Y Combinator Learns Basic Income Is Not So Basic After All

https://www.wired.com/story/y-combinator-learns-basic-income-is-not-so-basic-after-all/

by jonbaer • 8 years ago

13 14 8 years ago

wired.com

mtmail• 8 years ago

The project homepage with details and FAQ https://basicincome.ycr.org/

paewohl• 8 years ago

Since it's paywalled:

https://www.wired.com/story/y-combinator-learns-basic-income...

wes-k• 8 years ago

Very exciting! While, I do believe basic-income is a part of the future, it MUST be paired with providing other social goods. Public school, single payer healthcare, cheap & healthy food, cheap housing, etc.

Without these necessities also being taken care of, there's a good chance people will still not be able to make ends meet.

Seems likely that if a $$ value was ever set for basic-income it would be very hard to move it. We could also try and set it so it always changes and is based upon cost-of-living. That itself is tough though since cost-of-living varies so drastically.

dbelchamber• 8 years ago

I have a feeling that Basic Income will be a societal upgrade and people will still work, but I don't think it's going to solve wealth disparity. My gut says that it will actually make disparity more obvious, just people at the bottom won't be struggling as hard. Anyways, this is mere speculation. What do I know?

nwsm• 8 years ago

UBI doesn't claim to solve wealth disparity

rqs• 8 years ago

Maybe, but the people who live in the low life are really struggling to survive. UBI can change that and given them an opportunity to arise.

Which is a good thing, does it?

Plus, give the future a little bit more time, when science and technology become advanced enough, maybe the problem can be resolved naturally?

mbesto• 8 years ago

I like the idea and I applaud money being spent to investigate this, but this isn't gonna work.

Testing basic income in an environment where BI doesn't universally exist isn't going to yield any fruitful conclusions. The conclusions will be caveated with "we gave basic income to people who's peers don't have basic income and that could alter the results". This is why economics is such a difficult practice to comprehend because behaviors don't work in a vacuum (read anything by Kahneman and you'll understand).

On the other hand, if this at least gets the population to think UBI makes sense, even if we can't unilaterally test it properly, then I think that's a good thing.

i_am_nomad• 8 years ago

This is exactly correct, and your objections apply at both a microeconomic and macroeconomic level. UBI almost certainly would create widespread and profound price distortions. Maybe a similar model would be what's happened with college tuition. The government set out to make it "affordable" for everyone with demand-side policies, and the supply side of the market responded by absorbing the additional spending capacity by raising tuition geometrically.

appstorelottery• 8 years ago

This is great! Kind of shocked that capitalism is looking to solve the governments problem. Things are changing.

merricksb• 8 years ago

Heavily discussed 2 days ago:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17851511

indogooner• 8 years ago

IMHO for basic income to succeed esp the supplemental 1k type ine should have more options of partial work. For instance I would like to work only 3 days a week and building something useful or contributing to a social cause rest of the week knowing I have a cushion of basic income. But the flip side is many companies won't be willing to offer such jobs. At least I am not sure what value I can add to society through this extra income if I still have to work 40 hrs a week.

derekp7• 8 years ago

Actually there are too many part-time only positions out there. The trouble is there is a lack of part time work in the higher skill / higher pay area -- most part time is lower skilled / minimum wage labor.

Sami_Lehtinen• 8 years ago

Dupe, comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17851511

tfehring• 8 years ago

Will recipients need to treat these outlays as taxable income? If so, it’s worth bearing in mind that many of the eligible people will face a very high marginal tax rate [0] if they lose access to government problems as a result, especially if one or both of the chosen states didn’t expand Medicaid under the ACA [1].

[0] https://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2018/06/an-effective-margina...

[1] https://www.kff.org/medicaid/issue-brief/the-coverage-gap-un...

Y Combinator Learns Basic Income Is Not So Basic After All

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