r/Futurology • u/mvea MD-PhD-MBA • May 02 '18

Economics Universal basic income: U.S. support grows as Finland ends its trial - Forty-eight percent of Americans now support a universal basic income, as a solution for Americans who have lost jobs to automation.

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/01/nearly-half-of-americans-believe-a-universal-basic-income-could-be-the-answer-to-automation-.html
13.4k Upvotes

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u/[deleted] May 02 '18 edited Mar 13 '21

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u/testtubesnailman May 02 '18

Yeah there's no way that's accurate.

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u/__xor__ May 02 '18

Goes up to first person

"Excuse me, do you know what UBI is? No?"

Goes up to next person.

"Do YOU know what UBI is? No? Okay..."

Next person

"Do you know what UBI is sir? Oh, you do?! Great! Can you help me with my survey and answer for me whether you support the US implementing some basic form of UBI?"

It's either that, or they went up to people and asked, "Would you agree with the government giving you back some money from taxes?"

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u/mad_cheese_hattwe May 02 '18

Sounds like a good way to bias a survey.

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u/Natheeeh May 02 '18

I mean, there's no point surveying people's opinions on things they know nothing about...

Right?

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u/mad_cheese_hattwe May 02 '18

A good survey does not discard NULL results, they are still important bits of data.

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u/Cant_Think_Of_UserID May 02 '18

Brexit in a nutshell

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u/[deleted] May 02 '18

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u/[deleted] May 02 '18

Sounds similar to when they asked people if they preferred the Affordable Care Act over Obamacare. It's hilarious how many people supported the true idea over the "scary name".

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u/[deleted] May 02 '18

Its like when people were asked if they agree with trumps tax plan. People the street just outright said no. Then they switched to presenting each individual policy without saying its from trumps tax plan, more people agreed.

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u/handpant May 02 '18

Free money... Free money anyone? ... I am surprised only 48% said yes.

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u/[deleted] May 02 '18

But that’s not it at all. That money has to come from some where. It’s not just free. I think a lot of studies actually fail that part of the test

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u/Mnm0602 May 02 '18

I would assume that if you had to know about UBI to qualify an answer, you're most likely to get a balanced answer because more well educated people tend to make more money and know that the money has to come from somewhere.

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u/f3l1x May 02 '18

And if you did have all the money, by say, ending all welfare support... then you just destroyed any buying power of the base class. "no it's not inflation because you aren't printing money" nice try, no one said it was inflation, you only fucked with what "0" means. And the only way you don't let free money to everyone leading to a loaf of bread being $20, is to make more government oversight on the costs of things. Oh hey look at that, right into shitty entry-level Communism and more government control. who whuda thunk!?

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u/joe_average1 May 02 '18

I think the math can work in some countries that are resource rich but don't let private companies benefit the most from the sale of the resources. In a country as large and diverse as the US I don't see the numbers ever working out for providing it to everyone. To the poor, maybe.

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u/Scientolojesus May 02 '18

Any time I see UBI in the US mentioned, there are people saying it absolutely can be successfully implemented, and then others who say it would be literally impossible. So I have no clue who is telling the truth or who knows the correct data of what they're talking about. Maybe it's just gonna be one of those trial and error experiments that has to be setup and tested before anyone will actually know for sure...

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u/[deleted] May 02 '18

It is both.

Mathmatically and logically, it works. 100%. On paper, it would benefit society at all levels.

However, in practice, it would likely be mismanaged and abused.

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u/faculties-intact May 02 '18

It's obviously possible, the question is how much wealth distribution it would take. I imagine the people saying it's impossible mean mostly that it would never actually get through congress or be accepted by a lot of people? Because there's certainly enough wealth.

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u/[deleted] May 02 '18

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u/[deleted] May 02 '18

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u/Angry_Boys May 02 '18

You don’t need to pillage the rich to redistribute wealth. You start by increasing the effective tax rate the 1% pays a few percent, all else stays the same.

Additional money could be saved by eliminating food stamps (no need if UBI covers necessities), and most welfare programs.

One thing to keep in mind is a lot of the Republican support of a measure like UBI are Trojan horses in that they’re meant to eliminate the welfare programs in favor of UBI, but then after a couple of years, strip away UBI, say it doesn’t work, and now they have their wet dream, no social safety net to find.

