Ireland is making basic income for artists program permanent

https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/ireland-basic-income-artists-program-permanent-1234756981/

by rbanffy • 9 months ago

491 476 9 months ago

nabla94• 9 months ago

Good start, but it should expand to everyone without conditions.

Imagine how easy it would be to start businesses, startups non-profit projects if you had UBI. Bunch of guys come together and everyone knows $1,500 per month each "funding secured forever." Many people people dealing with burnout, mental or physical problems, could ease up and work part time.

poszlem2• 9 months ago

This won’t happen until the immigration issue is resolved one way or another. The moment you introduce an unconditional $1,500 per citizen, the question of who qualifies as a citizen will become even more divisive than it already is.

EDIT: I’d genuinely appreciate it if you could explain why you disagree, instead of just mindlessly downvoting as though I’d said something offensive or inappropriate.

cheeseomlit2• 9 months ago

They downvote because it makes sense and they can't refute it

cujo• 9 months ago

"citizen" is pretty well defined in every country i've ever been in.

hshdhdhehd• 9 months ago

1500 isn't much, I believe it is below UK minimum wage.

That said the point of UBI is to supplement, get a part time easy going job and with UBI you can chill.

Probably the solution for when AI takes over. So 2075.

patrickmcnamara3• 9 months ago

Ireland isn't in the UK. Minimum wage for full time in Ireland is about 2281,50 €.

walthamstow• 9 months ago

Every problem in Anglo societies comes back to housing prices. Most of that 1500 will go to rent, then you're just using public money to pay asset owners. Housing benefit in the UK has these exact flaws.

nabla94• 9 months ago

If you think this is relevant, then solution is obvious: Increase taxes on small wages until people can't effort rent and rents will decrease. Hint: it's not relevant.

Housing benefits must be spent on housing. People can use UBI any way they want. With UBI, people can more easily move from expensive cities if housing is not affordable, and then rents and prices must adjust.

The pricing of housing is defined by supply and demand. Every urban economist agrees that the solution is to build more housing. Rent controls don't increase the number of housing units; only building more increases the housing supply. It does not have to be affordable housing; just build more housing units and all price points eventually get an affordable house.

Japan is an island like the UK, but they built the infrastructure and enough housing. At the height of its asset price bubble around 1990, the value of real estate in Japan was higher than that of the entire United States. But they built enough to match the demand. Now their population is in decline, and there are empty houses at the edge of the cities.

netsharc• 9 months ago

I saw the headline of this article today https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/oct/15/eu-executive-s...

and I wonder how much of Europe's problems is caused by AirBnB enabling wealthy people to extract riches from rental units, while causing suffering to normal renters...

rbanffy2• 9 months ago

Baby steps. This is a very polarizing issue - a lot of people will complain that the receivers do nothing useful for society.

There's also the matter of funding it, but I agree with you. Making it universal and consolidating other programs into it would create some savings as well.

worthless-trash2• 9 months ago

I feel like artists may have been a poor choice to the subjective value of the outcome of their work, who knows.. maybe they figured this was destined to fail.

thrance• 9 months ago

I really like the idea of UBI but the math just doesn't add up. Even where I live, France, our entire welfare expenditures (that is supposed to be quite high relative to our neighbors) wouldn't be nearly enough to give each citizen 1,000€/month, which would be barely enough to scrape by on the country side. And that would require sacrificing our socialized healthcare system, our public education, etc.

voxgen• 9 months ago

It requires tax increases, and the average earner's UBI will typically balance out the tax increase, meaning they don't directly profit.

UBI isn't about giving everyone free money. It's about giving everyone a safety net, so that they can take bigger economic risks and aren't pushed into crime or bullshit work.

The upper half of society will only see the indirect benefits, like having greater employment/investment choices due to more entrepreneurialism.

CaptainOfCoit• 9 months ago

Hard to know if it adds up or not, unless some country is brave enough to try it. I'd imagine it'll have an enormous effect on the cost of various types of crimes that would sharply drop, as just as one example. But exactly what the effects and how large they'd be is short of impossible to know.

celeritascelery• 9 months ago

7.2 million Irish multiplied by $18,000 a year is about $130 billion. In 2024 the government revenue was $148.3 billion. The government revenue would need to essentially double to make this program universal.

CalRobert27• 9 months ago

The Republic of Ireland has a population of ~5.4 million people.

nabla94• 9 months ago

Money goes in circle, your counterargument should include multiple steps. The net effect will not be UBI on top of wages.

For the economy as whole nothing is added. The money just flows different route that gives people more power.

andrepd• 9 months ago

Not quite. A huge chunk of those 148 billion are pensions and welfare benefits, which UBI replaces.

patrickmcnamara3• 9 months ago

This is much closer than I was expecting somehow.

dfxm12• 9 months ago

Even easier in places with a sane social safety net, where there aren't work requirements on benefits. You can take some time to train on certain skills, if needed.

Mistletoe• 9 months ago

This reminds me of when I was a child and thought you could just write checks for infinite free money. The money has to come from somewhere.

robocat2• 9 months ago

Hopefully someone who is about to go bankrupt in the US will write a 3 trillion dollar cheque/check to their government. ICE could ask nicely.

lingrush43• 9 months ago

Many people people dealing with burnout, mental or physical problems, could ease up and work part time.

This is precisely why UBI (also known as socialism) is unsustainable. Most people don't want to work. If you disincentivize them from working, many of them will stop. And then there will not be enough taxpayers to support the government handouts anymore.

47932730227292• 9 months ago

When can I expect your money transfer? I take Paypal or Bitcoin.

whatevaa• 9 months ago

Nah, we would stop working. Idealistic view of the world.

linhns• 9 months ago

It either should be for everyone or no one. 2000 slots is no different from another pilot.

deaux2• 9 months ago

All paid for by virtue of Ireland being the tax haven and compliance haven for US big tech, hilariously the same group who trained their models on all of these artists' output without paying them a dime.

Doesn't get much more two-faced than this.

throwaway81523• 9 months ago

Joke's on them, the art will be AI generated soon.

flanked-evergl3• 9 months ago

They will stil get their income, you think Ireland is going to vet that their art is actually valuable and sought after?!

fkyoureadthedoc• 9 months ago

They trained them on my reddit comments too without paying me, we're all in the same boat brother

deaux2• 9 months ago

We're not being paid hush money by their biggest supporters though.

lunias• 9 months ago

"select artists", "2,000 spots", "eligibility criteria have not yet been announced". I have a hunch about how fair this will be...

frzen• 9 months ago

The eligibility criteria was clear for the pilot[1] and has not been announced yet for the scheme from 2026 onwards. They selected 2,000 for the pilot which was due to end in June 2025 and was extended to early 2026 and in the 2026 budget was changed to reflect TFA.

[1] https://www.gov.ie/en/department-of-culture-communications-a...

CalRobert27• 9 months ago

They tried to call this "universal" until people pointed out it is the opposite of universal. This program is a wild distortion of what UBI is meant to be.

Everyone who would _like_ to be an artist, but can't afford to be one, is disqualified. Meanwhile, the acquaintance of mine who sold his house in London at a large profit and retired to a cottage in Westmeath to live off his gains and noodle around on the guitar a bit is a recipient of funds from this program.

