A study on #UniversalBasicIncome#UBI from 2020 is now peer-reviewed and published. The study gave $7500 cash to homeless people in Vancouver and compared their outcome versus a control group. The result was clear:
“The recipients of the cash transfers did not increase spending on drugs, tobacco, and alcohol, but did increase spending on food, clothes, and rent, according to self-reports. What’s more, they moved into stable housing faster and saved enough money to maintain financial security over the year of follow-up.”
Further, each person who moved into stable housing one year faster saves the city over $8000 per year, which makes this program cheaper than existing housing programs.
Universal Basic Income works. It sounds so obvious when you say it out loud, but: giving people cash lifts them out of poverty. We need to do that more.
“A Canadian study gave $7,500 to homeless people. Here’s how they spent it.”
I've always felt guilty by taking for granted the rare breed of virtuous humans that provide free excellent software without relying on advertising. Let's change that and pay, how much would I “lose” anyway?
2024 Book 1: Utopia for Realists by Rutger Bregman.
Insightful but ultimately depressing because, despite #UBI seeming particularly realistic, it feels like we're even farther away from it ever happening at scale than when this first published in 2014. ☹️
I'm against student loan forgiveness, not because I'm against giving the money out... but because I'm against giving it out only to student loan debtors. Here's the idea... give everyone equally a #UBI and let the people with student loans repay it from there. I'm ok with limiting interest rates too, and rolling back capitalization of back interest... totally fine with that. But if we're creating money out of thin air and giving it to anyone, it should 100% be equally distributed.
Farmers have realised that Brexit has done them few favours (they were warned, of course) & now seek a solution that is popular on Mastodon: universal basic income.
It seems that farmers have hit on UBI as a form of funding that will replace the EU funding model they lost having (at least round here) deciding to bite the hand that fed them.
Q. would UBI for farmers help the more general case or provide evidence of its financial unsustainability?
Maybe naïve questions: How does #UBI sits in the #MMT framework? Public spending would far exceed production in the first months/years of the policy being enacted, since it can’t replace all social benefits?
An argument I often hear against universal basic income or communism where all your needs are met unconditionally, is that people would just be lazy, not do anything, and the system would crumble.
But let me ask this. The richest people in the world. You know, the 1%. They've got so much money they could retire and live the rest of their lives and their children's and grandchildren's lives and still not run out of money. Yet, they still do work. I mean, we can argue that the value they add is nothing or even negative, but they do still work. So why would everyone else just be lazy?
The reality is that we wouldn't just be lazy. The reality is that we'd still do work, but because we are provided for, we'd be harder to exploit. And that's what the capitalist and ruling class is afraid of. That's where all the fearmongering comes from.
🌞 Good morning #fediverse! This is GBH #News bringing you the world from #Boston. It's 29F at Logan Airport and visibility is 10 miles.
Jackson Square, where hundreds of homes and businesses were demolished to make way for a highway that was never built, is becoming home to new mixed-income apartments. #housing
Boston is weighing a guaranteed basic income program. #UBI
Mediators are looking to extend the truce in Gaza, more hostage swaps planned.
I think that eventually people will start turning over their finances to AI, and it will be so obviously successful that it will be impossible to stop the movement to do the same with the federal budget. That's when we get UBI.
It's the interaction between demand and supply that determines what an economy produces, including its jobs. This is why it's so important to issue Universal #BasicIncome, so that the market sees everyone's basic need demands FIRST. Then the market is oriented around meeting EVERYONE's basic needs.
Without #UBI, the only people the market sees are those with wealth and those who managed to get jobs working for them, which orients the economy from the beginning on those with wealth.
Unconditional basic income isn't just dollar bills. It's freedom, trust, security, and power. It's a world where your value isn't measured by societal expectations. The old regime shivers at this shift – they'd sooner dub us idle than confront their fear of an unleashed and empowered society.