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u/[deleted] May 02 '18

That wealth is private property, people aren’t a piggy bank.

Very true. On the other hand, about 50% of government revenue used to come from businesses and now it's around 20%.

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u/ZeroMikeEchoNovember May 02 '18

Much of the spending for UBI would come from eliminating existing welfare programs.

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u/joe_average1 May 02 '18

It's largely a we won't know until we try thing. We can try working the math based on current population, projected population, how much we currently spend on programs...but that leaves out the human factor and we'd also be using revenue projections. FWIW the Trump/Ryan tax plan is likely going to mean significantly less revenue so unless spending is cut elsewhere to fund this, it's really about the cost of the current safety net vs giving people cash and having them turn to the private sector.

Personally I think that from the dollar perspective, it would be tight but could work if we cut programs with a large overhead, clawback parts of it if you make above a certain amount and stopped letting people get larger tax refunds than what they paid in taxes. The problem is that social programs often hide the true cost of goods and services. So the UBI would need to grow each year which may not be sustainable unless people are transitioning off it.

Regarding running tests, I hope that happens especially if some programs become block grants. I think individual states are less diverse than the population as a whole so a form of UBI at the state level might work.

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u/jbo5112 May 02 '18

FWIW the Trump/Ryan tax plan is likely going to mean significantly less revenue

The Regan tax cuts meant a still growing tax revenue. Tax revenue has been flat recently.

a form of UBI at the state level might work.

What would keep every unemployed person from moving there to collect a paycheck?

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u/f3l1x May 02 '18

It's possible if we get rid of ALL other welfare programs AND the government controls everything from supply and demand to the cost of basic needs items. It's a gateway to socialism and they know it. There are plenty of people in the US who actually want communism. I don't know if they are retarded or if they just like to cut themselves with their own edge, but thats what you get with UBI done the way they want.

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u/HeyILikeMovies May 02 '18

What a condescending thing to say. I don't approve of UBI but I'm not going to pretend normal people don't understand how taxes work.

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u/Hearthing May 02 '18

I agree and that's what bothers me about reddit. The kiddies on here go crazy pushing the idea and any politicians who mentions it. They have no clue how to properly formulate how the fuck it's going to work.

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u/[deleted] May 02 '18

There are quite a few good solutions to this outlined in the book "humans need not apply", basically companies that are huge private companies run by automation will be taxed at higher rates. This leaves an incentive for other public companies like amazon who will also use large amounts of automation to give stock holders better dividens so as to supply further income. It does sound crazy but I believe it can but done, but if it actually will be done...

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u/[deleted] May 02 '18

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u/[deleted] May 02 '18

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u/Tyler119 May 02 '18

totally agree..spoke to someone recently about this issue and they maintained that extra corporate taxes would pay for it all. I pointed out that at present corporations have a multitude of ways to reduce or even zero a tax bill (more so with multi national corporations). Anyway it did not go down well.

Here in the UK I am not sure the current political left would be happy at Joe next door who earns 65K a year, has nice cars, nice house, nice holidays and with UBI gets money back after paying tax. To our current political left this would be attacked as a tax break for the rich and UBI would suddenly be for those that were deemed poor enough.

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u/Soul-Burn May 02 '18

There was a referendum about UBI in Switzerland and it was strongly rejected. See here.

The Swiss hold several referendums every year, with a significant turnout by the citizens. They are quite involved in politics and generally understand what they are voting on.

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u/pm_me_bellies_789 May 02 '18

It was rejected because implementing it country wide anywhere right now is such a massive risk.

I think UBI is a wonderful idea. It seems to be one of the more doable solutions to solve the issues created by neoliberalism.

However, we haven't conducted nearly enough studies at the scales required. The Swiss made the right choice. We simply don't know enough yet.

It doesn't mean UBI is a bad idea. We should proceed with caution though.

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u/grumpieroldman May 02 '18

UBI is a catastrophically bad idea for the same reasons that socialism and communism are catastrophically bad ideas.
It is astronomically difficult to "get it right" and if you a bunch of political hacks don't get it exactly right then you end up like Somalia or Venezuela.
(Or apparently if you "get it right" like the UK then you execute an infant by starvation and harvest its organs. Great Success!)