Tellingly there's very little information about how to _become_ an artist with this program.

Edit/addendum: Worth noting they've produced some _very_ dubious numbers to claim this program is a net gain economically. https://www.rte.ie/culture/2025/0923/1534768-basic-income-fo...

""" A key component of the total benefits came from psychological wellbeing, which contributed almost €80 million. In addition, the report estimates that audience engagement with the arts generated €16.9 million in social value, based on public willingness-to-pay for cultural experiences. """

And, as much as I like psychological wellbeing (who doesn't!) - saying that it's worth €80 million when you didn't actually get €80 million doesn't help things when it comes time to pay for the program. I'm unsurprised that giving people money improved their psychological well being.

I'd be more excited to see basic income for Deliveroo riders and people working in chippers.

philipallstar4• 9 months ago

audience engagement with the arts generated €16.9 million in social value, based on public willingness-to-pay for cultural experiences.

If people are willing to pay for their art then artists don't need a welfare check.

RHSeeger• 9 months ago

It is possible that there can be a gap between "the amount people are willing to pay" and "the amount artists need to live on (food, housing, etc)"

tmtvl• 9 months ago

Could be interesting to try negative tax on works from small artists up to a certain value. So when you buy a painting from some person of little name recognition the goverment pays like 20 percent extra up to 2,000 Euro, 10 percent up to 5,000 Euro, and over 10,000 Euro taxes are paid as normal for luxury goods.

Of course you'd need a bunch of bureaucracy to avoid it getting abused, but it would help artists make a living.

cma• 9 months ago

If people are willing to pay for their art then artists don't need a welfare check.

Copyright, and, to less extent, ticketed events, are a system of artificial scarcity, would be cool if this had a public domain aspect. At least a limited form within the nation subsidizing it.

nilamo2• 9 months ago

Most artists don't make enough, though? Isn't that famously well known? Picasso was never rolling in it, burned his paintings to stay warm, and had trouble even eating.

throwforfeds3• 9 months ago

My wife has won multiple prestigious awards for her writing (novels, memoir). She's published by huge multinational corporations you've heard of. She got paid about $100k for her last novel, which took maybe 5 years to complete. It works out to less than $20k/year, after paying her literary agent. The publisher encourages her to spend her own money on PR (~$20k).

Many of our friends in the literary circles of NYC end up teaching in MFA programs (Columbia, NYU, New School), but then they have very little time for their own work and the pay isn't great (she's been offered $4k to teach a course for the semester at Columbia MFA). Of course we do have friends that have gotten $1 million advances, but that is exceptionally rare and you have to be a bestseller at that point.

So, that's all to say, you can have an artist that from the outside looks wildly successful because of the awards and articles written about them, but they're in reality poor.

tikhonj• 9 months ago

There is a lot of value in reducing risk, variance and up-front costs for artists. Enough value that, to somebody barely scraping by, it makes the difference between a show/exhibition/etc being doable and not.

It also changes the distribution. I'd say it's a net positive if a bunch of artists get enough money to live on their art rather than the vast majority not making enough and a tiny fraction making the most. It's just a matter of correcting for structural factors that otherwise push towards an exponential distribution of income.

andy993• 9 months ago

I don’t think I support UBI but one thing I like about the concept is the absence of eligibility testing that does away with the related bureaucracy. If the bureaucratic overhead stays it’s basically just another government welfare program.

verisimi• 9 months ago

There will surely never be a UBI that doesn't have government based eligibility testing. If you aren't a good citizen (that votes, is vaccinated, meets climate change goals, has a gov id, has a phone, etc) why would the government give you money? (Or more likely, govcoin?)

DanielHB4• 9 months ago

In Sweden everyone gets around 110 euro per month as a child subsidy, you don't even need to apply. It just shows up in your bank account. At age 16 the benefit goes directly to the child.

schwartzworld6• 9 months ago

It saves a lot of work and therefore money. But there’s another layer to consider for many people. Someone getting benefits who doesn’t deserve it is less important than someone who needs help not getting it. You can’t scam a system that’s free to everybody, and there’s no incentive to.

glitchc2• 9 months ago

It requires an application. How is that not eligibility testing? Did you read the article?

Aunche• 9 months ago

There is no such thing as "the absence of eligibility testing." Otherwise, I'd be signing up for UBI for my 100 imaginary friends. Too much administrative overhead has always been a concern troll argument against welfare anyways. Even the most bureaucratic welfare programs have a administrative burden of less than 10%. With a fraction of that, you could easily screen out the top 10% of income earners from basic income.

palmotea2• 9 months ago

I don’t think I support UBI but one thing I like about the concept is the absence of eligibility testing that does away with the related bureaucracy. If the bureaucratic overhead stays it’s basically just another government welfare program.

I don't support UBI, because it's the smallest possible sop to the masses, designed so the billionaires' can collect maximum profits from their hoped-for AI wealth machine without them being disrupted by discontent from mass unemployment.

Much better to nationalize the sector, and spread the profits around equally. Give Sam Altman a billion dollars and a pat on the back then show him the door.

TimPC2• 9 months ago

This program is an insignificant spec of spending compared to UBI though. UBI in most countries would be 50% of all government spending and welfare related spend is just nowhere close to that.

ajmurmann2• 9 months ago

Another benefit over most welfare programs is that there is no welfare cliff. You'll never have less incentive (or negative in some programs) to start a job because you'd lose the benefit (other than relative marginal value of the next marginal dollar being inherently lower).

stronglikedan3• 9 months ago

I firmly believe that removing the administrative spend to run the current bureaucratic nightmare that is welfare would free up enough money to implement a true UBI. Of course, that's almost impossible to prove, but I just feel it in my bones that it's true.

chermi3• 9 months ago

Which is precisely while UBI will never happen - it takes power away from the government. Replacing the vast majority of welfare with NIT/UBI just makes too much sense. It's too efficient. Less government jobs, less government power. So it will never happen.

tracker13• 9 months ago

That's about the only thing I like about it as well... that said, I'd only support it for natural/born citizens.

dizzant• 9 months ago

An underrated reason to remove eligibility testing is to make programs accessible for people in poverty. Navigating a means-tested welfare program is byzantine in the worst way-- accessing and submitting countless forms with confusing, often ambiguous or incomplete instructions; standing in long lines at specific times/locations far from the city center to get help or make progress; complete lack of process transparency; and dependence on faceless bureaucrats to decide your fate.

My family once had to navigate Medicaid. I was well-resourced, understood the expected outcome thoroughly, was motivated to get it done, and committed the time to follow the required process. When our initial application was mishandled due to inaccurate guidance, it took over 2 years of persistent failed communications with the various county, state, and federal agencies, back-office middlemen, doctors, and legislators to get any response beyond "apply again and hope for the best", which we did several times to no avail. In the mean time, having a Medicaid application open changes the availability of medical care, as some doctors will not or cannot by law accept additional Medicaid patients. Eventually by some mild social engineering I procured direct access to a specific empowered bureaucrat who had knowledge of a separate set of applicable rules/processes and resolved our case immediately.

