Universal basic income (UBI) has supporters across the political spectrum. The idea is that if every citizen received a payment from the state to cover their living costs, it this will allow them the freedom to live as they choose.
But voters who turned down a UBI pilot in a recent referendum in the German city of Hamburg apparently found something to dislike. A frequent argument against UBI is that recipients will decide to work less. This in turn will make labour (and consequently labour-intensive products) more expensive.
Indeed, a recent study on a UBI experiment has found that recipients of an unconditional monthly transfer of US$1,000 (£760) were significantly less likely to work. And if they did work, they put in fewer hours than a control group who received only US$50 per month.
They say “people will work less” like it’s a bad thing.
It’s bad for our masters
they do specifically say because that will lead to increasing costs of goods. A valid concern I think when cost of living is on the rise.
“oh, some of us should starve so that the stuff I buy at Kroger is cheaper” is an indefensible position, even if wages and marker prices were strongly correlated. Which they aren’t
Isn’t that the whole idea of UBI? To make up for lost work due to technological advances…
But the shareholders! Or some such nonsense.
Good…?
A frequent argument against UBI is that recipients will decide to work less. This in turn will make labour (and consequently labour-intensive products) more expensive.
Oh boy, the stupid people found a way to defend being abused. It’s good that people are working less. It shouldn’t even make things more expensive. Now instead of 1 worker slaving away for 8 hours, we can have 2 workers slaving away for 4 hours each. It’s nothing but beneficial for everyone who isn’t profiting off of abuse.
Stockholm syndrome is a helluva thing
The transfer caused total individual income excluding the transfers to fall by about $1,800/year relative to the control group and a 3.9 percentage point decrease in labor market participation. Participants reduced their work hours as a result of the transfers by 1-2 hours/week and participants’ partners reduced their work hours by a comparable amount.
Just in case anyone was wondering here is how much less work people did in the study. So ~4hrs/week less working on average for couples or 1-2hrs/week per person.
People having to work less is the whole point. UBI is not about increasing economic productivity. It’s about distributing the fruits of the productivity more equitably.
There’s a push for companies to constantly increase their profits. That means sooner or later prices must rise. Sooner or later labor must be paid less. In fact, this has been happening for decades. Prices have been rising faster than wages for decades.
Seems to me like labor should get paid more and there should be something (regulations?) to prevent prices from rising when it happens.
Sooner or later, the profiteers need to be guillotined.
They want slavery by another name
If I had a decent ubi, I’d go back to school full time, now that I’m getting the hang of it (doing college part time). So, of course I’d work less. This seems such a narrow scope of a ubi’s impact
My biggest concern with UBI is price increases across every metric to account for it, like what happened when women entered the workforce. It used to be that a family could survive on a single paycheck but after decades the corporations and resources realized they could charge almost double and still get it. I worry it would be the same with UBI.