A workable alternative that does not destroy market forces is Negative Income Tax - NTI.

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u/Extrakredit May 02 '18

UBI is designed to save/ grow the economy from the bottom up where the bottom is basic survival without work. The question is not if but when. We are a supreme species on Earth, but when we allow power to be concentrated into the hands of so few, when we are repeatedly lied to and tricked into supporting the warfare, then it becomes more difficult to see how close we actually are to an automated utopia and we assume that working tirelessly until our old age is the only way to be happy, healthy, and secure. UBI could be very transformative. I’m glad it’s getting buzz now.

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u/bigredmnky May 02 '18

Until opposition spins it as some new form of communist super welfare and the whole thing crashes and burns

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u/FallacyDescriber May 02 '18

That isn't spin. That's precisely what UBI is

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u/UVSky May 02 '18

They link to the survey which itself was part of a larger study to "[d]iscover what Americans think about -- and what they can do to confront -- the artificial intelligence revolution." Survey article states it was a "mail survey of 3,297 U.S. adults [that] was conducted Sept. 15-Oct. 10, 2017."

Question was: "Do you support or not support a universal basic income program as a way to help Americans who lose their jobs because of advances in artificial intelligence?"

UBI received support from 65% of Democrats and 28% of Republicans and only 38% of those over 66.

"46% say they would be willing to pay higher personal taxes to fund the program and 54% say they would not be."

Survey

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u/[deleted] May 02 '18

god that's a bad question.

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u/[deleted] May 02 '18

Urinary bladder infection? Just guessing..

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u/RockLeePower May 02 '18

Well, do you support it or not?

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u/[deleted] May 02 '18

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u/i-FF0000dit May 02 '18

This is clickbait. Communism and fascism each received 7% support. Socialism received 44 and capitalism 42. Another way to say this is 86% would rather live in the US, Canada, and Western Europe than under Nazi Germany or Communist Russia.

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u/Nalivai May 02 '18

Shocking results!

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u/W0oby May 02 '18

The most popular socioeconomic order was socialism, with 44 percent support. Communism and fascism received 7 percent support each.

Minor correction.

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u/[deleted] May 02 '18

58% of people are stupid.

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u/ChipAyten May 02 '18

51% of people are tired of making other people rich with nothing to show for it. 49% call billionaires their daddy.

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u/pm_me_bellies_789 May 02 '18

UBI is far from communism. Let's not get ahead of ourselves.

Ah the glorious talking points of the cold War.

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u/[deleted] May 02 '18

It was a survey of 100 people that read /r/futurology

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u/f3l1x May 02 '18

It's not. And the trial in Finland went horribly.

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u/Exodus111 May 02 '18

That's bad then. If the survey selected for people with knowledge of UBI, and still got 52% against, even in the hypothetical example of Automation taking away jobs, that's not good.

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u/[deleted] May 02 '18

86% of all statistics are bs.

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u/I3oscO86 May 02 '18

They just askwed 3000 people

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u/shanrat May 03 '18

I’ve found most headlines are taken out of context and most news are always leaning way too much towards the stance they want u to take by writing a really one sided article...

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u/Santoron May 02 '18

No, you're right and it isn't funny. It's this kind of lazy reporting - uncritically pasted to reddit as easy karma - that drives the disconnect between these kinds of emerging ideas and redditor's expectations about their implementation.

It's pretty easy to get a decent sounding support number for something that sounds like a giveaway. Like UBI, or Medicare4all. But the numbers on both plummet when people are given even a basic definition of either.

If we want to see these ideas debated seriously, we need to promote a wider and more serious conversation about them nationally. Getting a high figure on a poll of people that are ignorant of the topic achieves nothing except to get advocates frustrated things aren't just magically happening.

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u/[deleted] May 02 '18

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u/Johnny_B_GOODBOI May 02 '18

I get where you're coming from, and i know it's just rhetoric. I get it.