Most people in poverty do not have the time, attention, or stamina to persist through means testing on top of struggling against whatever landed them in poverty in the first place. Every time I visited the county office, I would hear someone complaining about how they had applied 8 times without success for a program everyone in the room agreed they should qualify for. Means-testing is designed, by popular demand, to make accessing benefits difficult for the sake of spending less. UBI, for all its faults, at least addresses that problem.

lucideer3• 9 months ago

A key component of the total benefits came from psychological wellbeing, which contributed almost €80 million
And, as much as I like psychological wellbeing (who doesn't!) - saying that it's worth €80 million when you didn't actually get €80 million doesn't help things

There are a LOT of problems with this programme, but personally, I think associating a costed economic benefit with "psycholigical wellbeing" seems good. It may make a pretty good precedence argument for other beneficial-to-society programme pilots to point to when selling their merits. The idea of a government programme appearing to prioritise psychological wellbeing seems net positive.

CalRobert27• 9 months ago

Psychological wellbeing is great! But this report was much ballyhooed in Irish media to claim that the program paid for itself when it absolutely did not.

Making Tuesday free ice cream day would also improve psychological well-being, but that doesn't help pay for the program.

ta1243• 9 months ago

The UBI I support comes from a land value tax. Basically every citizen has an equal share of the land of the country, and rents it out to people who want to use it. If you use more than your fair share you pay in, if you use less you get paid.

vintermann2• 9 months ago

Yes. It's also straightforward to extend to things which are also about use of a common resource, such as taxes related to pollution (airline seat taxes, etc.) Non-transferable shared ownership is useful and right for many things.

allisdust• 9 months ago

This sounds very interesting and fair. How does it address the needs of the people who create value. For example some one who might invent a transistor equivalent ? or even someone who wants to work on something that might eventually produce a social good like a new antibiotic. And how do we evaluate the resources going into that vs lets say build a Eiffel tower

CalRobert27• 9 months ago

Ireland has a stunningly regressive tax regime with respect to property - property taxes are a rounding error away from zero. In effect, renters pay (through income taxes) for local infrastructure and amenity improvements that benefit homeowners and increase home values, and none of that resultant increase in home value is captured in taxes.

plopz• 9 months ago

If someone is born does that mean my share of land decreases?

sojsurf2• 9 months ago

Interesting idea. What are your thoughts on the following questions:

- Who decides who gets the valuable land (high rent value) and who gets the land no one wants to use?

- What happens when the population changes due to birth/death/immigration? Do you rebalance every 10 years? Can children inherit their parents' land?

- If we rebalance regularly, how do we protect people who built a business on land they had been renting but which is no longer available?

keiferski7• 9 months ago

It seems perfectly reasonable for a state to want to fund its own cultural legacy and production (in ways outside of the market system), and not just everyone writ large.

This kind of thing is much more common in continental Europe, but for whatever reason the English-speaking world tends to have a problem with funding culture via government money.

rsynnott4• 9 months ago

but for whatever reason the English-speaking world tends to have a problem with funding culture via government money.

Unless it's sports or films, naturally; those can get essentially unlimited money.

CalRobert27• 9 months ago

My objection to this is that you're taking money away from teachers, waiters, taxi drivers, etc and giving it to artists, as though artists are somehow more virtuous people. It doesn't seem fair.

allknowingfrog• 9 months ago

Culture is subjective. Art is entertainment. Maybe the English-speaking world wishes our governments would solve infrastructure problems instead of distracting us with pretty things to look at.

pessimizer2• 9 months ago

My problem with it is that state art is propaganda. State art is state culture, and funds elite tastes.

If you want taxes to fund art, chop off 5% of everyone's taxes and tell them it's mandatory that they have to donate it to an artist. It's still bad, because people will have to register as artists and the state will have to say "yes, you are an artist" and "no, you are not an artist." But at least the state won't be saying "we've chosen you to be an artist!"

The state should not be intervening in or restricting art or journalism (i.e. expression in general.) Or any other form of expression. It should not be licensing artists, or licensing journalists. You're Zimbabwe when you start doing that.

edit: note that this is separate from intervening in trade and sales. You can still enforce antitrust, restrictions on content (e.g. copyright), or rules around fraud and deception on commercial art or journalism. One of the main purposes of government is to regulate trade, that's why they print the money, and why you get to go to court when a trade goes bad.

constantcrying2• 9 months ago

This is a ridiculous argument. You can fund artistic endeavors without coating it in the language of UBI.

UBI is a way to manage a social security system. It is not a way to manage cultural heritage. Giving artists free money is also not a way to manage cultural heritage. If you want to do that you should pay artists for their works, hire them, commission from them, buy their artwork, all of that is more effective then just giving them money, which, again, is not the point of UBI.

fukka42• 9 months ago

I'd be more excited to see basic income for Deliveroo riders and people working in chippers.

Weird line. The point of UBI is that it goes to everyone. Which allows people to choose to be a Deliveroo worker for some extra cash, an artist if that fancies them or work a traditional job for that extra moolah.

CalRobert27• 9 months ago

We agree - I think it would be great for artists, deliveroo riders (but who are we kidding, Ireland needs an underclass of poor immigrants living a precarious existence), and teachers to all benefit from UBI.

basisword2• 9 months ago

> And, as much as I like psychological wellbeing (who doesn't!) - saying that it's worth €80 million when you didn't actually get €80 million doesn't help things when it comes time to pay for the program.

Surely it's an €80m saving in something like health care costs or productivity?

Edit:

You've really ignored a lot in that RTE article.

> measurable decline in reliance on social protection, with recipients receiving €100 less per month on average
> Participants were also 38 percentage points less likely to be receiving Jobseeker’s payments
> income from arts-related work increase by over €500. At the same time, their earnings from non-arts employment fell by approximately €280

Finally, your complaint that there's no information on how to join the program - it's a pilot. People were selected, the pilot was run, and these are the results of it. Either they'll continue with the pilot to gather data, end the scheme altogether, or open it widely based on the data they've gathered.

CalRobert27• 9 months ago

That's addressed, but it seems like it doesn't change the fact that it's a net loss

""" The original cost of the pilot was €105 million, but after accounting for tax revenues and reduced social welfare payments, the net fiscal cost dropped to just under €72 million. """

The values you cite just seem like really small amounts overall compared to the cost of the program.

Again, though, my core issue here is that I _want_ UBI, and what this gives us is empty tokenism (if the pilot were this successful, shouldn't we want to immediately open it to all artists?) at the same time the government has managed to produce a catastrophically bad housing crisis and a collapsing health system.

tgv• 9 months ago

basic income for Deliveroo riders

UBI (which I consider not feasible) is not meant to make it easier for freeloading companies. If they want delivery personnel, they should pay them sufficiently. The "gig economy" is a large step back, right to the 19th century/ It is not the goal of UBI.

CalRobert27• 9 months ago

Right - the idea is that with a UBI a deliveroo rider would have more ability to decide they don't _have_ to be a deliveroo rider (unless they want to be of course).