This article showing that giving homeless people cash reduces homelessness is crossing my timeline a lot recently. A lot of well intentioned comments about how our current ways of addressing homelessness -- shelters, social workers, sweeps, cops, arrests -- cost more than just giving people the money directly would and aren't as effective at housing people as direct cash transfers would be.
But the popular conclusion -- that the government should see this as a reason to switch to this more effective strategy -- relies on the unsupported assumption that the government is actually trying to house people. To me the study suggests that housing people isn't their goal rather than just that they want to house people but just don't know how.
To me the more interesting question raised by this research is to ask what the government's policies are actually aiming at if it's not housing people. Here in Los Angeles the current policies end up funnelling tons of public money to cops, contractors, lawyers, nonprofits, and commercial property owners. The homeless themselves serve as an excuse that the electorate will accept as an explanation of the spending. They're the raw material processed by the homeless industrial complex. Giving money directly to the homeless would not only end the current grift but housing them would cut off the grift for all time. Why would they do that?
I'm generally not in favour of Universal Basic Income. And no, it's not because I think it's a horrible idea. I think it would significantly increase the standard of living for many and lift many more out of poverty. Nor do I think about "the cost" which rightwingers keep talking about.
No, my issue comes down to how UBI encourages privstisation of essential services. I think we should instead work to make essential services like healthcare, housing, food, education, and transportation unconditionally free. Work to nationalise these core needs.
I don't see UBI as a threat tho. It's fine, and I would vote in favour of it. But if the vote was between nationalising an essential service or introducing UBI, I'd obviously pick the former.
Those who received the $750 monthly #stipend were less likely to remain #unsheltered and closer to having enough #money to meet all of their #basicNeeds as compared to a control group who accessed usual #homeless services.
More importantly, the initial findings dispels this #myth that people will use money for #illicit purposes.
Only about 2% of the $750 per month was spent on #alcohol, #cigarettes, or #drugs; the majority of that money was spent on cigarettes.
The Home Office doesn’t have anywhere enough people to process claims and the DWPs convoluted and expensive benefits system requires a huge number of staff.
What if freed up all those people by replacing the benefits system with a Universal Basic Income? Staff could be moved to deciding on asylum applications. Decisions could be made locally given the existing DWP structure and locations. Those seeking asylum could start to build a life here and regain their dignity more quickly. Sorted.
Welfare and universal basic income are quite different. Welfare has the condition of keeping your income low and punishing you for raising it by kicking you off welfare. #UBI goes to everyone regardless of income. No one with UBI is punished for increasing their income by removing their UBI.
UBI is a permanent floor below which no one can fall and everyone can build upon to rise as high as they can.
Welfare, by being targeted, however well intentioned that is, can function as a ceiling.
Apart from being egregiously out of touch, it's also a huge power move, one that I don't think people grasp.
The polarisation of society into those deriving an income from return on capital - capitalists - and those deriving an income from labour - workers - has been driven in large part by venture capital and their hunger for new asset classes.
Housing is an asset class, it's no longer social infrastructure.
Stocks are an asset class - they're no longer a way to ensure survival of the best organisations - because many companies with little revenue have high valuations.
Compute is now an asset class. It allows organisations to gain advantage, and create a moat from their competitors. Compute is an asset.
By substituting compute for money (another asset class), Altman is trying to substitute compute for currency more broadly.
And who creates currency?
Typically, the state. Who now creates currency, sorry I mean compute? The MAANGs that have taken the place of the state.
Compute is currency.
Replacing currency with compute is a form of wrestling control from the state.
OC What if I paid for all my free software? (www.cynicusrex.com)
I've always felt guilty by taking for granted the rare breed of virtuous humans that provide free excellent software without relying on advertising. Let's change that and pay, how much would I “lose” anyway?
Spanish minister proposes €20,000 ‘universal inheritance’ from age of 18 (www.theguardian.com)
Yolanda Díaz says money for study, training or starting a business would ensure ‘equality of opportunity’