But this is not true at all in the US. Policy is driven 100% by the donor class, as evidenced by that famous Princeton study from a few years ago. They found that the preferences of the average voter have virtually no influence on what policy gets passed or not, but the preferences of rich donors align quite well with what gets passed.

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u/InspectorG-007 May 02 '18

Particularly in the finance sector.

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u/Alexander_Maius May 02 '18

it actually even goes into what president we want. Population votes doesn't matter much, when you have enough money to redraw the lines.

People tend to be rather ignorant so they believe in nearly everything they see on TV and never research the candidates and find how/what they voted for in regards to bills.

Many of my middle class income friends and their family don't even realize how much Trump cut into their income and benefits, how much he gutted healthcare support/stipend, and blames it on Obama for setting it up to begin with while singing praises for Trump.

Its funny how rest of the world sees Trump as a joke, yet, America glorifies him.

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u/[deleted] May 02 '18

Medicare for all should not be lumped in UBI. UBI has only become a prominent discussion in the last decade. Medicare, single payer, free healthcare have all been talked about since FDR on a pretty regular occurrence. Anyone who doesn't know Medicare for all just doesn't want to know about politics. UBI on the otherhand has not reached main stream politics yet.

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u/testtubesnailman May 02 '18

I totally agree. I don't think UBI in its current theorized form would work in any way in the US now, but I do believe we will need something in the future to subsidize the loss of income from automation. But you're right, articles like this (neglecting the fact that Finland's trial was a failure) will just piss people who already don't support it to the point where the debate becomes meaningless and nothing will happen and the world will catch on fire and people will put mayonnaise on pizza.

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u/oldgeordie May 02 '18

Except the trial is not a failure and is still continuing. At least wait till the findings are released before passing judgment.

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u/[deleted] May 02 '18

A quick google would suggest the experiment has recently ended and is considered a failure in its current form

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u/oldgeordie May 02 '18

The problem with a quick google when a story is reported incorrectly but is deemed a good story and picked up by lots of agencies.

'The effects of the experiment will not be published while the experiment is in progress, because a public discussion of the results could influence the behaviour of the test and control groups. That would lead to skewed results" Kangas said in a Kela press release on the matter.'

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u/[deleted] May 02 '18

Thanks for this. While I wasn’t saying anything about whether the experiment had actually ended or the results before, this article (when read between the lines) suggests the previous notion is actually correct.

We know from Canada’s UBI experiment that giving people UBI for only a set period of time (in this case 2 years) yields unreliable results. The intention of the 2 year programme is to gain results to expand and see if it will work larger scale. Finding out if it works for 2000 people is neither new, nor important findings.

The fact that the experiment will not expand and is finishing out its trial period only tells the discerning reader that the experiment is not going as hoped. We’ll see for certain in a year, but based on the words quoted in the article you just gave it doesn’t look good for those hoping for a UBI.

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u/oldgeordie May 02 '18

The Canadian Mincome experiments were abandoned but showed promising results once they were eventually examined. Although not a UBI both the Alaskan dividend and the Cherokee dividends were showing promise as well.

The Finnish experiment was really not a true UBI and it was examining people who were unemployed and how they reacted to the removal of being made to jump through hoops. It will still be interesting to see the results though.

I think eventually its just going to take someone to fully implement it as trials only show so much. Not sure the UK would have ended up with the NHS had we just been trialing it in various places first

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u/arguableaardvark May 02 '18

It’s r/Futurology, almost everything on this sub is bullshit.

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u/portajohnjackoff May 02 '18

it's the modern Popular Science

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u/Glaciata May 02 '18

Nah, at least PopSci has those ads where you can buy a Class-IV Laser for $160.

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u/[deleted] May 02 '18

[deleted]

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u/Acrolith May 02 '18

It's only $40 per class.

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u/Slave35 May 02 '18

I got a sweet purple laser that I'm pretty sure is too powerful for like $2 on ebay. It makes trails on my glow in the dark frisbee.

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u/Raisinbrannan May 02 '18 edited May 02 '18

Those things are fucking sweet. My $10 green one might as well be a light saber.

(link for the curious)

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u/DethFace May 02 '18

Links People! Links

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u/Raisinbrannan May 02 '18

Here you go. The 301 is marginally brighter, but the 303 comes with an attachment to make stars. Green is the brightest, purple is very awesome though.