Bayart• 9 months ago

France has a long standing program for artists and entertainment technicians and while the niceties can get complex the big idea is that the State guarantees a minimum level of income if you work a minimum amount of hours per year for artistic purposes (507 I think), including teaching and rehearsals.

bko• 9 months ago

the pilot cost €72 million to date but generated nearly €80 million in total benefits to the Irish economy

I don't like how these reports speak with such certainty. How do you measure "total benefits"? For one, it includes income of the artist. Yes, giving money to people generally increases their income, so it would be weird if any amount given would not be break even to the expense, unless that person decides to do less of some other activity, which I guess is possible but unlikely at least for these amounts.

Then the study counts public facing artistic activity. Kind of hard to measure the value of that. I guess you could by saying "this person created a piece of art that people pay to see", but I doubt that's what they're getting at.

Then satisfaction and well being. I would certainly be happy with more money.

I personally don't think we have a lack of culture and art. If Ireland is at all like the US, they have more art majors (as a proxy for art creation). All artistic majors have grown considerably over the last few decades:

A new analysis from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences’ Humanities Indicators finds that bachelor’s degree conferrals in the arts have remained substantially above average for the past 30 years. The data also show recent growth in the number of arts degrees conferred to traditionally under-represented racial/ethnic groups. As of 2015, departments and programs in the fine arts and performing arts awarded 80,360 bachelor’s degrees, with another 7,087 awarded for the “humanistic” study of the arts (subfields such as art history, musicology, and film studies, which the Indicators tabulate along with the humanities). This figure is down slightly from the historic peak of 82,778 degrees awarded in 2013 (or 90,543, when humanities subjects are included), and above the annual figure recorded at any point before 2011.

So the question is, what problem is this program trying to solve? Give rich kids that can afford to do art more money to support their lifestyle?

https://www.arts.gov/stories/blog/2017/taking-note-how-about...

sokoloff2• 9 months ago

"this person created a piece of art that people pay to see", but I doubt that's what they're getting at.

I also doubt that's what they're getting at, because if they were, there's a fairly straightforward way to, you know, pay the artist who created the art.

hopelite2• 9 months ago

It’s just more fraud and abuse in various forms and degrees. Not to mention what art is deemed as worthy of receiving this money and who has the power to squander other people’s money by becoming something akin to lords that rule over people’s lives through an incentive to please them in exchange for favorite status?

If it’s not only open to indigenous people engaged in art of the indigenous cultures, i.e., in this case Irish doing indigenous Irish cultural things whatever those may be, you could have some perverse injustices where, e.g., some Asian engaged in hentai pornography, living off the taxes taken from some old indigenous Irish lady who gets €500/month in old age support.

But since “discriminating” in favor of survival by preserving your own culture and insisting on your own people’s survival in the west anymore, things are going to get extremely perverted, in the sense of grotesque distortion and corruption, even more than already exists.

Unfortunately, it seems that all European ethnic groups all around the world have seemingly lost any and all ability to project actions into future effects or evaluate their outcomes, and seemingly have also been totally brainwashed into simply facilitating their own eradication and lost any survival instinct or will to live.

This kind of wedge of using other people’s money in a system where you are not allowed to discriminate in favor of your own survival, will ultimately lead to the destruction of the civilized world, i.e., civilization itself.

It’s the problem of the fat smoker, the ironic inability of the civilized world to see the inevitable long term outcomes of their self-harming behaviors… so they keep killing … only this time themself … and only slowly.

TimPC2• 9 months ago

Psychological wellbeing contributes some amount of money though in systems that pay for healthcare (especially when that includes psychiatry). It's also to a degree one of the key things government spending is hoping to produce so if it is actually producing that it's a good use of funds.

I do agree the program needs to make it doable to get the funds in order to become an artist since otherwise it's exclusively for rich artists who can be an artist while waiting for eligibilty.

jillesvangurp• 9 months ago

Universal Income isn't universal until everybody gets it.

The bottom line is that in most countries all the basics are taken care off one way or another. Nobody really starves. There's shelter and housing of some sorts for anyone. Healthcare is taken care off as well. And if you grow old and needy you typically don't end up on the streets either. That of course costs money and is in practice fully funded mostly.

True to some extent in most countries. The US is notably a bit harsh on this. And people do end up on the streets there. But by and large even there people are taken care off.

My view is that society could be a lot fairer if we just formalized the status quo of all that a bit and just guaranteed it. It doesn't have to be super comfortable or amazing. But just provide some basic promise to people that, no matter what, starvation is not something you need to worry about. We'll keep you warm, sheltered, healthy, educated, protected, etc. If you want to have nicer versions of that, go and work for it and earn those things. Most people that can do that of course already do that anyway. This is not a massive change in many countries. We already have these guarantees. It's just all super complicated, wrapped in stigma, and hopelessly bureaucratic.

So bureaucratic in fact that many countries actively dis-incentivize work. Work literally doesn't pay if you are on benefits. You could go out and work for a few hours but you'd just get cut on your social security and lose your benefits. When accepting work becomes risky like that, something is wrong.

Germany has a great name for their social welfare benefits: "Bürgergeld". Literally citizen money. It's what you get if you are not entitled to anything else. It comes with lots of restrictions and caveats. But it's a great name. If you are a citizen, that's what you can fall back to if you have nothing else.

UBI would be taking that notion and just giving it to everyone while reducing their other income by the same amount. It would add up to about the same cost. It's a bookkeeping trick. The fear of course is that people would stop working. But the positive effects would be a reduction in cost of labor for employers and a vast reduction in bureacracy needed to police the whole thing. Germany spends almost as much on unemployment bureaucracy and programs as it does on the actual benefits.

UBI simplifies social security, taxation, unemployment insurances, pensions, etc. You never go all the way to zero. You might still want to insure something extra of course. But that's your choice. What we have right now is the opposite: a lot of cost and no choice. But you are taken care off either way.

pols45• 9 months ago

Ah Jaysus! Ireland’s has been running "basic income schemes" since the 6th century. "Modernity" is just a bit blind to how it worked. What we are seeing now is the secular attempts at institutionalizing it.

What we now call "Pastoral Care" emerged out of the behavior of some Irish monks in the sixth century embedding themselves in local communities exchanging advice for free mead and shelter. They started writing books about its effectiveness.

And so it became institutionalized world wide. So they would send a bloke to Ballykissangel, pay him to sit there, listen to the villagers’ woes on Sundays, and spend the rest of the week in the pub providing cultural enrichment.

Most importantly no numbers and report were used to justify these programmes. And this is what Sociologists say is the problem with modernity.

Corporate wonderland and McDonalds has convinced the "educated" numbers are somehow magic. And its easy to break that spell. Just ask a Kid to come up with a business plan to run a McDonalds. Its a super simple exercise involving costs and expenses. After they do that, ask them to scale it up so McDonalds can feed the world. Once you learn the McDonalds model cannot feed the world, the only path forward (for people who care about these things and most don't) is coming up with models that aren't built on top of numbers. There is a big reason the Church has outlasted corporations and empires. And its not numbers and reports. Its pastoral care.

epiccoleman2• 9 months ago

And so it became institutionalized world wide. So they would send a bloke to Ballykissangel, pay him to sit there, listen to the villagers’ woes on Sundays, and spend the rest of the week in the pub providing cultural enrichment.

