You can argue that the only way to perform a completely accurate UBI experiment would be to run it for at least 60-80 years for everyone. Social experiments are very hard to do and have many flaws, but it seems unreasonable to say that the information gained by doing such studies should be "thrown out the window".
> You can argue that the only way to perform a completely accurate UBI experiment would be to run it for at least 60-80 years for everyone.
You could get decent results in less than 60-80 years by granting each participant a fully-funded fixed annuity guaranteeing them a specific income for the remainder of their lives independent of the continuation of the study. Of course, that would raise the cost of the study to something approaching a real (non-universal) BI program.
Yes, and a depressing number of lottery winners end up poorer than they started within a few years after burning through all their winnings and then going into debt to support their new lifestyle. Easy come, easy go.
This issue is not a "flaw". It's a root problem. We want to know the effect of permanent UBI, not of a temporary one, and we know (strongly suspect) the effect will be different.
Maybe the simple solution is that the researchers establish a dedicated
million dollar bank account for a participant and automatically withdraw $1000 for the participant every month.
But there is no such thing as "permanent UBI", though.
UBI is a political decision which is renewed with every government.
The perspective of the participants makes sense. Whether they believe their access to UBI will continue or not, it makes sense to up-skill.
Besides, we do know how people behave when they are born with a million dollar bank account, and it's relatively very rare that they are criticised for how they choose to live.
"UBI is a political decision which is renewed with every government"
If this is true than implementing UBI will be more problematic than I thought. All UBI proposals so far call for all other financial safety nets to be removed in order to finance UBI. Managing that will be a nightmare if you can just cut off UBI, then you have to spin up everything else again. I imagine UBI to be something similar to how the pension system is, once in place it stays there forever-ish (meaning that it can potentially collapse).
"we do know how people behave when they are born with a million dollar bank account, and it's relatively very rare that they are criticised for how they choose to live" - that's an excellent point.
Hmm, Yangs proposal did not eliminate all other safety nets. His program simply made people opt out of one or the other, and encouraged people to stick with whatever paid them more.
The knock on effect is that it'd likely reduce funding for other safety nets because they have an inherent safety net in UBI. But the existing welfare programs are either highly prohibitive or extremely difficult to qualify for and maintain even if you should be using them. UBI eliminates that barrier of entry if you only need 1k a month (using Yangs plan here).
So, yeah, less people would likely use food stamps because they can get more from 1k a month than from 1.2k in food stamps. Most people do not qualify for that much in food stamps as it is. With fewer people using that program, the government would funnel less money to that program, reducing net costs and allowing more money to go elsewhere. Eventually this would likely lead to the end of that program.
This could allow us to create new social programs that are more focused. With fewer people requiring other social safety nets, the new ones that are created would require less funding and can address root cause issues vs symptoms which are what we address today.
Most people just need money. A minority of people using a social welfare programs need something significantly more than just money. We should not leave those people on the street, but Yang never planned on that happening. He proposed a VAT tax to cover the costs. Whether that would actually work or not is debatable, but that was his plan.
Welfare isn't UBI. Give everyone the same amount and you'll have a hard time convincing the people earning 70k to vote against another 12k... That's the secret formulae.
This is why the "Universal" aspect of it is so important. It's ridiculously easy for people to vote for defunding services that "other" people benefit from, and politicians can always whip up support by scapegoating some minority group as the root of all of our problems. But if the benefit is shared by everyone then it becomes near political suicide to suggest cuts to it. How many politicians successfully can campaign to get rid of social security or medicaid? Those are programs shared with a significant percent, but not even a majority, and as such it's really hard to successfully push for cuts to such systems. With a total universal application of basic income it would be political suicide to push for cuts, everyone's life would be planned and organized already around such a program. Look at how hard it is for universal healthcare systems to be cut in nations that have such a benefit.
> But if the benefit is shared by everyone then it becomes near political suicide to suggest cuts to it.
The benefit isn't shared by everyone, though. The payouts may be equal but the taxes to support those payouts are not. If a majority of voters are paying more in taxes than they receive in payouts (as is likely) then it shouldn't be hard to sell them on the idea that reducing or dismantling the program would be in their own self-interest.
On the other hand, if it would be difficult to dismantle the program even knowing that it benefits a vocal minority at the expense of the majority, that should make us think twice about instituting it in the first place.
That would more accurately gauge the effect on how much it disincentivizes, and how it changes the lifestyle of the recipient.
It does very little to test economics. Perhaps UBI leads to a lot of people deciding to tend bar at the local tennis club, volunteering for the job. Maybe introducing UBI across a large area has marked effects on gym memberships.
Those seem easier to test if you put a large area on UBI for a short-ish term (though I admit I haven't seen any UBI research that analyses such social effects - perhaps somebody knows of some?)
Is that anything but conjecture? I see a study showing that UBI is a "good thing", and you didn't provide a source for your reasoning.
Edit: to all those saying that the parent comment is straightforward, or common sense, or whatever, it's not straightforward or common sense because I disagree that UBI would be a failure. No one knows what would happen under UBI, but these types of studies give some evidence as to what is going to happen.
Everyone saying the parent is correct is basically similar to saying we should stop studying fusion because it's common sense we'll never achieve it (there are people who say that, too).
It's a good first step to study this, at least, and goes to show we need to test UBI on a greater scale.
The main thing being said is there's a drastic difference between knowing the BI you're getting is temporary and it being a 'permanent' government program. There's no way to provide a citation for that because the only way to run that is to have a full UBI and study the results to see if these short term BI studies still hold water.
However it's not a stretch at all to say people will act different when they're temporarily receiving money than when they'll receive it 'forever'.
The main argument I, and I believe the OP, was making is because the period of these programs are limited, and not even the full period is guaranteed as this shows, it affects how people act. If it's a program I believe I can count on existing for 10-20 years I can make significant life changes around receiving the money, eg move somewhere super cheap and volunteer or something, but at just a few I know I'm going to have to go back to normal at the end so making those big changes is harder.
What I am saying is that a temporary UBI experiment cannot simulate the changes that a permanent UBI would bring. Especially when everyone is aware that this is temporary.
I think you'd then be skewing towards a sample that spends a lot of money on lottery tickets (certainly not something I do but maybe I'm the minority), and your sample size would be pretty small, and you wouldn't see how it affects a community.
Or keep the studies and make UBI non-permanent: much like cold-war brinkmanship - incentivizing recipients to always keep in mind the possibility of future work.
I understand it's much more stressful than permanent guaranteed UBI, but it's truer to the real intent of UBI (which I believe is reducing the friction when deciding to try new job or state or whatever in a pursuit of self-actualization).