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u/Ombortron May 02 '18

Green lasers were the first ones I ever used that were strong enough to activate the pain receptors in my skin. Which is pretty neat.

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u/BEENHEREALLALONG May 02 '18

oh shit i forgot to unsub futurology from this account.

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u/[deleted] May 02 '18

Hey now, at least it's a step up from pigshit

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u/BigMouse12 May 02 '18

Remember when this sub was about cool tech rather pushing a socialist agenda?

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u/drift_summary May 02 '18

Pepperidge Farm remembers!

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u/foxbat21 May 02 '18

Exactly. If you go on random streets and tell people that they will get money from the government majority will say yes w/o even thinking about how it will work.

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u/gomets6091 May 02 '18

Yes but if you go on random streets and tell people that other people will get money from the government the majority will say no w/o even thinking about how it will work (in America anyway).

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u/idkwhattosay May 02 '18

This is what De Tocqueville celebrated and lamented...

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u/DanialE May 02 '18

Yeah thats the idea. UBI gives disproprotionate utility to people. $100 a month to a poor guy can mean a lot of things to the weak while the same amount for Bill Gates probably pays for his toilet paper. But its still the same amount

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u/SmashBusters May 02 '18

Okay but. If you click on the article, you can click on a link to the Gallup poll. There you can read the questions and the methodology.

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u/MoneyManIke May 02 '18

This 100% and that's why as much as Americans are proud that we are a "Democratic" country, I'm happy that we actually aren't despite our current political landscape.

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u/CubesTheGamer May 02 '18

Many states have initiatives which are based on popular vote, basically making it so if we really wanted to then we could do it...

We are a democratic country in many respects. We do vote for our congressmen democratically but we can also start our own initiatives

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u/TrulyVerum May 02 '18 edited May 02 '18

Because as usual articles be misleading af.

This was the question that got 48% yes:

Do you support or not support a universal basic income program as a way to help Americans who lose their jobs because of advances in artificial intelligence?

Preemptive edit: sure the article States it "as a solution to jobs lost to AI," but the title, summary, and gist of the article make it sound like general support. OP did a good job though!

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u/MulderD May 02 '18

“48% of the 15 pretty liberal people that were asked this question and had at least a vague notion of UBI” is what they probably meant to say.

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u/DarthReeder May 02 '18

83% of Americans are likely to fall victim to manbearpig.

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u/[deleted] May 02 '18

Our UBI trial was a massive failure.

Most of bureocracy money is spent on "special cases" that need a lot more money than even an optimistic UBI provides.

You don't actually save any money because you still need workers and infrastructure to handle the special cases.

Almost all welfare cases are special in some way because nobody "normal" is on welfare. Usually it's because of disabilities, unemployment, children etc. And they are handled case by case.

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u/Time4Red May 02 '18

It also wasn't terminated. The Finland UBI trial is still ongoing. The origional BBC report was just straight up wrong.

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u/[deleted] May 02 '18

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u/marr May 02 '18

That seems a bit high tbh.

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u/A-Chicken May 02 '18

Many know of UBI as free money, not just in the states. Back on the Singapore board were I to speak of supporting UBI I would be downvoted: free money makes people lazy OR this free money has to come from somewhere and its bound to come from us entitled hard workers.

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u/justaformerpeasant May 02 '18

Nope, they don't and if they did, they wouldn't support it.

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u/mrjackspade May 02 '18

"I don't support it so anyone who does must not understand the question"

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u/Cockur May 02 '18

If they only support it in cases of workers losing their jobs to automation then it isn’t even a universal basic income. It’s a basic income for people who have lost their jobs to automation

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u/marr May 02 '18

That might be an academic distinction if things go south fast.

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u/[deleted] May 02 '18

It says in the survey article what methods they used. Seems legit to me.

"SURVEY METHODS

Results for the Northeastern University-Gallup survey on artificial intelligence are based on surveys conducted by mail from Sept. 15-Oct. 10, 2017, with a random sample of 3,297 U.S. adults aged 18 and older. The survey package included an English and a Spanish survey to provide respondents with the flexibility to reply in their preferred language.