Good lord, how do I get that job?

dkarl• 9 months ago

There is a big reason the Church has outlasted corporations and empires. And its not numbers and reports

Right, the Catholic Church doesn't pay any attention to its finances. It doesn't have regularly financial reports full of numbers that are carefully reviewed by several levels of leadership. It doesn't zealously protect its tax exemptions and press people for donations each week. It just kinda wings it and hopes the checks don't bounce, which they magically don't because the Church does good work in the world?

chermi3• 9 months ago

I think the church has a few other things going for it. Guilt, redemption, fear of rejection from community, ya know things of that sort. I'm sure you're glad to see corporations taking up such tactics with climate-shaming and such. As long as it's not money.

LunaSea• 9 months ago

The church would probably classify this program as marketing costs.

aydyn• 9 months ago

If you look at the World Happiness Report, Ireland's scores have plummeted year over year since 2020. I'm going to go ahead and hypothesize that this program wont make a dent in that.

NoboruWataya• 9 months ago

Did "they" actually try to call it universal? I could (easily!) be wrong, but I don't recall the scheme ever actually being labelled UBI by the government, only by the media and commenters on social media.

To conflate this with UBI very much misses the point. This isn't some experiment in post-capitalist utopia, it is basically a subsidy for the arts. Societies often subsidise things they want more of and that the market, for one reason or another, cannot or will not provide. As someone who paid taxes in Ireland for many years I never had any issue with subsidies for the arts. I would be happy for the government to subsidise FOSS development, too, for what it's worth (and in fact the EU does this to an extent).

WalterBright8• 9 months ago

I'm unsurprised that giving people money improved their psychological well being.

I'm not so sure. There's an element of pride in working to support oneself, rather than indolence.

chairmansteve• 9 months ago

It's not basic income. It's a subsidy for artists, just like they subsidise foreign companies, the farmers, the remote islands, the irish language etc.

In the USA, all kinds of things are subsidised too, EVs, oil drilling, NFL teams.

Every country makes it choices.

EasyMark• 9 months ago

Can't it be a start? As people start get replaced my tech and still have the need to feed/shelter themselves, maybe piecemeal is the only way it happens. We all move into hives while billionaires become trillionaires and allow the rest of us exist under their benevolent and generous mercy.

tyjrgherg6• 9 months ago

Basic Income for Scientists.

That's ok, you can have this idea for free.

self_awareness5• 9 months ago

Then scientists would waste their time doing pointless research.

Oh wait... https://arxiv.org/abs/1310.3737

tyjrgherg6• 9 months ago

Several points here:

A) For the most part, scientists do research because they are curious and enjoy it, not because they plan on making money out of it. Getting a salarys allows them to do what they like, they don't it do for the salary.

B) If there's a little slippage due to lazy, misaligned, or fraudlent people, it might still be worth it. Consider two proposals: "I'll give you money every month if you're a scientist and just hang around studying whatever you like" vs "I'll give you money every month if you hit research metrics XYZ as a scientist" - the former will allow you to pay way less and sciensists will still be happy. It's just getting them for cheap.

C) I'm skeptical that you personally can tell whether the paper linked is pointless or not. Many ideas seem pointless when they first appear. Some are, and some contribute a tiny bit to the progress of understanding.

dahart5• 9 months ago

That paper seems interesting. Why are you implying it’s pointless? What is your expertise in Mammalian or evolutionary biology? How do you know this won’t contribute or lead to something useful in veterinary or human medicine, or bioengineering, or anything else?

Have you heard of the Golden Goose Awards? The first paragraph on their history page (https://www.goldengooseaward.org/history) can be applied directly to your comment:

“From 1975 to 1988, Senator William Proxmire issued monthly “Golden Fleece Awards,” which targeted federal spending Proxmire considered wasteful. Unfortunately, the awards often targeted federally-funded scientific research for ridicule. Science that sounded odd or obscure was easily singled out, but the awards reflected fundamental misunderstanding of how science works, and how such research can turn out to be extremely important regardless of whether it makes sense to non-scientists. Indeed, such research can have a major impact on society. The nature of scientific research is that its impact is hard to predict.”

Don’t be a Proxmire.

rsynnott4• 9 months ago

That’d be https://research.ie/

Government research grants isn’t exactly a terribly innovative idea.

tyjrgherg6• 9 months ago

Research grants aren't basic income.

jt2190• 9 months ago

The announcement follows the release of an external report by UK-based consultants Alma Economics, which found that the pilot cost €72 million to date but generated nearly €80 million in total benefits to the Irish economy. The report also found that recipients’ arts-related income increased by more than €500 per month on average, income from non-arts work decreased by around €280, and reliance on other social programs declined, with participants receiving €100 less per month on average.

So, overall a neutral-to-good outcome, from a financial point of view. I think we can debate about whether it’s necessary for the government of Ireland to fulfill this funding role, but I’m not sure this is the most wasteful thing that a government can do.

JonChesterfield• 9 months ago

I'd bet the 72M cost was in actual euros that could be spent on other things, while other people have noted that the 80M in benefit was not in euros, but in happiness, which is notable for being difficult to spend on different things.

Some people might speculate that the arbitrary multiplier on happiness-to-euros for the second half was chosen to make it look like a slightly profitable endeavour on superficial examination.

john-h-k• 9 months ago

generated nearly €80 million in total benefits to the Irish economy

Approximately 75% of the “benefits” is by the WELLBY framework, which considers each “wellbeing point” to be equivalent to €13,000 a year additional income. This could be a valid metric, but it feels a bit iffy, and without this evaluation it would be a significant cost to the Irish economy, so I do not think this UBI can be considered truly a positive return to the economy

[1] https://assets.gov.ie/static/documents/b87d2659/20250929_BIA... - goto ‘Results’

kieranmaine• 9 months ago

I only found out about the WELLBY due to this report. I don't have the time or expertise to evaluate it, so I'm interested in why you find it "iffy"?

andsoitis• 9 months ago

selected artists receive a weekly payment of approximately $375, or about $1,500 per month. There are 2,000 spots available, with applications set to open in September 2026; eligibility criteria have not yet been announced

I would love to see a list of the artists with links to their work, some of which, presumable, would be for sale.

mpalmer• 9 months ago

In October, the government released the results of a public survey on the scheme, which found that 97 percent of respondents support the program. However, 47 percent of the 17,000 respondents said artists should be selected based on economic need, while 37.5 percent favored selection by merit. Only 14 percent preferred random selection.

People generally won't prefer the fairest method of selection, but that doesn't mean it's not the best.

lingrush43• 9 months ago

Most surveys can't even get 97% of respondents to agree that terrorism is wrong.

The government is just blatantly lying about these results. There is simply no way 97% of the population (most of whom pay into this system yet receive nothing from it) supports this.

whimsicalism4• 9 months ago

In October, the government released the results of a public survey on the scheme, which found that 97 percent of respondents support the program.

