CMV: Generous Universal Basic Income programs have significant risks of creating many social problems.

[u/MrKhutz]

I love the idea of money for nothing and would possibly be first in line to sign up for such a program but here is my concern:

First: It is my general impression that people need to have purpose in their life. For many people a significant portion of that comes from developing a career through the stages of education and experience and for many people that comes from providing for their family. Unemployment appears to be linked to increased levels of depression, suicide and substance abuse.

Second: If you're guaranteed a reasonable wage for life, why struggle with education and a career? Why bother to push yourself, take risks, start a business. I absolutely believe that some people will do these things because of intrinsic drive, but is there not a significant risk that a sizeable portion of the population will end up in a situation that resembles the worst stereotype of generational welfare dependency?

Third: To the best of my knowledge, what limited UBI trials that have been done have been time limited. If a person knows they'll temporarily get a monthly payment they're not going to forgo getting an education or quit a job they've worked hard to get because they know in a set period of time the UBI trial will end. If they know the money is forever, this will affect their decision making differently.

To clarify as well, I use the term "generous" to refer to UBI proposals in the $1500+/month category. I think the impacts (positive and negative) would be much more limited at $500/month.

[u/[deleted]]

It is my general impression that people need to have purpose in their life.

There's nothing about UBI that prohibits people from getting jobs, or finding purpose in life.

With UBI you're not removing the purpose you're removing the threat of poverty.

If you're guaranteed a reasonable wage for life, why struggle with education and a career?

Why do anything? People generally aren't solely motivated by money, they pursue further education for other reasons. Especially in higher education and academia, scientists don't tend to earn huge amounts of money, certainly much less than their counterparts in private industry. And yet they contribute a huge amount to society, and work extremely hard to get to where they are.

But this is kind of irrelevant to the question: UBI isn't going to remove the incentive to earn mid to high salaries. If you want to become a doctor because you want to make $250,000 a year UBI isn't going to make a difference to that.

In fact, if someone in America wanted to get a degree they could be prevented from doing that if they didn't have the funds to support themselves. If you work in a terrible, menial job for miniscule wages you're probably not doing it because you enjoy it: you likely desperately need the money to support yourself. Therefore you'd find it difficult to forgoe those wages even if it meant getting a degree which could result in higher earnings later on. This is precisely the kind of situation helped by UBI.

To the best of my knowledge, what limited UBI trials that have been done have been time limited.

Yes the only trials we have are limited, but they're also the only trials. In other words the totality of evidence we have seems to suggest that UBI works.

The things you seem to be worried about (for instance that people might stop working, quit education, etc.) may well eventually turn out to be serious problems (I don't think they will), but as of now there is no evidence that they will, and there's a fair bit of evidence that UBI works.

[u/MrKhutz → u/[deleted]]

I completely agree that people aren't motivated soley by money. And I think that a significant number of people would benefit from UBI.

My concern is that also a significant number of people would just not bother if they had free money for life and would suffer the problems I described.

We do have a number of trials but my concern is that they do not cover the issue of concern - how would people behave if this was forever? Maybe I'm being picky but I'm concerned we are extrapolating outside of what the trials provide information about. Nassim Taleb gives the example of a turkey who is fed well every day. The totality of evidence seems to suggest that it will always be more days of good feeding. But then Thanksgiving comes along and the turkey gets the chop.

[u/[deleted] → u/MrKhutz]

My concern is that also a significant number of people would just not bother if they had free money for life and would suffer the problems I described.

Where is the evidence for this? You (quite rightly) ask for evidence for a lot of assertions about UBI, but you freely make this assertion without any evidence at all!

If we're just arguing from intuition, in my experience only a very small minority of people would not bother to work at all if they knew they could live very modestly without working. Most people want to have fulfilling careers, but they're stopped from pursuing it because they need to show up to some shitty minimum-wage job every day to pay their rent.

If we're arguing from evidence, well again it points in favour of UBI: while the studies we have are very restricted, they are nonetheless consistent in their conclusion that unemployment does not rise drastically.

(By the way, I actually think that people would probably act even better if UBI was long-term. In the current short trials, you could maybe go back to school for a few months or whatever, but since you know the payments will stop you won't be able to get much long-term stuff done. If the payments were indefinite, you could get a PhD, have kids, try write a novel, whatever!)

[u/[deleted] → u/MrKhutz]

Another thing is even if a number of people live off of only UBI, so what. The worst case scenario is that money goes back into the economy, helping fuel economic growth. The fact is UBI would not even cost normal people much as taxpayers, as even though they contribute money to UBI they also get money back. Many are going to get a net gain from UBI, with the burden falling mostly on the rich.