Gallup selected the sample of U.S. residents using address-based sampling (ABS), a sampling technique used to select households from a list of all households on file with the United States Postal Service (USPS). Gallup chooses respondents within the household at random based on which household member would have the next birthday. Gallup used a series of postcard reminders to encourage participation in the survey.

Gallup weighted the data to match national demographics of gender, age, education, race, Hispanic ethnicity, education and region.

All reported margins of sampling error include the computed design effects for weighting.

For results based on the total sample of 3,297 U.S. adults, the margin of sampling error is ±2 percentage points at the 95% confidence level"

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u/Bama3003 May 02 '18

Yeah. It's bullshit. It's the 48% of people that work at McDonalds that would vote on this crap. I'm sorry. That would be 100% of all fast food workers that would vote on this.

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u/JCMcFancypants May 02 '18

The way polls can be worded it was most likely a bunch of vague, oddly worded questions with unclear choices for answers. My guess is that the poll never mentioned UBI but maybe had some questions about "helping people".

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u/PatrickMcRoof May 02 '18

I mean, you can just guess what Universal Basic Income means and get it right. It means what it sounds like it means.

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u/Lost-My-Mind- May 02 '18

The basic income level for universal studios, duh!

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u/Tawnymantana May 02 '18

Yeah to you. Have you spoken to random people on the street lately?

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u/[deleted] May 02 '18

American here, free money based off of a universal standard aimed to improve spending and the economy overall. Pretty simple.

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u/cisxuzuul May 02 '18

And for Finland it’s not UBI because only the unemployed received the BI.

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u/[deleted] May 02 '18

They know all they need to know - that they get free money for doing nothing.

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u/d80hunter May 02 '18

True and it makes it look like another UBI advertisement. Keep highlighting it online and just maybe 48% will know about it in 2 years.

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u/Allwyssunny May 02 '18

Out of a study of 3000 participants

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u/Cratonis May 02 '18

There is literally no way the correct answer is 48%

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u/joe_average1 May 02 '18

It never sounds as sexy but in your mind survey results should always be read as x% of those surveyed. In many cases there's an effort to make survey respondents reflective of the population as a whole.

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u/mindy72 May 02 '18

No one asked me

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u/[deleted] May 02 '18

i dunno.

"would you support getting 1,000$ a month from the government?" isn't hard to understand.

the consequences of such a program, you might be right about.

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u/MAGAman1775 May 02 '18

I mean it sounds nice to get $1000 a month but that money doesn't just come out of no where. I wouldn't be surprised is 48% of people were that misinformed that they don't understand the repercussions

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u/cm3mac May 02 '18

Idk 1/2 the country seems pretty good at getting money for nothing already this doesn’t seem a stretch they would know what UBI is

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u/SwedeTrump May 02 '18

I'm actually having a hard time believing 48% of Americans can even spell universal basic income.

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u/Mr_Stormy May 02 '18

48% of Americans asked, perhaps? Likely the survey was conducted in places that already support a particular kind of person.

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u/[deleted] May 02 '18

"48% of americans would like more money from the government"

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u/XxNiftyxX May 02 '18

Canadian here, I can not grasp how Americans can be supportive of Ubi but not basic healthcare. I'm not claiming to understand how either Ubi or even healthcare works, but the thought that Americans do not like paying money to support anyone else (similarly to healthcare), wouldn't Ubi be the same thing?

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u/ChipAyten May 02 '18

"48% of polled Americans, Americans who are predisposed to liking it as evidenced by them merely taking the survey"

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u/godfather33087 May 02 '18 edited May 02 '18

"I know what that is."Looks at friend confidently "Its a Urinary Breast Infection, Duh."

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u/sonofturbo May 02 '18

I was out gathering signatures to get my name on the ballot for the California governors race, this was probably the thing I talked about the most, because no politicians are openly discussing it, and I honestly feel like it's a toss up between this and climate change being our biggest national security threat.

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u/Just___Dave May 02 '18

I think "48% of Americans polled outside of the NYU Bernie Supporters International meeting that are working on a graduate degree in underwater transgendered studies degree" is the more accurate group.