Very, very hard for me to believe this.

pshirshov3• 9 months ago

I create state-of-the-art FOSS libraries, why I can't qualify? Why clowns and vloggers can but I can't?

plasticchris• 9 months ago

Not enough connections to the bureaucracy…

esafak• 9 months ago

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/O-teI4Qr35o

analog83742• 9 months ago

Have you tried creating portraits of famous irish movie stars rendered in macaroni salad?

zeristor• 9 months ago

Or ASCII characters

username332211• 9 months ago

You create things of concrete and tangible value. In the eyes of the many, that makes you unworthy of generosity.

torginus2• 9 months ago

including the people who actually get paid for using your libraries

aleph_minus_one5• 9 months ago

I create state-of-the-art FOSS libraries, why I can't qualify?

Because this competes with existing companies.

silon42• 9 months ago

Not on iOS or other locked systems.

flanked-evergl3• 9 months ago

And artists compete with nobody?!

scythe• 9 months ago

I think this accidentally raises an interesting side-point. It's not very easy to define art. It's much easier to define free software. But I am not much closer to understanding how to solve the question "who is writing free software?" than the question "who is making art?"

probably_wrong• 9 months ago

Since you got plenty of cheeky responses, I'll attempt a more serious one:

You are clearly employable - while not as amazing as it used to be, there is a clear market for software developers. Your job is not at risk of disappearing.

Musicians, though, have it tough - "we" as a society [1] accept that we want to have art but its economic value has been plummeting for a while. And while no one shed a tear when (for instance) stables had to close due to the scarcity of city horses, we do want to try and keep local artists around. And it's not like it's a waste either - if the program costed "€72 million to date but generated nearly €80 million in total benefits for the Irish economy", that's not even a bad deal.

There's of course an argument of "I bet software developers could generate more benefits than artists", which is probably true, but I'd argue artists need it more right now. And nothing stops the program from expanding eventually.

[1] Well, "they" - I'm not Irish.

pshirshov3• 9 months ago

Your job is not at risk of disappearing.

But what about the vloggers, are we so short on them? Same for clowns, I sorta feel we are in a huge surplus.

chii2• 9 months ago

if the program costed "€72 million to date but generated nearly €80 million in total benefits for the Irish economy", that's not even a bad deal.

the accounting for the value generation is dubious at best.

Not to mention that my personal belief is that art should be patronage based, not taxation based. If the art has sufficient impact, it should be able to gather patrons to fund it. Otherwise, it's not artistic enough and naturally the artist would have to quit.

account4214• 9 months ago

Musicians, though, have it tough - "we" as a society [1] accept that we want to have art

But we do already have lots of art. Centuries of it in fact. Maybe the focus should be on making that art available to all, including for the purpose of using it to create new art, instead of pissing away money on select "art" that few people will see.

mierz002• 9 months ago

I always find it interesting to see something announced and the reactions are “what about me?”

I imagine you would have no trouble finding a well paying job to write software which is not the same situation for artists.

account4214• 9 months ago

What makes you think those artists can't also find a well paying job to write software?

billy99k• 9 months ago

The problem with every basic income program is in the long term. Eventually, generations of people are receiving basic income and relying on it and

1) will never vote against it (and politicians will use it as a weapon against anyone that suggests it). 2) It's ever expanding and will become unaffordable and unsustainable 3) inflation will destroy its value over time

I also believe that if universal income becomes common, you forfeit your right to vote while accepting it.

api• 9 months ago

Any pseudo-UBI that is not actually universal will create a distorting perverse incentive for people to fake qualifications for it. There will suddenly be a lot of “artists” who don’t do much, debasing the definition of artist.

Just do UBI. Politicians just can’t help hanging conditions on it and making it complicated.

“But some people will sit around and do nothing!” Yes and they already do, including at bullshit jobs pretending to work. The punishment for a life sitting around doing nothing is a life wasted doing nothing.

flanked-evergl3• 9 months ago

Based. Going to get one of them rubber boats and become a clown. Sweet sweet Irish tax money. I can taste it now.

Dumblydorr• 9 months ago

As an Irish musician, I’ll note Irish culture has an outsized footprint globally. It’s probably top 3 most successful folk styles, these tunes are played throughout the globe. And counting Irish poets and writers amongst some of the best, I’d say Ireland has historically done well culturally. Whatever the merits of this specific program, there’s a lot of potential cultural value to be kindled.

joduplessis• 9 months ago

And pubs! I'm not Irish, but it's very comforting going half-way across the world to somewhere like Florence or Hamburg, and going to an Irish pub where everyting feels familiar.

cenamus• 9 months ago

Even the prices will be similar to Dublin, regardless of whether the beer usually costa 2€

whimsicalism4• 9 months ago

who is the other one of the three? Mexico?

jabroni_salad• 9 months ago

It's just so fun to play :) I'm a bluegrasser and probably half of every session is annexed by reels.

ptero• 9 months ago

This is a regular fellowship. Nothing wrong with those, they can be government (assuming people are OK with this way to spend their taxes) or private. Those are pretty common. I was funded by a private fellowship for a year of my PhD; don't remember the details.

But as others have said, this has nothing to do with the UBI, as this is not universal. The main thing that makes this fellowship unusual, and not in a good way, is the fact that the selection criteria are shrouded in mystery.

scop• 9 months ago

I have a huge disdain for artists who do not bleed and sweat like the rest of us doing jobs we don’t necessarily enjoy. Especially in this age of opulence. Welcome to life. Art should capture truth, the essence of things, and how can you do so without your feet planted firmly on the ground? Perhaps I could make exceptions for those on whom skill is truly refined in a dedicated way (think YoYo Ma practicing 10 hours a day), but I suspect your avg artist spends more time navel gazing than putting in the work. (And I say this as a huge supporter and fan of the arts)

spacechild14• 9 months ago

Why would you disdain someone who finds enjoyment in their work?

But don't worry, making art is not always a joyride, it can be hard work. For me pesonally, writing software is a breeze compared to writing an orchestra score or the last days of a theatre production.

Also, the idea of the poor and suffering artist is a cliché. Many famous artists actually came from wealthy families or had generous financial support from friends or patreons. It doesn't make them lesser artists.

account4214• 9 months ago

If they already find enjoyment in their work then why do they need additional support at the expense of the rest of us?

I also enjoy playing computer games and browsing the web all day. How would you feel about a tax to pay for my lifestyle?

tasuki• 9 months ago

I have a huge disdain for artists who do not bleed and sweat like the rest of us doing jobs we don’t necessarily enjoy.

I don't necessarily want the artists to bleed and sweat. But when they do, their art is so much better! Giving artists universal income seems counterproductive, if your stated goal is good art...

spacechild14• 9 months ago

But when they do, their art is so much better!

But is this really true? If you have financial struggles or need to work a fulltime dayjob, you simply have very little time and energy for creating art. As an artist myself, I don't see how financial problems could possibly improve my creative output...

exabrial• 9 months ago

All UBI programs funded by the theft of wages are corrupt and bankrupt from the start, as demonstrated. I expect a lot of “No true Scotsman” [ironic] arguments inbound.

dekken_3• 9 months ago

it is theft, the government should not be involved in charity. taxes, are a burden, and should be minimal, and if individuals want to be charitable with there own money after taxation, great, that's their choice

nntwozz• 9 months ago

I wonder what Bono thinks of this, or John Sheahan from The Dubliners.

lucideer3• 9 months ago

Worth contrasting this to the long-running Irish "Aosdána"[0] programme established in the early '80s, which is effectively the same thing, just a LOT more exclusive: a basic income for life is awarded to a tiny number of new artists every 2 years: it has up to a maximum of 250 concurrent recipients (so new artists are only selected when old artists die).

