gave people more freedom to do the kind of work they wanted to do.
Mein gott, such a terrible policy.
Well, no, we’ve never been able to test UBI. That would require the entire population of significant geographic areas to receive UBI levels of income in a way they start believing it’s a safe thing to expect for the foreseeable future, and to model how it’s funded rather than just how it pays out.
What we’ve done is frequently means test the experiments, deliberately select low income people, but only a tiny portion of a larger low income population. Also, the participants know very well that the experiment might be a few months or a year, but after that they’ll be on their own again, so they need to take any advantage it gives them. So all the experiments prove is that if you give some, but not all, low income people a temporary financial benefit, they can and will out compete others without the benefit.
UBI might be workable, or it might need certain other things to make it workable, or it might not be workable, but it’s going to be pretty much impossible to figure it out in a limited scope experiment.
The Alaska permanent fund is about as close to UBI as we’ve gotten, but the amounts are below sustenance living so it’s not up to the standard either.
have you like, ever seen people in retirement? they start doing labour just to entertain themselves.
UBI is to cover the basics, its not going to let everyone live in luxury, you’d still want for extra cash, you just wouldnt NEED it. Thus people would still be willing to work
I’m probably a minority but i would in a heartbeat. I stopped doing residential AC because the bills didn’t get paid that often (people just don’t like paying bills) and honestly i couldn’t compete with larger companies while still having to maintain my epa certs, gas reclamation charges and the cost of refrigerant alone .
I would love to learn to weld, be a mechanic, electrician… basically all the things I’ve had to pickup up in a triage capacity. I would love to give up my 9-5 rat race job and learn to do something beneficial well. I can’t justify the current expense of taking 18-24 months off to go back to school though when I make enough to stay alive at this point.
You are probably right, but at the same time we might be surprised. UBI becomes the catalyst for this experiment to take off though.
UBI is generally proposed as a basic sustenance income, a fairly austere lifestyle that is “enough” but likely not fulfilling.
Of course if you don’t have enough “work” to go around, that vision of UBI becomes pretty dystopian, as some people are stuck with bare bones living with zero opportunity for better. If we do get there, then that sort UBI isn’t going to be enough, but as you say it it’s too much and you still need human work some, well, is a tough question…