In my forthcoming book, Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution, I explore how the American republic can survive in the 21st Century given unprecedented economic, technological, and political changes. The book addresses the increasing calls for a universal basic income (UBI). Various Democratic cities are already implementing UBI systems. Now, a new study finds (as did some prior studies) that UBI systems have not achieved significant improvements and may actually have some negative consequences for recipients.
A working paper with the National Bureau of Economic Research shows that UBI recipients did indeed spend more money, including a 13 percent increase on child-related expenses. There was also a slight increase in parental supervision of children.
However, there was no improved school performance and a slight increase in reported developmental and stress-related problems with children.
Stanford’s Basic Income Lab is tracking more than 160 UBI projects in the U.S..
So far, the results are at best mixed. One study in Compton showed that many recipients of the $500 monthly payment quit working part-time jobs.
Likewise, reports indicate that “a $400 monthly payment in Chelsea, Massachusetts, increased food spending and did not measurably reduce work, but it failed to produce results for the research team’s “primary downstream outcomes”—namely self-reported health and child school attendance.”
This follows earlier reports about the OpenResearch Unconditional Income Study (ORUS), an experiment in which lower-income Americans were given $1,000 a month for three years. The result was a reduction in work and an increase in leisure activities. There was also an increase in spending on health care but not an increase in health outcomes.
It is still early in studying these outcomes but these programs are not showing the downstream benefits predicted by some. Indeed, they may be impacting work hours negatively for recipients in some areas.
As various cities like New York move toward socialist candidates and programs, these studies offer a cautionary tale as officials push UBI payments.
Once AI takes over and robots do all of the work that humans used to do, humans will be provided everything they need/want for free. This is possibly 20 years away.
“ Once AI takes over and robots do all of the work that humans used to do, humans will be provided everything they need/want for free. This is possibly 20 years away.”
The future is here now if my crackhead neighbors are any indication. None of them work at all. All they do is drink and take drugs. Wonderful what being liberated from work does for people.
Wasn’t Peter Pan in part a precautionary tale about an adolescent who refused to grow up?
Universal Basic Income = “I don’t want to grow up. Can’t I just remain someone’s dependent forever?”
I’d consider an experiment where EVERYONE received a universal basic income as long as it was paid for by shutting down welfare, food stamps, and any other program that distributed free financial assistance in any form.
Ayn Rand was 100% correct.
Please note that the “study results” that didn’t show any significant benefit were written by the people who front loaded the endeavor to prove that giving away money improved society. That has never happened in the history of the world and didn’t happen in any of these cities. The fact that the best polish they could put on it was that it didn’t help demonstrates that the experiment was, in fact, an abject failure.
Why didn’t it work as designed? As mentioned above, Ms. Rand was completely correct in her observation that when you increase free stuff to people who have shown no interest in being productive, all you get is increased debauchery and lower productivity. Why is that? To put it in base terms, at their core 100% of people are lazy and greedy. Once they reach a certain level of comfort, they will NOT increase their productivity. If the government provides this level without any requirement for productivity there will be none. Of course, the fact that nation after nation has failed by exactly this pathway means nothing to Dem socialists. You need to understand that to a liberal outcomes absolutely don’t matter. The only thing of value for them is their ideology. If society has to go broke to support the ideology, that is fine by them.
*. Doesn’t UBI mean bringing bottom earners in low paying jobs up to a chosen level of income? If a person earns 2000 per month and 4000 is UBI the gov ussues an additional 2000 dollar check? All employers pay 2000 and the public picks up the remainder? I made that up.
🤔 😂
Epstein is so interesting he must be Keyser Soze.
I’d give away all worldly goods in hope I’d be left alone but I’d be beaten-up like Holly in Cincinnati probably.
God bless
*. Well good folks, you’ve dodged and maybe deleted child mutilation, men in women’s sports , men in women’s locker rooms.
I’d say that’s a win.
Zohran Mamdani is a direct and mortal enemy of the American Thesis of Freedom and Self-Reliance, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, Actual Americans and America.
Zohran Mamdani must be apprehended and deported upon his first official denial of the absolute right to “claim and exercise” dominion over private property in the 5th Amendment.
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“The theory of Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property.”
– Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto
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“[Private property is] that dominion which one man claims and exercises over the external things of the world, in exclusion of every other individual.”
– James Madison
Try not paying property taxes on it and find out who really “owns” the property.
Product design, engineering, manufacturing, marketing, prices, wages, rent, allowing customers, denying service, DIY building code decisions, DIY zoning, etc., etc., etc.
Machine Superintelligence is billed as the coming Messiah by the California plutocrats.
More like it will be the Anti-Christ!
https://lironshapira.substack.com/p/debate-with-roman-yampolskiy-50-vs
Stop, slow the research and training runs now and focus on safety.
Quit scaremongering about “China gets there first”
If a Superintelligent AI takes over, it will likely delete us all
Sal Sar
UBI disincentivizes work, and may contribute to inflation.
There are already Welfare programs in place to address the needs of the poor. It is legitimate to periodically review these programs to ensure the poor have adequate food, shelter, medical care, and access to programs that may improve their circumstances. If the poor need more money to meet standard of living requirements, then that can be addressed.
Just giving everyone $500 every month will strain an already overburdened system. We all know what the Democrats’ one and only solution will be – raise taxes.
Universal Basic Income will soon give way to Communist Means-Tested Income to penalize those who are talented, ambitious, and successful.
If it is agreed that 18 carat bling, luxury autos, designer fashions, and high end sneakers are indicative of a surplus cash flow, and it is further agreed that these items are often owned by ghetto dwelling thugs and gov’t assistance cheats, then it should just as often be the case that the children of these miscreants would perform demonstrably better socially and academically. This is, of course, exactly the opposite of what is observed by teachers, city cops, and the juvenile justice system.
I am shocked!! SHOCKED I SAY!! That UBI decreases people’s taste for low paying crap jobs!! Who’d a thunk it?? Who is going to clean Prof. Turley’s toilet? Him? Don’t be silly.
This issue reminds me of asking my father for a basic income (i.e. allowance) and him laughing and asking, Son: why do you think you should receive money from me. I answered I needed it for this and that and wouldn’t you feel better that I have this and that. He then asked what I did to support the family, I answered this and that, then he asked where did I sleep and eat and who paid for those nice threads you’re wearing, of course I answered that he and my mother did, (you see my mother also had to work to support the family), then he said to a 10 year old boy find a job for my this and that’s, where upon I started working for my this and that’s.
George W