Universal Basic Income

[CoccoBill]

I'm disappointed that their entire test group is unemployed. It looks like the only thing they were interested in was if it's a more effective model than welfare. I'd be interested to see how it changes the behavior of people who have a regular job. Do they just continue as is with some extra cash, do they pursue education, start businesses, etc.

That's basically it, they wanted to see if if motivates unemployed people to seek jobs. At the moment if you're out of a job you get basic unemployment benefits, plus extra based on your wages in the previous years. You can of course apply for welfare if you still can't make your ends meet. Any part-time work you do while unemployed starts cutting into your unemployment benefits, which is daft as hell and makes it more beneficial to just not work and cash in the benefits. With the UBI deal you'd get a fixed amount no matter what. Too bad they decided to cut the test short and indeed only do it in a very limited fashion in the first place.

It is funny to see the collective global right wing poop their pants in joy over the "failure" of this test. The test actually ends in december, and there's still not even preliminary data about the failure or success of it, the reason to end it was purely political.

[wufwugy]

It is funny to see the collective global right wing poop their pants in joy over the "failure" of this test. The test actually ends in december, and there's still not even preliminary data about the failure or success of it, the reason to end it was purely political.

Even then, what happens won't tell us much about the effects of this welfare.

Economics is only barely an empirical science. While empiricism is good in economics, empiricism is usually not worth very much in the domain. Economics is instead more about math and logic.

When somebody says something is a test of an economic idea, just figure that it's probably not a test of it.