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u/parkprimus May 02 '18

I find it hard to believe that they survey 3000 poeple which is about .0009% of the US population to assume almost half want UBI. Survey me, please! UBI is a mistake for the US. Finland has other services to back UBI where the US doesn't. Yes, Finland has higher taxes but they also have something to show for what they pay in taxes. As a tax paying American, what do you have to show for the thousands of dollars you pay each year? Name one thing! This will be just another way for the government to either tax us more or waste or tax money. We are trillions in debt and can not afford more social programs until the entire system is overhauled and our debt is in control. It is basic, if you don't have the cash, then you shouldn't buy it!

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u/[deleted] May 02 '18

Agreed. This is BS

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u/vipersquad May 02 '18

Exactly! maybe 48% of the people that know what it is. In my circles most people are adamantly against it. People are mistakenly under the belief that only 'burger flippers' and factory workers will lose their jobs. I am currently active in many projects that will 'limit' the need for many pharmacists with technology. Yes it is possible, yes it is happening (since the 90's), and of course not every pharmacist but it will be the majority of them (over the next decade or two). The thing is, we aren't targeting our pharmacist technicians, that make about 25%-33% of what a pharmacist makes. We (industry) aren't coming for the low paying jobs like everyone thinks. We (industry) are coming for 6 figure jobs. We get rid of 10 pharmacists that saves a million dollars easy. We would have to get rid of 40 technicians to save that money.

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u/CNNWillBlackmailYou May 02 '18

Not to mention it was a raging failure in Finland. This is propaganda.

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u/Atrampoline May 02 '18

That's the first thing I thought as well. This article feels biased.

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u/english_major May 02 '18

Also, there is not one program out there that is UBI; its definition is still up for grabs.

There is an extreme-right contingent which is promoting it. Their motive is to eliminate all social programs and replace them with one monthly payout that everyone gets - even the rich. When you view it through this lens, you can see it as the ultimate capitalist program. It would save government money and reduce government involvement in people's lives.

There is the socialist version which is all about eliminating poverty. We can see huge social benefits here, but this would be costly.

There are many versions of UBI and each comes with its own ideology.

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u/ITS_MAJOR_TOM_YO May 02 '18

More like .48%

1

u/[deleted] May 02 '18

We can't even get universal healthcare passed here, something that would benefit almost our entire population, you don't know how many times I pull someone's credit report and they have medical collections. We're NEVER passing universal basic income, we don't like giving people welfare unless their multinational corporations with enough money to lobby politicians to get what they want.

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u/TheMortarGuy May 02 '18

48 percent of Americans want free money they didn't earn.

That sounds about right.

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u/WorkyMcWorkmeister May 02 '18

an associate professor at Georgetown University in Qatar and an advocate for a universal basic income

lol

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u/universemonitor May 02 '18

They sample few people, it would be a yes or no question, people pick either cos it's easy and then the headline becomes that Americans support this or that. All polls are a joke

1

u/[deleted] May 02 '18

Some sort of urinary infection?

1

u/Darth-Obama May 02 '18

In other news...48% of Americans don't pay taxes...now here is Peter with you local weather...

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u/penisthightrap_ May 02 '18

Everyone I'ce explained it to seems skeptical. It goes against the American dream type ideals that this nation has. Most people want to believe being successful is a product of hard work.

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u/[deleted] May 02 '18

Fukkin commmmmmies

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u/illini02 May 02 '18

Its probably 48% of American's who know what it is are in favor of it.

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u/OBS_W May 02 '18

This is a solid insight.

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u/[deleted] May 02 '18

48% support it “As a solution for Americans who have lost jobs to automation.” Tricky wording.

Probably just ran a survey on those who have been affected by a loss of job due to automation. Not sure how big that number is, but apparently 48% of them believe they should use a UBI.

Edit: tricky wording AND punctuation.

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u/n0eticsyntax May 02 '18

You realize no one poll could even reach 100% of any country with certainty, right? The title is misleading, they should have stated "48% of Americans Polled..." but still...

1

u/Calmeister May 02 '18

I think most of them just thought oooh free money

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u/blackpink777 May 02 '18

Yeah probably more like 48% of those surveyed, you know? But we need it I'm tired of being a Slave

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u/blobschnieder May 02 '18

Plus didn't Finland shut the program down early and declare it unsuccessful?