This new initiative has had a lot of critics, but 2,000 spots annually is at least a bit of an improvement over the weird clique that admits 5 new people every 2 years.

(Aosdána is being retained alongside this new programme)

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aosd%C3%A1na

sktrdie• 9 months ago

I mean, if you want to be an artist, you really can. I've lived off a van for almost a year... just for adventure. Traveled close to beach where I could shower. I spent literally close to nothing day-to-day. I could remake my weekly expenses just working at a few restaurants in the weekend, and enjoy the beach the rest of the week surfing.

Now that I'm back to my normal office coding job, I feel like I'm actually saving less money because I have rent, and general city life to spend money on. It's all about the comforts one is used to.

The story of artists not having enough money is probably about people that are used to too many comforts. I've seen people complain they didn't have money to go by, whilst living in an apartment close to a densely populated city and having a car... get rid of those comforts if you want to make it!

notindexed• 9 months ago

In Luxembourg smth similar exists but it's called "social help" for artists. It's rather easily available if you make art for a living and it's enough to survive (paying social security & living costs)

wtcactus4• 9 months ago

This will become to poster child for left wing elitism in the future.

What an utter, totally disconnected from reality measure.

Tax payers need to go to work everyday to support more and more unproductive members of society and have the state take by force more than half their income.

racktash7• 9 months ago

Art and culture may be "unproductive" from a utilitarian point of view, but it's valuable and enriching in ways hard to measure on a spreadsheet.

wtcactus4• 9 months ago

Art and culture have always existed - and one may very well argue, it existed in much richer forms than most of the dubious "art" produced today.

Society never needed to hand out money to every self-proclaimed artist for art to thrive.

overrun113• 9 months ago

If it's impossible to measure art's value then there can't be any cutoff point at which we stop funding ever more art. Anyone who attempts to put a number on its value is treated as an overly rational boor but we obviously can't just devote the entirety of society's resources to creating more of it.

account4214• 9 months ago

A tiny minority of art is valuable to the average member of society.

dizhn• 9 months ago

2000 spots open with selection criteria unknown. Why don't you call them "State" artists like some countries do and call it a day.

47932730227292• 9 months ago

The left loves framing their state media to appear independent.

cm20122• 9 months ago

I don't see why artist should be a special category deserving of its own UBI. Its no more important than any other job.

racktash7• 9 months ago

Art and culture is extremely valuable, but is often not profitable / sustainable. Banking is important to society too, but it's already well compensated!

cm20122• 9 months ago

Being an EMT is incredibly important to society but poorly compensated, why not them?

whimsicalism4• 9 months ago

let’s decide the proper compensation for all jobs based on how much ordinary people feel it is noble/valuable and then pay people accordingly.

food commodity trading? idk sounds speculative and ignoble to me, probably don’t need it - more money for the artists!

AlexandrB• 9 months ago

I think there's a danger in removing art from any kind of market mechanisms because it can lead to some very navel-gazing output that appeals to very few. In the long term, this kind of art would lead to making this kind of UBI unpopular and would undermine the whole thing. Not a lot of taxpayers are going to be on board with paying someone to can their own feces[1] or submerge religious icons in piss[2] for example.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artist%27s_Shit

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piss_Christ

account4214• 9 months ago

Art and culture is extremely valuable. But the kind of art and culture supported by government programs tends to be less so.

What would also be much more valuable than creating art is making that art available to everyone including for the purposes of producing more art. If the art subsidies came with a condition to release the art to the public domain then I would be much more for domain-specific funding.

anigbrowl3• 9 months ago

Yes it is. Culture is important for national identity and international standing.

xrd• 9 months ago

I can't really make out what this all means. It seems like people cannot live in the world anymore because of expensive housing and taxation.

Across the ocean, Peter Thiel recently did a private lecture on the anti-christ and how that is connected to how hard to hide your money and "escape from global taxation if you're a U.S. citizen." He has dual citizenship in New Zealand. And, the following article conjectures that "prophesies about a society where an individual's ability to engage in commerce is contingent upon brandishing the mark of the beast on one's body."

Is this a criticism of swag? I love free t-shirts at tech conferences, is he calling me out for taking them?

https://reason.com/2025/10/14/i-listened-to-over-7-hours-of-...

https://sfstandard.com/2025/09/16/peter-thiel-antichrist-san...

After squinting at it, this Irish action feels like paying off a few court jesters, nothing more.

emsign• 9 months ago

Pseudo-religious bullshit to push his libertarian nihilism.

tchalla• 9 months ago

It’s always interesting to see that consumption tax is pretty much levied on all purchases at all levels. But consumption is rarely considered as a criteria for decision making on benefits.

Romario77• 9 months ago

This sounds more like a stipend for established artists, not basic income.

throwforfeds3• 9 months ago

A lot of shadow artists in this thread seem upset that a relatively tiny bit of money is supporting some people that chose a difficult life producing art over a stable career.

If I had a choice between some of my tax money supporting artists versus lighting my money on fire to pay an army of bureaucrats doing not much of anything, I'll always choose the artists. I've seen contracts for more money that do a lot less for society.

lingrush43• 9 months ago

That's not the choice though. The bureaucrats are getting paid either way.

The choice is whether or not you want your taxes raised by a small amount so that other people can live their dreams while you sit in a cubicle for 40 years.

throwforfeds3• 9 months ago

I agree, it'd be nice to cut the bullshit jobs, but you're right that that's not going to happen.

But I still am down with paying a little more to support people that are providing to our overall culture. I'm friends with many artists here in NYC, and in most cases everyone is broke. You'll see profiles written about them in the NYT, or see them on panels at major cultural institutions, but that's just the outward appearance. In reality, they're struggling to pay rent. Sometimes they're sleeping in cars when out on tour doing work because they can't afford a motel.

Many of us don't have the courage to do what they do. It's not like they're sitting around, flush with cash, day dreaming all day. They're doing extremely difficult work (personal, spiritual, cultural), and we all benefit from it. I'm down with supporting it. Of the tens of thousands of dollars I pay in taxes every year, an extra $40 isn't a big deal.

account4214• 9 months ago

But the key word here is "chose". Those artists can already choose to do a different job - if you want people to be burdened with supporting someone's choice to be an artist then you need to make an argument why that benefits those people.

GardenLetter27• 9 months ago

The whole of Europe is becoming more based around exploiting black markets and benefit payments than actually being able to innovate in a free market.

Like in Sweden you pay 60-80% taxes as a sole trader - you're better off just trying to find some way to claim a disability benefit or subsidies like this.

dekken_3• 9 months ago

It's either people don't understand perverse incentives, or, they want to gain from them and just keep quiet about it, I'm not sure we'll ever know.

silexia• 9 months ago

These stories get up voted on HN because we all dream of getting something for nothing. But the problem is that if we all get something for nothing, no one is left to make anything and we all end up with nothing. Resist the siren appeal of easy outs and work hard and build what you want.

carlsborg• 9 months ago

People should vote on art and if you hit a threshold, you get the income.

racktash7• 9 months ago

Great art isn't necessarily about popularity / wide appeal, though. In fact, the art that isn't of wide, general appeal, is what stands to benefit the most from this kind of benefit.

nlitened• 9 months ago

Why would taxpayers fund art that is not appealing or somehow beneficial to them?

t0bia_s• 9 months ago

Excellent method to make artists dependent and obey to state.