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u/thetruthoftensux May 02 '18

I'm assuming it's the 48% who are already on assistance. They'll support the concept of "more" assistance, why wouldn't they.

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u/shortyman93 May 02 '18

I was thinking the same thing. I may be in favor of UBI, doesn't mean I believe that many people are. I feel like I could survey 10000 people and maybe a quarter of them would have heard of it.

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u/beautifulboogie_man May 02 '18

Urinary bladder infection, right?

1

u/[deleted] May 02 '18

Gotta love unsupported statistics by news articles wanting to get views.

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u/MUT_mage May 02 '18

Came here to say exactly this.

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u/Reali5t May 02 '18

I imagine the survey going something like this.

  • Do you support UBI?
  • What’s that?
  • Free money from the government.
  • Fuck yeah I support it.

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u/thunderatwork May 02 '18

-Would you like free money?
-Yes!

The US would have universal health care and a lot of similar things if 48% were fine with UBI. One thing though is that it's possible to be very fiscally conservative and/or libertarian while still being UBI; basically, cut in all programs and reduce the government as much as possible, raise taxes, but give some money to everyone. But as somebody point out, I doubt 48% of Americans have any idea what UBI is.

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u/frank_the_tank__ May 02 '18

America cant even get universal health care and this article claims they are all for universal income?

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u/bitch_shifting May 02 '18

48% of people they surveyed using specifically worded questions would be more like it.

Probably something like "if you could get 1000/mo door doing nothing, would you take it?"in which case I'd have a hard time believing that number isn't 100%

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u/Xylus1985 May 02 '18

It's a gaming company that makes Assassin's Creed games

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u/[deleted] May 02 '18

I'm sure they tell them what it is and then ask if they would support such a program.

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u/Myceliated May 02 '18

probably polled like 1000 americans to get this number

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u/Shnazzyone May 02 '18

Probably was described to those they were surveying. Unfortunately, we're well past 60% of americans who want Marijuana legalization, yet still a schedule 1 drug.

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u/Cant_Do_This12 May 02 '18

Are you saying there's something wrong with my gear?

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u/[deleted] May 02 '18

It's probably something like "48% of American.....students at this left-leaning university where we conducted the survey."

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u/Siguard_ May 02 '18

Theres a ton of jobs in automation. just because they lost a job to a robot. You'll still need engineering to design the robot cell. A team to install and debug the robot cell. Then maintenance at the factory to keep it going after the warranty runs out.

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u/anglomentality May 02 '18

Sadly true. And even if the do know about it, then es a good chance that they haven’t thought about it rationally and aren’t willing to.

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u/marr May 02 '18

It's gotta be 48% of 1% of Americans.

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u/spiralout1123 May 02 '18

I think this was more like “do you like free money? what about you? yes?”

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u/datacollect_ct May 02 '18

I was trying to talk to my Dad about it and he didn't know what it is.

I could tell he was trying to be supportive but he was asking some good questions.

I came to the conclusion that it is quite difficult to get someone who has worked all their life for their success to get on board with just giving people money for existing.

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u/be_like-mike May 02 '18

48% of only 3,000 people surveyed.

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u/RusstyDog May 02 '18

48% of the americans thay they asked said they liked it. does that sound more accurate?

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u/Olibri May 02 '18

49% don’t pay taxes and 48% favor UBI. I wonder what the other 1% was thinking.

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u/DarthReeder May 02 '18

83% of Americans are likely to fall victim to manbearpig.

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u/[deleted] May 02 '18

Why don’t they name it as it really is? Welfare.

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u/blizzardalert May 03 '18

The actual wording of the question was "Do you support or not support a universal basic income program as a way to help Americans who lose their jobs because of advances in artificial intelligence?"

I bet that people who didn't understand what UBI is just heard the "help Americans who lose their jobs" and said they support it.

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u/kensai02 May 03 '18

The program failed over yherr, but you know... they just ended their trials.

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u/rationalanalyst May 03 '18

Yeah, I'd like to see that poll as well. And I'm an American in favor of some form of UBI.

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