Why artists? And how "universal" it is actually?

rs999gti• 9 months ago

Does the public have claim on all of these artists' art?

They all are now involuntary patreons.

rich_sasha2• 9 months ago

Universal income carries enormous moral hazard.

Let's say its fine now, and in 5-10 years also. But in a sense, it is a lifetime commitment to a payment that can sustain people's basic living needs with no output from them.

Because if suddenly you cannot afford this, what do you do? You tell people, after assuring them they can live their life free from fear of hunger death, that suddenly they have to fend for themselves.

We kind of have "universal income" for old people in Europe - it's called pensions. And it's a massive ticking time bomb in exactly this way. They are increasingly unaffordable in the aging society, and chances are sooner or later governments will start curtailing these benefits.

That's bad, but what makes it tragic is you first assured people they are safe and can rely on this.

retrac• 9 months ago

You mention pensions already. In my country the profoundly disabled are also provided payments and housing. (Not much and not enough but it's there.) Your argument applies equally to that. We're promising to support them for the rest of their lives. But maybe one day we won't be able to.

I think I see what you're arguing but I am not following the logic. It would seem to be a general argument that can apply to any form of assistance to anyone in need. Don't provide it, because one day you might be bankrupt, and not be able to provide it anymore, but now they'll be dependent on you and so they'll suffer more than they would have otherwise if they'd never been dependent on you.

But one factor I think you maybe haven't considered: poverty often diminishes capacity to function, and to earn income. I realize this is well into just speculative economic philosophy but my own intuition seems to be the exact opposite of yours: assistance of this kind probably improves capacity to be independent, should it one day be withdrawn.

rich_sasha2• 9 months ago

Pensions and disability payments are by definition targeting a small proportion of the society. It is one thing to make a promise to 10% of the society, and another to 100% of it. And indeed, pensions are becoming tougher as the fraction goes upwards. My point isn't that it is somehow bad that we have these benefits but that they are already quite expensive and look increasingly unsustainable. So with this knowledge, we should be very careful about making much bigger committments.

Further, people on retirement or disability benefits typically don't have much choice. Due to age or circumstances, they cannot really earn a living, or a sufficient one. It's not a choice. We're not promising them an alternative to a productive lifetime. UI is different. If it is to be worth anything, it is surely a promise that you can take economically unsound or risky choices, and if they don't work out, the state has your back. If it doesn't, it's just pocket money. It is actively encouraging people to outsource the financial responsibility for their lives to the state, even as governments globally are struggling to make ends meet.

What is even trickier is that pensions and disability benefits go to people who are generally not very economically active. Extending universal income to everyone kind of expands this to everyone else, i.e. the very people who need to work to make the society work.

We have seen in many places in Europe structural decline of industries, and in various cases, the people affected were given long term unemployment benefits, a little bit like UI. It was probably the right approach - certainly the decent thing to do - but the areas where it happened tended to decrease in productivity and creativity, rather than the other way round. The ones that bounced typically got extensive investment rather than just relied on the improved creativity and industriusness of the people on unemployment benefits.

guywithahat• 9 months ago

This would be a great program if there wasn't already an over-abundance of artists producing things nobody but their parents could appreciate

krisoft• 9 months ago

The eligibility criteria of the pilot scheme is bonkers. For example a Costume Designer is eligible, but a Jewellery Designer is not. A Make-Up Designer is eligible but a Make-Up Artist is not.

https://www.gov.ie/en/department-of-culture-communications-a...

Survived• 9 months ago

I'd have spent my twenties writing free software if I could count on $1500/month.

It would have been so great.

sema4hacker2• 9 months ago

I manage a large art gallery that exhibits a large number of artists, selected from our database of over 4,000 artists, most of which are in the local area.

NONE of them can make a living solely off their art.

Personally, if I wanted to subsidize someone who could bootstrap their talent and efforts into self-sufficiency, I'd never pick an artist.

Davidzheng• 9 months ago

not arguing against you but maybe one takes the view that artists should not need to be self-sufficient purely from market forces and selling art? Maybe society should just subsidize them to an extent (this is obviously already happening but I'm saying as a matter of principle)

sema4hacker2• 9 months ago

99.99% of artists definitely CAN'T make a living off only their art, but most can survive anyway by some form of other employment. Even though some small degree of government subsidies will always be around to help artists, and perhaps that's a noble principle, I'd just rather see my tax dollars go to health care or trade schools or food banks or child care or disaster relief or Meals On Wheels or medical research or similar efforts to help those in desperate need, instead of to artists choosing to be artists. There's always someone worse off than an artist, through no fault of their own.

account4214• 9 months ago

The problem with subsidizing a portion of the population based on the chosen line of work is that we will never all agree on what exact work is worth subsidizing. For example, there is a lot of "art" that I think is completely worthless. Why should choosing to go into art mean that your output is not judged by market forces while someone who does the work we all depend on for survival and convenience has to worry about making ends meet?

elil17• 9 months ago

The announcement follows the release of an external report by UK-based consultants Alma Economics, which found that the pilot cost €72 million to date but generated nearly €80 million in total benefits to the Irish economy.

I feel like this is not a good rate of return. For example, in the USA, 1 dollar spent on SNAP generates 1.52 dollars of economic benefit: https://www.cbpp.org/blog/snap-food-assistance-is-a-sound-in...

sublimefire• 9 months ago

Without delving into the specifics Ireland already has a defacto UBI. This is subject to you having an address and a social security number. There is a notion of a minimum income you need to make and the State compensates the rest if you do not earn it. It depends on many factors and there are various edge cases. What is more, if you are in the receivership of such provisions you can stand in the line to get subsidised place to live (which is difficult to get mind you).

Some people hate it some abuse it and some do not qualify despite living in the street. But if you know how to navigate the system the income is guaranteed.

It is a bit sad though that some clerks like to abuse the receivers of such payments though, e.g. by inspecting your bank statements and questioning your expenses (true story). So making this whole thing closer to dejure is welcome as it avoids possible abuse.

constantcrying2• 9 months ago

The most basic premise of UBI is the universal part. None of the arguments for it function at all, if it is handed out selectively.

The arguments for UBI are that it effectively requires no bureaucracy and can not be gamed, while providing basic needs for all people. If you are doing needs based analysis, you are just back to a regular social system, which requires bureaucracy and will be gamed.

If some government decides to do UBI, than it actually has to do UBI and not just add another layer of social spending on top of an already sprawling social system.

moominpapa4• 9 months ago

That's just what we need, artists as wards of the state. Things are beginning to feel rather Soviet these days.

metalman• 9 months ago

these are your rights! with GUITAR

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EKCAE1vDzY

scoofy• 9 months ago

Picking winners and losers. What could possibly go wrong?

Ireland is making basic income for artists program permanent

Related Stories